“Entrepreneurship is a marathon of sprints. You must be willing to run fast for a very long time”

For our next start-up profile, we talked to the friendliest CEO in town! Ulrik Borch, the CEO and co-founder of Injurymap.

Ulrik has a background in Commerce from Copenhagen Business School. While graduating around the same time as his two high school friends, Mathias and Sebastian, they applied for the Innofounder program, combining their different academic backgrounds into one founder team.

This led them on the path of creating Injurymap, where Ulrik took on the role of the CEO and has been looking after the commercial aspect of the business for the last seven years.

While looking at the field of muscle and joint pain, the three co-founders realised that not only is it difficult to locate the right treatment for the pain, the treatments done by the physiotherapists for the same pain are not always aligned.

Hence, the three co-founders decided that in this data-driven world, they should be able to create algorithms that help people quickly find the right treatments to their joint problems themselves. 

That’s how Injurymap came into existence!

Initially, Ulrik faced several challenges when starting Injurymap. They started out with building a diagnostic tool which was too big a challenge to commercialise. So, they pivoted and decided to build an actual treatment platform, i.e., the present Injurymap self-help app.

Shortly thereafter, two experienced doctors Finn Johannsen and Pierre Schydlowsky joined as medical co-founders.

“It is extremely difficult to market new kinds of treatment in health-tech unlike in other sectors where a typical B2C SaaS company has much more control and a faster growth rate. However, investors are realising that they need to consider health tech companies as med-tech companies and often highly attractive business opportunities”.

According to Ulrik

Basically, it’s a relatively long path to product-market fit that characterises this business.

But what about work-life balance?

Ulrik admits that he can be a bit of a workaholic. He has been spending the last 7 years building a product, always running to reach milestones, raising another round, looking after operational hiccups, getting the next customer and running the next campaign.

That’s why he advises young entrepreneurs that a founder’s journey:

“is a marathon of sprints. You must be willing to run fast for a very long time. Have fun along the way and maintain endurance”.

Running behind all the short-term successes has made Ulrik more conscious of his own physical and mental well-being.

“It won’t look good on our health-tech company, if the CEO falls ill”.

As he quips,

Do apps have what it takes to become standard partners in global healthcare as traditional med-tech products are today?

Injurymap is an app for self-treatment which also provides patients access to virtual physiotherapists. It’s a combination of self-treatment plus talking to physiotherapists online supported by effective follow-ups with text messages and video consultations..

Injurymap is focused on making sure that they help everyone – patients, healthcare system, clinics – measured in both treatment quality and resource-expenditure.

They have a holistic team which includes:

• a growing team of physiotherapists who provide the upfront care;
• a team of tech people who build the tools;
• a product team focused on behavioural science – including expert health professionals; and
• business people like Ulrik and the new CCO Anders to ensure product/market fit and set their future course.

However, health-tech is a tricky field as it is difficult to work with a myriad of stakeholders to take into account, a lot of legal demands, a need for clinical evidence, and other variables even though public healthcare could save so many resources because of apps and online platforms.

Ulrik also believes that Denmark and the world must optimise their healthcare systems and improve welfare by investing in technologies that help everyone without new costs. However, the healthcare system is very bureaucratic and stakeholder heavy.

A good understanding of different interests at stake and the long-term potential of new technologies is needed if one wants to succeed in this sector.

Though the need for health-tech solutions is increasing rapidly, the Danish government like any other government in the world is adapting at a slower pace than the change is happening. 

They must speed up.

Hence, one needs to be patient working in this sector and pick their battles wisely as it’s a long process to have apps as standard partners in healthcare. And it’s hard to get a real partnership going with the government.

What the future holds for Injurymap will depend a lot on how fast the government will be introducing health-tech on a broader scale.

Convincing people to do good things for themselves is not so simple

Like other founders, Ulrik also believes that it’s easy to get started in Denmark as an entrepreneur as there is little risk involved.

“Convincing people to do good things for themselves is not so simple. And selling an app as a replacement for talking to a human being was incredibly difficult.”

as Ulrik puts it

Because, as per Ulrik, the health care sector and our politicians especially might be underestimating the potential for rethinking healthcare.

“There are 5000 physiotherapists who work as clinicians in Denmark, who each year probably treat around 1 million patients. Most of the time they face patients 1-1 following best practice clinical guidelines. However, learning in a traditional clinical setting is relatively slow.  By using a data-driven approach to treatment we strive to continuously learn and fine tune our consultations  and patient-software, and that means we can learn a lot faster than what’s possible within the existing model of care. Especially in terms of increasing compliance and motivation with recommendations, we see a huge potential in continuous learning”.

he elaborates

As far as the future is concerned, Ulrik would like Injurymap to emerge as the strongest treatment software for physiotherapy in the world with a lot of happy patients, happy employees and happy clinicians.

“My goal is for everyone to win big time”

Ulrik says. 

“includes reducing costs for the healthcare system, while having great working conditions for the health care staff, offering better quality of care, and improving patient outcomes.”

he continues.

Although the lack of homegrown tech talent and attracting international talent are the problems that every Danish CEO faces, some of the challenges that Ulrik faces are unique to the health-tech sector.

“Healthcare is extremely rigid to change. It is very easy for just one stakeholder to say no, and then quickly what could have become an ambitious new tech-program is stalled year-over-year. There are many reasons why various stakeholders might be against health tech solutions; including of course bad experiences with large IT projects in the past, but also sometimes scepticism of new solutions with unconventional approaches to care provision, and not so many years of impact and evidence to show. And though this might be changing at individual level, systemic change of a conservative system is a tough cookie to crack”.

according to Ulrik

Making a name for yourself as a new founder isn’t always easy

Injurymap is completely focused on making physiotherapy digital and shaped by the best practices.

Their approach is to hyper-personalise and optimise the patient-journey from start to finish. Injurymap measures their success in terms of a simultaneously increased quality of treatment, a reduced need for time spent with the physio, and a higher physio’s satisfaction with the job done.

But do the investors feel the same way about Injurymap’s business model to digitise physiotherapy care?

“As an early-stage health tech company, investors didn’t know what to expect from us. Whether we are a fast-growing consumer product or a SaaS company? It has been hard to find health-tech focused investors in the shape and form that we are”

Ulrik admits

“Making a name for yourself as a new founder isn’t always easy. You’re bound to be thrown a lot of curveballs”.

He summarises the journey,

On the bright side, the market is changing as more health-tech companies are breaking through as unicorns including Swedish video doctor service KRY.

Moreover, in times of crisis, the health-tech industry still generates a lot of demand as the healthcare systems are desperate to economise on man-power and resources without compromising on quality.

So, the investors are becoming more open and having a better understanding of the kinds of business models that can succeed in health-tech.

In the past, some small-to-medium sized VCs and BAs from the healthcare sector have backed Injurymap and kept them afloat as they found their product/market fit.

Recently, Injurymap has raised money from Innovation fund, Vaekstfonden, PreSeed Ventures, some cool BAs like Stig Myken (founder of Hiper and lead investor) and Anne Marie Duus, who has a background in the private healthcare sector.

