#038 - Brain vs Capital - how to build a business from components (Part 1), with Prof. Günter Faltin, Germany

The Hardware Entrepreneur

My guest is Günter Faltin, professor of entrepreneurship from Germany and himself also a successful entrepreneur.

He’s an early pioneer of entrepreneurship education in Germany. He’s widely known in Germany because of his pioneering work connected to a concept called “component principle”. Last year I read his book “Brain vs capital” at around the same time as Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek book, and the connection between the two were obvious. Actually people in Germany buy these two books together, as I later found it out from Prof Faltin. Both books have been major eye-openers for me. Prof. Faltin and Tim Ferriss’ works are for ones who want to get results fast and sustainably, just prof. Faltin’s is more applicable exclusively to entrepreneurship. In the links below you can see actually an interview that Prof. Faltin did with Tim Ferriss, and it made me smile how much the two are in agreement.

Prof. Faltin is a very practical person despite being a professor. So by any means, he’s not sitting in his Ivory Tower. You’ll learn in this episode he’s had his quite successful business which is still thriving.

In this part 1 episode you can learn from Prof. Faltin how he systematically started his company, he’ll discuss his principles for how to stay lean and efficient even after the beginnings of a startup when one wants to scale. He’ll also bring up other examples besides for companies that use his principles. Enjoy.

Raw transcript is available at: https://www.thehardwareentrepreneur.com

Show highlights can be seen below:

• Who is Prof. Faltin and how does his book relate to Tim Ferriss? – [3:32]
• How do you become the world’s largest importer of Darjeeling tea? - [4:58]
• A business model that looks beyond conventions - [14:36]
• The basics of progress – the component principle - [16:08]
• Entrepreneurship Summit in Berlin and how can you win a free ticket to it? - [17:03]
• How is the component principle applied in Teekampagne? - [20:07]
• An example of building a company organized 100% by components - [21:38]
• The advantages of using outsourced talent - [24:02]
• Another example of a business which uses the component principle - [26:38]
• “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” - [28:19]