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Right Time, Right Strategy How to Grow Successfully
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00:00Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada
00:30Sifted, Ian Kelley.
00:49Sifted, Ian Kelley.
00:50Sifted, Ian Kelley.
00:51Sifted, Ian Kelley.
00:51Sifted, Ian Kelley.
00:58Hello. Hi, guys.
01:00So my name is Eina.
01:01I'm a contributing editor with Sifted's tech media publication based in London.
01:06Welcome.
01:07Hope you're all having a nice morning.
01:09We're going to talk about growth strategies today.
01:13Of course, the last few years have been pretty tough for startups, you know.
01:18We've seen layoffs and hiring has slowed down a whole bunch.
01:23And, you know, founders tell me they're feeling a little bit of whiplash.
01:26They've had to change from growth at all costs to suddenly capital efficiency is the watchword now for founders.
01:34So, yeah, the punch-drunk investment days seem to be over, unless you're in AI, of course.
01:40And, you know, that's continuing nicely for a lot of founders.
01:44But, yeah, so the environment has changed a lot.
01:47And that's the backdrop for today's chats.
01:50We're going to chat about, yeah, how do you grow against these more difficult circumstances.
01:56So, let me introduce my panel.
01:58I have Lena.
02:00She's founder and CEO of Bright Payments, which is a fintech based in Stockholm.
02:05We have Laurie-Anne.
02:06She is principal at KKR, an investment firm in Paris.
02:10And she's with the tech growth team.
02:13And we have David.
02:14He's head of startup developments and go-to-market for EMEA at Amazon Web Services in London.
02:22Welcome, guys.
02:23Thanks for being with me.
02:25So, I'm going to start with Lena.
02:27Lena, you've raised a whole bunch of money.
02:30You raised $60 million Series A last year.
02:35How did you achieve this?
02:36Tell us about your growth strategy.
02:39Yeah, so it was actually somewhat coincidental, I would say, because we were initially not bootstrapped,
02:46but we didn't raise a whole lot in the early days.
02:48I started the company in 2019 with a launch in 2020.
02:51Great timing, as everybody can imagine, in the middle of the pandemic.
02:55And we were quite focused on being rather frugal with our funds initially.
03:00Basically, on the back of the assumption that it would take us some time to go to market,
03:04because we're an account-to-account payment, so pay-by-bank, which is a fast-evolving space,
03:10but also, when it comes to the open banking framework, still quite early days.
03:16So, therefore, we hadn't raised all that much.
03:18And when the funding environment became more difficult, we essentially adjusted our strategy
03:22to try and stop burn cash altogether, which made us profitable by the end of 2022.
03:30And then, in 2023, we started noticing that the environment became better, at least by comparison
03:37to the previous year, and then noticed that a lot of the investors and the funds that we
03:41have been speaking with in the previous years, all of a sudden, thought it was rather attractive
03:45to have a fintech that's actually already profitable.
03:48And that then enabled our Series A that we did towards the end of last year.
03:54So, it wasn't initially the intention to do that big of a round, initially, but then
04:01happened as a sort of an outcome or the result of sort of our strategy up until then.
04:06Thank you, Lena.
04:08So, I'm going to move to Laurie-Anne and just ask, you know, what kind of messages, advice
04:15are you giving to founders these days?
04:16Because I think starting in 2022, investors were saying founders should cut their costs,
04:23make sure to have money in the bank.
04:25A few years later now, what kind of things are you telling founders?
04:30So, maybe just a little bit of context, because it's always helpful of what fund I'm working
04:36for.
04:37It's a growth fund, so we're a little bit later stage, and I think that's always helpful,
04:40because we have a slightly different perspective than maybe our earlier stage or even later
04:45stage investors.
04:45But I think maybe just taking a step back on the changes that we've seen and that you
04:52mentioned already a little bit, but I think there's two folds of changes.
04:57There's one, which is the market itself.
04:58So, if you think about the markets, the economy has been slowing down, and that's been true
05:03for the last two years.
05:04And that's a pretty big factor as how you think about managing your business day to day.
05:12Importantly, when you think about spending money and what that dollar is going to get
05:16you, if you look at the markets, sales cycle has been getting much slower and longer, and
05:23that's true for B2B, but also for B2C in a certain extent.
05:27And on the B2B side, if you think about sales cycle, that means that every dollar that you
05:32invest in sales and marketing is actually going to bring less dollar in revenue.
