Veronika Riederle van Demodesk
Oprichter Koffie aflevering 041
Ik ben Jeroen van Salesflare en dit 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.
Voor deze eenenveertigste aflevering sprak ik met Veronika Riederle, medeoprichter en CEO van Demodesk, een van de toonaangevende video-oplossingen voor verkoopdemo's.
Veronika heeft op de universiteit alles geleerd over ondernemen. Na ongeveer 7 jaar in strategiefuncties bij Bain, Audi en Telefónica te hebben gewerkt, besloot ze de sprong te 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.
Welkom bij Founder Coffee.
Liever luisteren? Je kunt deze aflevering vinden op:
Jeroen:
Hi Veronika. It’s great to have you on Founder Coffee.
Veronika:
Hoi Jeroen, bedankt voor de uitnodiging. Leuk met je gesproken te hebben.
Jeroen:
You’re the co-founder of Demodesk. For those who don’t know what Demodesk does yet, what do you guys do?
Veronika:
Wij zijn de eerste intelligente online vergadertool voor klantgerichte gesprekken. En het belangrijkste verschil met tools als Zoom of GoToMeeting is onze benadering van het delen van schermen. Waar bestaande tools gewoon een video opnemen van je lokale bureaublad en dat streamen naar de andere partij, doen wij niets van dit alles. In plaats daarvan zetten we een virtueel scherm op waar iedereen toegang toe heeft door gewoon op een link te klikken. En er zijn nog een paar andere voordelen, maar over het algemeen helpen we je bij het automatiseren van de workflows, helpen we je bij het verminderen van alle wrijvingen die je hebt wanneer je met je klant praat en bieden we verkopers en ondersteuningsvertegenwoordigers alles wat ze in realtime nodig hebben om een perfect klantgesprek te voeren dat converteert en uiteindelijk een tevreden klant oplevert.
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:
Precies. Dus wat betreft downloads, er zijn geen downloads voor niemand. Dus de host en de deelnemer hoeven niets te downloaden. Gewoon een klik in de browser en de vergadering wordt geopend. En we automatiseren ook het hele planningsproces. Dus we bieden vergelijkbare functionaliteiten als Calendly of Chili Piper om je te helpen het hele planningsproces te automatiseren voor jezelf en ook binnen het team. Daarna synchroniseren we alle gegevens terug naar Salesforce en HubSpot, zodat we je ook helpen om het documentatiegedeelte te automatiseren.
Jeroen:
Ja, leggen jullie ook gegevens vast tijdens het gesprek en hoe zien die gegevens eruit? Kan iemand aantekeningen maken in jullie interface?
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:
Hebbes, hebbes.
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:
Eigenlijk is mijn medeoprichter begonnen met het hacken van een nieuwe technologie voor het delen van schermen. Het is nu bijna drie jaar geleden dat hij de eerste gedachte had dat er een betere manier moest zijn om inhoud op afstand te delen. We dachten gewoon dat het proces van het delen van schermen, de technologie voor het delen van schermen zoals die nu meestal nog is, gewoon erg verouderd is. Stel je voor, alles gaat door de cloud en beweegt sowieso door de cloud, dus als je een software als Salesflare presenteert, eigenlijk de meeste SaaS-producten, gaat alles waarschijnlijk direct in de 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:
Oké. Wat was je aan het doen toen je dit bedacht?
Veronika:
Mijn medeoprichter heeft dit in eerste instantie bedacht. Hij werkte ook met een paar andere verkoopbedrijven, ook als ontwikkelaar, en werkte met verkoopafdelingen en zag hoe inefficiënt met name het demoproces is.
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, ik ging weg als projectleider. Ik reisde veel. Het grootste deel van mijn tijd werkte ik in Duitsland en de VS, maar ook in heel Europa. Ik werkte in Zwitserland en het Verenigd Koninkrijk, dus een zeer internationale baan, zeer reisintensief.
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:
Het lijkt erop dat je je carrière bent begonnen in het bedrijfsleven, de startup-sfeer hebt uitgeprobeerd, in consulting bent gegaan en toen je eigen ding bent gaan doen.
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:
Ja. Je zei dat het altijd duidelijk voor je was, vanaf welke leeftijd moet ik me dat voorstellen?
