Today I speak to Rob to learn more about his background, leaving his job at Ernst & Young, starting Escape the city, what Escape the City does and other valuable insights into his journey as an entrepreneur so far.

Below is the full interview.

Can you give you some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I did always have lots of plans and projects on the go when I was growing up but they weren’t necessarily business-related. They were normally adventures actually. I grew up in northern Portugal, went to boarding school in England, university in Scotland and France. Aged 21 I drove an old Land Rover through Africa from Cape Town to Cairo.

You studied History at Edinburgh University, tell me about your experience there and some of the key things you took from that experience?

Studying History was a massive indulgence. There’s less of an emphasis on vocational degrees in the UK as there is in other countries but it does mean you can feel slightly lost when you graduate! When I got my first job in consulting I had to make up all sorts of creative reasons why studying History meant that I would be the ideal management consultant! In retrospect however the analytical skills and sense of perspective that I got from that degree have really helped me with building Escape the City.

Tell me how the idea for Escape the City came about?

The idea was born out of our frustration with the corporate world. Dom Jackman (my co-founder) and I realised that we didn’t want to spend our careers as management consultants. We were attracted by the prospect of ‘doing our own thing’ but didn’t know what business to start. Ironically the feeling of ‘why is it so hard to find viable alternatives to working in the corporate world?’ then translated into our very own start-up plan. We realised that it was a problem that many people shared and that there would be lots of interest if we built something genuinely useful.

So you left your job at Ernst & Young, Did you get chicken out of it a few times before leaving, how scared were you?

I’m pretty impulsive so I just went for it. For a conscientious person I had become dangerously demotivated and I knew it was time to leave. I actually resigned because Dom bet me I wouldn’t. He went to Canada for the Yukon canoe race and as he was leaving he leant over my cubicle wall and said ‘I bet you won’t have resigned by the time I get back.’ I did.

Working at Ernst & Young must have helped you in some way to run your business, what were some of the key things that you learnt from that experience?

It was a valuable experience from lots of perspectives. It taught me what I’m good and what I’m bad at. It showed me ways of working to avoid (and some to adopt!). The base skills that I got from that environment – project management, communications, structuring problems, PowerPoint(!), Excel, etc – have been great building blocks for starting a business. Ultimately I already had the main characteristic that starting something from nothing requires: stubborn determination!

What is Escape the City?

Escape the City is a community for corporate professionals who want to do something different with their careers. We help ambitious people find exciting career alternatives outside of the corporate mainstream. We connect our members with hard-to-find opportunities, likeminded people and useful information to help them make the leap.

Talk me through the first few months of running the business? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

The first months were like walking on air. We were blogging about our idea, sending out newsletters, getting engaged on social media. Every positive email served to reinforce the feeling that we were being rewarded for being brave (and foolish). It felt like this: http://blog.escapethecity.org/categories/startup/committed/

The hardest? It gets harder by the day! It’s counter-intuitive but in the early days every bit of progress is a massive victory. You’re starting from nothing so everything you do is forward momentum. The trouble comes when survival is no longer the priority – today growth and really delivering on our brand’s promise is the main challenge… and a hard one at that!

How were you able to fund the business?

We each loaned a few thousand pounds off our respective families and we had saved as much of our salaries as we could from that final year in full-time employment. Post-resignation we both did some part-time work to pay the bills until we made our first revenue.

What’s your business model?

In its current incarnation our business model is a jobs board. Exciting organisations that want to attract smart professionals pay to list their positions. We also make money from event tickets and escape (career) coaching. We are working on new revenue streams but we’ve been fortunate to have such a ready stream of income to survive on in the early days.

Would you say the initial idea for the company, or that your business model has changed since 2010?

The problem we are trying to solve hasn’t changed: “Why is it so hard to find viable career alternatives outside of the corporate mainstream?” Nor has the philosophy: “Life is too short to do work that doesn’t matter to you.” The business model is unchanged from launch but going forwards things will change on this front as we now have a much clearer idea of the potential behind our idea.

How big is your team now?

Eight people in total (four freelancers).

How many users do you now have up to date?

54,116

What would you say has been some of the most crucial that you’ve done to build the company to this level now?

Crucial what? Crucial actions?