They also plan to raise a late seed or early A round in the next 6 months to invest in a concept that is going really well for them.

They are out there to meet investors.

“We can see that we have a unique way of offering treatment. We are really developing cool results with our unique approach to providing care as a digital company with a strong foundation in both tech and medicine. This is working out great for the patients and us. So, in the next 3-6 months, it’s all about raising a big round so we can increase our value propositions, reach potential partners and just build and grow as an impactful company”.

Ulrik adds on,

Why isn’t Denmark bold and ambitious when it comes to public healthcare?

In the final part of Injurymap profile, its CEO and founder, Ulrik Borch emphasises on the importance of incorporating innovation and digitisation in Danish public healthcare.

“Even if the government invests in digital care just a fraction of what they invest in other areas, we could create many more awesome opportunities for health-tech start-ups and cut down on resource-expenditure”

According to Ulrik,

One way to do that is by bettering public procurement.

Our government should be bolder and more ambitious in collaborating with private companies to boost innovation and technological advancement in the much-needed public welfare sectors.

Presently, Injurymap is focused on private healthcare as that’s where they see the strongest demand.

“There are many opportunities in the Danish healthcare system that can be manifold if we have a stronger and closer collaboration with the public healthcare. A very simple move that would open a lot of opportunities for new solutions and innovations in the market is allowing healthcare personnel to decide whether they want to provide virtual/video or physical consultation”.

However, Ulrik reiterates,

Recently, Injurymap’s partner Dansk Sundhedssikring, a private health insurer, published figures that show a three-fold increase in digital consultations for physiotherapy since last year.

It indicates that in Denmark the health-tech start-ups find their elbow room within private health spaces.

However, the bulk of physiotherapy is paid for by the public sector. Every year, around 10 million family doctor visits in Denmark are related to muscle and joint pain. Annual public spending on physio clinics amounts to roughly DKK 1.4 billion.

And even though Injurymap has partnered with the public sector for years, like with family doctors where they have gotten 5,000 doctor referrals per year since 2018, it is difficult for them to get past the so-called tipping point as long as the public sector is not more open to partnering with tech startups, and formally endorsing and promoting health tech solutions.

The impact of such a partnership would be colossal and beneficial for all – the public, the government and the health-tech start-ups.

Specifically, in a time where there is an enormous shortage of man hours, the impact of using tech to rethink how care is provided holds an enormous potential for all stakeholders in our healthcare system.

Therefore, the Danish government must consider prioritising digital care in the public healthcare systems and see health-tech start-ups like Injurymap as potential high quality solutions to the lack of human capital and resources that we are currently facing.

The post Start-up profile: Ulrik Borch appeared first on Øresund Startups.

On July 20, 2021, Hemavi was launched. They have raised two investment rounds, from business angels in Sweden. And also recently expanded in Copenhagen a few weeks ago and are expecting to raise another financing round at the end of this year.

Hello, Hazem! Happy to have you here. Tell us briefly about your background?

“Hi, I am Hazem Ashour. I am originally from Egypt and have a background in finance and economics. I completed my bachelor’s in Business Finance from the American University in Cairo.  I worked in corporate finance, and financial structuring for two years, between Cairo and Dubai, mostly in the real estate market, both commercial and residential. Then in 2018, I came to Sweden to pursue my master’s degree in finance at Lund University.”

How did you come up with the idea to create Hemavi?

“Hemavi was co-founded by Pascal Dettwiler and me. We met during our master’s program. When I moved to Sweden for my master’s,  I experienced difficulties in finding the right room, finding a compatible roommate, and knowing how close or far is it to the places you need to go on a daily basis. This made me realize that there is a need for solutions that could be implemented to improve the market.”

“During my master’s degree in Sweden, I pitched an idea for a room rental platform for the Venture Lab at Lund University. I started working together on the idea with the help of the business developers at the Venture Lab. We began identifying the need in the market, and interviewed several customers, landlords, and tenants to learn about their major concerns, and how we can improve their experience. Then, we started looking at how we can commercialize it. We built an MVP with the purpose of testing the market demand. Once we had validated the market demand, we shifted from the MVP to the Hemavi platform. Hemavi, is Sweden’s only algorithm-based matchmaking platform for roommates.”

Can you tell us about Hemavi’s platform and its model with our readers? How does one find the right room and roommate?

“We are an algorithm-based matchmaking platform for roommates. To ensure that people who end up living together can genuinely enjoy living together, roommates are matched based on interests, lifestyle, and daily routine. In comparison to other platforms where users can just see room adverts, we display information about the potential roommate from the beginning.”

“Hemavi is based on a unique strategy. Users can see a lot of information about a potential roommate by answering the algorithm questions. Simple multi-answer questions are asked to check the compatibility.  For example, if one person likes to sleep early, then he/she would not enjoy living with a roommate who goes to bed at 3:00 in the morning. So, by answering these questions, you can determine whether or not these two people are compatible roommates. After answering the algorithm questions, you can compare the compatibility through the matchmaking score with every potential roommate on the platform. Users can see their profiles and how every potential roommate answers the questions. Once you’ve found the perfect roommate or room, a text can be sent to the platform safely and securely. We have created an end-to-end online experience without any need to exchange external information. Both the tenant and roommate sign the contract online through Hemavi. The tenant pays the deposit safely through us, which goes to the landlord after the room is verified. For completing the transaction, we charge the tenant a small service fee of SEK 149. We verify users through BankID, Facebook, and LinkedIn to ensure the highest level of safety and security of users.”

What made you expand it from Sweden to Denmark?

“When we launched, we took a city-focused approach. There is a lot of demand for shared housing in big cities, and the rents are usually very high. So, we launched in Stockholm first in July 2021. The next place on the horizon for us has always been Copenhagen. Copenhagen is a huge market for us as the culture of sharing accommodations is very common. The user base has always been interesting to us since house sharing is usually not just two people living together, but you could find three, four, or five people sharing an apartment with separate rooms. So, Hemavi is an excellent fit for this co-living situation.”

How many languages is the platform available? 

“Our platform offers both Swedish and English. And as mentioned earlier, we launched Copenhagen a few weeks ago. Currently, we operate in Copenhagen with an English version, but we are now translating it into Danish, in order to give a full experience for our Danish users.”

Do you plan to extend your business more to other international markets?

“A lot of potential can be seen especially in European markets. We know there is a massive demand when it comes to sharing accommodations when the prices are high and supply is limited in big European cities. We’re looking at a few locations on the horizon, including Amsterdam, London, and the main cities in Germany (such as Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt).”

What makes Hemavi special?

“We focus on the human aspect of the room rental. An ad with images of the room and a brief description is published on other platforms or social media platforms, with no indication of who the potential roommate is. At Hemavi, we focus on who’s behind this room, who’s renting it out, and to whom. We put a lot of focus on the compatibility and the human aspect of the process because if you’re not compatible, it is not going to be an enjoyable experience for you or your roommate. We put extra focus on safety as well since it is essential in this market. Hemavi handles the entire process, from verifying each user to signing contracts and collecting deposits, ensuring that our users’ information is kept safe.”