Veronika:
Say that again. I’m sorry. I didn’t get that.
Jeroen:
Je zei dat het altijd al duidelijk voor je was dat je een bedrijf wilde beginnen. Vanaf welke leeftijd denk je dat dit was?
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:
Wat was toen je idee om bij Telefonica te beginnen als je eerste baan? Was dat een manier om meer te leren over het bedrijfsleven voordat je voor jezelf zou beginnen?
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. Je ambities om ondernemer te worden, is dat iets wat van je ouders komt? Of was er iemand anders die je daar vooral heeft beïnvloed?
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:
En ik denk zeker dat dit soort oprichters succes hadden met Product Market Fit. Ik denk dat het bijzonder inspirerend was om ons te laten begrijpen hoe ze Product Market Fit hebben bereikt. Vooral Superhuman en Segment zijn hier twee geweldige voorbeelden van en laten ook zien dat er niet maar één manier is, maar dat er verschillende manieren zijn om dat te bereiken.
Jeroen:
Absoluut. Altijd goed om de twee perspectieven te zien. Trouwens, voor de luisteraars, Rahul van Superhuman was in een van de vorige afleveringen waar hij het ook had over het vinden van Product Market Fit en hoe hij naar zijn jaarlijkse doelen toewerkt, wat voor processen ze hebben om daar naartoe te gaan. Ik raad je zeker aan om daarnaar te luisteren. Misschien een beetje meer over wat jullie concreet doen zodat luisteraars het begrijpen. Met hoeveel zijn jullie nu bij 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:
Gaaf. Om het te begrijpen, wat houdt je de laatste tijd 's nachts wakker?
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:
Precies.
Jeroen:
Had dit over het algemeen een positief effect? Ik bedoel, zijn uw nieuwe inkomsten in het algemeen gestegen, of zijn ze een beetje gedaald door de crisis?
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. Waar besteed je nu persoonlijk de meeste tijd aan?
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:
Jullie twee, de medeoprichters, besteden veel tijd aan het product, zegt u?
Veronika:
Ja.
Jeroen:
But you’re a company of 20 people. What do they spend their time on then?
Veronika:
Ongeveer de helft zit in het engineeringteam. En dan heb je nog drie mensen in marketing, vier mensen in verkoop.
Jeroen:
Oké. Begrepen. Soort van half, half tussen engineering en marketing-sales, maar met een kleine kanteling, als je ook producten meetelt.
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. Dat zijn we zeker. We hebben vorig jaar onze zaaikapitaalronde gehad. Dus gingen we begin vorig jaar naar Y Combinator. En toen met de seed round voor en tijdens en kort na Demodesk, haalden we vooral geld op bij investeerders uit Silicon Valley.
Jeroen:
Ja. Ik neem aan dat je toen voor 18 maanden of twee jaar fondsen hebt geworven. Wat is je verwachting voor de volgende ronde in de huidige situatie?
Veronika:
Voordat dit allemaal begon, was het plan om begin 2021 een serie A op te halen. De omstandigheden voor fondsenwerving zijn een beetje veranderd. We denken er op dit moment over om wat meer geld op te halen in de vorm van een verlengde seed round om wat meer speelruimte te hebben tot de Serie A, gewoon omdat de omstandigheden op dit moment een beetje onzeker zijn.
Jeroen:
Maar zou dat van de huidige investeerders zijn, of zouden er nog meer angels bij betrokken zijn?
Veronika:
Het zou een combinatie zijn.
Jeroen:
Een combinatie daarvan?
Veronika:
Ja.
Jeroen:
Dat is heel logisch. Even terug naar wat je operationeel doet. Je zegt dat je veel tijd besteedt aan het product. Is dat 100% van je tijd of 40%-50% van je tijd?
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:
Oké. Heb je ook veel gesprekken met klanten? Of is dat vooral gedelegeerd aan je verkoopteam?
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:
Gaaf. Werken jullie nu op afstand bij Demodesk?
Veronika:
Ja, we werken nu volledig op afstand. We zijn verspreid over Europa en de VS, dus we werken ook vanuit verschillende tijdzones, verschillende landen.
Jeroen:
Ja, maar daarvoor had je ook een kantoor ergens in Duitsland?
