Veronika Riederle von Demodesk
Gründerkaffee Folge 041
I’m Jeroen from Salesflare and this is Founder Coffee.
Every few weeks I have coffee with a different founder. We discuss life, passions, learnings, … in an intimate talk, getting to know the person behind the company.
Für diese einundvierzigste Folge sprach ich mit Veronika Riederle, Mitbegründerin und CEO von Demodesk, einer der führenden Videolösungen für Verkaufsdemos.
Veronika hat an der Universität alles darüber gelernt, wie man Unternehmer wird. Nachdem sie etwa 7 Jahre in Strategiepositionen bei Bain, Audi und Telefonica verbracht hatte, beschloss sie, den Sprung zu wagen.
She and her co-founder found a way to make the sales demo process more efficient, and they managed to enter Y Combinator with their startup. With a team of 20, they’re now working hard to build the product and the business.
We talk about why to focus very hard on the product first before starting to sell, how to properly organize a remote team, and how to know whether you’ve reached Product Market Fit.
Willkommen bei Founder Coffee.
Möchten Sie lieber zuhören? Sie finden diese Folge auf:
Jeroen:
Hi Veronika. It’s great to have you on Founder Coffee.
Veronika:
Hallo Jeroen, danke, dass ich dabei sein durfte. War schön, mit dir zu reden.
Jeroen:
You’re the co-founder of Demodesk. For those who don’t know what Demodesk does yet, what do you guys do?
Veronika:
Wir sind das erste intelligente Online-Meeting-Tool für kundenorientierte Konversationen. Der Hauptunterschied zu Tools wie Zoom oder GoToMeeting ist unser Ansatz für die gemeinsame Bildschirmnutzung. Während bestehende Tools lediglich ein Video Ihres lokalen Desktops aufzeichnen und dieses an die andere Partei streamen, tun wir nichts dergleichen. Stattdessen richten wir ein virtuelles Display ein, auf das jeder durch einen einfachen Klick auf einen Link zugreifen kann. Und es gibt noch eine Reihe weiterer Vorteile, aber insgesamt helfen wir Ihnen, die Arbeitsabläufe zu automatisieren, alle Reibungsverluste bei Kundengesprächen zu verringern und den Vertriebs- und Supportmitarbeitern alles zur Verfügung zu stellen, was sie in Echtzeit für ein perfektes Kundengespräch benötigen, das am Ende zu einem zufriedenen Kunden führt.
Jeroen:
So if I understand it well, you make sure they don’t have to install anything on their computer. It just works in your browser like a sort of WebRTC technology – just in the browser, the modern things, and you also reduce friction around the booking process, et cetera. Is that correct?
Veronika:
Ganz genau. Was die Downloads betrifft, so gibt es keine Downloads für niemanden. Weder der Gastgeber noch der Teilnehmer muss etwas herunterladen. Es genügt ein Klick im Browser und das Meeting wird geöffnet. Und wir automatisieren auch den gesamten Planungsprozess. Wir bieten also ähnliche Funktionen wie Calendly oder Chili Piper an, um Ihnen zu helfen, den gesamten Planungsprozess für sich selbst und auch innerhalb des Teams zu automatisieren. Anschließend synchronisieren wir alle Daten mit Salesforce und HubSpot, so dass wir Ihnen helfen, auch den Teil der Enddokumentation zu automatisieren.
Jeroen:
Ja, erfassen Sie auch Daten während des Anrufs, und wie sehen diese Daten aus? Kann man innerhalb Ihrer Schnittstelle Notizen machen?
Veronika:
Yeah, you can. Exactly. Because you’re not sharing your local desktop, but you are displaying the content on a separate virtual display, we can basically show anything that we want on the sales rep’s side without the customer seeing it. So when you’re having a demo or a meeting with someone, everything that you want to present is being loaded on a virtual display. But in addition, only your side or the sales rep side should have all the content available that you want pre-loaded in your playbook that you need during the call. You have a window where you can make meeting notes, also write in the same meeting window without the customer seeing it. And then when you make those meeting notes, you also have the possibility to sync that back to your CRM in a structured way and directly push that to specific teams that you want.
Jeroen:
Ich hab's, ich hab's.
Veronika:
It would also work with Salesflare. We have an open API. I’m just building up the product and connecting it to more and more CRMs.
Jeroen:
Cool. Yeah, I’m looking forward to that. What were you doing at the moment when you started Demodesk? Where did the exact spark come from?