Tell us about the workplace atmosphere?

“We have a dynamic and talented team. Hemavi was co-founded by me and Pascal Dettwiler. He also has a background in finance and economics. We have a very talented legal advisor on our team, Zacharias Jörismo. Zoran Covic, the former CEO of the Edwork group, just joined our board of directors. Rami Almudafar, a former Head of Business Development for Almi’s Incubators & Accelerators, was also voted to the board of directors. Since the beginning of Hemavi, he has been providing us with huge support and valuable advice. We have a fantastic team of developers, designers, marketers, and product manager, Matthew Tsang Mang Kin, who plans the product’s architecture and timeline.”

Thank you, Hazem, for the interview. Our last question is what is Hemavi’s biggest challenge at the moment?

“The biggest challenge at the moment is to build close friendships with users and learn about how we can make their experience better. We try to maintain a close relationship with both landlords and tenants in order to learn how we can improve and provide a better service. Doing  so on a daily basis is always a learning experience.”

The post Get to know- Hemavi, a complete safe matchmaking platform for roommates and room rentals appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Bjørn Vestergaard, Founder and CEO of Podup

Hi! We are happy to have you here at Øresundstartups News. Tell us briefly about your background and main field of expertise?

I am a digital marketer and a podcaster by heart.

“I did my Master’s in Management of innovation and business development from Copenhagen Business School (CBS). I have been working with online media and marketing for more than 10 years and had my own agency as well. After my education, I worked for a few corporate jobs. I had been working with the largest Danish media house, JP/Politikens Hus in both digital marketing and digital business development area. Later, I worked as a brand manager for one of the largest entertainment companies in Denmark.”

“When I was working at the  JP/Politikens Hus, I made my own podcast as a side hustle. I had a very big passion for interviewing highly skilled people and I actually did it because I wanted to create a library as a gift to my son. Eventually, the podcast became very popular. I have been running a podcast called Rollemodellerne, which means role models for nearly 5 years and it is one of the most listened podcast in Denmark in the startup and business category.”

What made you start the Podup? What kind of demand have you noticed? Can you share a bit more about your vision with our readers?

“As a podcaster, I spent a lot of time building and running a podcast which became very demanding. To have a popular podcast, I had to record, research, distribute and market each new episode. It required a lot of work. I realized, even though I had a popular show, I could not make a profit from it. There was no way to make a sustainable kind of environment around it. Even though I had a huge network in the Danish podcasting community, there were many other podcasters who had a large audience, but no one would pay them a dime or sponsor. This left me baffled as I wanted to understand the reason behind this. When I changed my job as a brand manager for one of the largest advertisers in Denmark, I saw that many advertisers had a hard time engaging in podcasting as a marketing activity, as they lacked transparency, and finding a good match was time-consuming. They found it risky to reach out to potential podcasters and did not know how to negotiate a deal, what to tell the podcaster to say, or showcase a sponsorship. As a result, a brand manager or marketing manager, or CMO would prefer to put more money into other channels as podcasting was too much of a hassle.”

“This made me realize that I should create a platform where it would be easy for podcast creators to monetize their podcast and allow them to make a decision for themselves, whether sponsorship, donation, or subscription from listeners is the best way to make money. Podup provides easy decision-making and a transparent platform for the podcaster, but also for advertisers who want to engage in the space. It has given them an easy access point where one can find the right podcasting, sponsorship opportunities. This was a kind of epiphany I had that led me to create a Podup as I wanted to help the podcasters to have an easy and sustainable way of making money.”

We have read that podcasters can receive profits from the platform, how exciting! Would you like to share a little about it with our readers?

“The platform is presently an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). We have had a positive reaction from the beta testers and have seen that Podup has been able to solve the problem for the creators in a totally different way than everybody else in the marketplace right now. We have built this platform as a tool for the creators to use; they can still use the same podcasthost that they have and the listeners can still listen to their favorite podcast listening apps.”

“The value proposition we have towards podcasters is that it’s very easy and quick for them to sign up, and they can make money right away. Once the podcasters have signed up, they have access to monetize from the listeners and available sponsorship options. A link is provided which can be shared across your podcast pages where they can either donate or they can subscribe. The link can also be shared with the listeners. We have a feature called Podboard, which is a storefront for the podcast, where the customer journey from listening to a podcast to buying becomes simpler. Later, it takes you to a place on the platform or subpage on the platform where you have access to different monetization options for advertisers. So that means that we have a library of advertisers you can pick.”

“We have two ways for advertisers. One is sponsorship, that is, the company advertiser will pay you a fixed amount of money per episode. The fixed-price sponsorships would not be available to everybody since it’s based on certain requirements from the advertiser. The podcast needs to match, the category, the listeners, and, audience requirements, and if it doesn’t – it’s not a match. Another way to receive profit is through performance deals, where we help small and medium podcasts monetize. This is one of the great features as the sponsor will pay you on the number of sales you generate, based on a discount code. If they have 2 to 300 listeners on a podcast, it’s definitely doable to have five or six people be using your bonus code. And if they pay 100-200 DKK per new lead, that is also monetization straight up, even though you don’t have a large audience, and you can start actually making money from your work, which is what we want you to empower the creators to do.”

What makes Popdup different from other companies?

“The way we differ is that most traditional players here have taken the agency model and kind of digitalize that lets you submit, you have to move your podcast to a monetization platform. For small and medium podcasts, they are trying to sell auto-inserted ads, like you know from fx YouTube. This is a bad model for a podcast because it doesn’t pay much, as well as adding commercials into the podcasts.”

“At Podup, we have built our own marketplace which will empower stakeholders to find each other and make matches. The less we are involved, the more the transaction is going to happen without us having to tell the parties what to do. We want to make it accessible for people to take the right kind of decision. If the podcaster wants to monetize from the listeners, we provide a toolkit that helps them. The podcaster can simply check how much they made through a dashboard.”

“We are helping someone start a podcast, grow their journey, monetize and grow their show.  If the creator at some point, a podcast network either pays them to buy their show or they get sponsors approaching them directly. It’s a great success scenario for us because then we have helped empower an economically sustainable podcast and that’s the way we see it. We want to empower the ecosystem and we want to help podcasters grow their show and if they grow by using our product, it is a success for us because we have provided what was not previously there.”

We also heard you will be receiving a first investment round. That’s great news! Can you tell us a little more about that? How will the company benefit from it?

“We have been very fortunate that we have gotten a little bit of soft money to begin our company initially, which has helped our development.  And yes, we are looking into an investment round now, which will be used primarily to strengthen our technology and strengthen our organization. We want to build the best technology around this space and find a scalable and superior solution solve to the problem and we know that requires a lot of tech development. This round will be for us to take the next step. We consider it the pre-seed round. So for us the faster we can close the investment round and get moving, the happier we will be.”

