Killing the VC Reflex to Build Spiich

I first met Johan in Berlin, when I was just beginning my VC career and he was at Leap435. Even then, he stood out, a mix of data obsession and restless curiosity, the kind of person who could analyse 25,000 startups by team composition in the morning and then argue over dinner about why most investor pattern-matching is broken :)

Now, Johan has crossed the table, from investor to founder, building Spiich Labs in Stockholm, “the AI colleague every sales professional wishes they had.” He recently closed a round with founders and operators at Lovable, Tandem Health, OpenAI, Neo4j, among others.

No more wrestling with CRMs; Spiich lets you update deals, get meeting briefings, and automate the drudgery of data entry with just voice or chat. It’s a leap few make, and even fewer survive without clichés. We sat down to talk about what happens when you stop funding conviction and start living it.

Q&A - Johan Torssell - Spiich

What’s the first “VC reflex” you had to kill to survive as a founder?

Stop relying on others. As a founder, there’s no one coming to save you. You don’t have the luxury of over-analysing or waiting for perfect information. You just have to get things done. In VC, there's urgency - but in startups, urgency becomes survival. There’s no such thing as postponing a decision, waiting for a lead VC, or taking a weekend off.

In the chaos of Spiich, how do you know what to deliberately ignore and what to prioritize?

If it doesn’t create value for current or future customers, I don’t spend time on it. It’s simple, yet incredibly hard. One of our more experienced angels gave me advice I live by: “Don’t do anything that isn’t about hiring, product, or sales.” It’s tempting to save money by doing your own admin or accounting, but those hours cost more than they save.

When did watching stop being enough?

The tipping point was seeing how universally sales professionals hate admin. I’ve never seen such consistent hatred for one aspect of work. That emotional intensity was the clearest signal: there’s something deeply broken here, and no one’s fixing it.

The hidden tax of crossing the table

The psychological weight is immense. As a founder, the uncertainty is relentless and the ownership is absolute - no one pushes you, and if you fail, you're done. You have to do everything at once, and everything feels like a survival-level priority: hiring exceptional talent fast without lowering the bar, building a product that truly solves painful problems, and distributing it effectively to deliver real value. It takes an almost irrational level of intrinsic drive to show up every day and execute, especially when the path is unclear. But that’s also what makes it fun - the intensity, the stakes, and the clarity of purpose.

If you could rewrite the VC-founder conversation

Fundraising also revealed a clear gap in how investors engage. With many European VCs, the process was slow and cautious, focusing on protecting downside rather than seeing the upside - some even asked for detailed financial projections, despite us being a pre-revenue startup. In contrast, angels (especially those based in the US) were fast, decisive, and hands-on. We had full commitment and top-tier intros to startup legends after just a 20-minute call. The difference in pace and conviction was unreal.

Looking ahead to 2030

I hope people say: “They never lost focus.” That we built Spiich by relentlessly prioritising what creates value for customers - and ignored everything else.

The non-obvious origin story

An old manager at IBM truly shaped how I lead. Brutally honest, always straight to the point, and obsessed with understanding the value behind every action. That mindset stuck with me.

What’s something you respect about founders now that you didn’t “get” as an investor?

Reaching €100k ARR. As an investor, it sounds like a small milestone. But as a founder, I’ve come to respect how much relentless work, focus, and execution it takes to get there. Nothing is handed to you. Every customer, every euro, is earned through persistence and iteration. I didn’t fully grasp how hard the early grind really is until I lived it.

-

If you’re interested in backing the next wave of AI-native workflow infrastructure, or want to support the team redefining sales enablement from first principles, reach out to Johan at johan@spiichlabs.com