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Off to the Valley is a podcast that brings to light incredible stories of those who left the familiarity of home for new horizons. Inspired by Silicon Valley culture, it really extends to a global community of individuals who've dared to step outside their comfort zones.
Esben Friis-Jensen: We think about
things a bit differently, maybe
because it's my second company
but we are fully bootstrapped.
We think profit first in everything we do.
We are only a team of three and we've
been able to grow the revenue to $4.5
million ARR with product-led growth.
hello everybody and welcome back to Off To
The Valley, a podcast that brings to light
the incredible stories of those who left
the familiarity of home for new horizons.
I'm your host Prateek Panda, always
curious and eager to share these
journeys of courage and determination.
Today, we are delighted to have Esben
join our podcast, a perfect example of
values and the spirit that we cherish.
His remarkable story is one of venturing
beyond his familiar boundaries.
Seizing the adventures and
possibilities that arise from
journeying into unknown territories.
He moved from Denmark to San Francisco
in more than just a change of location.
And he's not only established two
successful SaaS startups, but has also
overcome many industry challenges.
We're going to talk a little
bit about his journey.
With Userflow as well as Cobalt
and his time and impact in
the Silicon Valley ecosystem.
Esben, thank you so much for joining us.
It's a pleasure to have you.
It's my pleasure to be here.
Prateek Panda: So let's start off with
a little bit about your background.
You grew up in Denmark.
What was the ecosystem
like over there for you?
What was your background and what
encouraged you to move to Silicon Valley?
Esben Friis-Jensen: So
yeah, I grew up in Denmark.
I always played with computers like
many kids at my age and coded like
simple websites when I was like 16.
But then I started to study engineering.
So I went to the technical university
of Denmark and studied engineering.
And back then, so this was,
yeah, when did I graduate 2010?
It wasn't like a viable career
path to actually do startups.
There wasn't a lot of people doing
that and it wasn't really anything
that people talked about if you were
an ambitious engineering student
or any type of student, you would
typically apply for consultancies
where you could get to travel the
world and get a lot of challenge.
And that's exactly what I did.
So I applied for Accenture got a job
there and worked on a big project for
them and also got to travel and so on.
But I always had this kind
of itch to do something else.
I felt like in, in the consulting world.
We were helping one like old school
enterprise customer fix a certain
area, like optimize for them.
And it wasn't like making a huge
impact even though it was a very fun
and challenging work environment,
I didn't feel like I was having as
much impact as you potentially could.
And that's why I was looking
for something different
So back when I started in accenture,
so 2010 yeah 13 years ago There wasn't
really a big startup ecosystem in denmark.
But then around 2012, 2013
something started to happen.
I don't know why maybe it was
because of Of the four day work week,
or was it called for our work week
book, I think that changed a lot
actually for a lot of people and
people started to think more
about building startups and so on.
That changed something in Denmark
as well and startups started
to be on the agenda a bit more.
And I started reading books about
doing startups and so on and luckily
I then had a colleague in Accenture who
had the kind of same ambitions and dreams.
And we then decided that we
wanted to do a startup together.
And that's where we left
Accenture back in 2013 to do
Cobalt together with My colleague's
brother and one of his friends.
So yeah, that was like the
early phase, basically studied
engineering went into consultancy,
and then when the startup community
started to be a bit stronger in Denmark,
I decided to do something in the space.
Prateek Panda: Okay, great.
You told a little bit
about, what it was like.
About 13 years ago in Denmark
and the startup ecosystem
wasn't that developed back then
what do you think is the situation today?
Do you think there is a much more
supportive and vibrant ecosystem now?
Esben Friis-Jensen: Yeah, for sure.
I think today pretty much everywhere in
the world, the startup brand has expanded.
So now it's a completely viable.
Career path to go out and do a
startup after your studies and so on.
It's really become a
thing around the world.
And especially in Denmark,
it's become much more popular.
I still think we could have more
startups, but it's definitely.