Veronika:
Eigentlich hat mein Mitbegründer damit begonnen, eine neue Technologie für die gemeinsame Nutzung von Bildschirmen zusammenzuhacken. Es war vor fast drei Jahren, als er den ersten Gedanken hatte, dass es eine bessere Möglichkeit geben muss, Inhalte aus der Ferne zu teilen. Wir waren der Meinung, dass das Verfahren zur gemeinsamen Nutzung von Bildschirmen, die Technologie zur gemeinsamen Nutzung von Bildschirmen, wie sie derzeit noch verwendet wird, einfach veraltet ist. Stellen Sie sich vor, alles läuft über die Cloud und bewegt sich sowieso über die Cloud. Wenn Sie also eine Software wie Salesflare vorstellen, geht bei den meisten SaaS-Produkten wahrscheinlich alles direkt in die Cloud.
Veronika:
There are some extensions that are locally available, but mostly it’s hosted in the cloud. And if you want to share and send something, the only way of doing it is really just opening your local browser on your local desktop, pulling that website or that web application into your local browser, then again turning on the screen share, making a video of your local desktop, again uploading that video to the cloud and sending it to the customer, which is a very inefficient detour. So he thought why not leave in the content that’s already in the cloud where it is, and then share it from there. And that’s where the original idea came from.
Jeroen:
Okay. Was haben Sie gemacht, als Sie auf diese Idee kamen?
Veronika:
Mein Mitbegründer hatte die Idee dazu. Er hat auch bei einigen anderen Vertriebsunternehmen gearbeitet, auch als Entwickler, und hat mit Vertriebsabteilungen gearbeitet und gesehen, wie ineffizient vor allem der Demoprozess ist.
Jeroen:
Yeah, okay. So it’s sort of a tech-driven initial start? There is tech, we should use it, and it makes sense to use it in sales.
Veronika:
He just saw the process of the screen sharing, saw how inefficient that is, and what disadvantages it has. It’s slow. It’s laggy. You have to download an application. You cannot collaboratively work on it. There are just also a lot of other disadvantages that come with it. So he, as I said, started to think about a better way of sharing content remotely.
Veronika:
He basically also saw the biggest potential in sales customer-facing conversation. We were also looking at a couple of use cases when we started working together. My background is in consulting, so I had been working for a couple of startups before, but then I spent several years in management consultancy, Bain & Company. And then I also had a lot of clients that I was advising on their sales strategy. But also myself having to make a lot of pitches, like having customer conversations. In the end, every conversation is the possibility to sell something to the customer or sell yourself to the customer, so you’re basically always selling something, or having a specific goal.
Veronika:
If you could use technology to better achieve that goal, and we in our case, first that was sales. But if you can do that, I think that’s a very exciting use case. We are using technology to basically enable everyone to have a better customer conversation by providing you with everything that you need in real-time to have that conversation. Or to have a better conversation.
Jeroen:
Yeah. I’m looking at your LinkedIn profile here. You spent five years at Bain. You must have advanced there quite a lot in that time, I suppose.
Veronika:
Ja, ich bin als Projektleiter gegangen. Ich war viel auf Reisen. Die meiste Zeit habe ich in Deutschland und den USA gearbeitet, aber auch in ganz Europa. Ich habe in der Schweiz und im Vereinigten Königreich gearbeitet, also ein sehr internationaler Job, der sehr reiseintensiv ist.
Jeroen:
Yeah, and before that, it seems you mostly worked in corporate jobs, Telefonica and Audi and Outfittery. That’s the one who sends you clothes, right?
Veronika:
Yeah, exactly. It’s the European version I’d say now. Back then, I also worked for Skylight. They were also a startup and there were only a few people. Now they are over 100, I think maybe over 200 now. I think they shrank again, but yeah.
Jeroen:
Es scheint, als hätten Sie Ihre Karriere in einem Unternehmen begonnen, dann die Atmosphäre in einem Start-up-Unternehmen ausprobiert, sind in die Beratung gegangen und haben dann begonnen, Ihr eigenes Ding zu machen.
Veronika:
Yes, exactly. For me, it was always clear that I want to build something, that I want to work in a startup, either have my own or work in a very small one, and then help build a product that really helps humans become better in what they do. I think software is the only thing that can do that, so for me it was always clear. Then I was also actively looking for opportunities and then talking with a lot of friends. That’s when Alex and I also started working together.
Jeroen:
Sie sagten, es war Ihnen immer klar. Sie sagten, es war Ihnen immer klar, ab welchem Alter muss ich mir das vorstellen?
Veronika:
Say that again. I’m sorry. I didn’t get that.
