Allan Wille van Klipfolio

Jeroen: Hi Allan, it’s great to have you on Founder Coffee.

Allan: Ja, bedankt Jeroen, erg blij om hier te zijn.

Jeroen: You’re the co-founder of Klipfolio. For those who don’t know Klipfolio yet, what do you guys do?

Allan: So, we are super lucky to have 11 thousand awesome, small and mid-sized companies that are monitoring their sell performance, their marketing performance, their support performance on Klipfolio. So, we’re a real-time dashboard. BI for people that don’t really have IT teams. We’re really trying to help small and mid-sized businesses get a real-time view into the performance of their business.

Jeroen: Dus als ik het goed begrijp, hebben jullie de markt een beetje veranderd door BI naar de cloud te brengen, het wat meer real-time te maken en het aan te sluiten op andere bronnen. Klopt dat?

Allan: Yeah, I’ve never really thought of it that way, but I think you’re probably right. I mean, if I rewind a few years back, I think we probably were one of the first B2B dashboard vendors that was in the cloud. Not only in the cloud, but also we had adopted a go-to-market that was targeting small and mid-sized businesses.

Jeroen: Uh-huh.

Allan: So, I mean, I don’t know how much you know about the BI space, but almost all of the vendors, if I go back five or ten years, all of them had a very heavy sales type of approach – very expensive to have on premise. I think we really took that and we actually spent some time in that world as well, but we really took that, shook it up and targeted the SMB with a less expensive ‘in the cloud’ version.

Jeroen: Ik kan me die tijd nog heel goed herinneren. Ik denk dat we bij het bedrijf waar ik werkte Clickview gebruikten.

Ja, ja.

Jeroen: There was this desktop application that you could use. It was quite expensive, it was doable in the case of Clickview. It’s not like the big IBM Systems and all that. But, still they didn’t really make the shift to the cloud yet.

Allan: No, and they’re still struggling.

Allan: And I mean they’re great tools if you have a team of analysts and a team of BHI developers and if you’ve got the budget. But for a lot of those enterprise focused companies, to come down market and not cannibalize their existing customer base is really, really hard.

Jeroen: Ja.

Allan: So, I do think we’re in a bit of an envious spot for many of those other customers.

Jeroen: I imagine you, yourself, don’t come out of BI then, in that case?

Allan: No, not really. I mean, there’s always so many influences that shape somebody’s life, right?

Jeroen: Uh-huh.

Allan: I mean, I think the one BI’s influence, I think, is that Cognos is an Ottawa company and Cognos used to be Canada’s biggest software company.

Allan: They were acquired by IBM a few years ago, so there certainly is a presence in Ottawa and there’s a lot BI knowledge and world class thinking, that with the re-batch they benefited from. My background though is, you know, I did Industrial Design at school, I’m a designer by heart. I love graphic design, I started as another software company in 1996, where I did lots of the marketing and the user interface design. Maybe we’ll get into this, but we actually stumbled upon what we’re doing today, as a consumer tool.

Allan: And the entire idea, I mean, I don’t know if you know, but the company is really old. We founded this company in 2001.

Allan: It’s ancient by any stretch of the imagination. And the original idea was a consumer tool that would help users monitor their weather, their stocks, their soccer scores, their football scores, all of that kind of stuff.

Allan: And we weren’t really thinking B2B. We weren’t really thinking Business Intelligence. What we saw out, back in 2001-2002, was that so many websites were coming online with frequently changing news items or Spark Sport scores, and we thought, there must be a better way to sort of aggregate that and present that to users.

Allan: Dus we hadden deze downloadbare widget engine die immens populair was. We hadden duizend downloads per dag, we zaten op 300.000 gebruikers die het originele, persoonlijke dashboard gebruikten.

Jeroen: Geweldig.

Allan: Klipfolio 1.0, en het was geweldig. Maar we hadden geen enkele mogelijkheid om dat te gelde te maken. Dus we hadden deze tweezijdige markt. We wilden onze diensten verkopen aan online uitgevers. En daar hadden we ook succes mee. We hadden relaties met Der Spiegel, in Duitsland, we hadden relaties met Sporting News, The Weather Network. Dus we hadden een paar relaties die ons in de goede richting wezen.