Recently you were selected among the top finalist in the Beyond Beta Accelerator. Could you share it with our readers about it?

“From the 150 participants, we were selected among the 12 finalists in the 5-month acceleration program. It aimed at the most promising scalable start-ups in Scandinavia. We secured a place in the final based on the strong growth and progress the mentors had seen, and in the period Podup managed to grow our revenue significantly, while also strengthening our culture and technology. After graduation Accelerace noted that Podup is among the start-ups and founders to look out for in 2022.”

What is your biggest challenge right now?

“The biggest challenge we are facing now is that we need to catch up with the fast speed of the marketplace which is a very exciting space to be in. We are in the process of scaling up the business and why we need to raise an investment round that will help us in the development of our startup. Secondly, the other challenge is getting up to speed with the advertisers. We have a huge task ahead of educating the market about the best podcasts and helping to solve a puzzle on how they can use podcasts well within the magazine.”

“Fortunately, we are lucky and proud to have some of the largest brands in Denmark with us. Even though we have gained success in Denmark, we are looking to expand in other areas where podcasters can benefit. So getting the advertisers to realize the big hidden opportunity in podcasting is one of the challenges. Getting them to act on it and invest in it, and thinking about it in their magazine strategies is definitely something of a challenge that we are also facing.”

The post Interview: How Podup helps monetize the podcasters? appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Hi, Robin! Thank you for joining us today. The last time we wrote about Cogo was back in April. Would you like to share what has been happening with the startup since then?

We launched Cogo last summer and fast-forward by 12 months, and we have helped tens of thousands of users find environmentally-friendly rides through our extensive operator coverage across Europe. We now include 200 mobility operators and it’s possible to use Cogo in over 500 cities around the world. Since we closed our first financing round in the spring we’ve mainly focused on two things: product development and user acquisition.

We have improved significantly on the product side, we’ve totally redesigned the whole app based on learnings and on user feedback. Most recently we launched our new price comparison tool to compare price and travel time across all operators and vehicle types in one search. We’ve also
improved our back-end so that our system is much more scalable and adaptable as we continue to grow internationally.

Our user growth is very significant, we’re currently doubling our user base every second month! In April we were only doing marketing in Stockholm, but now we’re present in all the main cities in Sweden and we recently launched in Italy and Spain as well. Cogo has been used in 120 countries and this has all happened organically.

What was your main motivation for the price-comparing feature?

When we launched Cogo last year, we set out to give control to the users, and make shared mobility more accessible and transparent for everyone. The surplus of operator apps has created confusion amongst the market as it’s been near impossible to get a full overview of all the operators and their price differences, and that’s what we want to change. We’re proud to have launched the world’s most comprehensive price comparison tool for shared mobility to make the industry more transparent. Cogo can now help estimate the price and travel time across all operators and vehicle
types in one simple search.

Have you had any initial feedback about it yet?

The feedback has so far been very positive. Our users appreciate the simplicity of being able to compare the different vehicles and operators in one simple search. There are so many options and different price structures of fixed costs (e.g. unlock fee) and variable costs (e.g. cost per minute) so it’s
very time consuming to figure out the cheapest or fastest way of getting somewhere when you stand on the street ready to go. So by just adding your destination and having Cogo do all the hard work for you is much appreciated to get you moving in seconds.

Your app is free to use. How does Cogo receive profit?

We have a couple of different revenue streams, such as a commission model where we take a cut of the operators share for each completed ride (we don’t add any extra fees for the users). We’re also looking at a SaaS solution for companies who want to get access to shared mobility solutions for their employees.

Share a bit more about your vision with our readers. How and why was Cogo created?

In 2017, I witnessed the emergence of electric scooters in the USA and recognized the potential of shared mobility to address urban transportation challenges. Monitoring its progression in the USA, I eagerly awaited its arrival in Europe, and when it did, I found myself juggling over 10 different apps for commuting between Copenhagen and Malmö. The fragmented experience of navigating multiple applications for shared rides was frustrating, and I couldn’t find a single app that consolidated all available options. Recognizing the gap in the market, especially for users like me, I decided to tackle the issue. Thus, Cogo was born, with the vision to serve as a comprehensive platform for accessing all shared rides. Our goal is to simplify and streamline urban mobility, making it convenient for users to navigate cities seamlessly. We believe that by addressing this need, we can encourage more people to embrace sustainable modes of transportation. This endeavor emerged from a personal challenge and a shared commitment among app developers like ourselves to enhance the future of urban mobility.

Tell us briefly about your team!

My two co-founders and I worked previously at momondo, so we have experience in building an aggregator platform and how to expand internationally. Our CTO Martin Røssell was Head of Development and part of the founding team of momondo. Bibi Blomqvist, our COO, was Head of Sales and all global partnerships. I was the Regional Director responsible for our growth and P&L in 15 markets, and before Cogo I was the CMO of another mobility startup in Sweden. Other than the three co-founders we also have two super-skilled developers and we’re looking to hire four more people this year.

After we closed our investment round earlier this year we also formed a professional board with Pia Vemmelund (former momondo CEO), Jens Willumsen (former momondo chairman/investor) and Thomas Weikop (serial entrepreneur turned investor).

What is Cogo’s biggest challenge at the moment?

We need to understand the challenges we’re dealing with here, every week there are 1 million people moving into our cities, and 70% of our emissions comes from the cities, so we have a huge challenge to build sustainable cities as they are today. There are 300 million cars in Europe, and half of all car trips are less than 5 km, so many of these trips could be replaced by walking, biking or other types of mobility solutions. The cars are also parked 95% of their lifetime and this shows how inefficient car ownership is but also how important convenience is for people. Surely this isn’t the dream that we have in mind for sustainable cities?

At the same time, there are studies that show that shared mobility can reduce the car fleet by ⅓ if shared mobility were widely adopted. That would mean 100 million fewer cars on the roads in Europe which would save €33B in traffic congestion and 460 million tons of CO2 emissions annually.

Creating sustainable cities is one of the most important issues that we have to solve in our lifetime and at Cogo we’re working to help unleash the full potential of shared mobility to help this transition.

Where do you see Cogo in the next 5 years?

We’re a household name across Europe and the #1 app for shared mobility. We’ll have a great workplace with happy and energized people that are passionate about the challenges that we’re up against.

We at Øresund Startup News would like to thank Robin for the interview and insights into Cogo’s life. If you are interested in finding out more about Cogo, read more about it here and here.

The post Copenhagen’s shared mobility app Cogo reveals major price differences – interview with co-founder appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Today we are publishing an interview with Ulobby’s CEO Anders Kopp Jensen, who shares about doing international business in a pandemic.

Thanks for joining us! It has been a few months since our last post about Ulobby. What has been going with the startup?

Since the last time we have closed 2020, which in spite of the global pandemic, actually was another good growth year for Ulobby.

There are certain drivers in our marketplace right now which continues to drive demand: On the macro level, as political risk and uncertainty rises in the tail wind of COVID-19, Public Affairs is uniquely suited to assume a more business-critical position as the value at stake from regulatory changes or intervention is enormous.

