The Inner Edge

A series exploring the inner architecture of founders and what it takes to build great companies from a grounded, clear place. Hosted by Valerie Bures-Bönström and Andy Loy.

The Inner Edge is a business podcast hosted by Valerie Bures-Bönström and Andy Loy, with 11 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Valerie Bures-Bönström and Andy Loy hosts The Inner Edge, a business show with 11 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #11

  Max Linden (lemon.markets) on Turning a University Idea into a €28M Licensed Fintech

  Sep 3, 202638 min

  Max Linden is the Co-Founder and CEO of lemon.markets, a Berlin-based brokerage-as-a-service platform that lets banks, fintechs, and asset managers embed stock and ETF trading into their own products. Max's entrepreneurial path started young, building websites as a student before founding lemon.markets in 2020 at age 20, growing it into a BaFin-licensed investment firm that raised €28 million from investors including Lakestar, Creandum, and Lightspeed. In 2025, lemon.markets was acquired by Deutsche WertpapierService Bank (dwpbank), and Max continues to lead the company as an independently run subsidiary within the group. Max joins Valerie to talk about his journey founding lemon.markets, the "triangle" of craft, science, and art in entrepreneurship, and why mission, community, and trust matter as much as strategy when building a startup.

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  Episode #10

  Paul Ostwald (founder of Morningcrunch) on Building a Newsletter 150,000+ Readers Can't Start Their Day Without

  Aug 13, 202635 min

  Paul Ostwald is the Co-Founder of Morningcrunch, a German newsletter-only media brand delivering daily bullet-point briefings on business, finance, and AI to young professionals, read in under five minutes each morning. Paul left his role at Ringier to build Morningcrunch alongside co-founder Gregor Becker, growing it from a side project in 2023 into a newsletter read by over 150,000 subscribers, taking an unconventional approach to fundraising along the way, targeting a small, carefully chosen list of investors rather than casting a wide net. Today, he continues pushing on what a modern, disruptive media company can look like, blending AI-supported content creation with human craftsmanship and direct relationships with readers. Paul joins Valerie to talk about building Morningcrunch without a traditional media background, his approach to fundraising through a small, targeted list of investors rather than a broad pitch process, and how he thinks about balancing AI-assisted content with human craftsmanship as Morningcrunch scales.

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  Episode #9

  Should you finish your degree?

  Jul 23, 202636 min

  Should you drop out to build your startup? The data says probably not. This episode digs into what's really driving students to leave school, how AI is reshaping what a degree is even worth, and why real-world experience keeps outpacing the classroom.

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  Episode #8

  Jennifer Baum-Minkus (Founder & CEO of gitti) on Detoxing the Beauty Industry, One Bottle at a Time

  Jul 9, 202638 min

  Jennifer Baum-Minkus is the Founder and CEO of gitti, the Berlin-based conscious beauty brand behind clean, plant- and water-based nail polish that has become a category leader in Europe. Jennifer left a corporate career at Coca-Cola to launch gitti from her kitchen table, building the brand into a company that has raised $11.7M in funding and expanded internationally, all while staying rooted in community trust and product transparency. Today, she continues to lead gitti's growth and is a vocal advocate for rethinking industry standards around ingredient safety and sustainability. Jennifer joins Valerie to talk about leaving the corporate world behind, what it took to build gitti from scratch, and the lessons she's learned scaling a beauty brand rooted in authenticity.

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  Episode #7

  Should You Leave Home to Build Your Company?

  Jun 25, 202635 min

  Europe is producing great founders. It's just not always keeping them. This episode looks at the funding gaps pushing talent out, what market proximity really means for early-stage companies, and the emotional side of deciding where to be.

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