Yes

The best thing we have done is our Monday newsletter. That has been our single most powerful marketing tool and the reason why we have the users that we have. Reading Tribes by Seth Godin was a massive eureka moment in terms of the community model.

Is the business profitable?

It is breaking even. We reinvest everything we make in building.

What’s been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

We were interviewed live on Bloomberg TV on our last day of a 3 month stint launching Escape the City in New York. That was pretty exciting.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there?

Just Start. You don’t have to quit your job to see if your idea has legs. Manage your risk but get something out in public. Even if it’s just a blog, a survey, a facebook page, a prototype product. No idea survives first contact with the people you are building it for. So get it out there!

On that note, here is our manifesto: http://escapethecity.org/pages/manifesto

What can we be expecting from you and Escape the City in 2012?

An evolution of our brand to reflect the people who are using us (global, not just UK and all professionals, not just ‘city’ ones). Our website will become a lot more personalized – you’ll be able to tell us what you’re looking for and then receive information tailored to your aspirations. At the end of the year we’ll be publishing our manifesto in book format. Watch this space.

Where do you want the company to be in five years?

The default global destination for any smart and ambitious professional in the world to find genuinely exciting and meaningful things to do with their lives.

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This is the full interview below

Hi Tim, How are you doing, great to have you on YHP?

I’m doing great thanks Joseph– very happy to be here.

Could you quickly give us some background information about yourself?

I’m from Wales. After I graduated I qualified as an accountant and then advised on mergers and acquisitions for about 5 years.

How did you get involved in entrepreneurship? Were you exposed to entrepreneurship as a child?

I met a friend for lunch in 2004. He said he was going to leave his job and start a business. He asked if I’d be interested in helping him. I agreed. That business was Mint Digital http://mintdigital.com/ – a fine web technology company.

I was not exposed to entrepreneurship at all as a child. Growing up in the South Wales valleys during the 80s and 90s, most people were lucky if they had a job and didn’t have the luxury of sitting around contemplating industry disruption.

So tell me about Picklive and how the idea came about?

I was having breakfast one Saturday with some friends. We had developed some real-time technology at Mint that allowed us to build ‘playalong’ games to TV shows. We thought, “wouldn’t it be good if instead of having to wait 9 months for a result you could play fantasy football in short 5 minute games” – BOOM Picklive was born.

What is Picklive and how does it work?

Picklive has the fastest sports data in the world and uses it to create games that people play while they are watching football on TV. These games feel like something between sports betting and social gaming. Picklive is a ’2 screen’ experience designed to make even the dullest football match worth watching.

What is your business model?

Gambling. Each players pays a small amount (£1 currently) to enter a game. The winner takes the pot and we take a cut.

How did you initially attract users to Picklive, and how do you do it now?

Initially word of mouth. Now we have media partners, a referral system and make use of social media.

What makes Picklive different from any service out there? What problem does it solve?

It’s the world only ‘in-play’ fantasy football site. It makes the dullest football match on TV feel like El Clasico.

What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

Hired great people, listened to our customers.

What was the most challenging part of starting the business?

Obtaining the gambling license.

Would you say the business has changed from the first initial idea?

Yes it was originally just about live fantasy football. Now its about a range of games that people play to pep up their football viewing experience.

Who are your competitors?

There are no direct competitors. Similar products include any fantasy football site, any sports betting site and any social football game.

What were you doing before you founded Picklive?

I founded and was CEO at Mint Digital.

How have you been able to fund the business?

We have both self-funded and raised VC money.

What can we be expecting from your company in 2012?

Lots of new games.

What three pieces of advice would you offer entrepreneurs starting out today?

1. Test the market. Make sure there is demand for your product before you spend too much time on it;
2. Know why you’re doing it. Are you trying to change the world or are you trying to make money? Those are often not the same thing;
3. Hiring is the riskiest most time consuming activity, be certain you need headcount before you attempt it.

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Hi Sam, How are you doing, great to have you on YHP?

Thanks for having me!

Could you quickly give us some background information about yourself?

I’m co-founder and ‘Chief Product Nerd’ (read: CEO) at this awesome new startup called Eventasaurus (http://eventasaur.us).