Looking at the micro level, in the beginning of the pandemic, I was asked quite often about the health of our business as Public Affairs or lobbyism is – for many – synonymous with 1:1 meetings, network lunching and drinks in dim lighted bars. Network is important, but as I have stressed many times since we established Ulobby in 2016, this perception, of how you actually get influence, is both misunderstood but also changing as AI-generated data insights will play a bigger role in Public Affairs, especially once the main-stream or late majority segment – in an “S-curve” terminology – see themselves how technology can actually increase their performance. So in short, these drivers really formed 2020 in our space and drove demand up.

How has it been with the expansion in the Nordics?

We have increased our market share in the Nordics overall in 2020, and will launch officially in Sweden during the coming months. We were of course concerned that we could not travel as much and get boots on the ground, but it has actually not been a big blocker for us in terms of converting leads to clients which means our CAC has also been reduced. 

Any reflections on managing or working in a startup during the pandemic? How has your team kept their spirits up while working remotely?

As we have had a “remote first” culture from the get-go it has not been a big challenge for the team to adjust to more workdays from home. We now have 23 colleagues spread across 6 destinations in Europe, so Slack was also the preferred communications channel internally pre-COVID. But of course the social energy you get from eating lunch with your colleagues or flying the whole gang to a team retreat like we do a couple times a year usually, of course we all feel we miss these things. To try to compensate for this we have implemented virtual coffee breaks and Friday bars as well as arranged virtual mindfullness session. We have also sent a few “swag packs” during the pandemic and tried to surprise the team a bit.

We have read that you have started a podcast on Public Affairs, exciting! Would you like to share a little about it with our readers?

Yes, so the podcast is now out both on Apple podcast and Spotify and is called “The Persuaders”. In the podcast we dive in to how Public Affairs professionals solve their daily challenges, their trials and tribulations and their tips and tricks. The idea for the podcast came after I in 2020 wrote a book called “The Public Affairs Engine”, a guide on how to build and fuel the PA engine in your organization. The guide was based on more than 500 conversations with PA professionals across Europe and there was just so many interesting findings so I had to create a forum for sharing and discussing these topics further. And the podcast has just been so amazingly well received so far. 

What are Ulobby’s plans for the upcoming months?

Our continued expansion on two fronts: in the Nordics and Brussels. We have recently launched a new product line on top of the SaaS-platform called “surveys and reports”. We have for some time been aware of a big pain for our target group: measuring performance and legitimizing their work internally. So we decided to add this product line, and – powered by Ulobby data and intelligence as well as polls – the users can now get a better sense of their performance, and share them internally in a smart and visual way as well as order polls through us. It has been very well received so now we are looking in to have we can add more layers of intelligence to this product line. 

What will be the first thing your team and you do when you return to the office after the lockdown?

We have a history in Ulobby of eating a lot of good food together at nice restaurants all over Europe. So my guess is that we all look forward to going out for a nice dinner. I think something almost magical happens when you sit down together and share a good meal. Personally I also look forward to meeting our new team members in real life for the first time. We hired quite a few new team members in 2020 which we due to COVID-19 have never met. So I look forward to meeting them and hearing about their governments and political systems – the Ulobbyist are political wonks after all. 

—

We at Øresund Startup News would like to thank Anders for the interview and insights into Ulobby’s daily life. If you are interested in finding out more about Ulobby, read the last year’s interview here.

The post A year in the life of Ulobby – interview with CEO Anders Kopp Jensen appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Q: Your concept is for both unmanned stores and convenience kiosks. Where do you see the biggest interest from the market right now?

“The biggest interest is within the Micromarket space. Even though offices are empty, we get orders from sports arenas (mostly from the red-hot padel segment,) gyms and logistic centers. People are bored with traditional vending machines and interested in the fridges.

That said, there’s recently been an uptick from farmer shops, which I appreciate on a personal level. It’s really great to give producers an opportunity to sell directly to their customers, without middlemen. [In Sweden] an extension of the popular Reko-ring movement.”

Q: “Unmanned store” are expected to be “the next big thing” in the retail market, however, people are also sceptical. In some places, the hype for this model ended as quickly as it just began. In your point of view, what is the biggest challenge of this concept in general?

“The first wave of stores focused on the tech instead of the customer experience; cool, rather than convenient. Tech people operated the stores, not traditional retailers. This made the whole segment feel like a cool gimmick, not something you’d really want to use every day.

What we see now is that traditional retailers, both large – like ICA and Coop in Sweden – and small – like vending operators ones – are entering the space. Thanks to these experienced shopkeepers, the focus is shifting from tech to the customer and I believe that will give the space a big push forward.

It should all be about the customer journey. It doesn’t matter that the store is manned, unmanned or robomanned when all you want to do is buying a few bottles of Rscued.”

Q: How far has HonestBox expanded the market until now? How COVID-19 pandemic affected HonestBox in the process of market expansion?

“We’ve managed to get our solution to over 100 stores – large and small – across Sweden. From Malmö in the south (although we’re about to get one in Trelleborg) to Moskosel in the north. We hope to hit 500 by the end of the year.

While Covid partly helped fuel the interest in unstaffed solutions, it also did hinder us from going out and talking to customers face-to-face. To hit 500 we need handshakes to be physical again.”

Q: Having nearly 20 years of experience as an engineer, advisor, writers and working with big companies, but you still choose to launch a startup model. What is the motivation to start a new thing while you already have a considerably stable career?

“Because it’s a different kind of fun! Working with an established company is great in that you have set boundaries, limiting what craziness you can come up with (helping with the focus), and a better budget, making all the tools you need readily available. Most importantly, the things you do can quickly have a real impact on a lot of people. Often across the globe.

It’s when you feel those boundaries limit you that you need to do something else. In a startup, it’s all up to you. No one can tell you what to do and how to do it. It kindles different parts of your brain. Very exciting.”

Robert started out at Mindpark in the beginning, and is now part of the E-commerce Park of Sweden. HonestBox now is active on multiple locations in southern Sweden.

The post Interview: A new wave of “unmanned store” model with HonestBox appeared first on Øresund Startups.

The Loft is idyllically located on Holmen, an area previously reserved for the Danish navy. The building itself was established in 1888 and served to dress the new recruits for service. After a substantial renovation such as replacing the flooring with ceramic tiles, the old building has now been transformed into a modern and stylish co-working space.

Cooperation across borders

Rainmaking Loft in Copenhagen has by no means sprung out of nothing. The co-working space is rooted in the startup factory Rainmaking and Copenhagen is only the third capital to get a Rainmaking Loft. Rainmaking itself was started in Denmark, but the first co-working space was established in London and thereafter Berlin.
I had the pleasure of meeting with Johan Vardrup, the Head of Communication at Rainmaking Loft. In the interview, Johan shed light on Rainmaking Loft’s role in the Danish Startup environment.

“There is no doubt that we could see a momentum for co-working spaces in Copenhagen. We have been a bit behind compared to Berlin, London and also Stockholm, but the timing seemed right,” says Johan Vardrup.

