AutoMates by Reruption

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Co-Founder

Reruption GmbH

We help people drive change and innovation in their organizations. Always at startup speed, with > 20 years of entrepreneurial experience and methodical de-risking. We are Co-Preneurs.

And why? Because we want to create a future worth living in.

Partner

Partners in Clime

We combine exceptional founders, big unsolved problems, and smart capital to build and fund companies that save our climate.

General Partner

AMERIA AG

Vice President Operations

Senior Project Manager

Project Manager

Sophiadesigns GbR

With Sophiadesigns, I developed web-based software for small and medium-sized businesses, advised on opportunities and risks of doing business on the web, and hosted websites. Until 2009 we developed and sold sophiadesigns/cms in the SaaS model.

General Manager & Founder

Treatwell

I was involved in building Salonmeister, now Treatwell.

Salonmeister develops web-based salon management software and distributes it in a SaaS model. Supported by T-Ventures and other VCs based in Germany.

With Sophiadesigns, I had developed and operated the web-based booking and appointment management software, and then helped resource technical expertise when Salonmeister started building its own technical team after funding.

Salonmeister was sold to UK competitor Wahanda, now Treatwell, in 10/2014:
https://techcrunch.com/2014/10/10/wahanda-raises-another-26m-and-acquires-germanys-salonmeister/

Chair of Prof. Dr. Oliver Brand LL.M. at the University of Mannheim

I developed and maintained the chair's website, advised the team on IT issues, and worked with Professor Brand on innovative e-learning concepts.

Student Assistant

What's a Co-Preneur? Find out at reruption.com • I love doing Strategy, Digital Sales, Business Design • Investor, GP at 'Partners in Clime' • Techno-Optimist sharing daily thoughts on ⬇️

As a Co-Preneur, I solve challenges with you and for your organization. I am an expert in strategy, digital sales, business design and innovation management.

Some challenges I have solved for my clients:
1. "We've developed a virtual reality application. Now someone needs to sell it!"
2. "We want to build a startup in the education space, but don't know where to start!"
3. "We want to test an e-bike subscription business. Is this a good business case?"
4. "We want to get TISAX/ISO:9001 certified. Who will organize this for us?"
5. "We need to hire 'Solution Architects'. How do we find out which candidates are good?"
6. "We want to sell data to architects and make money. But do they need it?"

My mission is to help organizations drive change and innovation.

Organizations that rely on me: STIHL, Mercedes Benz, Internetstores, Signa Sports United, Eberspächer, oddity.

I only work with people who understand that change and innovation are necessary to create a future worth living #futurepositivity

My motto: Quality prevails, always improve.

Philipp M. W. Hoffmann

Uplift Founders

We uplift great founders to extraordinary. Unlocking the hidden 10% to scale faster.

Co-Founder 

Backing green tech founders by providing capital and mentoring.

Founding Partner

Till Augner

My holding. 

Co-founded
🚀 Uplift Founders
🐻‍❄️ Partners in Clime 

Investments
🚢 Nautica Technologies
🥛 senara.bio
🌱 arkeon.bio
🔋 aampere

Founder

Aampere

Advisor & Coach

Steinbeis School of International Business and Entrepreneurship (SIBE)

Teaching Entrepreneurship

Digital Business School an der HfWU

Teaching Digital Business Models

Junto

Venture Development

SportHacks

RegioHelden GmbH

Entrepreneur in Residence

Mercedes-Benz AG

International Product Manager

Decoding founder psychology.
Obsessed with how founders think, feel, decide, and lead. 
Sharing lessons from 1:1 work with 157 high-growth founders.

Building a company has been the hardest mirror, but it’s what helped me make the best decision of my life.

If you simplify the job of a founder, it’s
- making good decisions
- building lasting relationships

Both under a massive degree of uncertainty.

That means if your inner capacity isn’t ready for it,
you’re forced to work on it, or you become the bottleneck.

I had to work on both.

Through many executive coaching sessions, deep reflection, experimenting,
wonderful peers by my side, and plenty of pain and failure.

My coach summarized my transformation like this:
from a lonely self-optimizer to a connected, confident founder.

I had been a single founder trying to prove something to feel secure by achieving everything in the outer game.

But my proudest milestones lie in the inner game.
Learning how vulnerability builds trust, and how self-worth influences everything.

All of it led to this moment in Cape Town some weeks ago,
where I made the best decision for a lasting relationship.

I asked my girlfriend to marry me.
(and I’m so glad she understood my Portuguese proposal 🇧🇷😂).

I’m a lucky man...she said yes.

Having a place where I feel loved and have nothing to prove is indescribable.
And it completely changed how I show up in business.

It helps me live our principle “low attachment, high commitment.” And it increased my commitment even more.

The drive didn’t go away. It became stronger AND sustainable.

How did building a company change you?

Co-Founder Uplift Founders | Founding Partner Partners in Clime

What founders actually remember about mentors ...