05:36And that's been true for the past two years in comparison to 2020, where every dollar invested
05:41was actually bringing a lot of money to your company.
05:43And so, as you think about spending that money, that's something you need to take into consideration
05:48a ton, right?
05:49So, I think that's one thing that's super important is just when markets get slower,
05:55you have to think differently about every incremental dollar that you spent into that market and what
06:00that's going to bring you.
06:00The second thing that I think is important to mention that has changed, and to the point
06:06you were making, is the investment landscape and fundraising markets.
06:12Investors, again, in the past two years, the investment pace has been slowing down and
06:17valuation have come down, which is not true for certain spaces.
06:22Gen AI and climate probably are a little bit less impacted, but others have all been impacted
06:27by this kind of decrease in valuation overall.
06:30And I think that's also something that's super important to take into consideration.
06:33And the reason why that happened, there's two folds.
06:35There's, well, first, the public markets.
06:37What's been valued more is profitability.
06:39And that's been true starting two years ago.
06:42It's interesting, I was talking yesterday to someone in corporate who was telling me things
06:47move very slow in the corporate world.
06:49And then in investing from literally almost one day to another, people were very focused
06:54on profitability.
06:54And that change was very fast and was very quick to happen.
06:57And it happened on the public markets, but it also happened on the private markets.
07:01If you think about the investors, there's been a real push from our LPs and the investors
07:07behind the investors to actually look for profitability.
07:11And the reason is that a lot of the investments made in 2020, not a lot, but quite a few
07:16actually
07:17didn't go so well.
07:18And that was because they were burning unsustainably.
07:21And so there's a big focus from investors.
07:23And from one day to the other, or from one month to the other, every investor was telling
07:28that companies on the venture side, you guys need to stop burning and you need to kind
07:33of invest profitably.
07:34The month before, the board before, it was, you know, you need more, you need more capital,
07:38you need to burn more.
07:39And so the message was completely different.
07:41And the valuation as a result as well from private investors, the valuation they were willing
07:46to pay was rather different as well.
07:48The profile of companies that people have started to be looking for shifted towards profitability.
07:55So in 2020, you were burning a lot, I won't say a number, and you were growing extremely
08:01fast.
08:02That was exactly what people were valuing super highly.
08:05I mean, some investors still do, but a bunch of investors have refocused on actually thinking,
08:10OK, you need to grow, but you need to grow sustainably.
08:13And so it doesn't have to be, you don't have to be profitable, but your unit economics need
08:18to make sense.
08:19And that's been a complete shift in the market.
08:21I'd say from our perspective at KKR, we haven't shifted.
08:24We've always looked for sustainable economics.
08:26We've seen the markets shift around us, which has been really interesting.
08:30So to your question on the advice I would give, it's not very different from what I would
08:35tell people three years ago.
08:37You have to grow sustainably, and you have to look at your unit economics and look at
08:41every incremental dollar spent.
08:44What is it going to bring you in the future?
08:46So if you think about the retention of your customers, if you spend a dollar today, it needs
08:51to bring kind of money to you in one, two, three, four years.
08:55And that's very different.
08:56It's not an advice.
08:58I can't give a cookie cutter advice here to entrepreneurs because it depends on your
09:03business.
09:03It depends on your market.
09:05If you're trying to gain market share before others do it, then you have to spend a ton
09:09on now to do it, and then you'll think about profitability.
09:13If spending a dollar now will actually bring you quality customers, then you should do
09:18it now rather than tomorrow.
09:20And so it really depends on every company and every market.
09:24But it's about, I think the key piece of advice for me is thinking about your unit economics
09:29and how it makes sense and how every incremental dollar kind of makes sense to spend one way
09:35or another.
09:35And I'd say the last thing I would add that is also super important that I've seen, and
09:41then I'll stop talking, is on talking to your investors.
09:46We've seen in 2021, it was very easy to raise.
09:50And you would be able to raise without knowing the investor space, without knowing anyone.
09:55You talk to an investor, and the week later, you get a term sheet.
09:58It's not true today, and it's not going to be true tomorrow.
10:00I don't think so.
10:01If you look about the past 20, 30 years in investing, the reality is you have to build
10:06relationship.
10:07And how you think about, you need to know your investor base.
10:10You need to know them.
10:11It's important because you're going to spend at least five years next to them on the board.
10:14You need to get to know them.