My background is pretty varied: I’m Irish but I moved to the UK to study Civil Engineering at University of Edinburgh. I specialised in Fire Science Engineering and my masters thesis involved flying to Machu Picchu, Peru to burn down full-scale hotel bedrooms. No joke. During my degree I worked full-time at a couple of startups and ended up starting TechMeetup.co.uk. By the time I graduated I knew I was more interested in making products than designing skyscrapers so I never took a graduate job and instead started my own company. That’s where I’m at now.

How did you get involved in entrepreneurship? Were you exposed to entrepreneurship as a child?

Yeah I guess, though I don’t think I ever heard the word until a few years ago. My father set up his own accountancy firm and my eldest brother has built and sold a couple of games startups. I was probably exposed to the idea that there are more paths than just the normal idea of a professional career. I remember some guys in my year at university thinking I was crazy for not even applying for graduate positions – there is a notion that ‘this is the done thing’ and it’s about how well you can score on that one route. I don’t really buy that. I’d rather see what I can do myself.

So tell me about Eventasaurus and how the idea came about?

Well I woke up in the night and I had this idea right… No not really, we basically failed for almost a year to solve this problem and built and tested about five different products. We did a bunch of stupid things but also learned quite fast from our failures. In the end, we had learned so much about the space and the industry that we started to see the problem more realistically and then Eventasaurus just made a lot of sense.

What is Eventasaurus and how does it work?

Eventasaurus allows event organisers to manage their events across multiple social networks all from one dashboard – offering features like automatic event creation across social networks, real-time commenting across event pages and gathering your attendees from multiple event websites. Both founders are event organisers and we know how much manual work still goes into running an event so we really think Eventasaurus can reduce a lot of it.

What is your business model?

We acknowledge that there are great services and tools available for event organisers (e.g. Eventbrite is an incredible ticketing platform) but in the process of running an event, you need several of these different tools and services. Our business model is a claim that event organisers will pay for a dashboard that combines all of these tools together in one place, saving time and increasing efficiency while also creating new value for the event organisers by extracting meaningful business intelligence from the combined data (from all of these tools).

Note that we aren’t building each one of these tools – we know there are companies out there dedicated to each of part of the event organisers journey – and they do a much better job of those products than if we tried to build every one of them together. So instead, we pick the best tools and do deep API integrations into our dashboard. Customers use their own Facebook, Eventbrite accounts (etc) but they’re connected through Eventasaurus.

We don’t do anything clever with revenue models – we simply charge for the service. We provide a zero-cost free plan for not-for-profits and event organisers with small (or no) budgets and who need help managing social network distrubution. Otherwise it’s a monthly subscription for using the more powerful features and getting insights into your events.

How did you initially attract users to Eventasaurus, and how do you do it now?

We know a lot of event organisers, since we organise events ourselves, and that got us started in the early feedback stages. When we were done prototyping, we spoke with some journalists in the space, they liked what we were doing and wrote about us. That got the ball rolling.

What makes Eventasaurus different from any service out there? What problem does it solve?

Well, nothing else really does this right now. There’s a lot of social-media dashboards out there (e.g. WildFire, BuddyMedia) but none of these are aimed at event organisers or provide event functionality so we do that.

If you speak with anyone who organises events – they’ll tell you what a nightmare it is trying to do all of this work manually.

You can do some incredibly useful things with Eventasaurus like: create events across social networks automatically, sync and download your attendees (rsvps) and engage in real time across your event pages. Without Eventasaurus, if you needed to update your event – you’d be logging into all of the different websites and updating each one manually. When you’re running an event, time is always short – so having a cute dinosaur do this for you is a big relief. It’s pretty smart, saves a ton of time, and nothing else so far is doing this.

What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

Focus on creating value for our customers and ignoring everything else.

What was the most challenging part of starting the business?

Probably finding the right person to start it with. That took a while.

Would you say the business has changed from the first initial idea?

Ha – yes. It changes pretty much every month.

Who are your competitors?

Humans.

What were you doing before you founded Eventasaurus?

Writing my thesis on burning down hotels in Peru, running TechMeetup in three cities, and designing interfaces and marketing strategies at Loc8 Solutions.

How have you been able to fund the business?

I took a loan in the first place. I invested it all in the business. Then I got some angel investors. Then I got some more. Now we make money.

What can we be expecting from your company in 2012?

Big exciting stuff. Can’t talk about it yet, sorry! But expect us to focus relentlessly on creating new value for event organisers.