Allan: But for the most part, these online publishers, that were publishing the weather, and the news, and sport scores and stocks, they didn’t have any money. And they were struggling themselves with what their business model was going to be.

Allan: So, we didn’t find any traction there. Even though we had hundreds of thousands of users, who were monitoring their personal interests using Klipfolio. The flip side that we couldn’t monetize it, so that was a big sort of two-sided marketplace learning curve for us. But, it did sort of, catapult us. It sort of established the brand name in the market and I actually think, to this day, we might still be benefited from that brand awareness that we had 15 years ago.

Jeroen: Yeah, if I’m not mistaken you were very popular with the soccer scores mostly?

Allan: Yeah. And there’s a funny story about that. So FC Midshire and Barcelona, they all had feeds. Now, they were not willing to pay us for these feeds, but they also had XML and RSS feeds. But, the funny story or the opportunity was that it was though the soccer scores that we actually landed our first enterprise, or our first paying business customer.

Allan: And this is a couple years later. Lufthansa contacted us and I remember it was about 4 p.m. at the end of the day, I’m sitting at my computer, I’m just struggling, because we’re not making any money and we get an email from Lufthansa, from their IT department. And it was in English and it said, “Many of our employees are using Klipfolio to monitor their football scores. Can we use Klipfolio to push business information as well?”

Allan: Dus binnen een nacht, binnen de 24 uur die we hadden, zeiden we natuurlijk ja.

Allan: We ontwikkelden een prijsmodel en ik ben vergeten wat we precies in rekening brachten, maar we hebben het opgezet als een model voor terugkerende inkomsten. Dit is in 2004; we hebben het opgezet als een jaarlijkse betaling. Ik denk dat het vijfendertigduizend dollar per jaar was en Lufthansa zei ja. En dat was onze eerste grote ommezwaai die we in onze schoot geworpen kregen. Het was een plotse ommezwaai die ons een zakelijke klant opleverde en vanaf dat moment hebben we deals gesloten met Staples, Intel, American Express en anderen.

Allan: Dat was dus een groot moment in de geschiedenis van het bedrijf.

Jeroen: Heeft dat je meteen doen besluiten om van businessmodel te veranderen of ben je nog een tijdje doorgegaan met het vorige?

Allan: Well, we did. We didn’t sunset it, but from a revenue point of view and from a salary point of view, you don’t have much choice.

Allan: If you’re facing death and can’t pay your bills and all of a sudden you found a vein that is willing to sustain life, the choice is pretty easy. Now, I remember on our website we still had Klipfolio personal and then we had Klipfolio enterprise. We actually even had a third one as well. There was a brief time where we were trying our best at selling Rich Internet Applications, or branded desktop applications.

Allan: So, we would develop these very custom desktop applications that would stream news down to a users desktop, and we made some money with that as well. The problem was that each of them were so unique, that it wasn’t productizable. We couldn’t use it for the next customer.

Allan: So, we often called that dirty money, because it wasn’t money that we could build a business on, it was services revenue more than anything else. But, yeah, we had basically the personal side and the enterprise side and I always caution startups or entrepreneurs when they have multiple, different target audiences early in their lives, because it’s difficult. It really makes the buying decision and who you’re absolutely for, who you’re targeting, it makes it much, much muddier than it really should be.

Jeroen: Ja. Wat zou jouw advies zijn aan deze mensen die verschillende soorten publiek hebben, hoe moeten ze daarmee omgaan? Op welk moment moeten ze een beslissing nemen?

Allan: I mean, first of all it comes with a realization, right? And I think many times, especially technologists feel that the thing that they have built can really be applied to 10, 12, 20 different markets, different types of customers. You could use it to do A, B and C. But, that is difficult, because when you’re targeting a customer that customer wants to know that you have reference customers, that are in their own space. They want to make sure that you are speaking their language, that you have depth in their field.

