At Pirate Summit, we had the opportunity to talk to Felipe Millan. He is the Community Development Manager — Developer Evangelist of email delivery service SendGrid, a Denver, Colorado-based customer communication platform for transactional and marketing emails.

Originally from Santiago, Chile, that is also where his entrepreneurial journey started. Right after an earthquake, he started an entrepreneurship agency with his brother, helping people start and grow their own companies. Both of his parents are entrepreneurs, and even his grandparents had their own businesses. At the age of 16, Millan started selling second-hand instruments. After that, he started getting into online marketing. We talked to Millan about success, advice, and failures.

What does success look like to you?
“Success to me means a happy steady mind: when you feel like you’re doing something good. Or when you’re feeling that somebody else, based on your feedback and story, is rethinking what they’re doing. If they then actually take action in one way or another, that doesn’t matter. But when people say ‘It is really interesting, I didn’t think about it’, or when they can learn from my f*ck-ups; that’s success to me.

As a startup guy, I don’t have a unicorn or a company worth a hundred million dollars. But I can still share my failures, and that is part of why I am still happy today.”

“…if something does not make sense, that is the first red flag.”

What advice would you give to someone who thinks about setting up a company?
“I would tell them to be honest with themselves and check whether their idea makes sense. Go out into the streets, give a short pitch to people, and ask them what they think. I once participated in one of the Lean Startup Machine workshops in Chile, because I wanted to make an app that helped me get money back from my friends. I kept paying for my friends when going out and it’s awkward to ask your money back. You’re not going to ask your friends ‘can I have my money back?’ five times a week, but as a student, I needed my money. So, I pitched the idea at the Lean Startup Machine, and they selected me. I had a team of five guys and I was the only local. During the workshop, we had to go out — get out of the building. And, in five hours we made $150 with the team. The simple question we asked people in the streets was ‘would you pay a monthly subscription to get your money back from your friends?’, and many people were like ‘f*ck yeah’!

What I took from that experience is that if the first twelve people tell you it doesn’t make sense reshape it — I believe that if something does not make sense, that is the first red flag. And making sense is not the same as your idea being useless, stupid or bold. It’s just that first reaction that you have to things, like finding something interesting — then it probably makes sense and you you can think about how to execute that idea to make it useful. So, then go back onto the street: First, explain the problem. Then, ask them if the problem makes sense to them: ‘I can’t get my money back from my friends. Would you use an app to get your money back?’. People will tell you from their point of view if it makes sense. To me, that’s the most simple, basic discovery. That allows you to ask yourself ‘how can I make it? How can I find out if it’s worth building?’.

I also use the grandma test. I go to my grandma and ask if she has the problem. She will then ask me why I want to make it. She will ask me numerous times. And that helps me to shape it.”

“Co-founding with a friend is not necessarily a good match.”

What would you consider your biggest failure and what can other people learn from that?
“I chose the worst co-founder that I could have ever imagined. In two weeks, he killed two years of our company. He burned out the whole shed. He disappeared with everything. It was painful. I lost a lot of friends because focusing on that startup for that long. After working on a project for a long time, I felt like I needed a co-founder. He was a friend. He was great at coding. Then something in his personal life happened and he disappeared.

Co-founding with a friend is not necessarily a good match: you have to be in control of everything. For example, I trusted my co-founder blindly, and I didn’t ask him to document the accounts, or access to these accounts somewhere. I took care of the strategy, and follow-ups, but when I asked him where the actual software was he was gone. We were in an accelerator with the company, and all of a sudden I had to tell them I didn’t have a company anymore.

They say starting a company is all about the relationships you create, and that is true. You’re going to spend more time with that person and that team than your partner. You’re with them every day. Your co-founder is the one who sits next to you, who tells you when you’re wrong. And you need someone who can take criticism, and who can listen to your points and who can help reflect on your own thoughts. If you have that, you have the right co-founder.”

What do you consider your biggest struggle right now?
“It’s way too easy to come up with a startup idea now, so I would say the struggle is about ‘stop[ping] the bullshit in the startup scene’. You can just buy any SaaS platform or full-made app, create a landing page, and you have a company. But to me that doesn’t mean you have a company, you need to create your company. You need to know how to scale and how to grow it. I also think that there’s too much access to proper mentorship and proper knowledge, but some people are not taking it: they’re filling their minds with their Silicon Valley-show mindset.

The best decision, as an entrepreneur, that I made in my life is to join a company with a startup mindset: SendGrid. It’s the first startup from Techstars to IPO NYSE: SEND, which happened in November 2017. In my three years at the company, the main thing I have learned is how important processes are. Many founders say it’s corporate BS, that it’s not lean and that it’s stupid, but I see it differently. Right now, we sit down and think about why we do something: What do you want to get back from it? How are you going to call a campaign successful? What is the value proposition? My manager and director is always telling me to write these goals down in a document. And it’s not about writing a long document, but about knowing why you’re doing something and what you want to get out of it and what kind of tools and implementation, will be defined after it’s agreed as a team that that project is needed. After that as a team you can see if you already have the resources and tools, maybe someone in the team is already working on it or has the tools or resources to execute it. Basically, you’re creating a strategy that reminds you of why you’re committing to these processes.

I think that the founders that really learn and have learned from their failures are the ones that are in this environment for about five years. To me, because of working at SendGrid, I finally ‘got it’. And that brought me to now first putting down my thoughts and then start doing things.”

What is your favourite quote, something you live by?
“My personal favourite quote is “Just be happy”. If you’re not happy while running your startup, you’re doing something extremely wrong. Everybody wants to make an impact. Everybody wants to be a billionaire. But if you are not happy, nobody will be happy. Whenever I see the CEO SendGrid he always has a huge smile, ear to ear, on his face. But he’s also extremely focused. For example, I’ve only been to the headquarters of the company in Denver a few times over the last three years — but he knows my name. He makes sure he knows my name. He asks me about my family, added me on Facebook, and he even shares his family life there — so I can see that side of him too. I could not join a company where someone doesn’t do that. To me, family comes first. And that implies for me that when you’re not happy as a founder then you’re not focused. So, just be happy.”

Felipe Millan (SendGrid) on bad co-founders, joining a company with a startup mindset, and… was originally published in Startup Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What does Zalster do?
“We’ve developed a Facebook Ads automation platform, along with a Slackbot. We give advertisers the opportunity to automate, optimize and manage their Facebook ads. By doing so, we’re solving the problem of marketers being dependent on their gut feeling of what works and what doesn’t. Through this automation, done via algorithms, advertisers save a lot of time and they can execute 24/7.”