What three pieces of advice would you offer entrepreneurs starting out today?

1. Focus on creating new value for people, if you’re not creating new value – stop and change because it won’t last. Read ‘The New Capitalist Manifesto’ for more understanding about what I mean by ‘value’.
2. Make up your own idea about the world – don’t try and learn it from reading TechCrunch.
3. Drink less alcohol and more coffee.

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This is the full interview.

Can you give us some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I was born in Sweden by polish immigrants who fled the communist regime. Ever since I was a kid, I have been driven to prove that my family “deserved” the same that the rest of the Swedes had, so I got involved in a number of different projects that I thought would enable me to do so. I used to spend a lot of time coming up with business ideas, some just ideas, some I wrote down and some I realized in a small scale.

Tell me about the early days, how the idea for Klarna came about?

Niklas and I were on a trip with the aim to travel around the world without flying, when we got stuck in Australia and had to wait a month for the next cargo ship that would take us to Mexico. Due to the delay, I wasn’t able to return on time to continue my studies in 2003. Instead I got a job as a salesperson at a factoring firm, where I started to learn the business. Eventually I started to gain an understanding of online shopping, and I realized that there was a huge difference in how people were paying and how they would have preferred to pay. The company I was working for eventually went bust after I left, but the idea survived and I joined forces with Niklas and Victor to start Klarna. At the time, we all were students at the Stockholm School of Economics, which has a business lab that supports students who start companies. The opportunity to join the business lab was too good to pass up, so we presented our idea to them and they urged us to pursue it.

What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

Probably the hardest part was the decision itself to start. We were in the middle of our studies and all of the other students were talking about getting jobs in banks in London. To do something different and start a business was a huge step. What helped us was when we said to ourselves, “Let’s not talk about a life commitment. Instead let’s give this all that we have for 6 months and then see where we are.” And so we did.

What is Klarna? Tell me how it works?

We provide after delivery payment solutions for e-commerce. The basic idea is that buying is fun, whereas payment is a nuisance. That’s why we want to separate buying from paying, and the one way to do that is to let consumers pay after delivery. In practice that means that consumers pay via invoice rather than for example with their credit card at the moment of purchase. For consumers, this implies total safety as they don’t have to pay for anything before they are able to hold the ordered products in their hands. For online shops we provide a full payment guarantee and handle all payment related administration. it’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.

How were you able to convince investors to invest in your company at that time?

We were extremely fortunate to meet Jane Walerud. The school we were studying at has a good reputation. When the business lab invited some business angels to listen to pitches from all the companies in the lab, Jane was one of them who attended that Christmas party. Jane has founded and funded a string of successful companies. We were a bit surprised that she gave us more money than we had asked for, and for less of the company. I think part of it was that she liked the idea but even more so that she saw three 23-year-olds who were extremely motivated and prepared to work 90 hours a week to become successful.

How has the business evolved comparing to your first year of running it, the business model? Strategy?

The company has changed a lot. When we started we were 3 students, now we are 600 employees. Back then we were happy amateurs, today we are one of Sweden’s larger companies. We have added more bank like products to the business such as Klarna Account, which allows consumers to make purchases online and then pay in instalments. We have expanded to a number of geographies outside of Sweden. And we have become regulated like a bank and this entails huge consequences, such as the establishment of rules, procedures and processes in a high growth environment. The underlying idea, however, to create payment solutions that help merchants increase their sales has stayed the same.

What is your business model?

The question is how we can increase sales for online merchants by making payments simpler, safer and more fun. Safety comes from the fact that we know that most people who shop online would prefer to hold the product in their own hands before paying for it. After delivery payments make this possible. On the other hand, online shops incur a huge risk when delivering something without having received payment for it. This is precisely where we come in. We let consumers pay safely when shopping online and at the same time take the associated risk for the shops. Simplicity comes from allowing people to buy stuff online with an absolute minimum of information entered. We only ask for email, name and address.

How many users do you have? Paying customers?

We currently have more than 14 000 affiliated online shops in Europe and more than six million people have used our services.

Are you profitable?

Yes, and we have been profitable since the very start. We raised 80 000 Euro during our first round of funding and we spent only about half of it before we achieved profitability.

It must be very encouraging for you as everyone seems to be moving away from Paypal these days?