Many of the people behind Rainmaking are originally from Copenhagen. Johan notes that the return to Denmark in some respects can be seen as a “return to the roots” for the founder group. London and Berlin have served to prove the concept and returning to Copenhagen was a natural decision to get closer to families.

In addition to the 3000 m2 of office space on Holmen, which may soon require the services of companies like Ottawa Foundation Repair, the residents have free access to the Rainmaking Lofts in both London and Berlin. This is one of the ways Rainmaking Loft tries to build bridges between the three cities and promote the startup scene in Copenhagen.

Residents

Rainmaking Loft has, since their opening, been able to attract some very prominent names. The roster currently includes startups such as Lunar Way, Labster and Swiftcourt. Martin Bjergegaard, who is one of the founders behind Rainmaking, also uses the building to develop his startup Frokost.dk.

With groups such as Startup Bootcamp Mobile and Business Angel Copenhagen, it is not only tech startups who uses the house. A broad specter of agents around the tech startups are also seated in the building.
By bringing startups, business angels, and event planners under one roof, they achieve a busy environment where people can learn from each other. The team puts a big emphasis on culture in the co-working space.

Creating an open culture

To get a desk in the building, a startup has to fit into certain criteria. The startup should be scalable beyond the Danish market, have tech in the DNA and the team should consist of between 1 and 12 members who, last but not least, have to be nice people.

“The other thing is, of course, the person. Is this someone I want to drink a beer with? If I would hang out with this person, then so would others. You have to use your gut feeling during that first meeting. But we strive to be an open community, rather than a selective one,” says Johan Vardrup

It is through genuine curiosity and open communication that the most productive relationships are formed. Neutral spaces such as the lobby and the kitchens are important because they are spaces where people can meet outside the boundaries of their endeavors. Every piece of furniture was custom made and delivered to us by Alan Desk,  located in Los Angeles, California. They offer clean designs and modern office furniture los angeles that we envisioned for the rainmaking loft.

“If you pursue your startup alone, you can get stuck. It makes a difference to be close to fellow entrepreneurs who care about what you’re working on and say “keep me posted”. People at Rainmaking Loft are accountable to each other in a constructive way,” says Johan Vardrup.

Bringing the right people together

To improve the global visibility of Danish entrepreneurs, Rainmaking Loft hosts Danish Startup Council. The mission of the council is to create valuable connections between Danish entrepreneurs and foreign investors.

The size of Rainmaking Loft makes it a natural venue for events. As part of the effort to create contacts between business angel and entrepreneurs, the house hosts both Rainmaking Connect and has been the venue for multiple AngelNext. The event Rainmaking Heroes was held in October, where Mathias Dalgaard, the CEO of GoMore, was invited for a talk about the ups and downs of creating a successful startup.

New events are continually added to the roster, with the Friday bar Tech & Tonic starting this February. As a new incentive, Rainmaking Loft has also started cooperation with the Danish insurance company Tryg.

“Instead of just having passive sponsorships, we work with partners from industries such as banking and insurance. Our starting point is what they already deliver well. Then we ask: How do we customize your services to fit the daily needs of entrepreneurs because we know the challenges they face,” says Johan Vardrup.

The benefits of scale

It is clear that Rainmaking Loft has a lot of muscles to work with. The size makes it possible for the house to facilitate a large array of events and workshops. Rainmaking Loft is therefore not just office space, but it represents a frame for the growing startup scene in Copenhagen.

“At the core of things, the biggest differentiator for us is to have the nicest and most talented entrepreneurs out there. Everything else is just packaging,” says Johan Vardrup.

With culture and community in the forefront the co-working space also tries to create quite a specific atmosphere for the residents to work in If you want to add some green colors to your commercial building you should get in touch with a professional landscape designer who can lend you a hand. It is therefore not only the size that gives the place its character. The co-working space uses these extra resources to offer their residents a bit more than just a desk.

The post Rainmaking Loft: Offering community and professional surroundings appeared first on Øresund Startups.

The startup was founded in 2017 and it is available in Denmark and Belgium. Now the startup has expanded further internationally and we have reached to Ulobby‘s cofounder and CEO Anders Kopp Jensen for an interview. Read more about what Ulobby has been up to below.

Hello Anders! Welcome back to Øresund Startup News. Tell us briefly, what has been going on with Ulobby since our previous feature?

For the last couple of months two especially big things have been in focus: The first is recruiting and onboarding new colleagues to keep up with the many new clients coming in. On average we have experienced a revenue growth of +10% month-by-month since June, so this means that all our processes also need to be structured for scaling so fast. We want to make sure all our users get a great experience when they use our platform to handle their political issues.

The second big thing in focus for us is funding, as we are preparing to raise a new round in March for further expansion.

Raising a new round is not just about getting a term sheet signed, it is also about finding the right investors for what we want to do and how we see the future. It needs to be a match for both parties, so we do our homework before we talk to possible investors.

As we are scaling a B2B SaaS platform we are especially looking for investors who have experience in this area and who can help us scale the platform to new markets.

Ulobby is expanding to the Swedish market now, right? Exciting! Can you tell us a little more about that?

Yes, that is exactly what we are doing. For the past couple of months we have been exploring the Swedish and Norwegian markets, as we are preparing to enter these countries during the next quarters. We have had very good initial feedback and actually got our first users in Sweden last month before even launching there, so we definitively believe there is a demand in the Nordics. So right now we are preparing the launch which includes a lot of ground work as well as exploration of potential partnerships to get more distribution as quickly as possible.

How many potential customers do you have in Sweden?

Well, if we look at the Swedish lobby/Public Affairs market compared to say the Danish, it is much bigger, estimated to at least 5-10x.

When we look at what is called “the Serviceable Available Market” for the countries we are focusing on, the spend is around €350 million yearly, growing around 10-15% a year. So what is the macro driver for this? Basically it correlates with the growing political uncertainty around Europe, which then results into increasing political risk for companies and organizations. The micro driver, inside these companies and organizations, is that due to this political uncertainty, they want to understand their political issues in more detail, and what is new is that they actually want to analyze and explore these patterns and data themselves on an ongoing basis instead of e.g. outsourcing this work to others and get it once or twice a year.

Is the product for the Swedish market different from the one in Denmark or Belgium?

Ulobby is currently present in Denmark and Brussels, and, of course, there are differences in these markets and the political parliaments are different, but at its core our platform is built on technology and tools which suits Public Affairs Professionals no matter where they are based in the world. We already have clients across many countries and continents, so, for example, the language barriers are no longer an issue.

In Europe we can basically enter new markets in a matter of weeks if we decide to push the button.

How do you see Ulobby developing throughout the next few years?

We want to keep growing, which is why we expect to be present in 4-5 more countries before the end of 2023. Put simply, we want to be number one platform for Public Affairs Professionals in Northern Europe within 3-4 years, and then expand to southern Europe from there. We already had a lot of requests from Germany and we currently actually have UK clients, so these markets could be next up.