Allan: It really takes a tremendous amount of energy to focus on one particular market. So, as a young company, absolutely pick the one that you’re most passionate about, pick the one where you have some early traction, and then just double down on that as much as you can.

Allan: And then as you grow and as you have the support staff to be able to diversify, that’s when you could potentially do that.

Jeroen: Ja, daar ben ik het helemaal mee eens. In het begin van Klipfolio, wat was je idee? Waarom ben je een bedrijf begonnen? Wat was je motivatie?

Allan: So, I’d started another company in 1996.

Allan: We were straight out of university. It was me and two other friends from university and it was a massive, massive learning experience. We actually started by just developing websites for customers, this is in 1996 and there was a lot of need for businesses coming online to develop websites. What we didn’t realize is that in developing these websites we had also developed one of the smallest Java Runtimes in the world, and that was what eventually grew the business and got funding etcetera.

Allan: In dat eerste bedrijf haalden we eigenlijk te veel geld op en dat creëerde allerlei problemen voor ons. Het bedrijf ging wel naar de beurs, maar het was een soort gedwongen beursgang. En toen ik Klipfolio begon, wilde ik echt van dat leerproces gebruik maken en een nieuwe start maken. Een eenvoudiger bedrijf starten. Maar wat ik ook zag, en zoals ik net al zei, wat we zagen waren al die mensen die dagelijks vijf of zes of zeven verschillende dingen in de gaten hielden.

Allan: Dat was dus de kans. We zagen XML en RSS opkomen en breedband natuurlijk ook. De meeste mensen hadden toegang tot breedbandinternet. Al die dingen kwamen samen en dat was waar we gepassioneerd over waren. Het was onze passie om zoveel mogelijk mensen te helpen de dingen te volgen die belangrijk voor hen waren.

Allan: It’s moved from personal to business, but that spark or that passion of helping people monitor the things that they care about is still very much alive.

Jeroen: Yep. You mentioned you started off straight out of university. That means you never had a “real job” then?

Allan: I had some co-op jobs, but you’re right. I mean, even as a teenager, I always had my own jobs in summer. I had a lawn mowing and pool maintenance company. As a kid, I was big into remote control cars and I ran a summer camp for local kids on how to fix and race these cars. I got into reselling these model cars. I’ve always loved creating things, building things and even though it sounds silly, because I’m a designer by heart, one of the things that actually really attracted me was the brand and the logo and creating something that had meaning.

Allan: So, there was sort of multiple passions there, but I’ve always loved that. I don’t know what else I would do.

Jeroen: Yeah, I think it’s something that unites a lot of, at least software entrepreneurs, the urge to build something.

Allan: Yeah. It’s funny, because I do think about it often and I don’t know what you’re like, but if I’m at home, cooking on the weekend, or in the evening, I have a real difficult time following a recipe. I almost can’t follow the recipe.

Allan: And I need to somehow do something slightly different. There’s an urge, there’s a real deep urge and it’s exactly the same with business or life. Like there’s a curiosity and a want to do something different as opposed to following the steps laid down already.

Jeroen: Ja, ik kan het allebei, denk ik, ik kan een recept volgen en toch de voorkeur geven aan verschillende recepten.

Allan: Ja.

Jeroen: Zoals recepten die anders zijn dan de normale.

Allan: Yeah, I don’t know. I struggle with that. I have an inability to follow instructions. Like I’m having a beer and I’m cooking and I think, “Oh, I’m going to add a little bit of my beer to this recipe.” I can’t help it.

Jeroen: Dat klinkt als alcoholisme.

Allan: I hope not. I hope not, so that’s funny.

Jeroen: So, it sounds like you’re into startups. You started in it and you’re never going to do anything else. Were you somehow influenced by anyone, while being at university to do this, or you just felt it was the right thing to do and you went into it?