You have to hand it to Paypal that they are growing at a 30 % per year rate. That’s pretty impressive for such a big company. At the same time the internet is constantly evolving at an impressive speed. Companies who used to rule the net such as Yahoo, Netscape and Altavista are now shadows of their past glory. We foresee such a shift in payments as well and hope to be the leaders in it. However, this is still very much a David vs Goliath struggle for us.

Speaking of Paypal, how do stay competitive? What makes you guys different from the likes of Paypal, Stripe etc..

I think it is a combination of many things. Though it might not be the most important factor,we are one of few players in the market who is not dependent on VISA or Mastercard. All of the other vendors including the ones mentioned and others such as Square are dependent on these brands, which limits them in many ways. They make less money per transaction as they only earn a fraction of the revenue that a payment transaction generates. Moreover, while they may build beautiful shells, they are built on top of the existing infrastructure of VISA and Mastercard that has a Cobol legacy.

How has your market changed in the past few years? How has your business changed to keep pace?

Actually we see more and more of the market moving in our direction. To us it has been much more about making sure we grow the business and our organization in line with the market’s evolution, so that we can maintain the high quality of our services. We will continue on our mission to provide a shopping experience that is as simple as clicking the “Like” button on Facebook.

What would you say has been some of the most crucial things that you’ve done to grow your business?

I think Klarna has grown partly due to the expansion of our customers (on average e-commerce merchants have been growing at rapid rates, which fuels our growth as wellsince we charge per transaction). But if we look at what we have done ourselves I would note a couple of important things. We have a very strong sales organization that has a great winning culture. We have a track record of being very selective when hiring. What we could have done better is starting on a smaller scale in more markets earlier. Finally, we have had the fortune to work with some of the best growth investors in Sweden and internationally.

Coming back again to investments especially in Europe, a lot of people have talked about how difficult it has been to raise money, how have you seen this change over the few years?

There has definitely been a change. When we started this business in 2005 we did not even know what a series A was. We just needed money and really needed someone to invest. As mentioned, we had the good fortune to meet Jane. When we wanted to raise additional fundingin 2007 before the financial crisis there was no interest. We visited a lot of Swedish investors. However the VC market in Sweden at that time was totally dead. The only firm willing to invest was Öresund and so eventually they did. A lot had changed in 2009/2010 when we ventured on the international VC market. It helped that a number of Swedish companies had proven successful such as Skype and Spotify, while it also helped that we received mentorship from people in companies like Tradedoubler, Gymgrossisten, Pricerunner. The access to this type of money has dramatically changed in the Stockholm startup scene.

Klarna has been very successful raising money, you guys have just raise a staggering amount of $155 million in your Series C funding, why so much and what kind of plans do you have in spending that money?

Part of that money was used to purchase secondary stock from Öresund who had decided they wanted to sell a part of their shares. However it was still a big raise and the reason for that was simply that there are huge international growth opportunities for Klarna. Just as importantly, we believe that if we spend the money wisely to pursue our ideas about how to revolutionize payments, then we will build the foundation for a global giant in the payments industry.

What kind of advice could you give to startups looking to raise money, is there a special route or process that you have?

Well, over time I have learned to just stay in touch with any investor who contacts you and at least update him or her with a few emails now and then. Otherwise reach out to the usual suspects, often the firms that you find written about on sites such as Techcrunch. Make sure you have a good pitch prepared, and never go into exclusivity until you have received indicative bids. All investors will try to spend as much time as possible and keep asking for as much data as possible before they put in a bid. Just give them a deadline and a limited amount of data. If they are not ready to buy into your company at that point, then it’s not meant to be anyway. Don’t spend your time on too many people – choose the ones you feel like working with. Always have a route open to go to someone else if they start pushing too much about legal issues or during the business diligence process. Always raise funding when you still have money and try to avoid winding up in a situation where you need money ASAP.

What would you like to say to an entrepreneur contemplating bootstrapping or getting investment?

With so low start-up costs as we have today I would definitely bootstrap until I would be able to see that your services/products are getting some traction. Then I would raise money as you quickly want to expand the business.

What is an average workday like for you?

No day is like the next. I travel quite a lot between our different offices. I sit in interviews with people for all kinds of positions. I have meetings with my management team and the product teams. I meet existing and potential customers. I answer a LOT of emails.