Besides growing horizontally, we also want to expand vertically, meaning that we are working in stealth mode on some new features in the area of semantic analysis and Natural Language Processing (NLP), which could be applied in other sectors such as advertising, communications or marketing. Basically it will make it possible to predict behaviour and movements in the public debate which could provide companies and organisations with huge advantages. So, all in all, the best is yet come!

Thanks a lot, Anders. We at Øresund Startup News are looking forward to writing more about your progress in the future!

The post Ulobby expands to Sweden – interview with CEO appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Hello Taylor! We are happy to have you here at Øresund Startup News. What is your background and main field of expertise?

I’ve been scaling start-ups, integrating marketing tech stacks, and increasing conversions for the past 12 years across more than a dozen sectors. I think the great part about spending so much time in the start-up scene is that you’re forced to learn how to do everything. Who else is going to do it?

Working your way through processes across different business models allows you build up some serious competencies. I’ve always said that if you look at marketing as a set of loosely connected systems, they all kind of build off of one another. If you can understand one system, you can apply the learnings and process to another. First learn how to write copy/content and then you can start to understand Social Media. A step further might be getting the basics down for SEO, then maybe it’s paid campaigns and SEM. 

The first time I set up a dropship model, marketing automation, or a sales funnel I was overwhelmed. But when you start to unpack these things, you realize it’s all relative. For example, the steps needed to set up for a payment gateway integration is strangely similar to working your way through integration of an email automation tool like Active Campaign. 

I think it’s a lot like the way that I used to look at chefs. They’re using ingredients that most of us have access to but they know when and how to add those ingredients to a dish in order for it come out perfect. It’s no different with figuring out which tools you need for scaling a business.

How did you get into the field?

I never really saw myself in a rigid hierarchy or a traditional work environment. I probably had a little too much of a rebellious mindset for my own good. I probably still do come to think of it. 

To be fair, I didn’t really have much of a choice. I graduated at the height of economic recession in 2008, when more than 1 in 4 young men with a bachelor’s degree between the ages of 19 and 29 in the USA didn’t have a job, just like me.

So I tried starting my own things with some really interesting characters. Having professional experience in video production since the age of 16 helped me get a foot in the door. I did a few explainer videos and few product videos for next to nothing. Eventually I got into situations where I was a young co-founder with older mentors as business partners. I was still early and learning, but it was something.

Tell us more about the startups you have founded or used to work with in the past.

I was all over the map in the early years:

• I tried home remodeling sales: selling windows and siding door to door. That concept came from working with a guy that was little out there and teaming up with another guy to form a new company.  The problem with starting a home remodeling company during the housing crisis is… well… do the math.
• Then we started a teeth whitening franchise operation by contacting cheap manufacturers out in China that assembled and shipped our products in bulk. Money went missing, so I left. 
• I moved to the West Coast in 2010, where burned almost a year of my life while remotely working on a few freelance projects.
• I helped create a job search education e-learning platform with a new business partner. We learned the hard way not to subcontract web development work to a family friend, who tried to charge us for €110 000 for a non-functional 3-page website.
• A few months and a bankruptcy later, we won a €4M contract to help veterans and their families transition from the military world to civilian life. 
• During that time I was active in the Washington, DC startup scene, and by hitting 2-3 events per week, I met some really clever guys that brought me in on a mobile development development firm. That did well and that led to us start an allergy-free marketplace for people with intolerances to 8 different types of foods. Yeah… That obviously didn’t pan out.
• Freelancing kept me sane for a long time. Picking up one off projects and getting paid on a project basis. I jumped in and out of companies and helped others start their own for a while. I was trying to figure out which direction I wanted to go and what seemed to have the most potential. I ended up working for the Washington Post for a year and eight months and realized I needed a more drastic change.

I hadn’t really hadn’t taken more than a few three or four day weekends of vacation throughout my 20s, but during the summer of 2015, I took my vacation for the year (a total of 10 days). I came to Denmark on a gorgeous summer day and found out that everyone was getting a minimum of 5 weeks of paid holiday…

I figured it was worth pursuing. I spent the next 4 months working full-time and searching for a job. Eventually offers came from startups in Copenhagen and Vienna. I leveraged two offers and ended up moving here.

What are the startups you are involved with at the moment?

I tend to lean into projects and startups that give me a visceral reaction, ArchitectureQuote.com is one of those projects. The first group of friends I made when I moved here just happened to be architects. 

Over a few beers one night, I asked a couple of friends how architects go about finding new projects. Across the board, they all referenced “word of mouth” as pretty much the only “channel” for getting new contracts. No business works that way in 2020 and for those that want to grow, it definitely won’t continue to be case over the next 5 years. 

So, I formed my team of co-founders and created a deal-flow platform for architects that captures government tenders, freelance listings, and organically generated projects. Architecture companies that want to scale can come to our platform to discover new projects, daily. 

Interestingly, there’s a country-wide focus on SDGs (Sustainable Developement Goals). However, the industry I’m trying to disrupt – AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) – creates more waste than almost any other sector in the world. As much as 30% of building materials that make it to a construction site will end up in landfills, the reason? “Frequent Design Changes.” 

We’ve built out a collaboration element within our platform that integrates with the existing communication tools used across contractors and stakeholders in AEC. Streamlining communication channels will result in a reduction of these late changes. The result is that our platform saves time, money, and lives. 

Over the past year, I’ve continued to scale ArchitectureQuote on nights and weekends with my team of co-founders and a few extra people that came along for the ride. 

I started getting more involved in keynote speeches, guest lectures, and running the occasional 2 day growth-hacking masterclass.

Every once in a while someone would come up to me afterwards and ask if I could help them with a project or sit with them to see if their process made sense. I didn’t think much of it until I got asked what my going “rate” was for my services. I genuinely thought it was cool to help people out. 

I decided to build a different type of agency. I want to help companies build marketing tech stacks, run growth-hacking playbooks, and scale. I decided to start the best grow-hacking firm in Copenhagen – Klint Marketing.

Over the last 4 years I’ve worked hard to scale some of Denmark’s fastest and most successful startups. I named it “Klint,” the Danish work for “cliff”. The name insinuates that I’m geared into helping companies with growth. I want to build them up with enough automation and processes to provide a jumping off point. 

I enjoy working with a variety of clients and it lets me hustle with larger companies that have ability to put resources behind ambitious projects. 

Some of the most interesting techniques and processes I’ve developed over the years has come out of working at length in a bootstrapped environment. You have to be a lot more clever if you’re going to grow from zero with no money or resources. What would happen if someone gave me real resources to help them grow? Keep an eye on Klint Marketing to find out. 

What do you like most about founding startups?

There’s a real difference in energy. It’s you against the world. You have a chip on your shoulder; something to prove. And your job is to force yourself into a market while people are telling you it’s not possible and you’re stupid for even attempting it. There’s nothing like it. 

The satisfaction you get from knowing something you put together from zero actually worked – and things are gradually getting better… it’s completely different from anything else you’ll find. 