Allan: I don’t know, I mean, obviously growing up I definitely did some things, but my father also was an entrepreneur. My father worked for a Swiss bank, he worked for a Canadian bank for a while and then for some other big companies. But then eventually he wanted to start his own company. And that’s actually why we grew up in Switzerland and we moved to Canada, my mom is Canadian. We moved to Canada, because it was easier to start a company in Canada.

Allan: Mijn vader had eigenlijk zijn eigen bedrijf dat hij liet groeien en waarmee hij worstelde, en hij overleefde. Dus ik denk dat dat waarschijnlijk ook invloed heeft gehad.

Jeroen: Yeah, you sort of saw your dad doing what he was doing and you thought, “Oh, I could do that too.” Not work for someone else.

Allan: Yeah, I don’t know how much of an influence it had, but it must have right?

Jeroen: Mm-hmm.

Allan: Ik herinner me dat hij 's avonds rond de eettafel na zat te denken over hoe we klanten konden aantrekken en hoe we de prijs konden bepalen. Dus ja, ik denk dat die dialoog en die creativiteit me beïnvloed hebben.

Jeroen: Yeah. Now, with Klipfolio, if you look at the way you run business and the direction you want to take the company, is there anything specific about that? Like the way you look at, I don’t know, bootstrapping versus VC funding? The way you interact with employees or work with them?

Allan: So, there’s a couple of questions here. So let’s tackle the first one about venture or bootstrapping. I’m a huge fan of bootstrapping and starting out in a bootstrapped model. I think, unfortunately, if you look 10 or 20 years ago, the venture industry was really not-existent. Maybe we sort of saw the first wave of it during the dot-com boom, but really if you look at a lot of entrepreneurs today, and you ask them, “Well, how are you going to get started?” Very frequently they will say, “I’m going to do a few things, but then I’m going to raise some funding or I’m going to raise my seed ground.” And those things happen very early on in the company’s life cycle.

Allan: And I think that’s often the mistake, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs have unrealistic expectations on how much they can raise, and they don’t understand what dilution it is going to do to the future of the ownership of the company.

Jeroen: Mm-hmm.

Allan: So, I really am a huge fan and I massively respect companies that have been able to prove out a product, maybe pivot one or two times to really find a growth pattern, and have gotten to a point where they have a tremendous amount of respect for the customer, for the cash position, for efficiency. And I don’t think that you get that if you take too much money early on. I think you really need to work through a few of those things, have leverage, see growth and then only if you have the ability to accelerate the business through capital, that’s the only time that you should take funding.

Allan: Je moet geen financiering aannemen om een idee te bewijzen.

Jeroen: Ja.

Allan: And a lot of customers, or a lot of VC’s invest in companies like that and take a huge chunk of the equity and a lot of early founders see that as a way to pay their salaries. Do as much as you can, and potentially even don’t take funding at all. I mean, there’s some amazing stories of big companies, like Atlassian who was incredibly cash sufficient, and grew, and grew, and grew, and only took funding, shortly before they did an IPO.

Allan: So, I think there’s definitely ways to do it and I would advise that 80% of the companies are not companies that should have venture-backed funding.

Jeroen: Mm-hmm.

Allan: I like the approach that we took. For the first 12 years of our lives, we bootstrapped and we bootstrapped because we didn’t have a model that was fundable. We simply didn’t have it figured it out yet. If we had put cash in, venture money into the company in the first 12 years, it would not have accelerated. It would’ve prolonged, maybe, our life, but it would not have accelerated the business.

Allan: We only took funding, and we’ve now done a seed, an A and B round, we only have taken funding when we could prove that the dollars invested would accelerate an already existing model.

Jeroen: Mm-hmm.

Allan: I think that’s really important.

Jeroen: Ja.

Allan: En wat was je andere vraag?

Jeroen: Mijn andere vraag ging over het werken met werknemers? Hoe kijk je daarnaar?

Allan: Yes, absolutely. So, we’ve grown to about 100 employees, which is amazing and they’re amazing people. We very much have a face to face culture. I know that there’s a lot of companies that are very successful doing a remote culture as well. But, I think you have to choose whether you’re going to be remote and you have to invest in the technology or you invest in a face to face culture and you invest in that type of infrastructure or office space.

