About
Hi, I'm Max. I build digital products and irl communities. Sometimes I also invest in them.
Work Experience
RealFakePhotos
Sep 2024 - presentCo-Founder
Professional Headshots without a Photo Shoot (>9M photos generated)
- • Generated 9 million professional headshots for 26k+ paying users
- • Used by professionals at Microsoft, Harvard, Mercedes
- • Get 20% off with "RealFake20"
Why Now Ventures
Feb 2024 - PresentFounder
Supporting founders with access to the best talent in Europe and US
- • Investing up to €100k e.g. via convertibles
- • Get in touch: max@whynow.vc
Link Community (Harvard iLabs project)
Oct 2022 - PresentCo-Founder
Global entrepreneurship community partnering with top-tier startups, VCs, and corporations
- • Members attended Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, MIT, Berkely, Oxford, Cambridge...
- • Our community exists out of 50 / 50 Gender and Tech/Business Ratio from 50+ nations
- • Partnered with 80+ companies and VCs like Lightspeed, Accel, Seedcamp, Tesla, Enpal...
Genova
Apr 2023 - Sep 2024Venture Lead / 1st Employee
Venture studio building products around generative AI
- • 1st employee, working closely with CEO Mathis Büchi, prev. founded Taxfix (fintech unicorn) and Smallpdf (top 100 website worldwide)
- • Launching multiple products a year while managing a team of Sr. Engineers
- • Responsible for everything from ideation to building, go-to-market, growth, and monetization
MagicAds
Aug 2023 - Aug 2024Founder
AI video ad generator - video ads in minutes
- • Over 10.000 ads generated for 1000+ customers
- • Started out of frustration with the video ad creation process
- • Stopped maintaining to focus on new projects
PictureMe
May 2023 - Aug 2023Founder
AI-powered headshot generator
- • Generated 100k+ professional headshots for 50k+ paying users
- • After three months, I handed off further development to focus on MagicAds
- • Stopped maintaining to focus on new projects
FindAI.io
Nov 2022 - Apr 2023Founder
Go-to destination for discovering the best AI tools
- • 10k+ users in first week and 100k+ in total
- • Biggest AI tool register during that time
Lebenswiki
Mar 2021 - Mar 2023Founder
Government-funded platform for fundamental life knowledge
- • Won one of the biggest European startup competitions - Youth Budget 2021 (€100k price money)
- • Funded by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs
Tesla
Nov 2021 - Oct 2022Working Student
Accelerate the worlds transition to sustainable energy
- • Joined during the early days of GIGA Berlin-Brandenburg (pre-opening)
- • Selected from 350+ applicants and alongside pursuing my full-time degree
- • Project Management, General Problem Solving, Recrutiting and Market Analysis
Roundstart® (acquired)
2019 - Oct 2021Founder
Content Management Platform for internal learning resources
- • Built a team of six
- • Adopted as part of the Jugendbudget 2021
- • Founded and built alongside pursuing my A levels (Abitur)
Education
B.Sc. Software Engineering
Projects
Generate startup names with available .com domains
Turn books into flashcards
A tool that analyzes market demand and generates financial projections for startup ideas based on Google search data.
Weekend retreats for entrepreneurs from various fields focused on sharing knowledge and connecting
'The Federal Youth Ministry started the new youth budget project in January 2021 and is making 1 million euros available for this.'
Summaries of some of my favorite Books, Blogs, Videos...
Saw a lot of search traffic for wedding wishes and built a website around it
Saw a lot of search traffic for birthday wishes and built a website around it
Newsletter
Join the journey :)
Every now and then, I share learnings on building products and growing communities.