10:15You need to spend time with them ahead of actually raising.
10:18And that's just going to make it easier for fundraising.
10:20You're going to have more visibility into how you're going to be able to fundraise in the
10:24future.
10:25And that's very important, especially if you're not profitable.
10:28That's super important to have that visibility and level of visibility.
10:31Thank you very much, Florian.
10:33Let me bring in David.
10:35David, you work with a lot of startups.
10:37Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
10:38And also explain to us what you're seeing.
10:42You know, are growth strategies changing for startups?
10:45Yeah, so I think we're quite fortunate in the sense that we get to work with startups from
10:50when they literally are writing the first lines of code all the way through growth stage.
10:54And I think that affords us an opportunity to observe and pick up on trends.
10:59I think certainly what Laurian mentioned around profitability versus growth is super interesting because I think it also kind of
11:08harks to what I suppose Paul Graham immortalized with default dead versus default alive.
11:18But I think also when I think about early stage companies, it's almost like going back to basics in the
11:27sense that being insanely customer focused and using that as the driver to build a great product.
11:34And listening to your customers and over indexing on that customer obsession.
11:39And then I think as companies are starting to grow, it's also being mindful of being able to measure everything
11:47and be data driven and use that as an opportunity to help figure out how to make your product shine
11:56even more.
11:56And I think perhaps the most relevant example, because the topic of our times is around generative AI and using
12:05the data and what you're measuring to figure out how do you use that to further enhance either the customer
12:12experience to make it more of a component of your product.
12:19And you see that with companies like Intercom and how they're using it around some of their customer success and
12:25customer service, and that's just one component.
12:28For others, it might be more prominent, but I think overall, startups are thinking about, hey, how do I get
12:35on board that train because I don't want to get left behind.
12:39I wonder, I want to dig into the question of, you know, profitability versus growth a little bit.
12:44I was speaking to a founder recently, he said, you know, at some point we realized we were counting the
12:51pennies too much, we were too focused on what we were spending, we were neglecting growth.
12:57How do you escape, how do you avoid getting into that mindset basically?
13:03Because I guess if you focus too much on profitability, you can sacrifice some opportunities, I guess.
13:10Anyone have any thoughts?
13:11I mean, I'd love to hear from Lina on this, especially because you're certainly being mired in kind of everyday
13:18life as a startup.
13:21Yeah, no, it's an everyday kind of discussion, of course, that we're having.
13:25Essentially, I think a lot of it, to the point that Lorian was making earlier, is a lot of evaluating
13:30if the investments you're making are actually going to be turning into growth or contributing to growth,
13:34or if they're contributing to something else, and if so, what?
13:37Is that a short or a long-term type of play?
13:40And for us, we're currently undergoing a transition, I would say, from being very frugal to now actually deploying the
13:47Series A that we've raised.
13:48And that comes with sort of everyday assessment as to where do you want to level up versus what is
13:54actually good to sort of keep tabs on and for it to not spiral out of control.
13:59I hear that from a lot of other founders that have raised larger rounds who say, yeah, we actually started
14:04spending, and that really changed the mentality in the business.
14:06And then we weren't looking as closely as to spend, so I think it's about preserving sort of that culture
14:11where you really want to sort of put the money to work and get the most out of it,
14:15but also overspend in the areas where it's needed.
14:19In our case, for example, we have a very small commercial team.
14:22We just brought on our first-ever chief commercial officer.
14:24He's building a team.
14:26That's a huge investment area for us.
14:27That's a no-brainer to be building out that team.
14:29Other areas, we're still looking at quite carefully.
14:32So I don't think there's a template answer, but rather sort of really assessing what is going to contribute to
14:38the next stage of growth for our business versus what are areas that are actually good to just not spend
14:44as much on even now.
14:46It's interesting that you mentioned you changed a little bit the spending past the Series A because I think that's
14:51a really good point, which is it not only depends on your company's standalone,
14:55but also on how you're thinking about funding and funding cycle and where you are in that cycle.
15:00And I'm an investor, so I'm going to make it all about investing here.
15:03But as you think about your fundraising, you have to think about kind of what your company looks like, how
15:10attractive it is to an investor,
15:12and what are the milestones that you're trying to achieve to get – and that's only true if you're burning.
15:18If you're not, then you have less of that in mind.
15:21But if you're actually burning and need fundraising, then you need to think about the different milestones that you want
15:28to achieve to get from Series A to Series B to Series C.