Jeroen:
Sie sagten, dass für Sie immer klar war, dass Sie ein Unternehmen gründen wollten. Was meinen Sie, ab welchem Alter war das so?
Veronika:
For me, it started a bit later. Not when I was very little, but more in university. I studied in Munich, and there’s an additional program at the university. It’s optional. You can take that, but you also have to apply. It’s called CDTM. It’s very founder-focused. They basically educate you to become a future founder. And a lot of great companies also did emerge out of the CDTM. That is actually where I realized that this is actually the thing that I wanted to do longer term.
Jeroen:
Wie kamen Sie damals auf die Idee, bei Telefonica Ihren ersten Job anzutreten? War das eine Möglichkeit, mehr über das Geschäft zu lernen, bevor Sie sich selbstständig machen?
Veronika:
Well, it was actually before that, it was during university. It was an internship. So it was not a full-time job, but also there’re a lot of things that I learned there. I worked in the strategy department and was looking at new technologies in the competitive space, and together with the strategy team trying to think about a way of benefiting from future trends. And one of the things that we looked at, back at that time, was messaging as a trend. Right now it seems kind of funny, but back then it was a huge thing. Telefonica was thinking about also launching their own messenger to capitalize upon that trend. Looking backwards of course it doesn’t make any sense, when you have WhatsApp and Facebook and all the others. But it was that time. And it was also quite exciting. I also saw a lot there.
Jeroen:
Ja, das stimmt. Ihre Ambitionen, Unternehmer zu werden, haben Sie von Ihren Eltern? Oder gab es noch jemanden, der dich da hauptsächlich beeinflusst hat?
Veronika:
No, not necessarily my parents. It was more friends and just that I do find a lot of joy in building things. It just gives me a lot of energy building any kind of stuff, for instance furniture, being in the house with my dad when I was a kid. Just building something and creating something gives me a lot of energy. And I think that’s why a startup, and especially tech is the right thing, because with software you can make a lot of things in a very short timeframe, and also create a huge benefit for users. And save time and make their processes more efficient by actually creating that software. It’s just very motivating.
Jeroen:
Yeah, understood. I hear this from a lot of startup founders that the main reason they became a startup founder is because they like building things and they get energy from it. Makes a lot of sense. Are there any startup founders that you look up to, or startups that you think are doing things right, and that’s where I want to go and I want Demodesk to go?
Veronika:
Well, I think YC definitely has a lot of amazing companies, and while we went through YC last year, we also had the chance to listen to a couple of other very successful founders that came by for founders’ dinners. And yeah, a couple of companies, right? For example, Stripe or Mathilde from Front is very inspiring. Then Peter Reinhardt from Segment, also a very inspiring person. And what I also find particularly interesting is the topic around Product Market Fit and the two biggest pieces in that space I think is the one from Peter Reinhardt from Segment describing Product Market Fit as kind of an explosion, and Rahul from Superhuman as a structured way of constantly asking customers what they want and what they miss about your product, until you reach a certain point.
Veronika:
Und ich denke, dass diese Art von Gründern definitiv Erfolg mit Product Market Fit hatten. Wenn wir verstehen, wie sie zum Product Market Fit gekommen sind, finde ich das besonders inspirierend. Vor allem Superhuman und Segment sind zwei großartige Beispiele dafür und zeigen auch, dass es nicht nur einen Weg gibt, sondern dass es verschiedene Wege gibt, das zu erreichen.
Jeroen:
Auf jeden Fall. Es ist immer gut, die beiden Perspektiven zu sehen. Übrigens, für die Zuhörer: Rahul von Superhuman hat in einer der vorherigen Folgen auch darüber gesprochen, wie er den Product Market Fit findet und wie er auf seine jährlichen Ziele hinarbeitet, welche Prozesse er dafür hat. Ich empfehle auf jeden Fall, sich das anzuhören. Vielleicht ein bisschen mehr darüber, was ihr konkret macht, damit die Zuhörer es verstehen. Wie viele sind Sie jetzt bei Demodesk?
Veronika:
We’re now 20 people.
Jeroen:
You’re 20 people, so in what sort of phase would you say you are as a company? And do you think you’ve hit Product Market Fit? Are you working towards it, or?
Veronika:
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it depends on what’s your definition for Product Market Fit. That comes back to the question or back to the topic right? For Superhuman, you also wrote a blog post about it. It’s having 40% of the customers that at least would be somehow sad if they wouldn’t have your product anymore. He used a very strict definition. For Segment, it’s more hitting that landmine that basically causes an explosion. Having a Product Market Fit feels like an explosion.