Becoming more popular and becoming a thing
in universities that students do startups,
even while they're studying and so
on, which was maybe one or two that
10 years or 13 years ago, but it
wasn't a lot of people doing it.
So I think that has definitely changed.
And if I were to start a startup
today, I would, and didn't
live in the U.S as I do now,
I would probably just started from
Denmark and not go to Silicon Valley
as we ended up doing with Cobalt.
Prateek Panda: That would
have been my next question.
If you were to start now, would
you consider moving to the valley?
Do you think that you would still at
some point want to move to the valley,
or do you think we are now at a point
where it isn't really necessary to be
physically based in Silicon Valley?
Esben Friis-Jensen: I think
today you don't necessarily need
to be based in Silicon Valley.
You can still get a lot of
inspiration from being there
and network and connections.
So it's still good to go there.
But I think you can start a startup from
anywhere maybe to give a bit more insights
on that second phase of our story.
So when we decided to start
Cobalt, that was 2013.
I think we wanted two things.
One, we wanted to build a
company and two, we also wanted
some kind of adventure, right?
And in the beginning it was very much
just like a project kind of thing.
We said, okay let's go build a company.
Let's try to build
something in three months.
The goal was to build an MVP and
then get one or three customers.
And actually we had decided to
do the startup before we had the
idea for what we wanted to do,
which is a bit other way around.
But we decided to do this platform
that basically allowed anybody to
invite friendly hackers to come and
find vulnerabilities in your website.
And we had seen that from Google
and Facebook we re doing this
kind of invite programs or where
they invited friendly hackers.
And we thought that any
business should be doing that.
So that's the idea we had in mind
and that's what we set out to do.
So initially we actually moved to
Buenos Aires and Argentina, which
was a bit atypical, but that was
because my colleague had moved there,
lived there for one year and it
was a good place to start out,
live for cheaper rent and so on.
And we built the MVP from there.
So that was part of the adventure
to, to go somewhere else and, be
completely isolated from the world.
And then when we had finalized the MVP
and seen that we could get a couple of
customers we said, okay, what now, right?
What do we do?
And then we actually considered going
back to Denmark, raise capital there,
go to an accelerator program in
Denmark, but all the programs that we
talked to and the investors in Denmark
they were giving really bad terms.
So this was 10 years ago, right?
They wanted way too much of a share of
your company for way too little money.
And when we then looked at the U.S.
instead, where we could apply for
similar accelerator programs and.
And speak to investors there, they
were giving much better terms.
So 10 years ago, the terms in
Silicon Valley was just much better.
If you want it to raise
capital as a startup.
So that's what we decided to do.
We basically got into an
accelerator called Boost in
San Mateo and Silicon Valley.
And we went to the U.S, got in,
was part of that three months.
I accelerated a program, ended
up raising $1 million and then we
stayed around and in Silicon Valley.
So one thing I definitely think
have changed since 10 years ago
is the investment environment
is much better in Europe today.
You get much better terms.
It's much more competitive with the U S.
So if you want to build an
investor-backed business.
Then you can get similar terms in
Europe now as you can in the U.
S., which was not possible 10 years ago,
and that's why we decided to go to the
Valley back then and not stay in Europe.
Prateek Panda: I can relate a lot
with your journey and, by the way,
I've been following the Cobalt
journey for a fair amount of time
because right around the same
time 2014 is when I had started
a security company called Appknox
with two of my co founders and
we were in the mobile app
penetration testing space,
automated tests and stuff like that.
And back then bug bounty programs
were starting to get popular.
And I believe you would consider BugCrowd
to be one of your competitors, maybe.
So that space was evolving and
we had a similar journey where
we moved out of India, moved to
Singapore which had at that point,
slightly better terms in raising money
as well as a better access to the
market that we were looking after.
And went through that journey,
eventually came back to India, then
started our path towards Silicon Valley.
And I can totally relate to how things
were different about 12 to 15 years ago
and how much the ecosystem has changed.
