Martin Hacks

Martin Hacks is a global network uniting elite management consultants and business advisors. 
Our primary mission is to foster opportunities for members to learn from each other, enhance their careers, acquire new skills, and leverage AI to deliver exceptional value to their clients.

- Community with Spaces
- Live coaching sessions
- Consulting Academy: Consulting MBA and topic-specific training
- Templates
- Job Portal and X-selling engine
- 3rd party software discounts

Apply today to www.martinhacks.com

Partner

Stealth Climate Startup

Stealth Climate Tech Startup
Batteries + AI + Web3

Forecastly AI

Advisory Board

BrightDay

BrightDay is an ecosystem of life enhancement apps https://brightday.app/
Download iOS BrightDay
https://apps.apple.com/no/app/brightday-habit-tracker/id1636308273
Download iOS SuperHabits app
https://apps.apple.com/no/app/superhabits-1-habit-tracker/id6452316201

Founder

PwC Norway

Outcomes
- Designed and run a ScaleUp program www.slingshot.no for the region
- Grew Innovation & Growth Offering to 7 figures

Innovation & Digital Director

Head of Innovation & Digital Delivery | Sr. Manager @ EEC PwC Stavanger

University of Stavanger

Imparting lessons on Design Thinking for Green Energy Transition at the University of Stavanger

Visiting Lecturer

Accenture Song

-> Leading the Digital Energy Hub for Accenture in Stavanger, Norway 
-> Inspiring business leaders with the latest trends in ways of working and technological disruption 
-> Design thinking workshops, brainstorming sessions, prototyping, value chain opportunity mapping, digital strategy roadmaps and product development sprints (1 day, 5 days and several weeks) 
-> Digital advisory & training to executives

Digital Hub Lead | Innovation and Digital Transformation Manager

Accenture

-> Leading the development of a Digital Hub for Accenture in Stavanger, Norway
-> Inspiring business leaders with latest trends in ways of working and technological disruption
-> Design thinking workshops, brainstorming sessions, prototyping, value chain opportunity mapping, digital strategy roadmaps and product development sprints (1 day, 5 days and several weeks)
-> Strategy Lead of a RPA (Robot Process Automation) program

Digital Hub Lead | Innovation Manager

Vertical Strategy

VERTICAL is a new breed of strategy advisors catalyzing growth for a fast paced future

- New venture digital product sprints
- New digital products concept development
- New business model and strategy development
- Corporate entrepreneurship
- Digital transformation / Digital roadmap for industrial clients
- Service design (UX/UI/Design Thinking Workshops)
- Idea generation and innovation workshops

Innovation Senior Consultant / In-house entrepreneur

martinhacks.com

Innovation coach @ youtube and writer (sci-fi, business)

Hi 👋 My name is Martin

As a management consultant, I built an Innovation Agency for a Big4 to 7 figures. I have consulted in nearly every industry, from disruptive Startups to fast-growing Scale-ups, B2C, B2B, and Enterprise SaaS, from The World Bank to Fortune500s, from shaping regulations in the US to implementing agile at a $60Bn revenue corporate, from designing battery tech spin-outs to medical tech IPO pitch decks.

If you are a scaleup CEO with annual revenues over 5 mUSD, feel free to reach out (DM) to discuss:

- Strategy execution
- Increasing margin play through revenueops (e.g. pricing) and cost optimization

I am an Entrepreneur (40%) and Management Consultant (60%).

As an entrepreneur, I run a portfolio of Life-enhancement apps (www.brightday.app), a digitally-driven Innovation Consulting and a stealth-mode climate startup. I do not invest at the moment.

Martin Gallardo

Everything in "Europe is better than US except 1 thing" he said and continue:

Manhattan is a tough place

I work 9-9-6

I live in 46 sqm, and pay 6000 euros a month

I make 150,000 grand a year
yet I barely save any money

Food sucks... even trying to eat healthy... I put on weight.

I think there is something wrong in the food even in vegetables.