What could you say has been some of the key things you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

The first thing is really boring but entirely true. If you work a lot, things happen; if you don’t, nothing happens. When we were sitting in the business lab we and one other company were the only ones who came in 7 AM in the morning and left 11 PM every day, Monday to Sunday. It’s also only our two companies that are still around. Scalability is the second thing. Do something that makes money when everyone is on vacation(i.e., that is as little people dependent as possible).

What has been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

There are numerous ones, but I would say the most important thing is that there has been so many. When Niklas and I travelled around the world without flying, we spent 143 days moving from one place to another. When I came back from that trip I felt physically old. My brain was stuffed with as much memories from the trip as I probably had from the rest of my life up until leaving for the trip. It reminded me of the truth in that old saying “the journey itself is the goal.” Or as we say in Klarna, change is not always enjoyable but it is always memorable.

What trends, startups, technology are you personally looking forward to in 2012?

Klarna will launch a new product that we believe will revolutionize the way people shop online.

What are your other plans for Klarna in 2012?

We want to become market leaders in all of the countries that we are present in – a goal that we are now closer to than ever before. And of course we want to continue to push the limits of e-commerce by launching new services and expanding to new geographies.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there looking to start their business?

If you believe in your idea, stick to it no matter what others say. If we had not done that, Klarna would not be where we are today.

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I invited the founder, Henrik Berggren on YHP to learn more about the company.

Can you give us some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I was born in the south of Sweden in 1980, my parents moved around quite a lot so I ended up living in all bigger cities in Sweden. I don’t know if I was entrepreneurial but I was loud As the middle child of three I always had to scream for attention. But I remember selling an old family tv set to a friend from school, my dad was so happy about both getting rid of the old thing and getting money so he gave me half.

Tell me how the idea for Readmill came about?

It was born out of frustration for Kindle and iBooks which both provides pretty crappy experiences, especially when it comes to social. So we went to San Francisco where we met Caterina Fake, founder of flickr. She showed us this book which made us realize how important and cool highlights are.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinkeb/5232293964/

What is Readmill? Tell me how it works?

Readmill is a simple, social reading platform. We currently support a range of apps where you can share what you read and highlights you make. We also help you finding your next book to read through your friends.

Tell us about the first few months of running the business? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

Wow, a lot of things. I think the hardest part is knowing what to focus on. The todo lists are endless and you have to make the right decisions.

How have you been able to fund the business?

We raised a small seed round last year from two London based VC firms.

How has the business evolved comparing to the your first year of running it, the business model? Strategy?

Strategy wise everything changed. From only recommendations and integrations to becoming the iTunes for reading.

What is your business model?

Premium subscriptions for publishers offering extra features.

Are you profitable?

No

How many users do you have? Paying customers?

We have quite a few users now and we’re growing fast.

What makes you different from other competing platforms out there?

We care a lot about design and focus on helping other readers become social.

What could you say has been some of the key things you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

Good question, it’s probably that building a team is extremely fun!

What has been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

When me & David were raising money we did a really bad pitch to a group of investors. It was kind of a done deal but we really fucked it up and ended up lying on the floor in the apartment we had borrowed, crying.

What trends, startups, technology are you personally looking forward to in 2012?

I’m mostly looking fwd to the continued rise of ebooks. And hopefully we’ll see more tablets on the market.

What are your other plans for Readmill in 2012?

We’re still working hard on making Readmill available for everyone. This year we’re launching iPhone support, better recommendations and much more.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there looking to start their business?

Don’t look, start

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In our interview, he shares some of his knowledge and advices on starting a business, raising investment, bootstrapping and advices for aspiring and first-time entrepreneurs.

Hi Jens, thanks for doing this with me, I know you are very busy at the moment

Hi, thanks for having me.

Can you give us some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I grew up in Dusseldorf, Germany, which is a city of about 550k inhabitants close to the Dutch border. I wouldn’t say I was massively entrepreneurial in school. The only thing I did was to give maths classes to younger pupils. Mind you that was pretty well paid at 15 Marks per hour (about Euros 7.50). I became more entrepreneurial in University.

Tell me about what you do?