Veronika:
I think it’s not as easy as that, because depending on who you’re selling to and the type of the product you’re selling, there are different ways. And I think we can also have Product Market Fit at one point in time and then lose it again. I also heard that, and then, if you do have a Product Market Fit, you also need to have a Product Channel Fit in order to basically sell your product properly.
Veronika:
But for me personally, the best definition for Product Market Fit in B2B SaaS is reaching 1 million ARR. And we’re not quite there yet, but we’re on a very good way.
Jeroen:
Cool. Zum Verständnis: Was hält Sie in letzter Zeit nachts wach?
Veronika:
Well, I think definitely the current crisis. Demodesk in particular is for sure less affected than other companies, because we also in some kind of way do profit for the over-trend to meetings being more remote, and also companies having to sell remotely. However, we also have a lot of customers that do themselves sell to retail and hospitality businesses, who are struggling, and also just the general economic conditions. And increasing depth and increasing unemployment rates, especially in the U.S. I think we’re now at almost 23%. I think that’s definitely something that does keep me up at night, if there is anything. I typically sleep quite well. But yeah, I don’t know how you see it, but definitely the current situation is somewhat something that I think a lot about.
Jeroen:
Yeah, it helps in some ways and it doesn’t in others, I suppose. What figures does it mostly affect for you? Is it mostly new revenue, or is it mostly churn?
Veronika:
Well, for now I think for us it was more or less fine. We did see little churn, so definitely there were a couple of companies that are not doing any sales at all at the moment, because basically the industry’s dead. Like hospitality and off-line retail. Off-line events, also the same thing. Yeah, it’s definitely a little bit tough at the moment. But no, I mean, in terms of new MRR, we definitely see new MRR coming from new types of customers and new types of industries. For example, we now have a new customer selling solar panels. And we didn’t actively target these types of products before. We were more focused on B2B SaaS companies that are using Demodesk for their product demos.
Veronika:
But now there are new types of customers also. Another example is a furniture store that also has a website, a web shop, and is now using their empty brick and mortar furniture stores. And the people in there, the sellers, meet the customers remotely, and showcase their product and their web shop using Demodesk. Just it has shifted a bit for us I’d say.
Jeroen:
Yeah, more businesses that didn’t used to do things online are doing things online now.
Veronika:
Ganz genau.
Jeroen:
Hatte dies insgesamt einen positiven Effekt? Ich meine, sind Ihre neuen Einnahmen im Allgemeinen gestiegen oder sind sie durch die Krise etwas zurückgegangen?
Veronika:
Well, our new revenue actually went up. We’re also growing a lot with our existing customers and the past B2B SaaS companies. But right now, everyone’s very careful and putting a pause especially on recruiting, and in particular on the go to market side. With existing businesses, we haven’t quite seen that these companies that previously had either two or three sales calls every week, have further scaled their team. They’re now just putting everything on hold. That’s definitely what the existing scenario looks like.
Jeroen:
Ja, das stimmt. Womit verbringen Sie persönlich jetzt die meiste Zeit Ihrer Arbeit?
Veronika:
We do still spend a lot of time on the product side, and also I do spend a lot of time on the products. We are two founders. It’s Alex and me. And Alex mostly focuses on the tech part. Our product is technically quite demanding, I’d say. So if you develop an online meeting tool that includes scheduling components and also CRM components, you’re constantly syncing data out and data back in and it becomes quite complex. Both from a tech perspective and from the UX perspective. And Alex is mostly covering the tech perspective, and I am still doing a lot of the UX side and the product side and developing features, developing mock-ups, and trying to think about user flows and prototype features on the roadmap. And I’m working very closely with the customer. That’s basically what I’m doing most of the time at the moment.
Jeroen:
Sie beide, die Mitbegründer, verbringen viel Zeit mit dem Produkt, sagen Sie?
Veronika:
Ja.
Jeroen:
But you’re a company of 20 people. What do they spend their time on then?
Veronika:
Etwa die Hälfte gehört zum Ingenieurteam. Und dann gibt es noch drei Leute im Marketing und vier im Vertrieb.
Jeroen:
Ich verstehe. Verstehe. Sozusagen halb, halb zwischen Technik und Marketing/Vertrieb, aber mit einem leichten Kippeffekt, wenn man auch die Produkte mitzählt.
Veronika:
It’s more in product engineering, yes, definitely.
Jeroen:
Yeah, okay. It seems like with this amount of employees, you’re probably venture-backed?