Tap Water... undrinkable

People are highly transactional

Dating can easily drain most of your time

Dining and Taxis cost like 5x versus Europe

Safety?... just search on insta "NYC metro crazy"

But there is one thing you get here

"The Learning"

If you have a dream, strangers are willing to bet on you.

They let you build... and pivot... and fail... no questions asked.

And then you have the best market on the planet.

It is a jungle, survival mode.

But noone can take this experienced out of me.

I paused, reflected for a second,
and kindly asked him, one of my best friends:

"Would you stay there for the rest of your live?"

"I am retiring in Europe"

No alternative text description for this image

Current status of my inbox daily: {{primary_intent_signal}}

Timothy Armoo has one of the coolest bio in Entrepreneurship.
Are you failing enough? Literally all really successful people I know are risk takers. You can t have outsized returns without 100% risk of failure.

10 Eye-Opening Insights from 885 European VCs 🚀

I dumped into Google Gemini3 all Marc Penkala's comprehensive EU VC survey, and the data reveals fascinating patterns about how European venture capital actually works. Here's what stood out:

Deal Flow Reality Check 📊
European VCs see an average of 851 investment proposals annually but close only 38 deals - that's a 4.5% conversion rate. The funnel is brutal: only 37% even get a management meeting, and just 6% make it to closing.

Key insight: Independent VCs receive 3x more proposals than governmental VCs, yet governmental VCs have significantly higher closure rates.

What VCs Actually Care About 🎯

When selecting investments, it's all about the team:

96% say management team is critical (this isn't just talk - it's universal)
72% prioritize product/service/technology
Only 21% consider industry a key factor

Most surprising? The investor's own contribution ranks dead last at just 12%.

Founder Qualities That Matter 💡

VCs look for competence (75%) and passion (73%) above all else. 

But here's the nuance:

Family Offices care less about ability but MORE about commitment/passion
Governmental VCs prioritize industry experience
Only 28% cite competence as THE most important factor 

The Valuation Reality 💰
71% use comparable transactions as their primary valuation method, yet more than 60% don't use ANY formal valuation methodology!

Late-stage VCs are more likely to apply formal methods, while health-focused VCs rarely use IRR calculations.

Target ownership? 63% aim for 10-20% stakes, with a required IRR of 29% and cash-on-cash multiple of 6.4x. 

Half of late-stage VCs target ownership above 20%.

Deal Terms Tell a Story 📝

80% demand pro-rata rights (especially important in mature markets)
68% require anti-dilution protection

Western VCs push harder for anti-dilution than Northern VCs

Health-focused VCs care more about participation liquidation preferences and cumulative dividends

Success Factors: It's Not Just Luck 🎲

What actually drives successful exits?

Management team: 96% (again, the team!)
Product/offering: 72%
Timing: 56%
Good luck: 33%

Interestingly, late-stage VCs mention luck less often (26% vs 33% overall), 
while Northern VCs rate timing and luck as more critical than other regions.

Decision-Making Styles 🤝
36% use majority voting
31% require unanimous decisions
Only 4% allow individual partner decisions
Health-focused VCs use unanimous voting more (50% vs 31% average), suggesting higher-risk tolerance requires broader consensus.

The Exit Landscape 🚪
40% of exits are trade sales, but only 9% achieve 10x+ returns. 

The reality:
22% of investments fail outright
7% exit via IPO
28% exceed investment objectives

More insights in the comments

Full credit to Marc Penkala for this comprehensive research. 
#VC #fundraising #insights

I am tired of LinkedIn clickbait. 20 year old saying Founders pay $30k for TAM. Let s dismantle this bull€&"!

LinkedIn has become a clickbait funnel towards Founders

Archetypical criminal:

20 year old school dropout

Learned about GTM 6 month ago

Copy lead magnet from someone else

Never done consulting before

Just asked last night GPT how much McKinsey charged for TAM

Discovered AI can produce a decent outcome if well prompted

Figure out he can get hundreds of comments and leads towards a sensitive group like Founders

So he can sell them something he has never really done before

The problem is... 

You are lying boy

In the business of serving... trust is the coin.

You ll get desperate founders, a 2% conversion rates and more problems than income.