15:31What do I want my company to look like?
15:34What do I want my metrics and my unit economics to look like?
15:37And how much do I need to spend to get there?
15:40Which are the areas I want to spend?
15:42Is it now from Series A to Series B?
15:45Do I need to go internationally?
15:47Or is it too early and actually to be able to get to the 10 million AR milestone?
15:52I actually can do that locally with that amount of money that I have.
15:55And that will also depend on how much you raise at each round, right?
16:00And I think to your point, that's very interesting, that that will also impact the way you manage your company.
16:05I'd also add that it speaks a lot to ruthless prioritization and the need for that to be done.
16:12And that's not a kind of one moment in time.
16:15It's iterative.
16:16It's always happening.
16:17And also being committed to experiments, but you have to be religious about the measuring of it and time boxing
16:25it.
16:26And if you see that there's some life that should be breathed into it more, then figure out how to
16:32almost from start, stop, continue,
16:34how to stop some other things and then how to move resources to the right thing that looks like it's
16:39going to yield results.
16:42Yeah, because this same founder I was speaking to, he said, you know, there's this new cautious voice that he
16:52hears in his head.
16:53And he's basically, he's turning down offers more, he feels now, because he's afraid of overextending the company.
17:01So I just wonder, this new kind of cautious mentality, it's also a bit dangerous, isn't it?
17:07Because, you know, you can, you know, fail to seize opportunities that come along.
17:13So if you have any thoughts.
17:15Well, I'd say just one small point.
17:17I'd say it's only, it depends what you call dangerous, but it would only be dangerous if you stop investing
17:22in R&D, I would say, from an economy perspective,
17:24because then you stop innovating.
17:26If you slow down, go to market a little bit, because you need to be more cautious, because that's how
17:31you sleep better at night,
17:32and to make sure you have a sustainable company, then I wouldn't say it's dangerous, per se.
17:38I think when it gets dangerous is when you stop, you know, stop spending on the R&D spend that
17:43you would have always otherwise made,
17:45which is super important, obviously.
17:50I would say it's also a matter of sort of where you are with your product in the market and
17:56where that particular market is.
17:57So, for example, for us, A2A payments that we're in being a rather nascent space still, that's growing really fast.
18:03What we see is that there's a lot of really cool companies in the space that did huge rounds maybe
18:07two or three years ago
18:09in the anticipation of that market picking up much faster.
18:13So they invested a lot trying to preempt the market development, and then things didn't go quite as quickly.
18:18But then you have the cost space, you have the teams, you have the staff, and that's where I think
18:22we saw a lot of the rounds of layoffs in the space coming in,
18:27because the market didn't basically develop as quickly as they thought it would be.
18:31And we were a bit lucky, because we were somewhat later out by comparison.
18:35We're younger as a business, so we hadn't quite come as far.
18:37So we had more time to adjust then to the market environment compared to some of the other players in
18:44the space.
18:45And to Larianne's point earlier, of course, if you have a venture-backed business and you have done a large
18:52Series A or even Series B in some cases,
18:55then there is an expectation for growth, and you have put yourself on a certain track.
18:58So you can't all of a sudden just sort of slow down super easily, especially not if the business reaches
19:03a certain size.
19:04So I think that's also part of the equation with regards to how is your space developing versus where you
19:09are in the life cycle of your business.
19:13Yeah, if I think about kind of using your words around kind of dangerous versus cautious, one thing I would
19:20say is around hiring.
19:22Hiring right matters now more than ever, especially in that path to trying to find the right balance between growth
19:28and profitability.
19:30So I think that would be one item.
19:32And then I think another would be there's always going to be trade-offs.
19:35So really trying to scrutinize what those trade-offs are and understand them.
19:41For example, if you are thinking about go-to-market, for example, you might decide, well, actually, maybe instead of
19:48hiring another seller,
19:51maybe I'm going to hire a channel alliance manager because I need someone to help really kind of this part
19:56of the business on go-to-market take off more.
19:58So I think these are some of the trade-offs that we're starting to see amongst startups more and more
20:02these days.
20:04Cool. Yeah. Hiring, I've heard anecdotally, yeah, startups are taking forever to hire people now.
20:10There's a lot of interview rounds. They're being super cautious.
20:14I'm just going to chat a little bit about AI because, you know, you have to talk about AI all
20:18the time now.