I used to think being a "great mentor" was about what you'd accomplished.
Your exits. Your wins. Your war stories.

Sure, it helps, and it opens doors.

Mentoring can be easily misused.
The worst mentors make it about them.
They give unasked, generic advice.
Easy ego boost.
(Hindsight bias included.)

But...
Founders don't remember your wins.
They remember whether you cared deeply about them.

... not "LinkedIn care."
... not "I'll intro you to my network" care.

Real care.

The kind of care…
... where they text you at 11pm because of a co-founder issue.
... where you jump on a call between sessions because something's breaking.
... where you take the long train ride just to sit with them for an hour.
... where their stuck points become your stuck points.

Founders are the ones building what everyone else only talks about.
That takes a rare kind of courage.

And I deeply care about founders with that kind of courage.

That's why being named one of EWOR's 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗼𝗽 𝟭𝟬𝟬 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 landed differently yesterday. 

Not because of the "title."

Because EWOR and Daniel deeply care about founders the way I do.
And founders I've worked with nominated me.

Still just the beginning. Back to work.

I used to watch cringe motivational videos in my corporate job to get through the day. As a founder, I had the opposite problem: I couldn't stop.

For 3.5 years, I sprinted. 
Growth was the drug. 
Momentum kept me moving. 
Then COVID hit.

I remember the exact moment I thought:
"The company needs me most right now. But I don't feel good."

That's when I realized: there's no prize for running yourself into the ground.

As a founder, you cannot just take off. One concept that helped me comes from the gym. 

A deload week. 

If you've trained seriously, you know the concept:
Every 6-7 weeks, you don't stop; you dial it back. 
Same movements. Less weight. More recovery. 

Your body adapts. You come back stronger.
Turns out, your brain works the same way.

What a deload week can look like:

- Cut meetings by 30-50%
- Reduce work capacity to 70-80%
- Say no to non-essential calls
- Hand off tactical work to the team
- Limit slack chats and notifications
- Postpone decisions that aren't urgent
- Sleep more. Protect your mornings.
- Move your body: gym, sauna, walks, whatever
- Journal on the long game, not this week's fires

You're not checking out. You're recalibrating.

What happens in your brain:

1. Your prefrontal cortex recovers → sharper decisions
2. Cortisol drops → you stop feeling wired and tired
3. Dopamine resets → motivation spikes
4. Your Default Mode Network kicks in → creative breakthroughs appear
5. Cognitive control replenishes → execution gets smoother

You're not losing momentum. You're building capacity.

My co-founder and I alternate deload weeks. Someone's always sharp. That's the point.

PS: Let me know what you think about the video format.

You can't fake obsession. You can't teach it either.

In our weekly coaching review, Yannick and I concluded:

↦ The founders who are truly obsessed stand out fast.

... they message us late at night.
... they move with real urgency.
... they push for extra sessions.
... they absorb feedback and try it the same day.
... they can't stop thinking about it.

And they stay in the hard moments.

... when runway is close to zero. 
... when a co-founder wants to leave.
... when a major deal falls apart. 

They don't step back.
Something in them keeps pulling them. 

That is real obsession.

- We can teach sharpness.
- We can teach resilience.
- We can teach influence.

But we cannot create obsession.
It is already burning, or it is not.

The only thing we can shape is the relationship to that fire.
So it fuels the company without burning the founder.

What's your obsession? 
What would you keep doing even if someone tried to stop you?

Today, I’ll have another three sessions with 7-figure founders, where we review their calendars together.

We get hands-on, and the founder shares his calendar.
Not only to optimize it, but to hold up a mirror.

A typical process:

→ Round 1: “Everything feels important and urgent”

Founders walk me through their week. The feeling: Every meeting matters. Every fire needs to be put out. Nothing can be moved, delegated, or canceled. The Eisenhower Matrix doesn’t really work with this filter.

So the calendar is a perfect reflection of their fear.

So what we’re really looking at:

- fear of conflict (“What if I say no?”)
- blurry strategy (“Everything feels important”)
- nervous system on fire (no recovery, just reaction)

→ Round 2: We define the optimal week

Not a fantasy. Not work-life balance. A target week for sustainable high performance.

What would a week look like if you were operating at your highest leverage? 
Where the founder is...

- operating in the zone of genius
- creating space to think, not just respond
- building energy and momentum instead of draining it

We map it (in a second calendar). Deep work blocks. Key meetings. Gym. Recovery. White space.

Then we compare it to reality.

The delta between those two weeks? That’s the work and the learning.

→ Round 3: We iterate weekly

Every week we reflect:

- what kept you from the optimal week?
- what fear showed up as “urgency”?
- what conversation did you avoid having?

And we coach through it. We tighten the strategy. We draft the “no” emails. We challenge the narrative that “this can’t be delegated.”

...so the gaps close.

