Germany's average time for university IP transfer into a spin-off: around 18 months. At LMU Munich, our team now does it in 3. Not by pushing founders harder - by changing the system. One decision level. One clear path. One place where founders get answers. This is what a university must do if it is serious about entrepreneurship: remove friction from the founder's path.

18 months. That's how long it takes, on average, to transfer university IP into a startup in Germany. Not to build the product. Not to find the first customer. Not to raise funding. Just to negotiate the contract. Meanwhile, Chinese competitors move from discovery to clinical trial in the same timeframe. We're not losing on innovation. We're losing on bureaucracy.

I turned down a future Nobel Prize winner to follow an uncertain path. Best decision I ever made.

6 honest lessons from a 3-hour conversation with 45 founders at LMU Munich – on risk, trust, co-founders, and why profit and purpose aren't opposites.

Founders share the wins – but rarely the real story. Why we stay silent about the hard parts, what that silence costs the next generation, and why honest conversations change everything.

Every VC said no. "Too risky." "Too early." "Too niche." So we slept in cars, borrowed lab space, and worked in the dark – literally. No investors. No safety net. Just two founders, one prototype, and the belief that profit from customers is the best funding source. 18 years later: €56M revenue. 250 employees. 100% founder-owned.

In einer neuen Videocast-Episode von Pitch & People spricht Philipp Baaske über die Frage, wie Unternehmertum aussehen kann, wenn Wachstum nicht auf Kosten von Haltung, Verantwortung oder langfristigem Denken entsteht.

Was bedeutet Wachstum, wenn man nicht bereit ist, sich selbst oder seine Werte zu verkaufen? In dieser Podcast-Folge spricht Dr. Philipp Baaske über abgelehnte Millionenangebote, Integrität und unternehmerische Verantwortung.

Summer 2019: After laying off 19 team members to save NanoTemper, I sat on this beach and asked myself what kind of founder I wanted to...

How Our “Impossible Idea” Became Wall Art Seventeen years ago, they said this wouldn’t work. Too early. Too niche. Too crazy. Today, it’s...

Here’s What It Cost Me. When we started NanoTemper, we were just a handful of people. Tight rooms. No windows. Long days. No idea what we...

This is me in the mid-90s: a small room, a used PC, stacks of floppy disks and books. No startup hub. No accelerator. No VC dinners. Just...

LMU Munich calls—Philipp Baaske answers. As the university’s first-ever Vice President for Entrepreneurship, Philipp shares why he said yes, what he plans to build, and how he wants to empower the next generation of founders.

After 17 years of leading a company from scratch, Philipp Baaske shares the 17 leadership lessons he wishes he had known earlier — from trust to execution. A powerful reflection on what truly shapes great leadership.