What motivated you to start building this tool?
“I started using Facebook in 2008, and have been an intense user ever since. Between 2011 and 2015, before starting Zalster, I worked at an e-commerce company where we had a massive budget, which led to a huge opportunity getting past some of the problems we ran in to — one of them being optimization of ads and doing that 24/7. We wanted to take optimizations to the next level. My colleagues and I could only work from 9 to 5 during the week, while these ads continued running. The solution we created turned into Zalster. We chose Facebook and not Google, because that was already much more mature in partnerships. Facebook didn’t have that at the time. Plus, they were still acquiring high-growth platforms like Instagram and Whatsapp.

So, with my two co-founders, who also worked at the same e-commerce company, we decided to quit and found Zalster, to solve the problems we experienced every day at our previous job. Zalster is my first company so I wasn’t an entrepreneur before this.”

What motivated you to choose the entrepreneurial path?
“We took a leap of faith. That’s the power of being three people, it’s easier to start and take the decision. We were in it together; the worst-case scenario would be that we had to find another job, which isn’t such a big risk if you think about it.

We had a good network since before, so we knew we could get clients from the get go. But it took a while before we could sell the product, because our initial development process took one and a half year. That’s why we acted more like an agency in the beginning — we kept consulting, and in the meanwhile we developed the product. That agency work led to revenue, but it’s fake revenue, right? Because it came from those consultancy hours and we didn’t take a salary. We had done a small funding round of 30K EUR, the only round we did, before doing a seed round a year and a half later. But, because we did some revenue already the terms were in our favor. And although it’s been three years since we started Zalster, we — the founders — still don’t take proper salaries.”

What’s growth like?
“We’re now trying to grow organically. We’re growing in a healthy pace with seventeen employees now, while a year ago we were just with six. We had a bit of a ramping-up phase, in which we also had some hard lessons. For example, how important it is to have a proper interview process before actually hiring someone.”

“Being at a company for five years is super comfortable, so it was a barrier to actually just jump ship.”

So, what have you implemented from these learnings?
“Now, our hiring process consist of three interview rounds: The first round, in which we just have a chat with the candidate to see it it’s a personal fit, is with me. In the second round, depending on the role though, we give the candidate a case to work on. We then on the third interview introduce the candidate to a couple of employees — to see if it’s a suitable person for the culture of Zalster. That’s also a way for the candidate to feel if he or she would fit at Zalster. That’s something we didn’t do properly before when we were expanding rapidly.

Another lesson learned through hiring new people, is that you shouldn’t be too desperate to find talent. Now, we have a good pool of candidates that are really interesting. We are interested in employing some of those people, but not now — maybe we’ll take them on in the near future. Having that network is saving a lot of time, it takes away that urgency. That is also why we leave the job openings on our site, to see if interesting people apply, and keep them in our network.”

In that switch from being an employee to founding your own company, were there any barriers you had to break to do this?
“I sold my house to be able to afford it — that’s a big step. My fiancé and I moved to a rental apartment instead. So that was a barrier. Being at a company for five years is super comfortable, so it was a barrier to actually just jump ship. I loved the job, so that was tough. But, as a coincidence, my boss also quit when we quit. For us that meant that we could take him on as a chairman for Zalster, and keep him in our network. So, in hindsight, jumping ship all at the same time worked out well.”

At what point did you realize that this decision was a success? And what defines success in your book?
“I don’t like the word success. I think it’s super personal to decide when something is successful. I feel successful when my work is challenging me, and when I still consider it an adventure that we’re on… It’s still a struggle, because everything is still so unknown, our costs are increasing with our employees, and marketing, and so on. But that is exactly what makes me very excited to go to work every day. So, that is what success means to me; having a job that challenges me.”

What are the challenges that you’re currently facing?
“We struggle with challenges like ‘how to expand the market’, and knowing how to take the next step. We could miss out on an opportunity if we don’t know where to look for it. So we need to find such opportunities and that’s a challenge now.

Product-wise, I feel that we’re really on point, so nothing with the product feels unstable right now. It’s more about the commercial challenges.”

“Pricing is kind of a broad subject, but it is something that we have in common with a lot of other startups.”

What does a productive day look like to you?
“In my position, it is my goal to streamline as much as possible in the organization. When employing someone, that is because their work is needed. And maybe if we were to streamline something, to patch it together in a different way, we perhaps wouldn’t have to hire someone or take unnecessary costs. It’s my goal to figure that out. Therefore, a productive day to me would be when I’m able to identify all those things that we could to do make everything go round in a better way. It could be one small thing that would save us money, but it is my job to find that small thing.

Another productive feeling for me, is having a lot of sales meetings and meetings with clients. Or sitting down with our Chief Product Officer to just work with him.”

What’s the biggest hiccup you encountered?
“There are a lot of hiccups that we’ve encountered over the past years. The first thing that comes to mind is pricing. We thought that we had a good way of pricing our product(s), but no one is complaining at our pricing today. That makes me think that we’re too cheap, because nobody is complaining. So, I just imagine how much money we have potentially lost in not having a proper pricing of our product. Pricing is kind of a broad subject, but it is something that we have in common with a lot of other startups. Before we set the price, I read a lot of articles on how you have to dare to set a proper price, so that encouraged me, but I think we lost a lot of money despite that. That’s an ongoing pain point for us.

Another thing I struggle with is (not) having a proper way of working with one-to-one’s with employees, or the onboarding of new employees. We’ve done that too much in an old-school kind of way. I would really recommend Radical Candor by Kim Scott to everyone, because that has changed the way I look at employees, having productive meetings and basically human relations in general.”

What kind of advice would you give your younger self?
“Quit your job earlier! I think we lost a lot of opportunity when it comes to the market we’re in: We started Zalster in 2015, but we had a prototype in 2011. So we were starting Zalster in 2011, but it was too premature. If I could give myself a memo, it would thus be to quit earlier. I feel that we missed out on an interesting growth phase by a couple of years.

Another thing I would tell myself is to not wait too long when launching a product. A year and a half — like we took to develop a first version — is too long. If we had more confidence in the product in that early stage, we could also have acquired leads earlier.”

“Getting funding is not a compliment”

What do you look forward to solving in the future?
“A struggle for us as founders, is that we’re not taking a proper salary. We’re living on credit cards. That’s a great struggle for all of us. But then again, that’s also motivating you to make profit and stabilize the company.”

What do future founders need to know?
“Product-wise, don’t look at your competitors: that will keep you behind at all times. Decide upon what you want to solve, and do it your way. Don’t look at what competitors do, or at their pricing: just solve what you want to solve. Also, read that book (Radical Candor) as soon as you can! Anyone working in a team should read it.

Also, don’t be blinded by the idea that making a financial round is some kind of success. Getting funding is not a compliment; make sure you earn money because that is when you start providing value.”