Today even in India you could get very
favorable terms or very competitive terms
if you're an enterprise SaaS company
very much in line to what you know,
Silicon Valley investors have to offer
but tell me this once you your market
was still pretty much North America.
That's where most of your customers were.
At what point did you start
thinking of actually building a
team in North America as well?
Esben Friis-Jensen: So from day one, we
actually became an American company, you
can say because we decided to raise our
money there and build the team there.
So from day one, we were focused
on building a team in the U.S.
But our customers were all over
actually from day one as well.
We were not thinking like
U.S is the only market.
We were thinking global from day one.
And I think If you can do
that, then you should do that.
Like I always been building both
my businesses are selling to other
software companies and software
companies all around the world.
And it doesn't matter as
long as they speak English.
You can sell to them, right?
So you shouldn't narrow yourself
to a specific geographical area.
And so we didn't do that with Cobalt.
We didn't, we haven't
done that with Userflow.
We've been selling globally from day one.
But of course the U.S market
is much more homogenous.
They all speak English.
They typically want to
spend more on software.
So it's a great market to, to be in.
So market wise, we always thought
global, but team wise, we just
weren't, we weren't Silicon Valley.
We later moved up to San Francisco
and then we've just built our company
there so the initial team we built
out in Cobalt was in San Francisco.
Later on, we actually expanded
into Berlin because we found
out that retaining talent in
the U.S in San Francisco at least, was a
bit hard, especially engineering talent.
It was, but it was both very
expensive and hard to retain.
So we decided let's not do that.
Let's use our unfair
advantage of knowing Europe.
Let's go to Berlin and let's open
a an office there so we can hire
engineering talent in Europe.
And then over time the presence in San
Francisco actually declined more and
more we opened up an office in Boston.
Where there was also a lot of
great security go to market
talent due to successful companies
like Veracode and Rapid7.
They have built a strong ecosystem.
In that way, we actually, you can
say the first four years, we were
in four to five years, we were
in San Francisco, but over time.
The presence there declined
and then actually during COVID,
we became a remote first company and
with the main presence in Boston and
Berlin rather than San Francisco.
Prateek Panda: That makes sense.
And for all the people who are watching
this and listening there are a lot of
founders who are in different parts
of the world looking at moving or
growing their teams in the U.S.
You suggested some key points there,
which people might have picked
up from, but like for example,
you wanted to hire better security GTM
talent and, pockets like Boston were
exciting because, other established
players like Veracode and Rapid7,
established a good sort of ecosystem there
do you have any other tips and advice
for people who are in that early stage,
want to get more traction in the
U.S, Are planning to move or set
up small teams there, but struggle
to attract good talent, right?
Esben Friis-Jensen: I think
from an engineering perspective,
you don't need to hire.
It doesn't make sense to build
an engineering team in the U.S.
It's much more affordable to do
it anywhere else in the world.
So I wouldn't build an engineering
team in the U.S if I could avoid it.
But from a go to market perspective,
if I'm targeting North America,
it might make sense to hire some
go to market people in the U.S.
that can address that market.
I'm a strong believer in product
led growth, which means you are
less dependent on salespeople,
customer success, and so on.
But still having some kind
of presence in the U.S.
is great like customer success or support.
That can be there to respond in real time
to U.S customers makes a lot of sense.
I think another reason why I wanted to
maybe hire some U.S talent on the go
to market side is they think bigger.
I think that's a challenge if we
compare at least Europe and the us,
I think we have the same kind of
Great skill at building products,
but what they are better at in the
U.S is thinking big about their
products and also charge more.
Typically if you look at a comparative
kind of pricing matrix between a
U.S company and a European company,
they will charge three X more
than the European company because
they know they can charge that.
And that's something I think many European
companies can learn from that they
are undercharging for their products.
And those things you might only learn if
you bring in some U.S talent to your team.
Prateek Panda: I think
that's a great observation.
And I have spoken to a bunch of founders
who've also spotted this trend.
The confidence to know your market
and what you can price your product
is significantly higher in the US
than it is in any part of the world.
