The European Startup Show

Kair and Martin were leaders in Pipedrive, the most recent unicorn from Estonia. (Kair headed product marketing and Martin was head of customer success). Based in Tallinn, Klaus has raised money from Creandum of Sweden and most recently from Global Founders Capital whose portfolio also includes Slack, Revolut, and DeliveryHero.
In this episode, I discuss their journey to founding Klaus, how to find a technical co-founder if you are not technical and the importance of end-user-community in building a product and brand that customers love.

Show Notes

  • [1:34] - Background of how they came up with the idea.
  • [3:48] - What does Klaus do
  • [6:30] - What are the trends in the market you are trying to capitalize on and why now?
  • [12:53] - What is your advice to founders who are not technical and need to find a technical founder?
  • [14:46] - How do hackathons work?
  • [15:17] - How did you get your funding?
  • [16:47] - What was your growth strategy in the early days?
  • [19:31] - What did you focus on in your early days and how did you prioritize product, community building, and brand building?
  • [23:06] - How did you recruit in the early days to ensure you built a certain type of culture and balance that with the need to also be diverse?
  • [25:35] - How did you set up your initial system of leads and what advice would you give other entrepreneurs.
  • [30:20] - What are the trends in customer support and what is the future of Klaus

Links
Company: Klaus

Books:
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz 
Principals by Ray Dalio

What is The European Startup Show?

To inspire technology entrepreneurs in Europe with stories and practical strategies from other successful entrepreneurs.

If you are a CEO, founder, or work in sales or marketing, and your company is based in Europe or is looking to expand into Europe, then this podcast is for you.