Albin Stööp (Zalster) on quitting your job, (missed) opportunities, & product revenue was originally published in Startup Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“I’m not the sole founder of CryptoKitties,” Bladon emphasizes before the interview. “There’s founding team of about a dozen team members from Axiom Zen [the startup studio home to CryptoKitties and ZenHub]. No one person is they key to the success of CryptoKitties. It’s a decentralized effort, like blockchain technology enables. A lot of what makes our product is the creative talent behind it.”

The founding team was able to witness an exponential product growth: “We had 88.000 registered wallet addresses after ten days, and 200.000 after two weeks: It went fast… It’s been a trip. So the first 12 to 20 people were all Axiom Zen, and now we’re up to over 25 team members, many of whom we hired from the community. And now we’re starting to look at other things we can do with this technology.”

Can you tell us a bit about the idea behind CryptoKitties?
“The general thesis of CryptoKitties was building a bridge to the blockchain for everyday users — people who do not know what an ICO is or what DLT means. We decided that the best way to do this was to deliver a practical and innovative product Most of the focus on blockchain technology has been on cryptocurrencies, but that is a narrow view of what this technology is capable of. We saw an opportunity to do something new: cryptocollectibles.

Co-founder Mack Flavelle was the first person to suggest putting cats on the blockchain, using the Internet’s mascot to get people to engage with blockchain technology. Co-founder Dieter Shirley saw an opportunity to do something new and interesting; he’s the one who authored the now-standard in non-fungible (i.e. non-cryptocurrency) tokens. I saw an opportunity to actually create a blockchain project with personality, one that didn’t use jargon, that wasn’t hypothetical, and most of all, was fun for industry insiders and the the everyday user.

We found that the best way to forward this new technology was with a game, or a platform with gamified aspects, because games are typically found at the forefront of technologies. That gave our developers the space to play with it, and it allowed us to leverage the novelty of introducing people to blockchain.”

“The concept for CryptoKitties took off because it’s on the blockchain, but that also means that a lot of it is transparent.”

Can you clarify how the team, or the community, plays a role? Your users can eventually ‘run’ the platform, right?
“They can. The modular design, the extensibility of an idea, product, and a platform. That can motivate a core development team: if we had just launched this platform and then left it, it would be very likely that someone would’ve taken the concept, used our smart contracts, and deliver the UX experience that we are at now. Technically, that is possible. But that is what serves to motivate us. It’s not a matter of competition disrupting us, but if we don’t continually deliver to our users they might overtake us. That is also why so much of our newer talent comes directly from the community.

The concept for CryptoKitties took off because it’s on the blockchain, but that also means that a lot of it is transparent. Our community of independent developers could have access to the platform and the player base. They just have to develop a more interesting or better experience. So, we saw different experiences bubbling up, from kitty sales to kitty races to kitty hats. Someone even made a kitty calculator that will tell you what the children of the cats will look like! That feature, our most-requested one, was made by a community member.”

How come that CryptoKitties is one of the first successful projects on the blockchain?
“It wasn’t the first, and it depends on how you define successful. For example, CryptoPunks actually preceded us. We had the benefit of looking at what they did. With CryptoPunks for example, their art was quite simple — nothing wrong with that, but we thought we could do something a little more interesting there. Also, we had ambitions like adding animations to the cats; we introduced the hats, and environments. Another thing is that they [CryptoPunks] immediately launched with 10000 trading cards — that’s it. What we learned from that is to make sure that more tokens were gradually introduced to the ecosystem without exponentially releasing them, to avoid that the tokens would plummet in value.

That’s how we came up with the concept of ‘breeding’ and rules for the breeding, and using it as a gamified aspect. For a while, collecting and breeding was the extent of the core experience. However, we recently revealed the KittyVerse, which represents CryptoKitties move from product to platform and serves as our way of formally endorsing the dozens of complementary games, tools, and experiences independent creators are working on. These tools leverage the tokens that represent each CryptoKitty in a variety of ways. These creators can apply for the NIFTY Program to receive tools and training directly from the team — some folks may even see some funding. And because this is a blockchain platform, these creators don’t owe us a dime: instead, they diversify the ecosystem, provide nearly infinite experiences and utility for every unique CryptoKitty, and give players, the core team, and other developers more value as a result.”

The growth of CryptoKitties went super fast, especially in the first month. How did you deal with this?
“Our immediate solution was to transfer some team members from other projects [in Axiom Zen]. The long-term solution was that we revisited our planning processes, which allowed for a lot more room for flexibility. And then there are the little things: we’re condensed on the West coast, and although we’re an international team we’re mostly in the same time zone. As a result, there are some blind spots: some developments happened when most of us were sleeping. So we coded an emergency response system: if something goes down now, one of the developers gets a signal to address it.

I’ll be frank; we’re still overcoming some of the challenges of blockchain. Running into these problems is an amazing learning experience and the only way it will realize it’s potential. And the technology has immense potential, but we need to go beyond talking about its limitless potential. We need to look at what other people have done and what you can do differently, to overcome these problems and keep innovating. There are going to be mistakes we make, or that others make, but the technology is going to be better for it, the user experience will be better for it, and we will all eventually will be better for it.”

“… a quality user experience is always popular.”

As you mentioned, CryptoKitties is still being developed. How’s growth now?
“It’s steady. The speculation aspect of the blockchain is something we very actively tried to overcome — the insanity of the first month was nice, but also created high expectations. Frankly, I’m thankful that the growth has slowed down because it allows us to proactively develop, not react to putting fires out all the time.

We have international launches, partner experiences, and a whole lot of player-first projects aimed at overcoming some of blockchain’s biggest onboarding challenges soon.”

Can you pinpoint what makes CryptoKitties so popular?
“Making it fun, user-friendly, and accessible. Whether you’re a hardcore blockchain fanatic or a first-time blockchain user, a quality user experience is always popular.

CryptoKitties has good design at it’s backbone, from the UI to the cats themselves. Our art director created these cats with modular components, and there are over seventeen billion combinations. There are cats that look utterly ridiculous; there are cats that look stunningly beautiful. The nature of that thoughtful design is that there’s literally a cat for everyone. Likewise, the front-end design: the player menu…

That is one of those things that show that you’re thoughtful of the choices in this space. It’s similar to how Bitcoin dominates the idea of what blockchain is and what a blockchain currency is. Intentionally or not, we set the standard for what a cryptocollectible looks like and how you sell them because you’re the most visible success story. For example, one of our last-minute implementations was a visualization of the auction process. Two weeks later, every cryptocollectible game had one of those!“

It’s very interesting to see how everyone is so supportive of each other in the crypto-space. Can you explain that?
“The collegial aspect of decentralization is unique and wonderful. It’s not all sunshine and roses, of course, but we try to focus on the fun and delight-driven stuff — others have the doom and gloom covered. We’re all in this together right now, figuring stuff out and trying to decide what the next horizon looks like. There will be projects that reach critical mass and define what success now looks like. And that success is going to influence ideas and ways of thinking, but it’s up to us how we treat each other — that’s always up to us. Everyone talks about how important culture-fit is, but at the end of day, that is what it boils down to: every person I worked with is enthusiastic about the work we’re doing. I would never expect anyone in my team to say ‘this is not my problem’. For example, our art director woke up at 5AM to send me good luck messages for my talk today. Not expected and not his job, but it’s a big reason why I’m so excited to work with folks like him every day.”