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:
We werkten ook al eerder op afstand, niet als een volledig op afstand werkend team, maar gedeeltelijk. Alex en ik verhuisden tijdens YC naar Mountain View. Vorig jaar hebben we vier maanden in de Valley doorgebracht. En toen reisde ik toch al het grootste deel van de tijd heen en weer. Dus heen en weer tussen Mountain View en San Francisco. Ik werkte gedeeltelijk op afstand en Alex was begin dit jaar ook naar San Francisco verhuisd. Hij keerde nu terug naar München, gezien de huidige situatie. We waren ook op een bepaalde manier gewend om op afstand te werken. Maar volledig op afstand werken stelde het hele team voor een aantal uitdagingen. Voor ons was het superbelangrijk om rapportagelijnen en teamstructuren op te zetten.
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:
Wat doen jullie precies voor deze stagiairs? Is er 's ochtends een dagelijkse standup meeting, als ik het goed begrepen heb?
Veronika:
Ja, dagelijkse werkvergaderingen in de ochtend, peerstructuren, Slack-kanalen, duidelijke richtlijnen over hoe wat te melden en wanneer, en ook het opzetten van een interne bedrijfswiki en bedrijfsprocessen en Notion-groep met dia's die gewoon alle processen documenteren om ervoor te zorgen dat iedereen op dezelfde lijn zit.
Jeroen:
Heb je wijzigingen aangebracht in de vergaderprocessen?
Veronika:
Ja, dat hebben we. We hebben vier teams. Onze teams zijn techniek, product, omzet en groei. En deze vier teams hebben dagelijkse stand-ups. En de teamleiders hebben samen met mij en Alex elke dag aan het eind van de dag een vergadering om ervoor te zorgen dat we op één lijn zitten.
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:
Doe je de twee vergaderingen of alleen de vergadering aan het einde van de dag?
Veronika:
Twee vergaderingen. De ochtendvergadering is binnen het team, dus alleen het groeiteam of het omzetteam. En de vergadering 's avonds is met de teamleiders.
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:
Schattig. Welke hond is het?
Jeroen:
It’s a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
Veronika:
Goed.
Jeroen:
Weet je hoe het eruitziet?
Veronika:
No. I love dogs, but I don’t know how it looks.
Jeroen:
Fluffy.
Veronika:
Oké, geweldig.
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. Maar je bent op beide plaatsen opgegroeid, zei je. Zowel in Silicon Valley als in Duitsland.
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 liepen gewoon mee?
Veronika:
De andere drie investeerders waren investeerders waar we al contact mee hadden voordat we naar YC gingen.
Jeroen:
Ja, maar de hoofdinvesteerder was die in San Francisco, of de hoofdinvesteerder was in Duitsland?
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:
Nee.
Jeroen:
Or “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz?
Veronika:
Ja, die heb ik gelezen, ja.
Jeroen:
Hoe is het te vergelijken met die 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:
Verhalen en ideeën, ja.
Veronika:
Op een zeer aantrekkelijke manier.
Jeroen:
Waar, waar. Cool, nu kijk ik ernaar uit om het te lezen. Laatste vraag. Als je opnieuw zou moeten beginnen met Demodesk, wat zou je dan anders hebben gedaan?
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 uw huidige staat. Maar wat als je vandaag Demodesk opnieuw zou beginnen met alles wat je al van deze dingen hebt geleerd? Wat zou u anders doen?
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. Gaaf. Nogmaals bedankt dat je bij Founder Coffee was, Veronika. Het was echt geweldig om je te hebben.
Veronika:
Dank je wel. Het was leuk om met je te praten en ik hoop je snel weer te spreken.
Enjoyed it? Read Founder Coffee interviews with other founders. ☕
We hopen dat je deze aflevering leuk vond. Als je het leuk vond, review ons op iTunes!
👉 Je kunt @salesflare volgen op Twitter, Facebook en LinkedIn.
- 8 Voordelen van CRM + 6 uitdagingen om eerst te overwinnen - 18 april 2024
- 30+ Beste Leadgeneratie Tools (per Type) - 16 april 2024
- 7 Beste CRM's voor Google Workspace + Integratiefuncties - 11 april 2024