Esben Friis-Jensen: Because if you
ask European customers, they're
going to say it's expensive, right?
But reality is an American customer is
not going to say that they think that's
just the price they're going to pay.
So, I think that's been one
of the biggest lessons for us.
As we started Cobalt, we started
initially charging 2k for a pen test
and ended up charging 15k, right?
Because that was the market price.
We just didn't know that
was the market price, right?
I think that's a lesson you can learn
by building the team, like a part of
your go to market team in in the U.S,
And I do recommend focusing on U.S
because it's such a, as I
said, homogenous market.
They all speak English,
they have money to spend.
It's just the best market in the world
almost from both ability to spend money
and basically being very homogenous.
Prateek Panda: Yeah, that is spot on.
You talked a little bit
about product led growth.
And you also have said in the past that,
most SaaS businesses should have some
kind of PLG aspect to their business.
Doesn't necessarily mean you
have to go one way or the other.
But more often than not,
founders especially try to
think, either there is a PLG
motion or a sales led motion.
And do you think differently?
Is there is one better than the other?
Or, a mix of both works?
Esben Friis-Jensen: Yeah, I think
it's a maturity thing, right?
So I think we are now in a phase
where the end users are more in power.
So now more and more
companies become PLG driven.
Whereas if, when we started Cobalt 10
years ago the market for buying SaaS
solution was still a bit more immature.
So you needed a bit more
education, especially with a
product like Cobalt, we were.
Selling something that was
brand new on the market, bug
bounty program platforms, right?
As we did, we later pivoted into
Pentest , it was brand new and we
needed to really educate the market.
And even though we actually started out as
a very product led platform with self sign
up and all that, but we realized, okay,
in order to really get into this
market, we need to be more sales
led and educate the customers.
So that's what we did.
And I think a problem with that
was we forgot completely about
our product led motion, right?
So we turn, we turned that off and
then we became purely sales led.
The bad thing about that is you
end up becoming more and more
of a service company, right?
Because you tend to think human first and
everything you do, where you are like,
let's solve this by hiring more people,
to solve this sales challenge
or customer success challenge,
instead of thinking, how could we
solve this in the product, right?
Like, how could we make
it easier for people?
So I think a healthy mix is probably
what most companies should strive for.
But a good kind of rule of thumb is,
given the current market maturity
is if you need to educate the
market, a sales led motion is maybe
Good but if there's a lot of
competition already in your market,
if you don't need to do a lot of
education, then a product led motion
is the superior motion in any way, because
you can grow much faster at a lower cost.
Prateek Panda: That makes sense.
And let's talk a little bit about
your current company Userflow as well.
Your journey has been a
little different with Cobalt.
You raised a fair amount of VC money.
I believe with Userflow,
you are bootstrapped?
Esben Friis-Jensen: Yep.
So to give like the, so where we
ended when I was telling the story,
we started Cobalt in, in 2013.
We stayed around in San Francisco,
later expanded to Boston and Berlin.
We raised the series A,
we raised the series B.
I actually want to, a short
mention on those two rounds.
We used an unfair advantage for our
Series A and raised from a Danish fund.
So that's something you can
consider as well as a company that
kind of moves to Silicon Valley.
You can still use your unfair
advantage that you might
have some connections in your home
country that you could get easier
investment from than American investors.
But yeah we did that.
We raised capital, we
built a company in 2020.
We were around 200
employees in the company.
We had pivoted, as I mentioned from
bug bounty programs to what we call
pen test as a service, which was
more like a structured pen testing.
But the idea was still the same as
software driven security platform.
So in 2020, we were at that
stage, very mature company.
Everything was running very operationally.
And that was probably the problem for me.
It was too operational.
It was too boring to some extent.
It was more about leading other
people, hiring people, managing people.
And as a founder, at least me, and I
know many other founders feel the same.
We want to be close to the product.
We want to be close to the customers.
We want to build something right.
And that becomes increasingly hard
in a 200 plus employee company.