Veronika:
Ja. Das sind wir definitiv. Wir hatten unsere Seed-Runde letztes Jahr. Wir gingen also Anfang letzten Jahres zu Y Combinator. Und in der Seed-Runde vor und während und kurz nach Demodesk haben wir Geld von Investoren aus dem Silicon Valley erhalten.
Jeroen:
Ja. Ich nehme an, Sie haben damals 18 Monate oder zwei Jahre lang Geld gesammelt. Was erwarten Sie in der derzeitigen Situation von der nächsten Finanzierungsrunde?
Veronika:
Nun, bevor das alles anfing, war der Plan, Anfang 2021 eine Serie A aufzunehmen. Die Fundraising-Bedingungen haben sich etwas geändert. Im Moment denken wir tatsächlich darüber nach, etwas mehr Geld in Form einer erweiterten Seed-Runde aufzubringen, um etwas mehr Spielraum bis zur Serie A zu haben, einfach weil die Bedingungen im Moment etwas unsicher sind.
Jeroen:
Aber würde das von den derzeitigen Investoren kommen, oder würden weitere Engel hinzukommen?
Veronika:
Es wäre eine Kombination.
Jeroen:
Kombinationen davon?
Veronika:
Ja, ja.
Jeroen:
Das macht sehr viel Sinn. Noch einmal zurück zu dem, was Sie operativ tun. Sie sagen, dass Sie sehr viel Zeit mit dem Produkt verbringen. Sind das 100% Ihrer Zeit oder 40%-50% Ihrer Zeit?
Veronika:
I’d say 40%, which is still the biggest chunk, the biggest part of my day. All the other stuff is really spread out, business topics, management topics, finance, HR recruiting, bookkeeping, all the stuff that no one wants to do, lies with me.
Jeroen:
Okay. Partly marketing as well? Or that’s completely within someone else’s responsibility?
Veronika:
We do have a marketing team. It’s one full-time person and two interns. And they are mostly covering marketing, and they’re doing a great job.
Jeroen:
Yeah. Cool. What do you think of all the things you’re working on is for you the next thing you’re planning to delegate?
Veronika:
Well, we’re definitely planning to hire a UX designer. I’m also still doing a lot of design work, which I shouldn’t do anymore. We currently are searching for a designer, but also on the operations side. Chief of staff is probably a bit too early for us, but someone who would grow into that role and take away some more things on the operational side from my plate.
Jeroen:
Yeah. Where do you see yourself mostly working in the long run? What exactly are the skills you think you bring as a founder to the business? Where do you want to put the focus, let’s say, for yourself?
Veronika:
I want to give my team everything that they need to do the best job that they can do, and to provide them with all the resources they need to constantly grow and become better at what they do every day. That’s my priority number one. And second priority is just to make sure that we as a company go in the right direction and also have the resources, mostly in the form of money available that we need in order to realize our vision. And that’s the happiest, right? For me, it’s very important that the team is happy and that everyone also can do what they want, can achieve what they want here at Demodesk and like their job, like to come to work every day, and also can build their kind of own world together with the entire team.
Jeroen:
Yeah. What I’m hearing is that you do team strategy and fundraising.
Veronika:
Longer term, probably. Definitely, yeah. Right now, it’s still like a wide set of also very operationally heavy tasks that no one else wants to do, and also a lot of product work. But over time, I hope that goes away.
Jeroen:
Okay. Führen Sie auch viele Kundengespräche? Oder wird das hauptsächlich an Ihr Verkaufsteam delegiert?
Veronika:
No. I also do work with customers when it’s needed. We do have, of course, a sales team. We also have someone in support, but whenever it’s needed and whenever it’s something where I can help, then I definitely also will jump into that.
Jeroen:
Cool! Arbeitet ihr bei Demodesk jetzt per Fernzugriff?
Veronika:
Ja, wir arbeiten jetzt vollständig remote. Wir sind über ganz Europa und die USA verteilt, arbeiten also auch in verschiedenen Zeitzonen und Ländern.
Jeroen:
Ja, aber davor hatten Sie auch irgendwo in Deutschland ein Büro?
Veronika:
We do have an office in Munich, yes. We also plan to open an office in San Francisco, or at least have more people there. But I think also now the environment has definitely changed a lot. We’ll see whether we get back to the original plan, and after the new normal has arrived. Currently we do have an office in Munich but are working remotely.
Jeroen:
Cool. What changed mostly for you guys with everyone going remote and being at home instead of in the office? Did it have a big effect? And if it had only a small one, I’m also interested in knowing where it mostly had an effect for you.