“Making someone experience something and find value somewhere they didn’t before is what we’re setting out to do here.”

What are your measures for success?
“We have a lot of considerations, but it’s mostly to engage people. That top of the funnel is incredibly difficult for blockchain. Bringing in new users is a challenge. Some elements are almost completely beyond our control. To me, success is new user acquisition, engagement, and outsider understanding.

It also matters how you measure the ‘hype’; I made a rule in the first week — we can only talk about cat sales as an exception to the rule. We do not want to feed into investment froth. We don’t want to be construed as a way to get rich. Yes, you can make money, but the takeaway is that digital assets have value — not that someone struck digital, furry-faced gold. You play it, enjoy it, and find value in it. And that value might not be in financial terms, and that’s fine — in fact, to me, that’s better. Making someone experience something and find value somewhere they didn’t before is what we’re setting out to do here.

There’s a player who made over a millions dollars playing the game, but he had the capital necessary to do that. And there’s a reason why we never talked about this guy, or why he hasn’t talked about it: like us, he didn’t want people to think that this is an easy thing anyone can do. Seeing our ideas distributed about how to shape the future: that is all an element of success to me. We don’t just want to be a part of blockchain’s future, we want to shape it in a positive way that makes it better for everyone.”

How do you measure engagement?
“Daily active users per days per week… We might shift that, it’s the Facebook model and we’re not a social media company. I want to create an engaging game, not an exploitative one that people find addictive. User friendly does not mean being constantly engaged, but that the user finds it friendly.”

So, what is the business model?
“We collect 3.75% on every cat sold on the market place. It’s possible to go around our marketplace if you want to. We also collect the proceeds of every “Gen 0” CryptoKitty: the cats that are released by our smart contract every fifteen minutes for the first year.”

What’s the biggest failure, or what’s the tip you would give your younger self, something you wished you would’ve know sooner?
“The best way to capitalize on an opportunity or overcome a challenge is to actually get started on it. Your first attempt may not be the best one — or even a viable one — but talking and considering the issue will always be less impactful than actually engaging with it. This is true in both personal terms and business terms. So much of blockchain funding and thinking was based on hypothetical potential, big promises, and a lot of snakeoil. Building, shipping, and improving CryptoKitties has given our team some of the deepest insights in the industry, and delivering the practical product resonated with an international audience at a yet-unseen scale.

Thoughtfulness is good and big ideas are great, but they are untested and ill-considered until you do something with them. So regardless of whether it’s a passion project, a big idea, or the next cultural sensation, prioritize step one, don’t expect it to be perfect, and don’t neglect the follow through and reflection from there.”

Using (Crypto)Kitties to introduce the world to blockchain was originally published in Startup Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Traynor typically speaks and blogs about product (how to keep your product relevant, product strategy for the long run, product management at fast growing company, etc.), various AI topics, customer engagement and the challenges of growing a product-first company. Before Intercom, he was co-founder of Exceptional (now a part of Rackspace), the first error tracking company. Before Exceptional, he was a UX designer for web apps. He’s based in Dublin.

At The Next Web, Traynor spoke about building a product when scaling a company, and building a company that lasts and thrives in a fast-growth environment. We sat down with him to dive a little deeper into these topics.

How do you create missions and values?
“Our mission, from the very start, is to make Internet business personal. These are our values at a company level: we try to serve people and do so in the way we believe good work happens. Additionally, we had an idea about what values the sort of people that will work at Intercom had, and how we should treat each other. A big change that we later on made was that a lot of teams had created their own sort of ideas and values. Then, we decided to write all these ideas and values down on a whiteboard: every single thing. And then we looked at the most common, universal elements, that we could support company wide. They have become our master values. And today, there’s literally a book, which is created as a children’s storybook, that we printed which contains a walk-through with every single value of Intercom, so these master values of the company.

Still, we encourage the teams to have their own specific values, as long as it’s unique to the way the team has to work. And as long as those values don’t contradict the overall values. But there are values that can be specific to a team, like Customer Support needs a value like empathy, while that doesn’t make sense in the Finance team.”

How did you implement these values & missions?
“The values are thus printed in the storybook, the children’s book. That makes it an interesting thing to look at. Imagine if we had printed them in Times New Roman on a white page, and just hope everyone reads it. We wanted to make it an interesting artifact to look at.

Every new hire gets the storybook, and a moment with me, or the co-founder, or head of product, or somebody that will walk them through our company values and what they mean. Periodically, we’ll refresh the values, or talk through them again. They need to be a living document, not a poster on a wall.”

“Part of our hiring process is making sure that a person shares our values.”

What if the values aren’t followed?
“If somebody does something countercultural we usually try to work out what triggered that behavior. In our hiring process, we focus on people that are confident but humble. So, you can be confident in that you know what you can do, and you can be humble in that you believe you still have a lot to learn. But if you’re cocky or you think you’re the best… Part of our hiring process is making sure that a person shares our values.

When somebody is countercultural when working with us, like being rude to a customer or being mean to a colleague, we then try to look at the circumstances that surrounded this event. Most people act really consistently in their jobs, unless they’re put in a bad position. So maybe they’re overworked, or had a really bad interaction with a customer. We try to work that out and try to figure out if it is an Intercom problem, or just a frustrating situation. Often you can fix that by making sure those situations don’t happen. People can snap — we’re all humans. But we’ll try and fix it, in every way we can.”

Do you have KPIs in place to measure culture?
“No. It’s based on observations. I also don’t know what that would look like. As a general rule of thumb, I’m a little averse to qualitative data turning into quantitative data. There might be too much nuance lost in the transfer process. Culture is very qualitative. For example, how do you measure if someone is humble? If you would be able to quantify that, then maybe people will trick the system, and you’re left struggling with this.”

“…don’t micromanage by setting specific tasks”

How do create alignment if you have multiple teams? How does that work on company level or team level?
“Our alignment process follows a V-shape: we align at the top and go down, align at the bottom and then it comes back up again. That means, that the first piece of alignment is at the very top: what do you want the teams to do. And that’s usually the first point of fundamental alignment. You then need to trickle that alignment down to make sure that each team knows what they’re doing.