So for me I started to think,
okay, I want to do another
startup instead of doing this.
I felt like Cobalt was ready
to, to move on without me.
So I made a decision to basically
leave Cobalt in 2020 and join my
friend Sebastian to start Userflow.
I had met Sebastian
actually in San Francisco.
He's also Danish, but we met in
San Francisco and became friends.
He was doing another startup at
that time, later worked at Google.
And then he had started Userflow, which
basically is a no code tool for building
product onboarding and surveys and so on.
And he wanted me to join him.
He's a very strong full stack
engineer and he wanted somebody
to drive the go to market side.
Which I had a lot of
experience and from Cobalt.
Yeah, so I made that hard decision
to leave Cobalt and join Userflow.
And we we think about it things a bit
differently maybe because it's my second
time company, both for the best in
life, but we are fully bootstrapped.
We think profit first in everything we do.
We are only a team of three and we've been
able to grow the revenue to $4.5 million
ARR with product-led growth basically.
So very different company from Cobalt.
Prateek Panda: You mentioned you
are a team of three at Userflow?
Esben Friis-Jensen: Yep.
That
Prateek Panda: is amazing!
I wouldn't have ever thought
that because Userflow is still
fairly popular, I mean being
Esben Friis-Jensen: customers and
yeah, as I said, 4.5 Million ARR, so
it's been a, it's been a very fun and
different journey but yeah it shows the
power of product led growth basically.
Prateek Panda: How do you manage
expectations of 700 customers when you
still have three people on the team?
And a lot of people who are listening to
this are founders and might want to learn
a thing or two from this journey, right?
That you can still build, a
5 million business or even
more with a very small team.
And in the past, we've heard
of, examples like WhatsApp.
I'm not going to bring that up
because, the B2B SaaS enterprise SaaS
journey is a little bit different.
What do you think enables you to run so
lean whereas others might at this point at
least have 20 people, if not more, right?
Like on engineering product
design and so many other things.
Esben Friis-Jensen: Yeah in short answers,
product growth but of course it starts
with the product market fit, right?
Everything else, you
need product market fit.
I think with Userflow, what we did was
we entered a very competitive market.
So there was already, we know, we
knew we could get product market
fit because other companies in that
space already had product market fit.
So we just needed to find out what
was our unique differentiation.
And we decided to focus on making it
easier to build the content and provide
a higher levels of sophistication.
So those two things doesn't, they don't,
they're not Don't rule out each other.
We actually been able to do both.
So I think that, that
was a one thing we did.
Like we, we didn't go to, like with
Cobalt we entered a brand new kind of
area which is harder to build something in
but in a competitive space, it's
more about how do you differentiate
yourself from the competition?
And it becomes easier to
find that product market fit.
So that's one thing we did and
then the rest of the motion has
really been product led growth.
So, the number one aspect of product
led growth is having a great product.
Sebastian is an amazing engineer has
built a Really easy to use builder
with a high level of sophistication.
So that's number one, without a great
product, you can't do product led growth.
And then the mindset is always we should
always fix it in the product first.
The way we do it is like we build
product onboarding, of course,
using Userflow with Userflow.
So self service onboarding,
self service procurement.
Self service, basically everything.
And whenever we have a recurring support
issue, we solve it in the product
instead of solving it with people.
So we don't go out and
hire more support people.
We basically just fix the issue and find
a way to not have that question anymore.
So majority of things we fix by
solving it in the product and then
everything we can't fix in the product.
We try to automate using other
tools like Zapier, integrations,
etc automated emails.
So it's always that mindset, fix it
in the product first, then automate,
and then only as a very last
resort use humans to, to do things.
Prateek Panda: That is amazing, Esben.
It's been I think kudos to all of you
for, scaling so well and effectively.
And I think that's a learning and
an inspiration for a lot of us who
are listening to this as well right.
Now, tell me a little bit about,
all of this journey over the last
13-14 years, as a founder myself,
I've seen, significantly difficult days
and it takes a toll on mental health.
You moved out from Denmark
came to the Valley.