Veronika:
Wir haben auch vorher schon aus der Ferne gearbeitet, zwar nicht als komplettes Remote-Team, aber teilweise. Alex und ich sind während des YC nach Mountain View gezogen. Letztes Jahr haben wir also vier Monate im Valley verbracht. Und dann bin ich sowieso die meiste Zeit hin und her gereist. Also hin und her zwischen Mountain View und San Francisco. Ich habe teilweise remote gearbeitet, und Alex ist Anfang des Jahres auch nach San Francisco gezogen. Jetzt ist er aufgrund der aktuellen Situation wieder nach München zurückgekehrt. Wir waren es also in gewisser Weise gewohnt, aus der Ferne zu arbeiten. Allerdings war es für das gesamte Team eine Herausforderung, komplett remote zu arbeiten. Für uns war es sehr wichtig, Berichtslinien und Teamstrukturen einzurichten.
Veronika:
We actually built teams that align every day, every single day, every morning. And also every evening, we would align with the news teams, with the team leaders, to make sure everyone’s in sync. But what’s definitely a challenge for us is working with working students or young members of the team. I had the feeling that especially for them, it was sometimes a bigger challenge to keep themselves motivated than for full-time employees and employees that are a little bit older.
Jeroen:
Was genau tun Sie für diese Praktikanten? Gibt es ein tägliches Standup-Meeting am Morgen, wenn ich das richtig verstanden habe?
Veronika:
Ja, tägliche Standup-Meetings am Morgen, Peer-Strukturen, Slack-Kanäle, klare Richtlinien, wie was wann zu melden ist, und auch die Einrichtung eines unternehmensinternen Wikis und von Unternehmensprozessen und einer Notion-Foliengruppe, die einfach alle Prozesse dokumentiert, um sicherzustellen, dass alle auf derselben Seite stehen.
Jeroen:
Haben Sie irgendwelche Änderungen an den Sitzungsabläufen vorgenommen?
Veronika:
Ja, das haben wir. Wir haben vier Teams. Unsere Teams sind Technik, Produkt, Umsatz und Wachstum. Und diese vier Teams haben tägliche Standups. Außerdem haben die Teamleiter zusammen mit mir und Alex jeden Tag am Ende des Tages ein Meeting, um sicherzustellen, dass wir auf dem gleichen Stand bleiben.
Jeroen:
You know where everybody’s going in a meeting.
Veronika:
Yes. We discuss them every day. I also took that away with me from Bain. When I was doing a lot of due diligences and working in private equity, what you do there is consult a private equity company on a decision whether to buy a certain asset, a certain company or not. And you need to make a decision, or you need to give them that recommendation within a very short timeframe, four weeks or so. It’s a very intense project and very important that you spend every single day in the most efficient way.
Veronika:
We also had every morning and every evening a battle call, we would name that. And in the battle call, we would discuss what our priorities for the day in the morning and in the evening looked like, also discuss what your achievements of the day were and what’s still outstanding. And then would together prioritize the things that are important and de-prioritize the things that are not. And I also took it away with me from Bain into the startup world. I think this definitely helps to keep everyone in sync.
Jeroen:
Machen Sie die beiden Treffen oder nur das Treffen am Ende des Tages?
Veronika:
Zwei Sitzungen. Das Treffen am Morgen findet innerhalb des Teams statt, also nur mit dem Wachstumsteam oder dem Umsatzteam. Das Treffen am Abend findet mit den Teamleitern statt.
Jeroen:
Yeah, understood. That’s quite an interesting system. We are only doing the morning thing, and mostly over Slack. And we do the planning biweekly or weekly, depending on the team. But this is an approach I hadn’t heard yet. For me, it seems like a lot of meetings, but I can see the point of it.
Veronika:
If you don’t see each other and you’re working full remote, I mean, it’s just very important to have a lot of touch points to really make sure everyone’s working on the right things, no? Or don’t you think it’s very difficult to just have the full picture of who’s working on what, if you’re not seeing each other in the office?
Jeroen:
Yeah, true. No, you definitely need to communicate more. We started noting things like after each meeting, something we didn’t do before. We started a bit but not really much yet. But to really summarize what has been said in a meeting, so that we can keep the whole team up to date on everything that gets decided in a more summarized way. It sort of takes away the need to always meet with team leads. I sometimes meet with my cofounder, so that we’re aligned on things, but not on a daily basis.