Allan: So, we’ve got an amazing team. We’ve got a relatively flat hierarchy. We spend a tremendous amount of time with engagement and culture, values, our guiding principles. We’re very transparent about the state of the business. We run employee surveys and we run these little slack questions that we get out to all the employees as well. So, we’re very transparent about all of that. And we also are very collaborative in everything – when we’re designing a new marketing campaign, or looking at the sale processes, or designing a roadmap, or determining what the roadmap is.

Allan: We take very much a design thinking approach and have collaborative and multi-functional teams that participate. And I think that’s important. I think that, that really builds respect, it builds inclusion. And I think it works. I think our employees have really valued that transparency and that inclusion. We have an incredibly low turnover, which I think is a result of that. So, yeah I’m pretty honored to sort of sit among all of these amazing people.

Allan: And I think the culture is a reflection of maybe something that we started, but it’s now bigger than just the founding team. The culture is now really, it’s embedded and the values are embedded, which I think is really important.

Jeroen: Yep. Ik las ongeveer een half jaar geleden, denk ik, dat je terugtrad als CEO van Klipfolio?

Allan: Yeah, that’s right.

Jeroen: Wat was de reden achter die beslissing?

Allan: So, that announcement came about, you’re right, about six months ago. But, we started thinking about that and putting plans in place probably more like a year, maybe even 15 months ago. So, as the company grows, I think it’s important to always, not only assess who your management team is, who your leadership team is, which we do and we have hired a new CPO, we’ve hired a new chief of strategy or head of strategy. But, I think as a CEO, you also need to always qualify are you the right person to continue doing what you’re doing in your current role, because there’s a saying, “What got you here, may not necessarily get you there.”

Allan: So, very much the same thinking. One of the things that I really, really enjoyed and still do continue to enjoy, is the vision of the company. Where are we headed? What are the market forces? What are the big trends? What is the roadmap? What’s the culture of the company? And so much of my day was starting to become just administrative, working with the board, a lot of things that prevented me from really executing on the things that I loved or really enjoyed most.

Allan: So, we started evaluating that and thought, “You know maybe Allan, you should bring in a COO as somebody who could take some of that. Or maybe you want to have a CEO/President type of relationship.” But, then we found Owen, probably about nine months ago, and we actually really liked him. He was very complimentary to me, he’s much more of a tactician, a process oriented leader and I think that’s exactly what we needed to take the company to the next level.

Allan: He’s somebody who really sits in finance, understands the board, can really put process and scale in place for us, and that alleviated my role and I’m now the chief innovation officer, to really do the things that I love most. I think it’s great. I really enjoyed it, its actually given me less stress and allowed me to think more about the future of the company, which I think is important and was lacking.

Jeroen: Mm-hmm.

Allan: So, yeah, it’s been really, really good and I’ve really enjoyed working with Owen.

Jeroen: Ja, klinkt als een perfecte levensstijl keuze zou ik zeggen.

Allan: Yeah, I mean, you could ask my wife. There’s more of a balance in my life.

Allan: I think as the founder or co-founder of the company, I don’t think you ever stop thinking about the company. And everything that you do, there’s always a parallel, or there’s always something that you’re learning that you can take back to the company. Because, not being CEO anymore, but rather focusing on innovation and the future of the company, has given me a different balance and a different perspective, which I think is positive.

Jeroen: Juist. Wat houdt je de laatste tijd 's nachts wakker?

Allan: I think what keeps me up at night now is figuring out where do we fit in a very quickly changing market dynamic. So, we used to be really one of the only players in the smaller, mid-sized business dashboard space. There was Geckoboard, who we competed with and I know Paul Joyce, the CEO there. I know him quite well, he’s a great guy. There were a couple of other players that were toying with the SMB space, but really I think we were the dominant player inside of that space and one of the only ones.