I don't know how many
people you knew back then.
And, but you're leaving behind a lot
of, support that you get from your known
ecosystem, and a community that you have.
Tell us a little bit about that journey.
How was it for you?
Was it smooth?
Did you have to struggle
a lot in the early days?
What did you do to rebuild that
community around yourself in a new place?
Esben Friis-Jensen: Yeah, for me, it
was a, I wouldn't say it was a fun
adventure to go to another country
and build a company there, right?
Being in Silicon Valley.
That was amazing.
So that part was just fun and adventure.
But from a challenge point
of view, you can say.
Number one, we were four Danish guys
who did Cobalt and we didn't know
anybody in Silicon Valley, right?
So we had to prove
ourselves in that community.
And especially in the U.S the
security community is a very
tight knit group of CISOs
that all know each other and they use
the tools that they know and so on.
So we were, we had a hard
time getting into that market.
One thing we did at some, so
we struggled for a long time.
It was a lot of grind in the beginning.
And we cracked the code when we
hired Caroline Wong, who became
a thought leader for Cobalt.
She knew everybody in the industry and
suddenly people started listening to us.
So that's something you can consider
if you're trying to penetrate a market.
It's find somebody who's
already part of the community.
And use them as a way to
get your message across.
I think in the beginning it
was, we grinded way too much
and it was a lot easier to get
customers after Caroline joined.
So we could have avoided
maybe some of that grind.
By having her earlier.
But it's not necessarily that we
could have gotten her earlier.
So that's it's that
kind of balance, right?
You never know.
So I think that was one challenge.
Then the second one we
experienced with Cobalt was,
and that, that's some, something many
VC backed companies will experience is
because they don't think profit first.
They don't think about, managing
their, it's become different now with
the the current market conditions,
but we, after us initials angel
round, we were actually close to
running out of money at Cobalt
because we'd spend all the money
and we were we had a team
of 10 after our angel round.
And we were close to should
we let everybody go and
just be the founders again?
We were at that stage.
And we were struggling to find product
market fit with that bug bounty model.
And that's where, but tough
times makes you stronger.
So that's where we actually
decided to pivot into pen testing.
So we found our product market
fit with pen testing done.
And secondly, because of that
change, we were able to raise
another round from a small VC fund.
So we survived that but I think
that's an area where many VC
backed companies will fail
because they're so focused on just
spending money and they will run out
of money and then they will be in these
kinds of situations whereas Userflow,
if you always think profit first,
you're not dependent on outside capital.
It's a lot easier to, not be in those
kinds of situations where you have to,
run out of money or have to urgently
find capital and these kinds of things.
Yeah, very different with Userflow,
but yeah so those are some key
struggles that we had with Cobalt was.
One, penetrating the market
due to us being Danish, two
finding that product market fit.
But I think every business
struggles with that, right?
Prateek Panda: yeah.
And you touched upon a very
interesting thing, right?
And I want to ask you something more about
the way it's different to run a bootstrap
company versus a VC backed company.
I've also, in my experience,
run one each of these kind.
And when you have some VC
capital, of course, you have
a better way to hire people,
you have more money in the bank, gives
you a little bit of ease of mind,
but there's also a lot more
pressure to deliver value back
to your shareholders, right?
Whereas in the bootstrap model, in that
sense, you have slightly more peace
of mind, but you might struggle to,
attract good talent until you reach a
point where you're a well known name.
But even then.
A lot of players, a lot of good talent
today might want to ask you like, how
much money do you have in the bank?
How much money have you raised?
Do you think in your experience or
at least your personal experience?
You are happier in the bootstrap journey
than you were in your VC funded business?
Esben Friis-Jensen: 100% I'm much happier
in this world where we have full control.
And we also slim, I like working
in a smaller team, to be honest.
I think it was in global, we had a
lot of fun building out the team.
We had a lot of fun
parties and all this stuff.
But from a business perspective it's
much more leaner and we can make
decisions much faster in a smaller team.