Veronika:
Yeah, I mean, it’s always a trade-off, right? Of course, if you have a lot of meetings, you also spend a lot of time in these meetings. But also one other trick that we used to make it shorter is for standups in the morning and the evening. Everyone before the standup needs to summarize what he wants to share in a few bullet points. And just by doing that, you really focus and force yourself to just mention the three most important things, rather than everyone as a download of what’s going on in your head.
Jeroen:
Yeah. Just in case you heard a lot of snoring in the background just now, that wasn’t me. That was my dog. Just that he found that it was a good idea to snore very loudly.
Veronika:
Niedlich. Welcher Hund ist es?
Jeroen:
It’s a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
Veronika:
Gut.
Jeroen:
Wissen Sie, wie es aussieht?
Veronika:
No. I love dogs, but I don’t know how it looks.
Jeroen:
Flauschig.
Veronika:
Okay, großartig.
Jeroen:
Towards learnings a bit perhaps. I’m interested to know, as a final question before we go into learnings: how is your experience going from Munich to Mountain View? What were the differences you saw in how startups operate between Germany and Silicon Valley let’s say? That’s my question.
Veronika:
Well. While you were asking, I was just thinking whether I should answer the question from a perspective of how it was at YC, because that was our experience, or whether I should try to answer the question without taking the YC network and the YC experience into account? But probably the latter one, I probably can’t do, because it’s just easy for me to speak about how it was in the YC network. And I think Silicon Valley in general is connected in a better way than the European partners are. Once you’re in Silicon Valley, you have all these successful companies around you.
Veronika:
But when you’re in YC, that’s even more intense, because there are a lot of great companies that did go through YC, and you’re immediately connected to an incredibly valuable network of successful founders and investors and ventures. And so for us, it was definitely a bit biased. Even more biased than for someone who would go to the Silicon Valley without YC.
Veronika:
I can only speak from that perspective, if that makes sense. And taking that perspective into account, I think that there are three main differences. The first one is just a mindset. In Europe and in particular in Germany, people always like to think about the problems rather than how big something could be, which people are more thinking about in the U.S., especially in Silicon Valley. They just, I don’t know, are thinking about the question, how big can this get, a lot? Whereas in Germany, if you talk to investors, in particular also you tend to get a lot of questions of what obstacles you’re facing, what could be in the way, and analyzing numbers and detail. So you can say you get the big vision that everything is possible. And that’s the first major thing.
Veronika:
The second thing as briefly touched before, is the network. It’s just a very tight network. You can basically speak with almost everyone if you just want to and ask. Because almost everyone is just around, just lives in San Francisco. Most of the successful B2B SaaS companies do come from San Francisco and are there. And that’s definitely way more spread out in Europe and therefore, it’s just less dense. That’s the second thing.
Veronika:
And something that’s also probably connected to the first and second part is, fundraising. That is for sure a bit easier, because most of the investors and most of the money, especially in the startup in the SaaS space is available in Silicon Valley. Most of the successful investors do have an office in Palo Alto or San Francisco. It’s just way easier to reach out to them, speak with them, and meet them.
Jeroen:
Ja, das stimmt. Aber Sie sind an beiden Orten aufgewachsen, sagten Sie. Sowohl im Silicon Valley als auch in Deutschland.
Veronika:
Well, we did raise in Silicon Valley, honestly, because demo day back then was still on site. Now it’s virtual, but demo day is in San Francisco. And all investors are just there or most of them. And then, afterwards you would also meet most of them in person. We also did take the German investors on board, which we obviously also saw when we were back in Germany. But the fundraising process for us took place in Silicon Valley.
Jeroen:
Ja, die anderen sind einfach mitgekommen?
Veronika:
Die anderen drei Investoren waren Investoren, mit denen wir bereits in Kontakt waren, bevor wir zu YC gingen.
Jeroen:
Ja, aber der Hauptinvestor war derjenige in San Francisco, oder der Hauptinvestor war in Deutschland?
Veronika:
We didn’t have a lead investor in particular, but the two biggest investors were Founders Club and GFC. And Founders Club is in San Francisco, and GFC is in Germany.
Jeroen:
Okay. Cool. Slowly wrapping up with learnings, what’s the latest good book you’ve read, and why did you choose to read it?
Veronika:
The latest book and also one of the greatest I’ve ever read is The Great CEO Within. And it’s an incredibly helpful book, especially for founders. And Matt Mochary I think is the author, but he also had some other founders contributing to it. One of our investors actually gave it to me, the Cubit founder. And I think it’s great. It gives you a lot of tactical advice on how to build a company, how to prioritize your work, how to hire, how to fundraise, in a very dense and compensated way. And I’d say really some kind of way, a founders’ bible. I like the book a lot, and I can recommend it.
