The StartUp to ScaleUp Game Plan

John Goulding is the CEO at Workvivo - an employee engagement and communication platform venture he co-founded in 2017 to create an engaging virtual workplace & replace the intranet.

Workvivo’s growing 200% year-on-year & has over half a million users across more than 80 countries with 100% customer retention!

Workvivo is backed by Zoom founder Eric Yuan,  Frontline Ventures & Tiger Global.

We explored how:

• effective CS & strong customer retention fuels great product ideas & makes companies a better, more enjoyable, place to work in
  

For more insights into Workvivo check out https://www.workvivo.com/

And for advice on scaling B2B software ventures, head over to https://alpinasearch.com/

Gary Brotman is the CEO at Secondmind - a UK start-up who've raised $51m from VCs like Amadeus, Atlantic Bridge & Passion Capital to help companies achieve sustainability through machine learning.

We explored:

Is building a purpose-driven culture and brand crucial for any business looking to become a market leader?

How does Secondmind leverage ML to help automotive innovators meet future environmental and regulatory challenges?

How can you find the signal in the noise to solve business problems?

Why are usability and trust top priorities for any SaaS venture?

How can SaaS ventures overcome the challenge of scaling products from research “magic” to impactful commercial products?

For more insights into Secondmind check out https://www.secondmind.ai/ 

For advice on successfully scaling B2B software ventures head over to https://alpinasearch.com/

Yusuf Ozdalga is a Partner at QED Investors and a Board member at Fidel API, Wayflyer, GetGround, Capitalise, Weavr, and Rest Less.  He’s also a Jiu Jitsu bronze medalist!

• After 1 of their Partners, Greg Mazanec, died from opiate addiction, QED researched the mental health challenges faced by startup investors and founders. They discovered that – due to the huge pressure founders and startup investors are exposed to, they are many times more likely than most to suffer from depression, suicidal thoughts, ADHD or bipolar disorder.

We also explored Yusuf's learnings from Jiu jitsu - and how these might help us in our professional lives - including how to handle unexpected developments and how to remain resilient in the face of powerful opposing forces.

And we discussed how people need to be more open-minded about paths so success - in life, in investment, and in business - there are always diverse approaches and perspectives you can leverage and deploy.

Yusuf explained how QED are leading by example on diversity issues and pushing their portfolio companies to measure and improve their progress with D&I 

We also explored some of QED's major success stories like Wagestream - which is a superbly performing scale-up and a strong legacy that Greg Mazanec has left behind.

For more insights into QED check out https://qedinvestors.com/ and for support on mental health and addiction challenges head over to https://theoperationlighthouse.org/

Emil Gigov, Partner at Albion VC, has been involved in 30 early stage & growth investments during his 2 decades as a VC. We explored:

• How Europe's VC ecosystem has evolved in the past 2 decades

For more insights into Albion VC check out https://www.albion.vc & for guidance on hiring stellar leadership teams for b2b start-ups & scale-ups head over to https://alpinasearch.com

Parry Malm is the co-founder and CEO at Phrasee – a scaleup who combine natural language techniques with AI and deep learning to optimize marketing across all digital channels in over 20 languages.

Funded by Albion VC, Galvanize Capital and Next 15 Communications, Phrasee’s solution is truly revolutionary and delivers major ROI for blue chip clients like Ebay, Virgin Atlantic and Superdry.

We explored the underlying problem that Phrasee set out to address - lots of companies focus on optimizing the operational efficiency of a marketing campaign: "You click a button and a million messages go out to a million people. But what if that message sucks?!”

We discussed how Phrasee has placed ethics front and centre – in terms of the way the company is run, the solutions they offer and the clients they work with - for example, Phrasee recently rejected the opportunity to work with a US client who sold guns and ammunition.

• “For all that VCs say about backing innovators – what they are actually doing is backing incrementors!”

Parry explained how startups like Phrasee can begin by dominating a narrow market and then expand into complementary areas.

And we discussed why it's so crucial for founders to ensure "you have a killer management team at the top", set them guidelines and boundaries, and then "get the f*** out of there and let them get on with it!"

We also discussed how Phrasee responded proactively to the pandemic and Parry's view that the winners in every global crisis are always the ones who adapt and don’t suffer from institutional inertia preventing them from moving forward.