It’s hard work. It’s frustrating beyond belief. It’s unfair. And most people like the idea but don’t have the stomach for it. 

On top of that, every idiot wants to give you advice and those that you should be listening to don’t have the time. The funniest part of all is that some people just get lucky. It’s a lot about timing; right place- and right time-type stuff. That can be both a motivator and a reason to give up.

And of course it’s about the people. The journey with people that made a pact with you to do something very few ever get to do. Then sometimes… it’s saying good-bye because some people can’t stay or won’t stay. All of this while making sure that you’re playing fair with the people closest to you in your personal life and business life. Again, it’s hard.

How is the startup scene different in Denmark and the USA?

Things that shouldn’t work sometimes get a spotlight in Denmark.  

In the US, businesses that are incredibly niche can grow to amazing heights because it’s a country with a population of 320 Million consumers that all speak the same language and most have a disposable income. 

Many American entrepreneurs are unapologetic about their aspirations to destroy anything between them and their dreams. 

Experimental business models thrive in an environment flush with cash. The Danes can be more measured and don’t take the same paths that Americans might miss. 

There’s a lot of similarities between the two as well. I think most people are inherently good and want to help where they can.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

It’s tough to say. If you asked me where I saw myself 5 years ago, I wouldn’t have said running a SaaS model to disrupt deal-flow in the architecture industry, scaling a growth-hacking agency, and doing tons of keynote speeches in Copenhagen, Denmark. But here I am. It’s quite a ride.

You never really get back the same amount that you put in on a month to month basis. Especially when you’re building things early on. In the long run, if you keep giving more than you take, I hear things have a funny way of working out. I’ll get back to you as to whether or not that actually is the case.

I plan on continuing to push myself into new, uncomfortable, and interesting circumstances. I want desperately to continue to learn. Surrounding myself with smart and competent people on regular basis is important to me. And I’ll probably keep myself to the standard 6-day work weeks until it doesn’t make sense to do it anymore. Anything else is just a guess.

***

We would like to thank Taylor for such an extensive overview of his career path and his contributions to the Danish startup ecosystem, as well as wish him good luck on his next projects!

Note: Interview has been edited for size/clarity.

The post Interview with startup junkie Taylor Ryan appeared first on Øresund Startups.

Hello Christian! So glad to have you here. Tell us briefly about the startup you have founded. How did you come up with the idea for Digital Wasabi?

Digital Wasabi is a digital agency solely focused on helping B2B SaaS companies supercharge their growth and achieve their full potential. I came up with the idea for Digital Wasabi after I’ve worked in a couple of successful software startups, Planday and Tame, where I built the inbound lead generation engine from scratch and spearheaded the companies’ growth trajectory.

To keep things fresh, we would often take on marketing agencies to give us a new perspective on what we could try to scale inbound lead generation further. Often we would realize, however, that the agencies didn’t fully understand how a software company with a subscription model works and how to measure what success looks like, which made the collaborations less successful than we have hoped for.

My passion and true calling in life is scaling up software companies through intelligent and bespoke inbound marketing strategies. When the opportunity to start Digital Wasabi came up, I realised that starting my own digital agency was an absolute no brainer – I jumped right at it, because that’s where both my heart and expertise lie.

How did you come up with the name Digital Wasabi for your startup?

My wife and I are both foodies, and we absolutely love food with a spicy kick and that’s when the Wasabi-root came to our minds. The idea was to combine digital and wasabi, to give digital marketing a powerful kick.

How long have you been active?

Since 2013 I have been working as a digital marketing consultant on a freelance basis as a side project. I established Digital Wasabi in 2019 because I saw how much potential there is in this particular area.

Is this kind of service provided anywhere else in the world?

After extensive research, I have only managed to find two US-based agencies that are 100% focused on SaaS businesses. All of the other agencies offer it as a part of their service portfolio and not as their sole specialism. To truly understand the mindset, the marketing funnel and the bottom line of what it takes to build a successful SaaS company requires thorough specialization if you want to succeed. That’s why I decided to narrow down my focus on this particular niche.

Who do you see as your main clients? How much will this service cost?

My main clients are software companies selling their product to other businesses on a subscription model basis. What they all have in common are international growth ambitions and rapid scaling up.

Many of them are also preparing for raising an investment round, this is the start-up world after all. For the due diligence process to go as smoothly as possible, they need to have their inbound lead funnel working flawlessly, plus they also need to have a thorough understanding of what variables are driving the marketing and sales pipeline. Digital Wasabi is able to provide them with the frameworks and the insights they need to succeed when it comes to scaling their business in the most financially sustainable way possible.

The cost for this service depends on the needs of the individual client and we tailor our approach to every single one. Most often we are asked to help with driving up the monthly recurring revenue and with decreasing the customer acquisition cost – two key metrics you need to have under control if you want to grow a software company.

What kind of experience do you have? Tell us briefly about your previous work with startups.

For almost 6 years, I worked at Planday, a Copenhagen-based SaaS company focusing on improving scheduling tasks. I was responsible for building up all marketing and inbound lead generation activity from the ground up. The effort that my team and I put into lead generation was what made Planday take off and what helped it become one of the most well-funded SaaS companies in Europe, something I’m particularly proud of. We were able to achieve a very high growth rate by bringing in new customers every day. After that, I worked at Tame to scale up their growth within the event management software space. Last but not least, over the last few months I have been working with Pento, Dixa and other up and coming startups that want to scale fast and in a sustainable way.

Tell us briefly about your team.

Aside from myself, my team consists only of people who currently work or have worked at SaaS companies and who all understand the industries’ challenges. Peter is my right hand, when it comes to setting up reporting dashboards, so we can show the progress of our efforts to our clients in real-time. Next, there is Sarah, who takes care of the copywriting and content side, making sure that the messaging on the website and on social channels is always on point. Finally, there’s Thomas, whose area of expertise is search engine optimization, like SEO Wisconsin, and Andreas, who is a Google Ads and other paid channels genius. Lastly, there’s our office cat, Unicorn, who mostly sleeps throughout the day, but once in a while she comes out to play and brightens our day.

What are Digital Wasabi’s challenges right now? 

Like any other agency where you get paid on a project basis, your cash flow will go up and down depending on the demand in the market. Everything is going really well at the moment, because there are a lot of software companies in Copenhagen looking for help in scaling up their operations. We are also considering building our own bespoke marketing software solution that would help SaaS companies scale better and faster, so we can establish a more stable and recurring revenue flow and get the opportunity to help even more clients.

Thank you, Christian, for the interview. Our last question is, how do you see the company develop in the next few years?

We will most likely expand our geographical focus to also include Sweden, especially the Malmö and Stockholm areas, because both cities have a great startup scene I’d love to get more involved in. We’re also thinking about London as a possibility further down the road. Our SaaS solution platform will be helpful for software companies on a global scale regardless of their location, so there are no limits to where that project can take us!

Read more about Digital Wasabi: www.digitalwasabi.dk

The post Get familiar with Digital Wasabi: interview with the founder appeared first on Øresund Startups.