20:20I wonder, is it becoming essential to have AI as part of your business, some kind of AI-powered products,
20:28which a lot of people seem to have now? You know, is that, are you going to, is that essential
20:34for growth now to basically invest in AI for every company?
20:39I mean, Lina and I were literally just talking about this.
20:42We just had a backstage chat exactly on this topic.
20:46I'll go first and perhaps you can add your perspective.
20:49Where I stand right now, I think as of yet, I don't see a lot of amazing applications in the
20:55market in our space.
20:57However, I know that everybody's looking at it.
20:59So it's obviously important to sort of have a look at it and start making the investment so you don't
21:04end up falling behind.
21:05And I think there's various applications across the business.
21:09We know that, for example, our engineers are already using AI to a certain extent.
21:14And we haven't sort of quite figured out just yet how we're going to harness it in the best possible
21:19way for our growth.
21:21I get the sense there's a lot of businesses that are in exactly the same stage as us.
21:24Others have come a little bit further.
21:26But I know, for example, that Klarna, my previous employer, is basing massive emphasis on this.
21:32They're talking about it all the time.
21:33And we're looking at that, of course, as well, which I think is somewhat interesting as a case in itself
21:39for the fintech space or the payment space that we're in.
21:42So certainly it's going to become a bigger focus moving forward.
21:46Yeah, I think when it comes to generative AI, specifically foundation models, I think that's what's gotten the most hype.
21:55So, you know, you have your Anthropik and Mistral and so on.
22:00But there's only going to be so many winners in the FM space.
22:04And I think where I'm seeing much more money gravitating towards anytime I talk to investors is the intersection of
22:15Gen AI and the SaaS stack.
22:17And that's where we're starting to see much more value creation.
22:21So, for example, if I think about the intersection of Gen AI and cyber, increasingly there's more and more kind
22:29of host nations and different attacks happening every day and more and more data out there.
22:34And it's creating a great opportunity for people to build some great solutions.
22:40Zafron Security is one that comes to mind.
22:44And I think more and more, this is where you're going to see some of the value coming at that
22:49intersection.
22:52Cyber is a good example because it actually creates a lot of threats as well.
22:56Yeah, it works both ways.
22:57Yeah, exactly.
22:58You have to react to it.
22:59No, and I just add, I mean, on our side, we're a little bit later stage.
23:03So, it's still early for us in terms of investing directly into Gen AI company or FM companies.
23:09But at the portfolio level, we have over 250 companies that we're private equity investors in.
23:16This is something that we take very seriously and that we've been working with all of our portfolio companies to
23:21your point to think about, okay, you know, there may not be something right there right now.
23:26But they all need to prepare, need to understand what's coming, what's in the space, how they can use it.
23:32So, that's using it internally to gain efficiencies, but also how it's going to disrupt their market.
23:38And that's true for very late stage companies that we invest in.
23:42They're all thinking, it's all top of mind and we're helping them think through how they're going to be threatened
23:48by Gen AI and how they're going to be, how they're going to have opportunities with Gen AI.
23:53And they're really focused on that.
23:55So, I think even before talking about startups and investing early stage, there's just a lot of opportunities for all
24:00the companies out there.
24:01It's not like it's going to be one company that does Gen AI and the others watch.
24:06It's everybody's going to be impacted the same way we've been impacted by internet.
24:10So, I think that's just, yeah, important to take that into consideration as well.
24:14Just a question on, we mentioned hiring briefly.
24:18And Lena mentioned that you hired a chief commercial officer recently.
24:21Is there any specific roles you should hire for now?
24:25The chief revenue officer seems to be quite popular with startups at the moment.
24:29Any particular profile of people you should be hiring to supercharge your growth at the moment?
24:37Me personally, I think it very much depends on your business model.
24:40In our case, that made a lot of sense at this point in time because we have a growing sales
24:45team.
24:45And as a part of the organization that is relatively smaller, we effectively have more product coverage and more markets
24:51than we actually have people on the ground selling them.
24:54So, that was an obvious thing for us to do now as part of our scaling up.
24:59But I think it really depends on what kind of business model you're in.
25:02What I do see less of is the chief of staff roles that you would see all over the place
25:06a couple of years ago.
25:08That seems to have become a little less popular.
25:11But other than that, I think it's a matter of really where you are in the business.
25:16Yeah, I think also what had been quite popular the past few years was hiring a head of product or
25:24chief product officer very early on.