Finally we discussed Phrasee's brilliant naming taxonomy for each product component and each project team - based on the characters in The Simpsons!

For more insights into Phrasee's digital marketing AI solutions check out https://phrasee.co and for guidance on recruiting rockstar executive talent for B2B SaaS start-ups and scale-ups head over to https://alpinasearch.com

Pierre Lindmark is the CEO at Winningtemp – 1 of Europe’s fastest growing B2B SaaS scale-ups

Winningtemp’s vision is to provide the science behind successful organisations - to forever change how organisations succeed!

The company serves 700 clients in 23 countries leveraging advanced AI and providing science-based insights to dramatically reduce employee turnover and sick leave.

We explored:

• Why founders and entrepreneurs need to train themselves to sell from Day 1 – even if they don’t feel comfortable selling

For more insights into Winningtemp check out https://winningtemp.com and for guidance on recruiting exceptional leaders for B2B SaaS scaleups head over to https://alpinasearch.com

Eugene Kruglov is co-founder at AppFollow – a European scaleup who help businesses review and analyse their mobile app user  sentiment, streamline customer support, and automate competitor and customer analysis to strengthen product roadmaps. 

Appfollow have more than 70,000 global clients — from small and medium-sized businesses to blue chips like McDonald’s, Disney, Sky and Sony – and they recently raised a Series A led by Nauta Capital.

We explored:

• How AppFollow's founders switched from their initial idea of a quick profitable exit to creating a new market category and a billion dollar global story for their investors

For more insights into AppFollow check out https://appfollow.io and for guidance on recruiting stellar leadership talent for B2B Saas startups and scaleups check out https://alpinasearch.com

Abhishek Chatterjee is the CEO at Tookitaki – a disruptive AI scaleup looking to shake up the world of financial and regulatory compliance.

Tookitaki raised $20m in funding from the likes of Viola, Nomura and Illuminate Financial - and they’ve deployed their solution at a number of Tier 1 banks in Asia, Europe and North America.

In 2019, The World Economic Forum recognised Tookitaki as a Technology Pioneer for its ability to shape the industry and society in new and exciting ways.

We explored how Tookitaki is creating a modular "compliance-as-a-service" category along with an ecosystem of partners leveraging their open APIs

• You must set-up metrics from the earliest stages in a company’s evolution so you can track, measure and improve 

For more insights into Tookitaki check out https://www.tookitaki.ai and for guidance on recruiting stellar leaders for B2B startups and scaleups head over to https://alpinasearch.com

Eric Friedrichsen is the CEO at Emburse - who humanize work by empowering business travelers, finance professionals and CFOs to eliminate manual, time-consuming tasks. Emburse has 14,000 customers for their AP and expense management solutions - from start-ups to global blue chips like Grant Thornton, Telefónica, Lufthansa and Toyota.

We explored Emburse's determination to create a culture of inclusion and diversity: "If we aren’t part of solving the problem we are perpetuating the problem!"

We discussed their core values "SEEIT": Sincerity, Empowerment, Empathy, Individuality, Teamwork and some of their specific D&I initiatives. For example, Emburse gave all employees a vacation & "personal reflection" day on Juneteenth – prompted by the George Floyd killing and concerns about systemic racism in society.

We also examined what it means to be a “customer-led” company – rather than a sales-led or product-led company.

And we discussed how Emburse was helping its employees cope with the stresses of 2020 - with an unlimited PTO policy and the rollout of Emburse Unplugged Days which are compulsory 1x a month for every employee and have even led to the growing reputation of their house band “The Bad Receipts”!

Roope Heinila is the CEO at Smarp – a saas scaleup disrupting the global market for employee engagement and communications.

We explored Roope's learnings during a difficult first 18 months as an entrepreneur a decade ago, when only his Granny's loan enabled the company to survive!

And we discussed how Smarp has developed and prioritised a learning culture across the entire organisation.

Finally, we discussed the dramatic changes resulting from the covid pandemic - with organisations needing to find an effective and targeted way to communicate with globally dispersed workforces in a targeted manner - which have massively increased demand for Smarp's solution from large international enterprises like Amazon and the "Big Four" consulting firms.

For more insights into Smarp check out https://smarp.com/ and for guidance on hiring stellar executive talent for saas startups and scaleups head over to https://alpinasearch.com/