You should give the teams big picture directions: don’t micromanage by setting specific tasks. You set the direction and then let the team figure out on how and why they can get there. At the bottom level, they will decide what they’re doing. And what they do [what they execute], that comes back to the top. So you can add it all back up. And that’s a second opportunity to see what everybody is doing and see if it makes sense.”

How do you make that process transparent or communicate about it?
“On our intranet, every team has a page where they document what they do. For the most part, the top-level teams might not change what they do for two years. There are about seven top-level teams. So it’s not too hard to let people know what each team is doing.

So in terms of communication, this also helps in onboarding a new employee: via these pages you can also you know what everybody is doing. And, another rule that we have at Intercom is that we give people the benefit of the doubt. So if you hear something that doesn’t make sense, don’t react emotionally, but always assume it comes from positive intent. Whatever happened is probably the result of something. If someone is pissed off for not building the right thing, we look into why it happened that way (where the mismatch happened). So, we document internally, can show it in onboarding, and if alignment then is still off we use some force to mediate and get aligned again.”

How do the different departments align with each other then?
“Every Friday we have a ‘Show and tell’, at which we show what we’ve build in that week at the company. It’s company-wide, so we present from four our locations simultaneously, so London, Chicago, San Francisco, Dublin together. In Dublin they’ll have a beer cause it’s 5pm and in San Francisco they’ll bring a nice breakfast because it’s 9am. We celebrate the week that has passed, and the achievements of that week. That’s one way we create alignment on the new stuff that we’ve done.”

Is that also the opportunity for the different departments to see how they’re aligned?
“Yes. We work in 6-week cycles, and additionally we also plan years and quarters. The six weeks however, is very specific, for features for example. Quarterly is more about problem-areas to spend time on. And then yearly goals are about more major things we want to take on.”

That doesn’t mean that we refocus every six weeks, but every six weeks we have an opportunity to change. A lot of the times, the next six weeks will be just an iteration of the previous 6 weeks.”

“Smart people will disagree.”

Do you track team’s successes?
“Every team has goals that we measure, that’s either the six weeks goals or the quarterly goals. The largest teams would be 8 or 9, and we monitor their goals and objectives. In general, we like to see around a 75–80% achievement rate of the goals. Usually the goals can be quantifiable. But that’s not always the case; the first stage of some things doesn’t have numbers to support the results. Not everything is measured. But yes, we will notice if a team doesn’t hit its goals or always hits its goals.”

What is your biggest lesson learned or struggle overcome to get to this stage?
“The first time you have two smart people from different parts of the company, who you know are both loyal to the company and want the right thing… The very first time you see them disagree: that’s a wonderful moment. Smart people will disagree. But it’s a first sign that you need to take alignment very seriously. It’s a mistake to do alignment really early. But that very first time you see two very well intentioned, good people disagree with each other on what they’re doing, or not understand what they’re doing — that’s the canary in the cage test.

That means that teams are drifting away from each other and you need to fix it. Don’t ignore it and don’t make an immediate call: don’t say John is right and Jenny is wrong and walk away. You need to fix the problem holistically, not just treat the symptoms. In such a situations, there’s always an underlying fault, and that is where you need to start your fixing.”

Des Traynor’s (Intercom) vision on building a company that lasts in a fast-growth environment was originally published in Startup Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The question itself, ‘Do we need a European tech unicorn?’, was initiated by Manuel Koelman, one of the co-founders of Pirate Summit. Not from obliviousness to the current unicorns out there, but Koelman wondered about European ownership. When startups grow, that often leads to a natural transfer overseas. “They end up in American hands” argues Koelman, “but how can we create or maintain a more European focused venture or ownership?”.

Level playing field

The European market is a challenge for startups and VCs, in comparison to that in the US. For example: European startups get smaller amounts of funding, while family-owned-businesses form a strong investment party (unlike in the US). Koelman’s ponderings were challenged by Oliver Thylmann (co-founder of Giant Swarm), who seemed less concerned about Europe’s position in the global ecosystem. He questioned what the added value of a big (billion dollar) fund in a country like Germany would mean, “the money is there — think about the banks, but it’s more distributed”. So, it’s not that there isn’t any funding available; it is just spread out more. Although that brings along a more challenging environment than the concentrated VC-fund system of other countries, making this more insightful can level the playing field for funding opportunities within Europe.

“Do we need more tech innovation and leadership coming out of Europe?”

Not losing values

Koelman, to take the discussion beyond being about money (not the biggest problem), then proposed to rephrase his question, “Do we need more tech innovation and leadership coming out of Europe?”. Both being core contributing values to create a unicorn. And, they bring along a focus on what is then important for expansion and a scalable company. The revised question sparked a heated response from Nicholas Brien (France Digital), who jumped in by questioning if and when ‘talent’ then doesn’t need to go abroad anymore to thrive. France has a lot of talent in the computational fields, but doesn’t know how to keep them: “AI startups for example, if they want to or need to scale they need to go the US or China in order to survive in their market. Which then also leads to moving their HQs to these known places. So, it’s not just a question of finding and keeping the right talent, but also of the market.”

“China’s strength is its unity.”

More unified

But, how easy is it then currently to create and cater for ‘the European market’? According to most of the participants in the discussion it’s not that easy. Leon Pals (Startup Foundation) points out that language is a big issue — but he is also positive about future developments, “Founders in the Netherlands, for example, didn’t know what was happening in Germany because of the language difference. That has changed: now communication often already happens in English”. Elements such as design or language are often being adapted to the local audience, which might lead to a too local perspective instead of creating a stronger sense of unity. As Elena Matthiolius (Finance in Motion) mentions about the success of the other startup ecosystems, “China’s strength is its unity”; leading to the suggestion that there needs to be a stronger pro-EU focus for the European startups.

Another point raised about this ‘unification’ is that European ecosystems have the tendency to market themselves as a “small system of nations”, according to Ondrej Svoboda (Startup Safari Paris). “Why not market it as the European ecosystem?”. Thylmann agrees with this point, “The only thing that the US actually leads is in marketing. The steering column in a Tesla is German-made, but we make no association with Germany there. They [the US ecosystem] talk a lot faster and louder”.

So, did the group reach a conclusion on what defines a European unicorn? No. But, there are three key take-aways on what might lead to having more European unicorns:

1) Make sure Europe is unified — it’s the European ecosystem, not a collection of smaller systems

2) Don’t lose (local) values — have a say in the expansion and means to attract and maintain local talent

3) Level the playing field — the money is out there but it needs to become more accessible

What are your thoughts on the matter? Will Europe soon take a leap in raising more unicorns? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Do we need a European tech unicorn? was originally published in Startup Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You’ve read all the stats about what an app can do, you’ve looked into what you’ll need resource-wise. The only question now is what kind of app are you actually going to create?

