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!

Costheta

Providing Business Strategy to SMB (Small to Medium Business) in the Energy Sector. 

Helping Turn Ambition into Action

Business Owner

Aker Solutions

• Mechanical Lead for numerous Early Phase Studies including Skarv Host, SRU and WP Decommissioning
• Responsible for the following equipment, Gas Injection Compressor Rebundle, SRU, MEG Pumps, Produced Water booster pumps and Chemical Injection Packages 
• Supervision and delegation of responsibility and scope to Mechanical Engineering Team and Vendors. Assuming responsibility for the quality of the work and achieving deadlines
• Support to Engineering Management on integration of external partners for collaborative working.
• Attendance and active participation in Study Reviews such as System, Layout, Risk and Weight.

Lead Mechanical Engineer (Consultant)

Equinor

Providing Project & Mechanical support for Concept and Early Phase Studies. With a focus on unmanned oil & gas and wind farms projects, and new technology qualification.

Accomplishments at Equinor
•	Initiated and facilitated workshops to align project management teams and stakeholders, defining and prioritising project challenges. Bringing clarity to new situations, allowing them to be solved in a safe and efficient manner. 
•	Initiated and led adaption of project execution, procurement and quality strategies, and processes for purchasing of all equipment and bulks, across projects addressing the unique technical challenges of the unmanned concept. 
•	Launched and led package simplifications and optimisations based on maintenance figures and RCM requirements. Delivering simplified and improved design, layout and material handling, with significant savings of 20% in CAPEX & OPEX over the lifecycle. 
•	Deputised for engineering manager to produce Scope of Services and associated technical appendices for Concept Select and FEED. Ensuring that all company and regulatory requirements for all disciplines, were communicated clearly and concisely, with manageable milestones.

Project and Mechanical Engineer (Consultant - Category 4 - Specialist)

Provided mechanical support on AkerBP Projects. As package engineer responsible for:

o	Hydrocyclone Package.
o	Produced Water Cooler (Plate & Frame).
o	Deluge Skid.
o	Separator Internal Replacement.

•	Provided extensive engineering support for procurement, with a systematic approach to multi-discipline and vendor input, ensuring that all PO requirements were met. This included completion of technical PO documentation, technical bid evaluation, deviation reviews, and technical selection of package suppliers.
•	Worked closely with procurement, coordinating and communicating with suppliers and associates disciplines. Expediting vendor progress to project plan ensuring schedule is maintained.
•	Chaired and recorded minutes for bid clarification, kick-off and progress meetings with vendors, client, and other supporting disciplines.
•	Managed execution of all aspects of design, fabrication testing and delivery, as well as suppliers’ interfaces, third parties and multi-discipline engineering input. including installation, factory acceptance, hyrdo-test/leak tests, preservation and pre-commissioning.

Accomplishments:
•	Produced high quality Purchase Order documentation, gathering discipline and supplier input in short time frames, enabling schedule to be maintained.

Senior Mechanical Engineer (Consultant)

Premier Oil

Applied mechanical engineering, project management, and leadership experience during the differing phases of the Bream/Vette FEED. 

o	Sevan 650 FPSO, Oslo (Nov 2014 – March 2015)
o	Sevan 650 FPSO Optimisation Phase, Stavanger (March 2015–Sept 2015)
o	Redeployments, Trondheim/Esbjerg; Maersk Inspire and Teekay Varg (Sept 2015  - March 2016)

•	Review and selection of all topside mechanical equipment and input to several marine and safety packages. 
•	Engaged market to obtaining Mechanical supplier design data, during optimisation phase challenging the SEVAN 650 FPSO design. Resulting in a reduction of equipment, saving weight and cost.
•	Authored various project studies including, Heat Exchanger, Vessel and Scrubber Selection Review, Compressor Concept Selection, Mercury Removal and Produced Water Optimisation. Along with input and review of company internal documents, such as scope of work, basis of design, and functional requirements. 
•	Ensured operational efficiency by managing Rotating Engineer Specialist during FEED, while supervising FEED contractor teams in meeting company requirements. 
•	Actively participated in project meetings across all FEEDs, including kick off, design review, HAZOP, and weekly meetings. 

Accomplishments:
•	Challenged over-engineering during the Sevan 650 Post-FEED Optimisation phase, reducing equipment, weight and cost.
•	Developed simplified company requirements, promoting low cost technical solutions during vendor engagement, preventing sub-contractor preferential engineering, assuring low cost engineering on a marginal field.