- they stop being reactive and start leading from calm, not chaos.
- they realize that saying no is more important than saying yes.
- they stop being the bottleneck in their own company.

A common realization:

Your calendar isn’t a logistics problem. It’s a mirror of your inner game.

Every “yes” you shouldn’t have said. Every meeting you’re avoiding to cancel. Every block of recovery time you deleted because it felt selfish.

It’s all there.

Most founders with +10 FTE we audit share the same tension:
The team grows fast, but development and compensation decisions stay random.

They score the lowest on one question in our Founder Audit:
→ "How clear is your system for developing your team?"

Plus another observation in many 1:1 sessions: 
→ "Our compensation offers and raises feel random."

This mix shows up again and again.
No clear levels. No shared view of growth. No simple logic for pay.

Everything depends on the founder’s gut.
Nothing feels stable for the team.

And still nobody wants a heavy system.
You want something simple that keeps you sharp.

So we built a structure for one founder around 20 FTE.
Then we shared it with more and saw the same results.

What helped most...

Instead of an unstructured set of levels that nobody can explain
→ You get a full leveling system from working student to leadership

Instead of developing and coaching by gut feeling
→ You get clear traits with real benchmarks that show how people can grow

Instead of compensation that feels reactive
→ You get a model that fits your stage, your run rate, your departments

Instead of guessing who needs support
→ You get one shared view across founders on training progress and gaps

My view: 
Keep it light. But give yourself a simple system to grow and pay your team with confidence.

PS: If you want the template, just comment "uplift"

Last week, a founder asked me how to make better decisions.

So I asked him:

… "What was your best decision this year?"
… "What was your worst?"

His answer surprised him.

Best decision:
Moving an underperforming employee to a new role instead of firing him.

Worst decision:
Waiting too long to fire someone else.

I asked: "What made one good and the other bad?"

He paused.

"The outcome."

And that's where we started.

Most founder decisions are made in fog.
1. You're choosing with incomplete information.
2. You're betting on futures you can't control.
3. You're dealing with luck disguised as strategy.

If outcome = decision quality, you're stuck in a trap.

… a good outcome doesn't mean you decided well.
… a bad outcome doesn't mean you decided poorly.

Example:
→ One of the best decisions of my life was quitting Mercedes in a rage after another brutal corporate meeting.

... it worked out.

But it was impulsive and emotional.
A terrible process with a lucky result.
If I judged it by outcome alone, I'd learn nothing.

So we shifted focus from results to process.

Here's what actually improves decision quality:

1. Name your inner drivers
What belief or emotion is steering this choice?

2. Thinking in bets
What are the odds? How much would you bet?

3. Gain different perspectives
How would your board see this? Your team? You in 10 years?

4. Run pre-mortem and backcasting
If this fails, what went wrong? If it succeeds, what had to go right?

5. Test before you leap
Turn big decisions into small experiments. (This was the biggest leverage for the founder)

Most founders judge themselves by outcomes they can't fully control.
Judge yourself by the clarity of your thinking before you act.

What's been your best decision this year?

Is it impossible to detach emotionally from your venture as a founder?

We talk a lot about "low attachment, high commitment."

Critical distinction: 
It's about lowering attachment to your business. Not having no attachment.
That would make you a psychopath. Or mean you should quit.

So, how do you lower attachment?

→ Through something called self-complexity.

Self-complexity (Patricia Linville, 1985) is the degree to which your self-concept is made up of multiple, distinct identities (founder, parent, athlete, musician).

When one role takes a hit, the others buffer the blow.

Tim Ferriss calls it "identity diversification." 
At least 2-3 pursuits running simultaneously.

Early on, his were:
- Company (BrainQUICKEN)
- Book project (4-Hour Workweek)
- BJJ in off-hours

Hard quarter at the company? 
The other two became his psychological safety net.

Your self-worth isn't pinned to one variable (the business) affected by forces outside your control.

How I apply it:
- I document my "inner operating system" in Notion (yes, I'm still a Notion nerd).  - One part of it: overall guiding questions for different life roles. 
- I focus on 2-3 per quarter and reflect monthly.
- Some roles aren't even active yet (like becoming a father), but they're mapped.

This lets me stay fully committed to my business and work hard, while remembering there are other roles in my life.

Does it make me immune to downturns? No.
But I can buffer them.

You diversify your investment portfolio to hedge risk and win long term.
The same applies to your identity.

I wanted to become sharper, so I learned to ask better questions.

A simple structure you can use in every meeting:

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁? → What exactly do you mean by that?
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗲𝗹𝘀𝗲? → What else is bothering you? What else could we do?
𝗦𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁? → What’s the real impact here?
𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁? → What’s the next step? What do we do from here?

Good questions are short and begin with “what” or “how”.
(“why” questions tend to make people defensive.)

taplio

The Battle

Philipp M. W. Hoffmann

Till Augner

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