The good news: You’ve got options.

In the mobile app world, there are three primary app categories:

• Web Based
• Native
• Hybrid

Each has its benefits … and its drawbacks. If you don’t know much about the various types of apps, you will by the time you finish reading this post.

We want to guide you, SaaS founder, through the waters of app development. So we’ve identified five questions SaaS founders should ask as they decide which kind of app to pursue.

Every question will help you gauge what’s best for your business and your customers. After all, your app should reflect both your company’s goals and your users’ goals.

Let’s get to it.

1. What Are Web, Hybrid & Native Apps?

Before you can decide which kind of app is right for you and your SaaS product, you need to have a solid understanding of each type. You don’t need to be an expert on apps, but knowing the differences between the three kinds is key to choosing the best option for your business.

Mobile Web Apps

A web app is exactly what it sounds like: an application that users can access over the web through their internet browser. It isn’t a standalone app that you download, so it doesn’t take up any storage space or memory on your device.

The benefit here is that users just have to open Chrome or Safari and load the webpage, and they’re all set. On the flip side, relying on the internet leaves the application susceptible to poor performance — if the browser or Wi-Fi is not working, your app won’t either.

Some examples of this kind of app are Lyft, Twitter and AliExpress.

While these sites are fully functional in the browser; the brands still have Native Apps available for download. The reality is that most people are still going to look to the App Store to find Uber, Lyft, Twitter or any popular product that would be worth using on the go. Thus, creating a native app is still a key priority for major brands and up and coming startups.

Native Mobile Apps

Native apps are what you typically think of when you hear the word “app.”

There are too many examples to count, but think Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Shazam, Twitter, Pokemon Go, Coinbase, Spotify and the list could go on and on…

They’re the mobile apps that you download to your device and use all the time.

The actual development can differ between iOS apps, Android apps and Windows apps, but the benefits of native apps are generally the same across the board: They’re fast and reliable, they give you a ton of freedom when it comes to functionality, and the UX/UI is adjustable based on the device the app is downloaded on.

Of all the various types of mobile apps, there’s no question that a native app is one of the most effective ways to add value.

Mobile Hybrid Apps

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, hybrid apps are a mix of the two.

A hybrid app appears as a native app that can be downloaded by a user, but it’s actually a web app wrapped in a native app’s clothing. It runs on a browser but has some of a native app’s UI capabilities.

Hybrid apps are useful for testing purposes and for shipping quickly to users. If you have a fantastic idea for an app but don’t want to invest thousands of dollars before verifying the idea, a hybrid app could be the quick solution you need.

Of course, a hybrid app’s performance doesn’t rival that of a true native app, and the functionality may take a hit, but going hybrid can be an efficient and cost-effective method for testing interest levels.

2. Which Experience Is Better For Your Users?

The people using your app need to be top of mind when you’re making decisions about your approach to mobile. So it’s important to invest the time and energy up front to understand their needs and wants.

Would your users be open to downloading an app, or do they want an experience that lives on a browser?

Are there key features your users want that might perform better on a hybrid app?

One great way to better understand what users want is to study analytics. We rely on a variety of web and mobile analytics tools to understand how people behave. Are more people visiting the site on their desktop than on mobile? Do we have more mobile site visits than we have mobile app downloads today? Insights like these can help guide your decision.

3. What Offers The Best Performance?

Naturally, you want your app to perform at its best. After all, great performance is critical for a positive user experience, and a positive user experience is key to delighting users, and delighted users are more likely to become promoters for your app.

In other words, an app with great performance can directly lead to user and customer growth.

So which type of app offers the best performance?

To put it simply, native apps usually perform better than hybrid and web apps.

Since hybrid and web apps both live in a browser, their performance depends on what the browser is capable of. If Google Chrome is having an off day, your app’s going to suffer.

Native apps, on the other hand, don’t depend on a browser — they function independently. Even if Google Chrome is acting up, your app will still perform in tip-top shape.

4. What Do You Have The Resources For?

Of course the price tag is a contributing factor in your decision.

What will an app cost you, and which type will work best for your budget?

It all depends on what you’re looking for in your app and what percentage of the app build you can do without outsourcing. In general, the more complex your app, the longer it will take to create, and the more you’ll pay. We’ve put together a great resource highlighting the ins and outs of what goes into the cost of a mobile app.

Think of the price tag as an investment in the future success of your SaaS company.

5. Should You Outsource Or DIY?

Ah, a familiar dilemma — for apps and otherwise.

Should you outsource the creation of your app to an agency so your development team can stay focused on other projects, or do you reallocate resources to form an in-house app creation team?

At the end of the day, it comes down to the resources you have available.

Can you afford to pull a handful of developers from the work they’re doing to keep the company running smoothly? Should you shell out to hire a few more in-house developers? Are you better off allocating part of your budget toward hiring an agency and letting your team work uninterrupted?

If you can afford to create your app in-house, that might be the best course of action. For most early-stage SaaS companies, though, resources are tight. The better option may be outsourcing so your team can remain focused on the things that have brought your business to where it is today.

To outsource or not to outsource is definitely a big decision for you and your SaaS startup, so we put together a great free resource to help you navigate it. Check out the guide and feel free to reach out if you’re looking for more advice.

Now It’s Your Turn

As you’ve learned, each type of app has its own benefits, so the direction you take will depend on your SaaS company’s goals.

If you’re ready to take the next step and start building your app, get in touch with us today. We’ll walk you through the entire process and get you on the path to accomplishing your company’s mobile goals.

What other questions do you think are important to ask before choosing the right kind of app for your company? Leave a comment and let us know!

Originally published at www.mindsea.com on January 8, 2018.

SaaS Founders: Decide Between Mobile Web, Hybrid & Native Apps was originally published in Startup Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In September, global ecosystem builders were brought together in Cologne — Germany, to discuss the state of the European ecosystems. The “movers” and “shakers” of local ecosystems across the globe [e.g. Austin, Tirana, Dhaka, Athens, Sydney, Copenhagen, Azerbaijan] attended the Ecosystem Summit, as a prelude to the Pirate Summit — a yearly startup summit held in Cologne.

According to summit organizer and ‘Pirate’ Ben Peckruhn, this year’s key learning was that, “ gathering knowledge and experience of the right people in one room even for just one afternoon can bring tremendous benefits to everyone who is there”. And despite its short duration, Peckruhn indicated how these movers and shakers “gathered tangible approaches of how to increase event sponsoring, how to successfully work together with city officials, and what new startup ecosystems have to consider if they want to become successful”. Lets dive a little deeper into those lessons.

