Disruption Insights: Innovation Is About Execution, Not About the Idea

Updated Apr 15, 2024 • 6 min read

Peter Grosskopf, an entrepreneur by heart who loves shaping organizations, teams, and company culture, gives us a sneak peek into his work, passions, and, obviously, his take on innovation.

Peter is Co-founder and CTO at Unstoppable Finance, a Berlin-based company with the mission to empower people around the world to access, interact with, and unlock financial opportunities in the decentralized economy. Their first product will be Ultimate, a multi-chain, fully non-custodial wallet that makes investing in decentralized finance (DeFi) accessible to everyday users.

Blockchain and decentralized finance have fascinated him from the moment he got to know these concepts back in 2016. Since then, he has been actively and consequently shaping the vision of bringing decentralized finance to everyday people. Get to know his take on innovation in fintech.

In the Disruption Insights series, we discover inspirations and insights from global innovators who shape how we live and do things today. True innovation doesn’t happen as an overnight breakthrough — it’s an ongoing process of constant trial and error done by teams and organizations who strive to solve real human problems. Peter Grosskopf is one of the people who push those ideas forward, making things possible.

💼 Corporate innovation

How do you choose one idea out of one hundred?

Innovation is not about the idea, but it’s about execution. You have to choose one idea and pursue it, otherwise, you will lose focus. I learned that making decisions based on your gut feeling is equally important to researching the market, analyzing existing solutions, or USP. This approach gives you flexibility, and if the initial idea does not work out, you still can change focus and try something new.

How do you convince decision-makers to back innovative ideas?

Luckily, in my organization, I’ve always been a key decision-maker. I encourage teammates to feel and act like entrepreneurs — if I’m a co-founder, it’s not only my company, it’s ours. I give them ownership and make them feel responsible for the direction the company is heading to.

One thing you’d change about your work

It’s so much fun I forget to take breaks, thus I need to constantly remind myself to get some rest.

💪 Innovation mindset

One personality trait that helps you at your daily job

I trust my teammates, so I give them a lot of freedom to choose the best way of creating a certain solution. I see myself more as a director, navigating people, and a coach who supports them along the way.

What drives you at work?

I’m an entrepreneur by heart. I love building and shaping organizations, teams, company culture, and businesses. I’m very thankful I can spend most of my time in the future, thinking about what’s coming next. What’s more, I’m privileged to work with the best people I can think of, so I learn something new every single day.

Your dream profession when you were 20

When I graduated from school, I wanted to be an architect. Interestingly, I somehow ended up in programming and IT. It was my parents’ first PC (386) that brought me into this fascinating world, and I’m happy it went that way. Still, once I retire, I want to go back to university and study architecture to build the house we will get old in … :-)

The biggest milestone in your career path

Being self-employed and a founder while finishing university was the kickstart for my career. I’d created the foundation for my professional network and then was able to build on top of that.

The second milestone definitely involves joining Solaris (formerly Solarisbank). It was the most stimulating experience in my life. I got into the finance and banking space as a total cold starter, so I had to learn everything, including regulation and compliance, ground up. My creativity and experience in tech helped me to connect and capitalize on both of these worlds: running a Spotify-like tech organization and being a bank at the same time.

The biggest accomplishment in your career path

With co-founding a bank and building up an exchange platform for trading digital assets, I’m probably one of the very few people who did both. Now, with Unstoppable Finance, I’m starting something completely new involving DeFi and Web3.

💡 Inspiration corner

Biggest source of daily inspiration

Talking with people at events or within my team, listening to podcasts, and playing sports. In general, spending time outside really stimulates my brain.

Books that inspire you

Oddly enough, I don’t read many books. I read a lot of articles on Medium.com, Messari.io (research on crypto markets), newspapers (German “Handelsblatt”), and magazines like “Technology Review” and “The Economist.”