So I think both journeys were fun.
I just, I like the bootstrap
journey better because I have
more control in, in that sense.
But, I think with Cobalt, we didn't
have a lot of choice back then.
We were newbie entrepreneurs, right?
We had never done a startup.
So I think it was just a
natural path to do that.
That's what you do.
You raise capital.
And also we didn't have a lot
of money on the bank account.
So it was a lot harder to bootstrap.
It's a lot easier if you already have.
One, money on your bank account and
two, you have some kind of because now,
because userflow is my second startup,
I have a lot more to say, I'm the
Caroline Wong of Userflow, right?
Like suddenly people listen to me
because I have already done a startup.
So when you're doing your first startups
you don't necessarily have those things.
And in those scenarios, it might
make more sense to raise capital
and get some outside assistance.
But I think one thing we actually
also did in Cobalt that I think
many VC backed companies forget
about is, or early stage founders,
they focus way too much on getting
that initial funding, right?
They, that's all they think about is
we should go out and raise capital
because that's what startups do.
But reality is you should focus on getting
to product market fit, getting your first
customers, getting paying customers,
That's the essence of building a company.
It's like getting customers, right?
And getting customers
who pay for your product.
It's not the essence of a company to go
out and raise capital and get some kind
of valuation that might be true or not.
So I think I'm not against
companies raising capital.
I think they should, if you're,
especially if you're a first time
entrepreneur, it makes sense, but
don't make that your primary goal.
Your primary goal should always
be deliver value to customers so
they will pay for your product and
try to do that for as long as possible
before you raise capital, because
then you also get much better returns.
Prateek Panda: Yeah, definitely.
I think that's great advice.
And, on that note, we are getting
close to the end of this episode.
You've shared a lot of important as
well as valuable nuggets of information.
As we sign off, do you have
some recommendations for let's
say a favorite podcast or a
newsletter or some people that
our listeners should follow in order
to start building on that same ideology
where, they're looking to come to the
U.S., but they need some, kickstart to
start building that network and community.
Are there any such people you
would suggest they should,
meet with or listen to?
Esben Friis-Jensen: I don't
listen to a lot of podcasts that
are focused on exactly that.
But definitely probably your
podcast is greater at sending that
message, but but yeah, I think.
I haven't heard a lot of podcasts
focused on that exact topic.
But it's something people should
really consider just jumping
into it, and getting out there.
I have not regretted one day of me
leaving Accenture and doing startups.
And I think people should just do it.
But from a general podcast
perspective listen a lot to Wes Bush.
He has a whole product led community
where you can learn a lot about
product led growth is that's definitely
something I recommend looking at.
There's Kyle Poyar from OpenView.
OpenView, they are in a
funny state right now.
They might go down.
I don't know.
But he's doing a newsletter
on product led growth as well.
That's great to follow.
So those are two people I follow a lot
when it comes to product led growth.
And then I think my biggest
idols is actually Jason
Fried and DHH from 37signals.
because I think they what they do
is exactly tell the story of what
the modern founder should look like.
Now we're in that stage where
we don't need to think about
VC capital all the time.
We should think about building
companies, true profitable companies,
and they have been an advocate for
that for the last 20 years or so.
And now, is the time to
really listen to them.
And they have so much great
material on how you should
think about building a business.
So highly recommend.
Go to 37signals.com, They have a whole
manifest of how they build businesses.
That's amazing to read.
And of course I like DHH
because he's Danish as well.
So a great guy.
Prateek Panda: All right,
Awesome, Esben, thank you so
much for spending time with us.
I think it was an amazing
conversation and a lot of
insightful information shared there.
Thanks a lot.
Esben Friis-Jensen: Thank you.
My pleasure.
Prateek Panda: And that
wraps up today's episode.
Before we sign off, I would like
to thank you for your support
and thanks for tuning in.
If you loved today's episode.
Then don't forget to subscribe to this
podcast and never miss an episode.
Be kind, be happy, challenge the norm.
I'll see you folks again for the next one.