Veronika Riederle di Demodesk
Episodio 041 del Caffè del Fondatore
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.
Per questo quarantunesimo episodio, ho parlato con Veronika Riederle, cofondatrice e CEO di Demodesk, una delle soluzioni video leader per le dimostrazioni di vendita.
Veronika ha studiato tutto ciò che riguarda il diventare imprenditore all'università. Dopo aver trascorso circa 7 anni in ruoli strategici presso Bain, Audi e Telefonica, ha deciso di fare il salto.
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.
Benvenuti al Caffè del Fondatore.
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Jeroen:
Hi Veronika. It’s great to have you on Founder Coffee.
Veronika:
Ciao Jeroen, grazie per avermi ospitato. È stato un piacere parlare con te.
Jeroen:
You’re the co-founder of Demodesk. For those who don’t know what Demodesk does yet, what do you guys do?
Veronika:
Siamo il primo strumento di riunione online intelligente per le conversazioni con i clienti. La differenza principale rispetto a strumenti come Zoom o GoToMeeting è il nostro approccio alla condivisione dello schermo. Mentre gli strumenti esistenti si limitano a registrare un video del desktop locale e a trasmetterlo all'interlocutore, noi non facciamo nulla di tutto ciò. Creiamo invece uno schermo virtuale a cui chiunque può accedere facendo semplicemente clic su un link. E ci sono un paio di altri vantaggi, ma nel complesso vi aiutiamo ad automatizzare i flussi di lavoro, a ridurre tutti gli attriti che avete quando parlate con i vostri clienti e a fornire ai rappresentanti delle vendite e dell'assistenza tutto ciò di cui hanno bisogno in tempo reale per avere una conversazione perfetta con il cliente che alla fine si converte e genera un cliente felice.
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:
Esattamente. Quindi, per quanto riguarda i download, non ci sono download per nessuno. Quindi né l'ospite né il partecipante devono scaricare nulla. Basta un clic nel browser e la riunione si apre. Inoltre, automatizziamo l'intero processo di pianificazione. Offriamo funzionalità simili a Calendly o Chili Piper per aiutarvi ad automatizzare l'intero processo di pianificazione per voi stessi e per il vostro team. In seguito, sincronizziamo tutti i dati con Salesforce e HubSpot, per aiutarvi ad automatizzare anche la parte di documentazione finale.
Jeroen:
Quindi, acquisite anche i dati all'interno della chiamata e che aspetto hanno? Si possono prendere appunti all'interno della vostra interfaccia?
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:
Capito, capito.
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:
In realtà, il mio co-fondatore ha iniziato a mettere insieme una nuova tecnologia di condivisione dello schermo. È stato quasi tre anni fa quando ha avuto l'idea iniziale che doveva esserci un modo migliore per condividere i contenuti in remoto. Pensavamo che il processo di condivisione dello schermo, la tecnologia di condivisione dello schermo così com'è ancora oggi, fosse molto obsoleta. Immaginate, tutto passa attraverso il cloud e si muove comunque attraverso il cloud, quindi se presentate un software come Salesflare, in pratica la maggior parte dei prodotti SaaS, tutto probabilmente va direttamente nel 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:
Ok. Allora, cosa stavi facendo quando ti è venuto in mente?
Veronika:
Inizialmente è stato il mio co-fondatore a idearlo. Ha lavorato con un paio di altre società di vendita, anche come sviluppatore, e ha lavorato con i dipartimenti di vendita e ha visto quanto sia inefficiente il processo di demo in particolare.
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:
Sì, sono partito come capo progetto. Viaggiavo molto. Per la maggior parte del tempo ho lavorato in Germania e negli Stati Uniti, ma anche in Europa. Ho lavorato in Svizzera e nel Regno Unito, quindi un lavoro molto internazionale, che richiedeva molti viaggi.
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:
Sembra che lei abbia iniziato la sua carriera in un'azienda, abbia provato un po' di atmosfera da startup, sia passato alla consulenza e poi abbia iniziato a mettersi in proprio.