Allan: And all of a sudden there’s a lot of other players that have become interested in the small and mid-sized business market. Now, there are, depends on how you count it, there are 50 million to a hundred million SMB’s globally. So, hundred million if you count China and India. There is room for 20 winners in this space, plenty of room. But, nonetheless the market is changing. So, what do we need to do to really be a leader, to leapfrog some of the competition, to be truly seen as innovative and really deliver value? Those are the things that I’m now concerned about and actually right after this chat, I’m actually joining a two and a half hour meeting where we’re talking about what we call Vision 2022.

Allan: That’s really, I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that’s going to drive our short-term and medium-term roadmap. So, those are the things that keep me up at night, now. What are the market porous? What are the big trends? And how do we benefit from those?

Jeroen: Klinkt gaaf. Werken er mensen voor je op een soort innovatieafdeling of ben jij de enige verantwoordelijke?

Allan: Ja, dus ik zou het, en we hebben er veel van, meer een gilde willen noemen. Dus ik heb weer mensen van verschillende afdelingen die geïnteresseerd zijn in innovatie.

Allan: We are working together as a team, they report to their own managers, but again these are the folks that I want to draw in, who are themselves influencers, who are thought leaders. I mean, and it’s really cool when you start working with these people from different departments. One of the guys here actually did his master’s degree in something called speculative design. I had never heard of this before, but this is the study of what the future is going to be like and what the probability of certain things are inside of that future scenario.

Allan: So, I’ve got some amazing people that are working with me and helping me. So yeah, it’s very cool.

Jeroen: Gaaf. Hoe is de balans tussen werk en privé eigenlijk veranderd? Werk je nu al meer dan acht of tien uur?

Allan: I mean, it’s blurry, right. It’s blurry, would say I’ve never really worked only eight hours.

Allan: And I would say I’ve also never worked 24 hours.

Allan: Maar ik heb twee meisjes.

Allan: Ten and, no sorry, 12 and 14 and when they were younger, I would go home and I would read them bedtime stories. And even though you’re completely focused on your child and you’re enjoying the moment, you’re reading a story about some princess and a unicorn and in the background you’re processing things that are happening at work. And this children’s story sometimes helps you solve those things.

Allan: So, you never really turn off. And I actually don’t know that it’s different now either. I mean, I work very closely with Owen and we complement each other. I think there’s perhaps a shared level of stress, so I think the things that I do, perhaps are, they’re less urgent maybe, or less, I don’t know what the word is, but it’s different. It’s certainly more enjoyable, the things that I’m doing now, even though I’m working way more than eight hours a day, I don’t consider it work. It’s an interest, it’s a passion, right, and if you’re passionate it doesn’t actually feel like work. And I think if you’re passionate, I think that also helps you not distract from your personal life.

Allan: When I’m with my kids, I’m 100% with my kids, but I still might be background processing. It’s hard to describe, but I don’t feel a lot of stress in my life, I can tell you that.

Allan: En de dingen waar ik over nadenk, vind ik leuk om over na te denken en problemen op te lossen, dus ja, ik bedoel, misschien heb jij ook wel soortgelijke ervaringen.

Jeroen: Dat ik het leuk vind om problemen op te lossen? Ja, heel erg.

Jeroen: And I also enjoy the part you’re doing now, often more than the administrative CEO part for sure.

Allan: Yeah, absolutely. But some people really like the administrative part, right? And I think understanding what your strengths are and complementing those, I think is something you’ve always got to look in the mirror for and assess.

Jeroen: For sure, for sure. Yeah, it’s nice that you have the opportunity to kind of give it to someone else and still do the things you’re passionate about, I think.

Allan: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Now, what it does mean, is it means I need to be conscious that I am no longer the CEO. So that, that is something that, and it’s also a learning experience, so I need to support the CEO in the things that I’m doing. And I actually think that, that’s been quite interesting as well, because it’s offered me a different perspective on the company. So, if and when I start another company I think I’ll actually have benefited from being the CEO and then being not the CEO as well. So, I think there’s always learning in that as well.

