Bootstrapping Using Services From Sweden: Dapresy Founder Tobi Andersson and CEO Rudy Nadilo (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Were all the hundred customers, most of whom you transitioned into the new common platform, in Sweden? What was the geographical distribution of these clients? It sounds like you really remained close to them throughout this process.

Tobi Andersson: I’d like to make one correction. The number of customers were about 30 and they were all in Sweden.

Sramana Mitra: Geographically, it was a manageable thing to do for you to personally visit these customers.

Tobi Andersson: Yes. Nowadays with modern technology, everyone can achieve this even if you have customers around the globe. Another advice I have here is when you’re dealing with customers, turn on the video so that they can see you. They should be able to see your face and your body language. >>>

Bootstrapping from Ukraine: BPMOnline CEO Katherine Kostereva (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

This is a fascinating story of a Ukrainian entrepreneur bootstrapping her CRM Software company to global scale. We’re thrilled to bring you Katherine Kostereva’s inspiring and super intelligent entrepreneurial journey.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get going. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? Let’s go to the very beginning of your personal journey.

Katherine Kostereva: I was born in Ukraine. Since childhood, I’ve been traveling a lot and visited many countries worldwide. I graduated in 1999 with a Bachelors in Computer Science. Shortly after that, I got my MBA. Even from high school, I was obsessed with technology. I was thinking of the ways to transform business through technology. Technology has always attracted me. >>>

Bootstrapping Using Services From Sweden: Dapresy Founder Tobi Andersson and CEO Rudy Nadilo (Part 4)

Tobi Andersson: I spent many hours meeting customers telling them about my efforts. We were able to launch our platform which was called Dapresy Pro. That is the platform that we are offering to the market today. The first version of Dapresy Pro was made to address each customer’s needs.

I told them, “I’m going to ask you to stop using this customized solution from us and I need you to transition to this new software. There is no middle ground here. We need to stop working with the customized solutions.” I didn’t have the money to keep the generic platform and, at the same time, maintain these unique platforms. This was the tough part in my life because I basically spend my days on the phone getting complaints from customers. I >>>

Bootstrapping Using Services From Sweden: Dapresy Founder Tobi Andersson and CEO Rudy Nadilo (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What changes did you make? How did you move to the next phase of the journey?

Tobi Andersson: I decided two things. One is that I’m going to be an international company, which means I should have an offering that can help grow the company outside Sweden. Sweden is a great market. It’s an early adopter market, but it’s a small market. I decided that I had to create a foundation here in terms of our offering.

I also needed to create a scalable company without adding lots of people. I decided that I was going to create a foundation to scale revenue faster than fixed cost. Today, a lot of companies bring in external capital very early and use this capital to burn money and to create something that is not fully meeting the market demand. I >>>

Bootstrapping Using Services From Sweden: Dapresy Founder Tobi Andersson and CEO Rudy Nadilo (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: It’s nothing particularly out of the ordinary. What was your next step to go in that direction? Did you write a software? Did you use other people’s technology and showed them how to use it?

Tobi Andersson: This is also the next lesson here in becoming an entrepreneur. I realized that there is a need in the market for doing this. What I’d like to share with everybody is the best way to be successful is to stay close to the market. Ask them what they need but also be very sober about it. Sometimes the market doesn’t fully understand what they need because they don’t know what can be done. I talked to the customers and then I added my own vision about that. I started to visualize the data.

Initially, I purchased off-the-shelf software. I purchased well-known products like BI tools and reporting tools. I tried to visualize this market research data with off-the-shelf tools. I spent, more or less, three years doing this. Looking back, it was a time when I learned a lot. I went to customers. I asked them, >>>

Bootstrapping Using Services From Sweden: Dapresy Founder Tobi Andersson and CEO Rudy Nadilo (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

European entrepreneurs often successfully bootstrap using services. The chasing investor from the get go disease is less prevalent on the other side of the Atlantic, although the virus from Silicon Valley has been traveling now to all corners of the world. Dapresy has crossed $7 million in annual revenue with minimum outside financing.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. It sounds like, Tobi, you’re the founder. Maybe, we’ll start with you and let’s go back to the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Tobi Andersson: I was born in Sweden, in the Swedish countryside. Very early on in my life, I decided that one day I would like to earn the money to have the opportunity to buy a really big farm. That has always been my vision – to create something that, on one hand, can give me money but on the other >>>

Bootstrapping with Services from London: Gurman Hundal, CEO of Media IQ (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: You said you have a team in India. How are you finding building a team in India at this point? Bangalore is a talent war economy.

Gurman Hundal: It’s a massively fun and exciting journey we’ve had in India. It’s one of the proudest journeys we’ve had. The best part of Media IQ is the culture and the real asset of this company is the people. A testament to that is we have staff of over 300 people now. In our six-year history, only about 15 people have left the firm. Our staff retention rate is well above 90%. It’s really difficult in India because there’s a lot of challenges. The fact that we managed to create a culture and environment that can, not only attract talent, but also retain talent is a success for us.

Sramana Mitra: When you talk about your differentiated culture, what is it about the culture that is differentiated? Why do people like it? >>>

Bootstrapping with Services from London: Gurman Hundal, CEO of Media IQ (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Who was your first client and how did you get that client?

Gurman Hundal: We went down the route of working with media agencies who represented the clients. Our first clients came from big agency groups like Publicist Media. Our first big advertisers were the likes of the Weight Watchers, Honda, British Airways, and O2. It started with some of the big UK brands but it was coming through their agencies.

Sramana Mitra: You were subcontracting with them? What were the terms of how you worked with these big agencies?

Gurman Hundal: We were just their media supplier. They would say, “We’ve got  a million dollars of budget from a client. We’re going to give you $100,000.” This is campaign by campaign. >>>