Not beaten by scale or language

First of all, Europe’s diversity makes it a challenging market: some countries (e.g. Macedonia) are too small to properly run experiments and get a startup of the ground. This means that starts from these smaller countries often go to neighboring countries, or the biggest country in the region that has a similar culture (e.g. the Macedonians exploring the Polish market). Second, the variety of languages in Europe is a challenge: not just for foreign founders to find their place, but also to let different ecosystems reach out to others. Lets take Denmark as an example here; the country has a lively startup scene, and it collaborates particularly well with other Scandinavian countries but less less so outside of the region.

However, some ecosystem builders consider this lack of same language-speakers or a market’s smallness in scale (and scalability) as an opportunity. Monica Wulff, CEO and co-founder of Startup Muster (the largest survey of the Australian startup ecosystem) explains how this also motivates these countries to hold summits or conferences that allow them showcase their communities.

A lesson she shared at the Ecosystem Summit, was that of Australia’s targeted approach of certain startup hubs, like Berlin and Frankfurt in Germany. The Australian Trade and Investment Commission created so-called ‘landing pads’ for established startups that want to grow their business abroad. This government-supported ‘soft landing’ in the German ecosystem entails a residency in a co-working space, access to mentors and investors, help with business developments, and access to a supportive community. So, instead of looking to the US as next step for a market-ready startup, the Australian government encourages to expand in other (non-US) hubs as well.

Fighting the European drama

Should language or the size of a country or ecosystem hold back entrepreneurs? At the Pirate Summit, in a talk by Oussama Ammar from Paris-based platform the Family, the answer to this question was a clear no. Yet, why is the Valley still more attractive to European founders? According to Ammar that’s due to “the European drama. We hate storytelling, and pretending to be bigger than ourselves. Silicon Valley has an infrastructure where average can people succeed, that cannot be replicated”.

Ammar shared three key pieces of advice for making it in the European ecosystem:
1) make use of what you can get your hands in a country (e.g. French startup Agricool who grows strawberries outside cities to actually provide it to these cities; a great story for branding, “Parisian strawberries”, and great in terms of logistics and keeping costs low);
2) be pushy around fundraising — entrepreneurs aren’t ambitious around fundraising, especially not in Europe, so ask bigger;
3) you can always hack your way around capital, that doesn’t per se need to come first.

But, perhaps the most valuable lesson to take from Ammar’s talk is that “Ambition doesn’t come from the outside, ambition is trying to do a little better every day”. If entrepreneurs would apply that ambition in the ecosystem, the European ecosystem would be much stronger says Ammar. So, Europe: it’s time to shine.

The state of the European startup ecosystems was originally published in Startup Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Inspired by YC’s essential startup advice, we asked our global reader-base of Startup Curated for their essential advice. Here’s what we received so far:

1. Don’t be a jack-of-all-trades
   Fred Soriano explains: “DON’T try to be all things to all people regardless if they are a partner, customer, client, etc. You end up being a jack-of-all trades. Be a MASTER of one/two things and that’s it. Outsource or hire other people do these other actions. That was a painful 6 month lesson I learned.”
2. Short-term strategies hurt your company more than you realize
   Shreya Bisht from DesignBids clarifies: “This is especially true when you have a product that has no standard market price. If you decide that you want to sell your product at x INR so your customers would at-least start subscribing- Think again. This price tag is going to stick with your product far longer than you anticipate.” So, Bisht advices, “take your time to figure out an appropriate price, or make sure that people understand its an “Introductory price”. Your company can drown just because you wanted to get a quick fix for your revenue.”
3. Team!
   Peter Moore, founder of Starteer, points out how he missed that in YC’s advice: “I believe it’s critically important to surround yourself with people who challenge you, believe in you and who think differently to you.” Particularly, because this group of people, whether they are you co-founders or mentors, is “vital for keeping your motivation up, challenging your viewpoint to achieve a better outcome and pushing you beyond your comfort zone...”

Designer Christopher Skillicorn handed us a few pieces of advice, which actually fit together:

4.a Ruthless prioritization
Christopher elaborates that this is about “really understanding what is most important to fulfill your promise. Understanding what differentiates you in your market, what matters to your customers and how to communicate it to them.” You can read more about that here too.

4.b. Not killing ideas.
Although this might sound somewhat contradicting, Christopher explains: “I think this works partially as a counterbalance to 1., it’s not meant to make your dismissive. […] There are a lot of rules we make that aren’t necessarily very useful; why shouldn’t you do something just because it’s been done before? It’s often the things we think are solved that are most ripe for innovation.”

We would love to continue this list, and gather your advice. So, feel free to share your essential tips below in the comments, or reach out to us on Startup Chat or send us a message.

Essential advice from the startup community was originally published in Startup Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Since Kasper Brandi Petersen moved to Amsterdam 4 years ago, it’s been a rollercoaster ride. First, he launched a shopping service for men out of his apartment. The Cloakroom became one of the fastest growing startups in Europe (with a legendary burn rate) and was acquired by a German competitor in 2016. Next, he moved to Berlin, spend a year doing some M&A related tasks before moving back to the Netherlands. Again, he landed in Amsterdam, and again he turned to clothing. He founded LABFRESH: menswear that uses molecular cotton treatments so these clothes become stain- and odor repellant. LABFRESH launched in January 2017 and soon became the most backed fashion project in Dutch Kickstarter history. Kasper is originally from Copenhagen (Denmark) and lived in China, Dubai and Berlin before settling in Amsterdam.

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur?
When I was 20 years old some friends of mine received a seed investment from a Skype founder. Back then being an “entrepreneur” was not a thing. We found it silly that some rich guy gave our friends a pile of money based on a 15 PowerPoint slides. We started hanging out a lot in the huge apartment they used for working and sleeping. It was a big inspiration to see how they and all their entrepreneurial contacts were looking at the world like one big buffet of opportunities. Soon after I launched my first startup. And those friends became my first customers.

Can you remember what the biggest barriers to entry entrepreneurship were for you?
I would have to say a misguided sense of prestige. Honestly. In 2010, I came home from China with a Master’s degree and I couldn’t help thinking that it would be bad for my CV to work for an unknown startup. So I took a job in the biggest company in Denmark (Maersk Line). I told myself it would be for a short time so I could learn new tricks and save up cash for a new startup adventure.

After 2 years of wearing a suit and tie every day and traveling around the world alongside amazing people I started realizing why it is so hard for most people to quit and launch a startup. Corporate life is amazing. It’s full of prestige, security, money, and advancement. I completely understand why it is hard to leave it behind.

What does success look like to you personally?
The best indicator is the quality of my sleep. I sleep like a baby whenever a new funding round is on the bank account and my metrics are in line with the expectations of my team, my investors, and myself.