Jeroen:
Yeah. Just put it on my Goodreads to read list. Have you read books like, I have to think a moment, the one from, oh God, give me one second, “Lost and Founder” by Rand Fishkin?
Veronika:
Nein.
Jeroen:
Or “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz?
Veronika:
Ja, das habe ich gelesen, ja.
Jeroen:
Wie verhält es sich im Vergleich zu dem in Ben Horowitz?
Veronika:
Well, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, he’s more telling stories from his life as a founder or an entrepreneur, just telling stories from his own company. And The Great CEO Within is really just a tactical guide describing concrete steps that you can take to structure your work, to fundraise, to hire people. It’s more of, I’d say, a guideline of how to found a company, whereas in The Hard Things, he’s telling his own story.
Jeroen:
Geschichten und Ideen, ja.
Veronika:
Auf eine sehr ansprechende Weise.
Jeroen:
Stimmt, stimmt. Cool, jetzt freue ich mich darauf, es zu lesen. Letzte Frage. Wenn Sie bei Demodesk neu anfangen würden, was würden Sie anders machen?
Veronika:
Good question. I really think that some things you have to go through on your own in order to really learn them. I think sometimes it’s just impossible to make a shortcut, and I think being a founder and finding a company might be one of these. Probably, so far I can say all of the things that we did right, in a sense that of course, they were not always right at that point. But we learned from these, and then the learnings that we got from going through these processes helped us to become better afterwards. I think really embracing the process, and also taking everything in the process as a necessary step to get there where you are at this particular point in time is super important.
Veronika:
It’s always how I like to see it also when I’m working with my team and especially with younger team members. Sometimes I can tell them how I think things should be done, but sometimes it’s just not possible. Sometimes I just know that they have to go through it on their own in order to really learn it, because some things you can’t just read or teach someone by just telling them. You know what I mean? Does it make sense?
Jeroen:
Yeah, it makes sense, but I have a follow-up question. You’re saying basically that if you were to start over with Demodesk, you go back in time, you don’t regret all the steps you made because they were needed to get to your results?
Veronika:
Ja.
Jeroen:
In Ihrem jetzigen Zustand. Aber was wäre, wenn Sie heute Demodesk mit allem, was Sie bereits aus diesen Dingen gelernt haben, neu starten würden? Was würden Sie anders machen?
Veronika:
Well, I would probably raise money earlier. I would recruit a great team earlier with that money, and then first fully focus on the product. And then after I have at least a decent version of the product, only then I would actively approach customers and sell. Because back then, when we started with Demodesk two and a half years ago, I remember being at the first SaaStock in Dublin. And back then we had nothing, but honestly I tried to approach almost everyone and pitch our product and try to sell something that we didn’t have, which didn’t make sense. But still, we learned from that process, right? That’s definitely something that I probably wouldn’t do again.
Jeroen:
Yeah. You’re against customer interviews, or is it on another nuanced level?
Veronika:
No, definitely customer interviews are important, but also we had some kind of expectation that, if we pitched a product, they would just immediately say, yeah, it sounds great. I’m going to buy. Like it was not realistic, the expectations that we had back then. And sometimes I think you also have to be a bit naïve, otherwise, you probably wouldn’t start with building a company. That’s extremely hard. And it’s a lot of challenges that you have to solve on your way, so maybe you sometimes need that naivete, I think. But definitely if I would do it again, I would be less naïve and more realistic.
Jeroen:
Ja, klar. Super. Nochmals vielen Dank, dass du bei Founder Coffee dabei warst, Veronika. Es war wirklich toll, dich dabei zu haben.
Veronika:
Ich danke Ihnen. Es hat Spaß gemacht, mit Ihnen zu sprechen, und ich hoffe, wir sehen uns bald wieder.
Enjoyed it? Read Founder Coffee interviews with other founders. ☕
Wir hoffen, dass Ihnen diese Folge gefallen hat. Wenn ja, Bewertet uns auf iTunes!
👉 Sie können @salesflare folgen auf Twitter, Facebook und LinkedIn.
- 8 Vorteile von CRM + 6 Herausforderungen, die es zuerst zu überwinden gilt - 18. April 2024
- 30+ Beste Lead Generation Tools (nach Typ) - 16. April 2024
- 7 beste CRMs für Google Workspace + Integrationsfunktionen - 11. April 2024