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:
Sì... Stavi dicendo che ti è sempre stato chiaro, da che età devo immaginarlo?
Veronika:
Say that again. I’m sorry. I didn’t get that.
Jeroen:
Stava dicendo che le è sempre stato chiaro che voleva fondare un'azienda. A che età pensa che sia successo?
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:
Come le è venuto in mente di iniziare a lavorare in Telefonica come primo impiego? Era un modo per imparare di più sulle imprese prima di mettersi in proprio?
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:
Già. La tua ambizione di diventare imprenditore è qualcosa che deriva dai tuoi genitori? O c'è stato qualcun altro che l'ha influenzata principalmente?
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:
E credo che questi fondatori abbiano avuto successo con il Product Market Fit. Capire come sono arrivati al Product Market Fit è stato particolarmente stimolante. Soprattutto Superhuman e Segment sono due grandi esempi in questo senso, e dimostrano anche che non esiste un solo modo, ma ci sono diversi modi per raggiungerlo.
Jeroen:
Sicuramente. È sempre bello vedere le due prospettive. A proposito, per gli ascoltatori, Rahul di Superhuman ha partecipato a uno degli episodi precedenti in cui parlava anche di come trovare il Product Market Fit e di come lavora per raggiungere i suoi obiettivi annuali, che tipo di processi ha per raggiungere questo obiettivo. Consiglio vivamente di ascoltarlo. Forse è il caso di parlare un po' di più di ciò che fate concretamente per far capire agli ascoltatori. Quanti siete ora in 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:
Forte. Per capire, cos'è che la tiene sveglia di notte ultimamente?
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:
Esattamente.
Jeroen:
Ha avuto un effetto positivo nel complesso? Voglio dire, in generale, le vostre nuove entrate sono aumentate o sono diminuite un po' con la crisi?
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:
Già. A cosa dedica la maggior parte del suo tempo di lavoro?
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:
Voi due, i co-fondatori, state dedicando molto tempo al prodotto, dice?
Veronika:
Sì.
Jeroen:
But you’re a company of 20 people. What do they spend their time on then?
Veronika:
Circa la metà è nel team di ingegneria. Poi ci sono tre persone nel marketing e quattro nelle vendite.
Jeroen:
Ok. Capito. Una sorta di metà, metà tra ingegneria e marketing-vendite, ma con un leggero salto di qualità, se si considerano anche i prodotti.
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:
Si. Lo stiamo facendo di sicuro. Abbiamo fatto il nostro seed round l'anno scorso. All'inizio dell'anno scorso abbiamo partecipato a Y Combinator. E poi con il seed round prima, durante e poco dopo Demodesk, abbiamo raccolto fondi da investitori provenienti soprattutto dalla Silicon Valley.
Jeroen:
Sì. Immagino che all'epoca si raccolgano fondi per 18 mesi o due anni. Quali sono le sue aspettative per il prossimo venture round nella situazione attuale?
Veronika:
Prima che tutto questo iniziasse, il piano prevedeva di raccogliere circa, una serie A all'inizio del 2021. Le condizioni di raccolta fondi sono un po' cambiate. Al momento pensiamo di raccogliere un po' più di denaro sotto forma di un round di seed esteso per avere un po' più di margine fino alla Serie A, proprio perché le condizioni sono un po' incerte al momento.
Jeroen:
Ma ciò avverrebbe da parte degli attuali investitori o coinvolgerà altri angeli?
Veronika:
Sarebbe una combinazione.
Jeroen:
Una combinazione di questi elementi?
Veronika:
Sì.
Jeroen:
Ha molto senso. Torniamo un po' a quello che fate a livello operativo. Lei dice di dedicare molto tempo al prodotto. È il 100% del vostro tempo o il 40%-50% del vostro tempo?
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:
Ok. Avete anche molte conversazioni con i clienti? O è per lo più delegata al team di vendita?
