OM DENNE EPISODE
Most founders are drowning in noise. New AI tools every week. New frameworks every month. New "must-do" advice every scroll. Sebastian Haas built a filter that ignores almost all of it - and it's how he scaled Talon.One to 300 people across 55 nationalities, powering loyalty for Adidas, Sephora, KFC, Nordstrom and Joe & The Juice.
In this episode, Shamil sits down with Sebastian to unpack the way he actually thinks. Not the founder myth. The real operating system behind 10 years of building without burning out, without selling out, and without chasing a single hype cycle.
What you'll take from this conversation:
- The exact questions Sebastian asks before Talon.One adopts any new tool, trend, or AI feature - and why most founders skip them
- Why he killed AI features his own team wanted to ship, and what he replaced them with instead
- How "we'll be a 20-person company" became a 300-person global business - and why that mindset is the reason it worked
- The "no silos" principle that keeps a 55-nationality team from collapsing into politics
- Why building for an exit corrupts the product, and what to optimize for instead
- The founder transition nobody talks about: going from doing-it-all to alignment-first, and why most founders break here
- Why loyalty - not customer acquisition - is the real marketing battle of the next decade
If you're a founder who's tired of the hype cycle and just wants to build something that actually lasts, this one is for you.
👇 CONNECT SEBASTIAN HAAS
Sebastian Haas ► https://www.linkedin.com/in/haas-sebastian/
Talon.One ► https://www.talon.one/
👇 CONNECT WITH SHAMIL
Shamil Malachiyev ►http://www.linkedin.com/in/shamilmalachiyev
FluidLabs ► https://fluidlabs.com/
🎙 LISTEN to The Founder’s Code on
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7v6YOQ77R1xzbOiiHsDawd
Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-s-code/id1797768317
🔔 Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE for more unfiltered conversations with the founders and engineers building the future of tech.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:24 - Scaling TalonOne to 300 people across 55 nationalities
03:07 - Holding culture together when half the team is remote
11:42 - Why loyalty is replacing acquisition as the marketing battleground
14:46 - The future of personalization (and why "happy birthday coupons" don't count)
18:08 - Data privacy, consent, and the trust contract with customers
20:36 - How Sebastian followed his girlfriend to Berlin and ended up in startups
23:41 - Watching his first agency get acquired - and what he learned
27:14 - The "no silos" principle that runs TalonOne
32:52 - RapidApe: the TV analytics company that got acquired by ProSiebenSat.1
37:11 - Why building for an exit ruins the product
42:23 - From control-freak founder to alignment-first CEO
46:46 - Would AI tools have changed everything 10 years ago?
48:33 - The anti-hype framework: how Sebastian decides what AI to ignore
54:26 - Final advice for founders drowning in tech news
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