I have worked with 100s of founders, even at a Big4 we will never serve a Founder on TAM. They wont buy. And I was PwC. 

Now you can earn $20k for TAM, maybe even more.

I know because I am part of many top strategy networks with daily engagement requests. 

Btw, comment "secret network" to get access to it 🤣🤣🤣 just kidding but you can DM me

So yeah, boring, saturated mid-market companies are willing to pay $20k for a TAM because market share and location does matter when allocating capex.

Even $1000s to review an IPO pitch deck (been paid for that).

They can pay me $30-50k for a 5-day "Strategy sprint". Btw my next book coming out soon, DM for early access.

But they are not startup or early stage Founders... unless SanFran?

So please liberate me from commenting and start also calling out this behaviour. So should make LinkedIn great again... is f€&"?!' becoming Instagram

graphical user interface, text, application

I have the pleasure of serving Saudi Arabia Government, and it is one of most incredible transformations in the world. Very inspiring message from HRN at KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) about meritocracy and the welcoming nature of Saudis.

KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology)

View company: KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology)

Our Class of 2025 steps into the world at a time when Saudi Arabia is writing one of the most ambitious chapters in its history, defined by curiosity, innovation and an insistence that talent—not background—shapes the future. It’s a moment built by people who believe possibility is a resource, and progress is a collective act, reflecting the spirit of #SaudiVision2030. 

No one expresses this spirit more powerfully than His Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Minister of Energy and Chairman of the KAUST Board of Trustees. At our 16th Commencement this week, he delivered a powerful message that captured the momentum of this new era: 

This is the new Saudi Arabia — a nation built on meritocracy and talent, welcoming everyone who wants to live, build and dream with it. Those who wish to share this ambition, contribute to its future, or be part of its accomplishments are warmly welcomed. 

This message reflects the very heart of our university and 2025’s graduating class. Whether you grew up here or traveled from the other side of the world to join our community, you are part of a culture of openness, collaboration and scientific ambition that is reshaping this nation and the world. 

#KAUSTClass2025 #KAUST #Classof2025 #Commencement #NewSaudiArabia

This is what GTM engineering actually looks like: PLUMBING!
I engineer multi-GTM CRMs for multi-million dollar revenue scaleups.

As a COO deploying AI across entire business functions... it s clear that there a new job in town: Observability! My friends at Eyer are tackling that problem. I struggle with observability and alerting across entire stacks:

- Prosgres
- Azure
- Fillout
- Attio
- n8n
- Gleap
- APIs
and more

The stack is amazing but there is an entire job keeping the machine oiled and ensuring endpoints, webhooks and stuff has lights on.

Any startups out there fixing this problem?

I want a dashboard with all the integrations and connection health and alerts on real time

AI powered Observability. Headless AI powered observability that works with your existing tech stack. Conversational AIOps powered by Claude & MCP. Scalable - Sustainable - Affordable.

Your monitoring stack produces thousands of alerts. 90% are noise. Your team is drowning.

We're hosting a live webinar: Cut Alert Noise by 70% With Your Own Stack

What you'll learn:
- Deploy AI-powered anomaly detection without replacing existing tools
- Integrate with Grafana, Prometheus, Telegraf in hours
- Eliminate false positives through baseline learning
- Route only critical alerts to your team

Bonus for attendees - Free Reliability Maturity Assessment including:
- Online diagnostic with instant maturity score
- Personalized PDF report
- 45-minute consultation ($$$ value)

This is for IT Ops, DevOps, SRE, and manufacturing teams running mission critical systems, or process control environments where alert fatigue kills productivity.

Register: https://shorturl.at/jkhJw

#AIOps #Observability #SRE #DevOps #ITOperations

When Management ask for 200 Metrics a month they are doing Management. When they Get Hands Dirty with 1 Metric that Matters... That s Leadership!

Hyarks

Naval Architect and Marine Systems Engineer

ACUA Ocean

Acua Ocean is a UK based startup that has developed the first liquid hydrogen uncrewed surface vessel.

Co-Founder / Chief Product Officer

L3Harris Technologies

Naval Architect in the development of a 24m Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) performing systems engineering, naval architecture activities, developing SoW for contractors and managing subcontractor companies.