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:
Forte. Adesso lavorate a distanza presso Demodesk?
Veronika:
Sì, ora lavoriamo a distanza. Siamo sparsi in Europa e negli Stati Uniti, quindi lavoriamo anche con fusi orari e paesi diversi.
Jeroen:
Sì, ma prima avevate un ufficio anche in Germania?
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:
Anche prima lavoravamo in remoto, non come team completo, ma parzialmente. Io e Alex ci siamo trasferiti a Mountain View durante la YC. L'anno scorso abbiamo trascorso quattro mesi nella Valley. E poi io viaggiavo sempre avanti e indietro per la maggior parte del tempo. Facevo avanti e indietro tra Mountain View e San Francisco. In parte lavoravo a distanza e anche Alex si era trasferito a San Francisco all'inizio di quest'anno. Ora è tornato a Monaco, vista la situazione attuale. Anche noi eravamo in qualche modo abituati a lavorare in remoto. Tuttavia, lavorando completamente da remoto, l'intero team ha dovuto affrontare alcune sfide. Per noi è stato molto importante stabilire linee di relazione e strutture di team.
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:
Quali sono esattamente le cose che fate per questi stagisti? C'è una riunione quotidiana al mattino, se ho capito bene?
Veronika:
Sì, riunioni quotidiane di standup al mattino, strutture tra pari, canali Slack, linee guida chiare su come riferire cosa e quando, e anche la creazione di un wiki aziendale interno e di processi aziendali e di un gruppo di diapositive Notion che documentano tutti i processi per assicurarsi che tutti siano sulla stessa pagina.
Jeroen:
Avete apportato modifiche ai processi di riunione?
Veronika:
Sì, è così. Abbiamo quattro team. I nostri team sono quello tecnico, quello dei prodotti, quello delle entrate e quello della crescita. E questi quattro team hanno standup quotidiani. Inoltre, i team leader, insieme a me e ad Alex, si riuniscono ogni giorno alla fine della giornata per assicurarsi di rimanere in sintonia.
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:
Fate le due riunioni o solo la riunione di fine giornata?
Veronika:
Due riunioni. La riunione del mattino è all'interno del team, quindi solo del team di crescita o del team delle entrate. La riunione serale è con i team leader.
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:
Carino. Che cane è?
Jeroen:
It’s a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
Veronika:
Bene.
Jeroen:
Sai che aspetto ha?
Veronika:
No. I love dogs, but I don’t know how it looks.
Jeroen:
Soffice.
Veronika:
Ok, fantastico.
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:
Sì. Ma lei ha detto di essere cresciuto in entrambi i luoghi. Ma lei è cresciuto in entrambi i luoghi, ha detto. Sia nella Silicon Valley che in Germania.
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:
Sì, gli altri si sono solo aggregati?
Veronika:
Gli altri tre investitori erano investitori con cui eravamo già in contatto prima di andare alla YC.
Jeroen:
Sì, ma l'investitore principale era quello di San Francisco, o l'investitore principale era in Germania?
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:
No.
Jeroen:
Or “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz?
Veronika:
Sì, l'ho letto, sì.
Jeroen:
Come si colloca rispetto a quello di 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:
Storie e idee, sì.
Veronika:
In modo molto accattivante.
Jeroen:
Vero, vero. Bene, ora non vedo l'ora di leggerlo. Ultima domanda. Se dovesse ricominciare da capo con Demodesk, cosa farebbe di diverso?
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:
Sì.
Jeroen:
Nel vostro stato attuale. Ma cosa succederebbe se oggi ricominciaste Demodesk con tutto ciò che avete già imparato da queste cose? Cosa fareste di diverso?
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:
Si'... Ottimo. Grazie ancora per aver partecipato al Founder Coffee, Veronika. È stato davvero bello averti con noi.
Veronika:
Grazie. È stato divertente parlare con voi e spero di parlare presto.
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