Jeroen: Yep. Je zei dat je basis in Ottawa is. Is dit een goede plek om een startup te hebben?

Allan: I think it’s a great place. I mean, I mentioned that for us, Cognos is one of the big companies. Back in the day when we started the company, Norchill was a massive employer here, so lots of high-tech talent. Norchill went under, but what that did was it spread a bunch of talent throughout Ottawa, they were starting to do new things and explore new things.

Allan: We have two really good universities, a number of colleges that we have built amazing relationships with from a recruiting point of view. I think geographically we’re close to Toronto, Boston, New York, Montreal. We have good access as far as daylight time to Europe, to the West Coast, so California is concerned. And from a city point of view, Ottawa is amazing, like it’s a city of a million people, but it’s very livable. I love cycling, I cycle to work almost every single day. It takes me 40 minutes and I don’t live that far away. I think it’s an amazing city, I think there’s lots of talent here.

Allan: The only thing is it’s too cold, like in the winter. That’s the only problem that I have with Ottawa.

Jeroen: Ja.

Allan: So, that’s something that I’m always cursing, but the rest of it, the positives definitely outweigh the fact that we get lots of snow and it’s like minus 25.

Jeroen: Mm-hmm. Slowly wrapping up, what’s the latest good book you’ve read and why did you choose to read it?

Allan: So, I mean I’ve read a lot of business books, and I tend to switch between a business book and a non-business book. I can’t read two business books back-to-back, too much. The latest one that I actually just finished yesterday is a non-business book and I highly, highly recommend it. It’s called Red Notice and it’s about Bill Browder, who was an investor in Russia and exposed all sorts of corruption, murder, legal issues and has really become a harsh critic of Russia and Putin. So, it’s a true story and it’s just an amazing read. It does have a little bit of a business angle to it, because he grew an amazing business and was one of the biggest investors in Russia. So I would highly recommend that to anybody, who either wants a good story or is interested in business and relations in foreign countries.

Jeroen: Ja, dus Red Notice van Bill Browder.

Allan: Precies, ja.

Jeroen: Gaaf, ik heb het toegevoegd aan mijn to-read lijst.

Allan: Yeah, now there’s tons of other amazing books and the ones that I always recommend are the ones that start with ‘why’.

Allan: That’s an absolute must. I’ve often found myself citing Good to Great, I’ve enjoyed that as well. Even the book, The Hard Things About Hard Things.

Allan: So I’ve read those as well. I recently read one that talks about OKRs, I forget exactly what it’s called but we’ve implemented objectives and key results inside of Klipfolio.

Allan: There’s lots actually and every time you read one of these books, it’s inspiring. You learn something different, so lots of good stuff out there.

Jeroen: Is there anything you know now that you wish you would’ve known when you started out?

Allan: There’s probably a million things, like you learn something, you see something almost every day and I enjoy chatting with our co-ops and I enjoy chatting with startups in Ottawa or elsewhere, because there’s always stuff that you learn. I think the one that I continue to think we should’ve done more in the early days, is that we should have taken more risks.

Allan: We hadden eigenlijk groter moeten dromen en dan gewoon erkennen dat als je grotere dromen hebt, je misschien vaker zult falen.

Allan: Okay. I really think, I mean there’s a quote that I saw, I was watching a movie on a plane back from California, and it wasn’t a business movie, but there was a quote or a line in the movie that was, “We spend our lives being told to be safe and not take risks, yet the people that we look up to and are motivated by are the ones that push the bounds.”

Allan: And it’s true. The ones that are going to change the world, the businesses that are going to change the world, are the ones that thought big. And they took the risks, so I think that’s really important. I think there’s a lot to be said for thinking bigger and taking more risks.

Jeroen: I agree. Well, that’s all I have for now Allan. Thank you, we’ll wrap up here.

Allan: Geweldig.

Jeroen: Nogmaals bedankt dat je bij Founder Coffee was. Het was echt geweldig om je te hebben.

Allan: Ja, absoluut mijn genoegen. Dit was leuk.

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