Wood Group Mustang

Utilised engineering and package management skills on the Iver Aasen project operated by Det Norske, serving as a package engineer.

o	Slop Water Treatment (compact flotation unit) 
o	Coarse Seawater Filter

•	Provided extensive engineering support for procurement, with a systematic approach to multi-discipline and vendor input, ensuring that all PO requirements were met. This included completion of technical PO documentation, technical bid evaluation, deviation reviews, and technical selection of package suppliers.
•	Managed execution of all aspects of design, fabrication and delivery, as well as suppliers’ interfaces, third parties, ensuring multi-discipline engineering input. 
•	Chaired and recorded minutes for bid clarification, PO kick off, and engineering meetings, including client, package follow up and internal engineering across all disciplines.  
•	Provided mechanical engineering input to project HAZOPs and close out all mechanical, materials and supplier HAZOP actions. 
•	Addressed all supplier technical queries and management of change for the packages. 
•	Checked, evaluated and commented on technical specifications, datasheets, requisitions, supplier document requirement list (SDRL), technical bid evaluations, and deviation requests across various mechanical packages.

Accomplishments:
•	Instrumental in removal of fine filtration package, allowing seawater filtration to be a single package rather than two individual packages. 
•	Inherited poor quality package documentation, which was rewritten and updated in a very short time frame, insuring schedule was maintained.

Principal Mechanical Engineer (Consultant)

Provided Mechanical support on Esso BSSA/Jette Project for Det Norske & Exxon (Stavanger). Nexen Project and Buzzard major projects (Aberdeen). As package engineer responsible for: 

o	Hose loading station.
o	Temporary wax inhibitor skid.
o	MEG injection, and chemical injection package.
o	Sand handling package, including pressure vessel and eductors.
o	Hot water calorifier.

Accomplishments:
•	Delivered Hose Station to very aggressive schedule, when an inexperienced vendor was awarded the package before my start date on the Project. Vendor required a large amount of engineering support to produce sufficient quality documentation. Furthermore, delivery was only achieved by manually managing a documentation review cycle of days, rather than the standard 2 weeks.

PD&MS

Project Engineer on FPSO Fionaven – Life Extension - Lifeboat and Accommodation Upgrade. Responsibilities included:

•	Production of project cost, time and resources. Development and maintenance of project plans and execution strategy. Along with management of multi-discipline engineering team.
•	Review of supplier survey and analysis reports, preparing and presenting of findings to partners. This included green sea, blast and jet fire, all internal and external modifications.

Project Engineer (Consultant)

Package Responsible Engineer for:
Refrigeration System Upgrade.
Laboratory Container.
Three Phase Separator including Process Internals.
Hydrocyclone Skid.

Responsible for day-to-day running of these projects.
Includes bid review, overall design, fabrication, commissioning and delivery. 
Production of Specifications and Requisitions.
Daily communicating with suppliers and co-workers across varying disciplines.
Relied upon to make sound engineering decisions based on relevant Codes and Specification.
Review of all supplier documentation, from design calculation to drawings and procedures.

Aberdeen August 2008 – June 2009. Project: Maersk - Lochranza	
Developed Datasheets and Specification for the Lochranza Chemical Injection Package. 

Talisman – Bleo Holm FPSO	
Study of Deaerator Package Replacement including development of enquiry Specifications.
Study of Coarse Backwash Filter failure and Vessel Manway Replacement-
Production of SOR and Specification, for provision of Temporary Steam Generation Package.


Nexen - Buzzard	
Developed Datasheets and Specification for Synthetic Lube Oil Cooler and Export Oil Mixer.
Production of PED Technical Files and verification of materials certificates.

Fairfield - 	
Fit-For-Purpose Assessment of the Drilling Mud Degasser Vessel.

Mechanical Engineer

Maersk Oil

Dumbarton FPSO Upgrade
Initially based in the office providing 2D CAD draughting for process and instrument deliverables and producing Datasheets.  Once on-site placed in charge of punch-lists coordination. Also reviewed, updated and wrote various commissioning procedures for topsides equipment packages.

Under Graduate Commissioning Engineer

Mechanical engineer, with a track record of delivering greenfield and brownfield topsides engineering, for harsh offshore environments. Accomplished in many aspects of the delivery chain including concept, FEED, detailed engineering, fabrication and commissioning.  Constantly, utilise excellent interpersonal skills to work closely with procurement and multi-discipline engineering. Have instigated and implemented low cost solutions reducing CAPEX & OPEX. I maintain a systematic approach, minimising design changes, preferential engineering and subsequent cost increase. Assuring regulatory and company technical requirements are met in a safe, timely and cost-effective manner. 

taplio

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Martin Gallardo

Scott Mckendrick

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Martin Gallardo's LinkedIn Performance

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