25:26But I think in the early days, having that really led by the founder is tremendously important.
25:32They're the ones that are creating the vision and really convincing people to join the company because of the art
25:38of the possible and how they view the world.
25:40So, I would just say kind of making sure that maybe you don't hire that head of product too early
25:47and making sure that you're continuing to kind of stay lean and have that vision with the core group before
25:55kind of almost bringing that external person in.
26:00Any thoughts? No?
26:01No, I think I'd agree with you.
26:04It depends on the stage you're at.
26:05So, we see very different kind of depending on the stage you're at different profiles and different titles.
26:13Like, you may not need a chief of staff or a CPO, but it's also the different people to do
26:17this.
26:18You need to kind of grow your team with your company at the maturity stage where you're at.
26:25And that's super important to take into account.
26:27The CFO that's great for you or the CPO that's great for your Series A.
26:30may not be that person that's going to take your IPO as well.
26:34So, it's important to kind of evolve and iterate on that as well.
26:37And it may be, and that's great when it's the case.
26:40And it also depends on the profile of the founder, I think, actually.
26:43I mean, there might be parts that are closer to heart, depending on your background, that you want to lead
26:48yourself.
26:49And then you hire basically more senior people for other parts.
26:51My background is in product and marketing.
26:54So, we still don't have a CMO, for example.
26:56We have a marketing director who's running that.
26:59So, I think that also probably plays a role.
27:03Just looking at the clock here, we have just a bit over eight minutes.
27:07We might have time for a question or two if anyone has a burning thing they want to ask.
27:12They want to pick the brains of any of the panelists here.
27:15Get some advice if there's any founders in the room.
27:18Probably have a couple of mics going around.
27:23Anyone?
27:25I see a hand at the back.
27:28This lady.
27:29Yeah.
27:30Hello.
27:30Thank you so much for this.
27:32Do you want to tell us who you are?
27:33Do you want to introduce yourself?
27:34Yeah.
27:34I'm Sarah, student at the University of Lille in Lowe.
27:40Do you think that compliance with the AI Act will become a competitive growth poll for starters?
28:03Do you think that compliance will be a role that is going to be competitive in the industry?
28:20Certainly be a big opportunity for reg tech, the regulatory, the technology companies that help other companies comply to rules.
28:31Big for them, I think.
28:33Any other points?
28:34Yeah.
28:34So, given that we're in payments, compliance is already a really, really big focus.
28:37And this is actually, when we're talking about growth, a fairly painful area because you have to hire somebody really
28:43senior quite early on because it's not the kind of thing that you want to just sort of do with
28:47your left hand.
28:48Because, obviously, if you're having a license for your business, you have to make sure that you have that under
28:51control.
28:52And I find that it's getting increasingly complex in many areas, especially if you're running a fairly international business that
28:58is also subject to a certain set of local rules and regulations.
29:01And then if you add AI into that mix, it certainly isn't getting easier, I would say.
29:07And then finding the right people to run that and to balance, basically, compliance with business and market requirements.
29:15Because it's actually often, there's friction between that, quite often, I find, between sort of what would be easiest for
29:21the business to do versus what you actually have to do to stay compliant.
29:23And I think if you nail that and you can balance that in a good way, it could become a
29:28competitive advantage, yes, I would say so.
29:31Cool.
29:32Thank you very much for the question.
29:33I might have time for one more.
29:35There's this person here.
29:41If you'd like to tell us who you are, that'd be great.
29:44Thank you for the discussion.
29:46I am Uma.
29:47I'm an MBA student at NCAD.
29:50And I was working at a fintech company.
29:53So I'm also a computer science engineer.
29:55So the question that I have for the panel today is, you just spoke about how there are a lot
30:01of companies today that are coming, which is a combination of Generative AI and the SaaS stack.
30:07But we also see that a lot of the new startups that are coming in, they have very small differentiation
30:13in the products that they are building.
30:16So my question to you is, for the new founders that are thinking of starting a company, potentially in the
30:23B2B space, where there are a lot of problem statements, but a lot of solutions as well.
30:28So how should one think of defining their unique selling point in the product and the company that they are
30:36thinking of?
30:36Because, I mean, with Generative AI, that differentiation is a little hard to come up with.
30:43So how would you suggest to go about it?
30:46Yeah.
30:46So I think, thanks for the question.