Naval Architect

SEA-KIT International

Naval Architect and Project Manager in the design and construction of a long-endurance Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USV).

Naval Architect / Project Manager

As a consultant, I have been involved in two different roles, one as a Naval Architect/Structural Engineer consultant and other as Team Lead, leading a multidisciplinary and multinational team of 12 people.
Some of the activities I performed as team lead are listed below:
• Managing resources in terms of cost, performance, contractual requirements, goals, priorities and customer needs.
• Being interface for the relationship with the customer.
• Driving changes in the definition of the project, performing
communication plans, impact and risk assessment.
• Operational, functional, transversal and safety requirements review. Systems and
parts maturity assessment. Interfaces management. Definitions of measurements
of performance, verification and validation criteria.
• As team lead, I was the ultimate decision maker of the team.
• Developing of the weight control plan of the submarine.
• Analysis of the reliability of the product work breakdown structure.
• Development of activities based on maturity analysis in order to be able to
baseline the design in a coherent.
• Development of plan approval processes and design reviews.

Some of the activities I performed as Naval Architect / Structural Engineer are listed below: 
• Developing plan for the design, verification and validation of the pressure hull.
• Definition and review of requirements, load conditions, design and analysis
processes and design documents.
• Review of analysis of vibration and structural noise.
• Support in the design and analysis of all the resistant and non-resistant structures
(Pressure hull, domes, torpedo tubes, openings, bulkheads, heavy frames, transitions, soft and hard tanks, fixed and floating decks, foundations, ...) using Ansys Mechanical.
• Review of System Operating Procedures, Emergency Operating Procedures and System and Whole Boat Scenarios.
• Supporting the development of the partial safety factors criteria and the evolution of this based in the maturity of the design.

Team Lead /  Consultant

TECHNO PRO HISPANIA S.L

As structures engineer team lead, I was leading a team of 5 people in the development of the projects listed below.
•	Lincoln project (GRP Catamaran). Scantling and finite element analysis.
•	Submarine S80+.Finite element analysis of non-resistant structures and equipment foundations at S80+ submarine.
•	Software development to verify engine resilient mounting under static, quasi-static and dynamic responses.
Some of the activities I performed in this role are:
•	Development of plan approval processes and design reviews.
•	Preparation of RFP answers, including budgeting, planning and resources allocation.
•	Performing and reviewing foundation design, FEA analysis (Ansys Mechanical) and optimization. (+1000 foundations were designed and analyzed).
•	Development of formulation and software coding of the modal response of resilient mounted solid rigid bodies using Matlab and verification using Ansys Mechanical.

Lead Structural Engineer

Structural Engineer in the S80+ Program

Member of the detailed structural design department. 
Design, analysis (FEA) and optimization of non-resistant structures.
FEA method apply to metallic and composite materials structures.
Linear, non-linear, modal, buckling, fatigue and dynamic analysis.

Aside of the technical knowledge, I have improved competencies in teamwork, communication, responsibilities, decision making and risk assessment.

Structural Engineer

Asociación SIRENA

Founder and project manager of “Proyecto SIRENA” (SIRENA’s project). This project is an initiative fully created and developed by the students of the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT) with the goal of designing and building a solar powered autonomous underwater vehicle. As project manager, some of the activities I performed are:
• Development of the end-to-end design process.
• Development of the organigram and definition of the roles and responsibilities.
• Planning and resources allocation.
• Definition of design activities and priorities.

Navantia s.a

- Verification and validation of numeric simulations with ANSYS and Autodesk Simulation Mechanical applied to pressure hull of submarines.

Internship / Verification and Validation of Numeric Simulations of Pressure Hull

Freak of the challenges, of making this world a better one and of challenging the meaning of the word “success”.

Driven by the most challenging engineering projects, I have been working in several submarine programs around the world, I have developed unmanned surface vehicles (USVs), I have Co-Founded Acua Ocean, and I have developed the first Hydrogen-powered Unmanned Surface Vehicle (H-USV).

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Martin Gallardo

Juan H.

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