What is your role at LABFRESH?
There are two tasks in an early-stage startup: product and sales. My main task is product development (clothes) and making sure we don’t run out of cash. I don’t need a real title because we are only 5 people in the team.

What does a productive day for you look like?
I read Pocket articles and sort my emails in bed from 6.15am. No answering, only sorting. Then, I do boxing or running at 7. Then I prep our team Trello. I prefer to always be the most prepared person in a meeting. It’s sick how much time I spend on LinkedIn and Dealroom before meeting new people.

Co-working spaces are a clear productivity booster. I live 200 meters from ours. I don’t have to worry about anything. Our space also has a bed, which I try to nap on as often as possible. I eat lunch in front of my screen every day. Half of the week I eat dinner in front of the screen too. If I need a break, I walk the dog or chill in the office bed.

Which problem are you solving with LABFRESH?
There are hundreds of cool nano-technologies that can make clothing more durable. For example, sports brands are great at embracing new technology, but the fashion houses are slow to adapt. 100 billion pieces of clothing were produced in 2014. That’s a sick amount of waste. We dislike fast fashion and have always pushed for quality above quantity.

With LABFRESH products you stay fresh and stylish for many days without having to worry about stains and smell. We truly believe nano-technologies, like ours, will revolutionize how we consume fashion.

Where does your motivation to solve this problem come from?
During my corporate stint, I spent a lot of time in Africa and the Middle East. I was always in deserts and ports, and it was always sunny and humid. I would often need an extra white shirt in my laptop bag, so I wouldn’t smell by the end of the day.

What does success look like for LABFRESH?
I always strive to make milestones tangible. It’s important that everybody knows where we are going both on the short and long term. Our milestones are built around revenue, product and funding. Each achievement unlocks the next. When we have a new product line or lower prices, we can afford a higher marketing spend and hence revenue goes up. Once revenue reaches a certain annualized level it is time for me to build a deck and start sipping VC coffees.

Which one thing would you love to tell your younger self?
Less planning, more living.

“Do a bit of planning first, bro.”

What has been your biggest failure?
We raised €3m with The Cloakroom and had great revenue growth, but it was a hard model to scale profitably. It made ‘financial sense’ for my cofounder and I to sell to a bigger player even though we were only 2.5 years old. I spent 1 year in Berlin with M&A [merger and acquisition]-related tasks. And integrating the two cultures has been the most challenging experience in my career so far. I am happy to see the organization is strong and profitable now.

What would you highly recommend aspiring entrepreneurs to do?
Don’t just do it! Most entrepreneurs will tell you to just go ahead and launch something. I say the opposite: Too many people jump into the deep end without having established a product-market fit or found a decent cofounder. Do a bit of planning first, bro.

How many users and paying customers do you have?
1,500 Kickstarter-backers who preordered for €200,000.

How big is the team?
5.

What are you currently failing at?
Production. This is the first time I’m doing a startup that produces hardware. It amazes me to see how old school our factories are.

What are you currently struggling with?
Turning a successful Kickstarter-campaign into a sustainable scalable business model.

What makes you worry?
Loosing overview. Sometimes I get too caught up in operational tasks and I suddenly realize that I focused on the urgent things instead of the important things.

What’s your favorite emoji?
I only do one emoji: “:)”

Who is your favorite super hero?
Prince Valiant. Try to Google him. He looks incredibly vain, and he always cried when he reunited with other Camelot knights.

Challenges expressed are in no way meant to solicit commercial acquisition.

If you liked this Startup Founder interview, please let us know by hitting the ❤️ on the left hand side, or by sharing it with your network.

Click here to have your own Startup Founder interview. You are also more than welcome to join us on Startup Chat, and Startup Deals, or to simply subscribe to Startup Curated.

Startup Foundation is building the global startup community to ensure access to knowledge and experience from the world’s best founders.

Startup Founder Kasper Brandi Petersen was originally published in Startup Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

TL:DR I have noticed that many entrepreneurs, investors and others struggle to prepare and understand financial information. I plan to change that. First, I want to understand whether this is a real problem and how widespread it might be. I have included a link to a short survey which explores the challenge. I am hoping you will complete this and share it with your networks. I want to get as wide a range of opinions as possible from people who like you.

This is my first post for some time. Over the last few months I have been taking time for a bit of reflection. I don’t really do ashrams or meditation or mindfulness. So for me this mainly means playing a bit of golf and having lots of coffees and lunch and chats.

I embarked on this almost by accident. Certainly without any sort of plan. The trigger I guess was the good luck my wife and I have experienced in the last year. Because of that, I find myself with the freedom and headspace to take on a bit more. I have been working with startups and early stage companies for four years now. I feel I can make a greater contribution.

Out on the links, the thought rattling around in my head has been: How can I leverage my time and experience better to make a real difference to the growth and dynamism of early stage technology businesses. This sound quite formal when I write it down but its really not. Its a theme I keep coming back to day after day, shot after shot, latte after latte.

Pursuing this idea I have had a ton of great discussions with people who want to make a difference. Many of them are already spending time, expertise and money to help. We all know its making a difference.

Yet every time I talk to anyone it feels like I am missing something. It doesn’t matter whether I am having coffee with an entrepreneur, walking the fairways with fellow investors or engaging in a discussion group with people committed to the startup ecosystem.

The conversation is full of ideas about scale, ambition, innovation and priorities. Focus on how we can help companies achieve more sales, raise more investment or become more international. Its all great but….

At some point after an especially early morning, a different way of thinking clicked into my head. Maybe people like me should stop thinking about where we are going. Leave that to the entrepreneurs. Instead of fuelling ambitions or chasing moonshots, why don’t we focus on making the day to day stuff easier for founders and teams?

Once you start thinking like this lots of sources of friction and pain present themselves. Much of this I can’t do anything about (IP — please will someone disrupt this one!).

Over a little time I have started focused on something I think I can help with. Numbers. Numbers always cause problems. Forecasts and projections, business plans, budgets, valuations and anything that looks forward. Board reports, operational v financial v accounting, cash flow or profit, KPIs and so on.

I have noticed that many of the people I talk to struggle to prepare and understand financial information. Professional expertise in this area is expensive and does not always meet startup needs. I plan to change that.

First, I want to understand whether this is a real problem and how widespread it might be. I have included a link to a short survey which explores the challenge. I am hoping you will complete this and share it with your networks. I want to get as wide a range of opinions as possible from people who like you.

If it is of interest, I will be happy to share the outcome of this survey with you. You will also be on the priority list to get early access to the next steps in my plan to make finance faster, easier and better for startups.

Here is a link to the survey https://sunstone1.typeform.com/to/w6r0ot your support is much appreciated.

Improving financial information for startups was originally published in Startup Stories on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.