30:50I'd say starting and being very narrow in the problem that you're looking to solve is really important because too
30:58often we've seen that people start a bit kind of too broad and then you get into a scenario where
31:05you can be boiling the ocean.
31:06And at that point, then, you know, it does make it very hard to differentiate.
31:13So I think really trying to go narrow and understand the problem and how big of a problem it is
31:19and how emotive of a problem it is for people.
31:22So I think that customer discovery is tremendously important in that early on process.
31:27And I think that can help provide some of the compass for you.
31:31Grace, thank you very much for the question.
31:33You were going to add something?
31:34No, no, I was going to say that that's a very good point, which is thinking about approaching the market
31:41in a very specific and narrow way.
31:43Because as you think about, and I agree with you, there's a lot of problems and a lot of point
31:47solutions and there's a lot out there.
31:49So it's a little bit hard to see through all of this as an investor as well.
31:54So we asked ourselves the same questions.
31:56And I think it's about identifying, as you said, the right go-to-market route, which is basically, you know,
32:05the right problem and how to go at it.
32:07And you may think, okay, but then it's too narrow and you want to build a big business.
32:12But this is something that over time you will expand, right?
32:15If you're thinking about addressing a problem in a certain way and then you reach a certain size, then you're
32:21going to see other companies doing the same.
32:22And then there's potential to do M&A, consolidation, thinking about expanding your product.
32:26Once you've reached a certain scale within one vertical, then you can expand your product.
32:31But I think that's a really good advice is thinking about addressing it very narrowly at the start.
32:37Because scaling, and some people have done it, and there's great businesses built like this where you address just a
32:42huge problem and you go at it with, you know, low-code software, right?
32:46And that's just huge.
32:47And you've built great businesses that way.
32:50But that's just, you know, very difficult to do.
32:54Cool.
32:54Okay.
32:55I see we have just under three minutes.
32:58So time for one last round with the panel.
33:01I wonder, guys, could you grab your best, you know, your best practical advice?
33:06There might be founders here who are thinking about how can they hack growth a little bit more.
33:12Just in under a minute each, your do's and don'ts for growth, things to avoid, things to do.
33:20Start with Lena, maybe?
33:21Yeah, my personal takeaway is quite simply that ultimately everything boils down to the people.
33:25So I would think really carefully about what kind of people you bring on, at what point in time in
33:30your startup journey, and do they contribute to a winning team overall?
33:34Because that is also, when it comes to downscaling and adjusting to different market environments, ultimately that is what is
33:41most painful because it's fairly easy to cut costs in other areas of the business.
33:45If you're starting to make changes to the size of the team, it has an impact on literally everyone, not
33:50just the people that are affected.
33:52So personally, that is what I spent more and more time on now, after sort of having gone through the
33:57early days, is ensuring that you get the right people.
34:01David, do you want to go?
34:02Just going to jump on that.
34:04So I already provided my advice earlier on unit economics, but I think that's a good point here.
34:09You're talking about people.
34:10I'll extend it again to investors.
34:12I think choosing your investors, right?
34:14And you were saying earlier how great your investors are, and I think that's important.
34:18When everything goes well, it doesn't really matter.
34:21You can get a lot of money for cheap.
34:24That's great.
34:25But when things go wrong or get difficult, which we've seen in the past two years, then choosing your investor
34:31and having chosen great investors that will back you up is actually super important.
34:37That's what we've seen.
34:37And we've heard a lot from entrepreneurs now, some entrepreneurs in 2020, 2021, they, you know, they were in a
34:44rush.
34:45They didn't want to, you know, they talk to everyone in like 30 minutes and ask for term sheets.
34:49And those same entrepreneurs today tell you, actually, you know, I want to choose my investor carefully and make sure
34:56I spend the time to find the right person to be with me.
34:58Because when things get difficult, it's actually really important.
35:02Yeah, I would just add that it's as you start getting traction, it's quite easy to get distracted.
35:11But it's all about remaining focused and customer obsessed and staying as close to the customer and using that as
35:19a way to guide the next stage of growth and trajectory for the company.
35:25Great. Well, thank you to the panelists.
35:27I hope that was useful for everyone.
35:28We heard some great things today.
35:30Thanks for joining us.
35:31And if you want to join me, give me a round of applause to the guys here.
35:37Thank you.
35:38Thank you so much to Ian and your panelists.
35:41There was some great advice there into how to grow successfully.
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