{"id":7070547,"date":"2026-09-30T23:46:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T23:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7070547"},"modified":"2026-09-30T23:46:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T23:46:27","slug":"roland-fassauer-turning-visions-into-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7070547","title":{"rendered":"Roland Fassauer: Turning Visions Into Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meet <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/roland-fassauer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Roland Fassauer<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a tech pioneer, serial investor, and Professor at CODE University of Applied Sciences. Having co-founded Intershop in the early days of the commercial internet, Roland has been a mainstay in the European technology space for decades.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Today, he mentors the next generation of digital innovators while actively backing high-impact startups. We sat down with Roland to discuss his journey, his core advice for founders, and his vision for the European startup landscape.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7118\" src=\"https:\/\/leapfunder-production.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/blog\/posts\/7116\/Roland-Fassauer.jpeg?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&amp;X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJ2QS3MAQJ5YUZRFA%2F20260930%2Feu-central-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&amp;X-Amz-Date=20260930T234627Z&amp;X-Amz-Expires=3600&amp;X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&amp;X-Amz-Signature=97d6137190b11651c1414feaad64b6221eb3a2f0d5bbd951ebc360e3e2f78d93\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"506\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.leapfunder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Roland-Fassauer.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.leapfunder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Roland-Fassauer-300x148.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blog.leapfunder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Roland-Fassauer-768x380.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blog.leapfunder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Roland-Fassauer-610x301.jpeg 610w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"\/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Hi Roland, thanks for agreeing to the interview. Could you tell us how you first got connected to the startup world?<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I co-founded a company called Intershop back in the early 1990s. It eventually grew into a massive success, reaching a peak valuation of around $15 billion following our Nasdaq IPO.<\/span><b\/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>You\u2019re currently involved in over 40 successful businesses. Tell us about your mission.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Actually, it\u2019s closer to 80+ now! My mission centers on investing in early-stage startups, particularly those founded by our students. My primary focus areas are Software, B2B, AI, and Cybersecurity.<\/span><b\/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>You mentor the next generation of digital pioneers as a Professor at CODE University. Tell us more. What is it about entrepreneurship that particularly attracts you?<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The easiest way to predict the future is to invent it. It is truly amazing to watch all these young people build new ideas and change the world.<\/span><b\/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">\n<b><b><b>Please share three pieces of advice for founders that are vital for a startup\u2019s survival.<\/b><\/b><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\u2013 Focus, focus, focus<br \/><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stay lean and avoid raising too much money too early<br \/>\u2013 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s all about the team<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Tell us about the German startup ecosystem, particularly your footprint across Berlin and Leipzig. What are the opportunities? What are the challenges? What do you predict for the near future?<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are lots of reasons to be optimistic. It\u2019s a great ecosystem filled with incredible founding teams, and thanks to AI, this is one of the best times in history to launch disruptive companies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In my opinion, we face one central challenge: Europe lacks a unified marketplace to effectively channel private and institutional capital into our own companies. This creates a bottleneck for wealth creation in Europe, but it\u2019s actually an easy fix\u2014it just requires minor regulatory tweaks with no government funding needed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Insurers and private investors in Europe are sitting on billions. If we adjust regulations to enable them to invest directly in public stock markets, we will trigger a wave of IPOs. That way, global champions, productivity gains, and wealth stay right here in Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you very much for sharing your journey and opinion with us. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Join our network of startups &amp; investors!<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"et_bloom_bottom_trigger\"\/><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meet Roland Fassauer, a tech pioneer, serial investor, and Professor at CODE University of Applied Sciences. Having co-founded Intershop in the early days of the commercial internet, Roland has been a mainstay in the European technology space for decades.\u00a0 Today, he mentors the next generation of digital innovators while actively backing high-impact startups. We sat [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7070548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12034],"tags":[231498,6970,7849,10965,8341],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7070547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-angel-investor","tag-fassauer","tag-reality","tag-roland","tag-turning","tag-visions"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Roland Fassauer: Turning Visions Into Reality - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7070547\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Roland Fassauer: Turning Visions Into Reality - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Meet Roland Fassauer, a tech pioneer, serial investor, and Professor at CODE University of Applied Sciences. 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