byFounders Investment Team Expands with Addition of Sinah Mussmann

Sinah has an industry-agnostic mindset with a ferocious interest in ideas and products that shape the future of consumers. Prior to joining, she worked with European early-stage founders based out of Berlin. She has a background in business administration with an intersection of fashion and design, and gained experience working with consumer brands and startups, such as Hamburg-based fair fashion startup Jan 'n June and international skincare brand Aesop, before starting her career in venture capital. Sinah holds an M.Sc. in Management from Católica Lisbon.

Sinah loves to explore zeitgeist and the latest exhibition at the local art museums. A profound empath, she is naturally drawn to how people think and feel, and how this can be expressed in writing and design. When you meet her, she’ll likely delve deep with some of her favorite questions, like what are you fascinated by that not many people notice or what’s a book that you pick up again and again? 

‍

You’ve been investing in early-stage companies for the last two years. What made you choose a focus on the early-stage, in particular?

I’d consider myself incredibly lucky to be surrounded by some of the most determined, contrarian, and high-agency people. Witnessing how ideas are turned from a fixed thought into an actual product and, at some point, into a business, fuels me with a lot of energy. It’s not so much the part where it’s about simply growing something that works that excites me, but more about figuring out what works in the first place. What is it that people want? How can this be crafted into a product? This is by definition the earliest stage. It’s about people, their ambitions, and about getting a glimpse into what the world would look like if their visions succeed.

‍

You’ll be focusing mainly on the Danish ecosystem at byFounders. What needle in the haystack are you hoping to find?

Denmark is incredibly tasteful, in so many ways. When it comes to how people design their lives, and surround themselves with high-quality products, the way they embrace technical, natural, and craftsmanship elements, progressiveness in terms of digitization, and their humbleness in their local roots, that yet comes with an ambitious, hard-working mindset. Looking at the tech ecosystem, Copenhagen has a strong business acumen while Aarhus is notorious for its great developer talents – just to mention two relevant hubs that prove to be complementary. I am genuinely excited about products that have a consumer(-ish) angle and love double-clicking on any idea that tackles problems around human connection as well as our intellectual and creative ways of expression.

‍

What qualities do you look for in a founder?

Paul Graham gave the universally best answer. I would personally add trust, which I’d describe as having the utmost consistent say-to-do ratio. I would also search for most of these qualities in early-stage investors, to be fair. And in the case of investors, I would add the ability to make sure founders are in good hands, like for real.

‍

You have a background in fashion and design, having worked for consumer brands and a fashion startup in the past. How do you balance the creative with the analytical?

To me, creativity is a fundamental part of who I am, and I have been re-embracing this notion more and more over the course of the past months. But I’d also argue that viewing it as a pure dialectic doesn’t come close enough to how it works in practice. I love being around people who create things, but I also crave having analytical or philosophical conversations. There is a paradigm shift happening and more ideas and opportunities are surfacing that will reimagine what being human means to us, how we work, and how we spend our lives. In my day to day, I obsess over tools that help me keep analytical clarity and at the same time ignite creative flow. After all, the irony of multi-tasking in this job is undeniable.   

Asking you your own favorite question: what are you fascinated by that not many people notice?

Perhaps, the fact that this is one of my favorite questions reveals already a bit about what I am fascinated by: Unraveling deeper layers in conversations and understanding how people resonate with narrative and dimensional elements in their world. It’s not only about the answer itself but also about the depth of it and how the person in front of you reacts to that. We should spend more time with what fascinates us, in a thoughtful and playful way. In this job everything has to do with people taking the greatest of risks – so being vulnerable and moving beyond superficial or pure circumstantial levels should be taken more seriously, I guess.  

‍

You can reach Sinah at sinah@byfounders.vc.