Until the end of 2011, I was the CEO of aiHit, a London-based tech startup, which I co-founded in 2007. I hired a new CEO who started in January 2012 and am now a non-executive director at aiHit. I am very excited to now be working as an Entrepreneur in Residence with Forward Internet Group. Forward has some 250 staff and >£100m revenue. I am working full-time with a small team that is focusing on startup up new products using lean startup techniques.

Tell me about the early days, how did the idea for aiHit came about?

I was working at Library House, a business information and research outfit based in Cambridge. In 2006, I went to Germany to watch WorldCup football with about 10 VCs. Later on, one of them, Simon Cook, the CEO of what is now called DFJ Esprit introduced me to my co-founders. They had the technology to automatically extract from the web the data Library House was generating by hand. My thought was that when somebody can automate what had previously been done by hand, this has the potential to revolutionise any industry, so that is why we started aiHit.

What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

Starting a business is easy. The hard part is to get to the point where you have sufficient critical traction with your idea in order to pay all the salaries.

What is aiHit? Tell me how it works?

aiHit is a provider of automated company data to business information companies, credit reference agencies, and business directories. The company uses advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to automatically create feeds of structured company data from unstructured sources on the Web. Our customers use these feeds to improve their existing products at an attractive cost point.

How has your market changed in the past few years?

Our market has accelerated in our direction. When we started selling, we had to continuously justify that data generated from web is a good idea. That has completely stopped in the last 18 months, which has been great.

What would you say has been some of the most crucial things that you’ve done to grow aiHit?

Pivot. We initially had the idea to sell business information to customers in a retail model, but that never worked for us. We then pivoted towards selling the data in a wholesale model and that was much more successful.

Coming back again to investments especially in the UK, a lot of people have talked about how difficult it has been to raise money, how have you seen this change over the few years?

I think this has remained more or less the same. The players have changed. How web savvy they are has changed. But in terms of how hard it is has remained more or less the same.

aiHit has been very successful raising money, What kind of advice could you give to startups looking to raise money, is there a special route or process that you have?

Yes, we did. It is described on my blog here: http://jenslapinski.wordpress.com/vc-fund-raising-manual/
Overall though, I think about this as follows: raising money is all about the confidence investors have in you. This means you either have a strong personal relationship with them or you have actual data from your business that proves your business is worthwhile. If you have neither, you probably won’t raise money (unless you are in a very very frothy market).

What would you like to say to an entrepreneur contemplating bootstrapping or getting investment?

The big difference between bootstrapping and getting investment is where the money comes from. When you bootstrap, it is your money. When you take investment, it is somebody elses money. In any case, just make sure you are realistic as to how long it will take and how much money it will take to get to break even. If you bootstrap, you could be both broke and in debt, so make sure you are building a bridge to somewhere where you can recoup that investment. If you take external money, the same applies. Also, when you deal with external investors, you are in fact bringing them into the company. It is like hiring. So screen your investors with the same routines you would screen employees for.

What is an average workday like for you?

That has changed totally for me! Since November last year, I am a father and now I work with Forward. Give me a few months and I will tell you what my new typical day looks like.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there looking to start their business?

I have a list of learnings that is as long as my arm. My key learnings are as follows. There are three things that are important: strategy, people, and execution. What this means is as follows:

1. Strategy: When you start, really make sure that there is a market for what you do, before you do it. Read Steve Blank’s “4 Steps to the Epiphany” and Eric Ries’ “Lean Startup” before you start doing anything. Make sure there are a lot of potential customers and that this market is growing fast.

2. Team: When you build your company, make sure you have a small, dedicated, high quality full time team of people who all sit in the same little room, in the same boat, and work their asses off to get out of that small little room. Get co-founders whom you have worked with for a long time. Get mentors to help you for free (or a bit of equity over time).

3. Once you have product market fit, it is about execution, execution, execution. Hiring will be the most important aspect here, as well as building the right company structures and procedures.

What are you personally looking forward to in 2012?

Working at Forward.

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This is what we talked about.

Can you give you some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I have always been very entrepreneurial. I started my first company after high school. Back then snowboarding was my life and we started a retail outlet in the small town as I’m from in Southern Finland. I have also co-founded two media companies and I’m still involved with one of them, ArcticStartup which is like the Northern European TechCrunch.

Tell me how the idea for Grey Area came about?

Grey Area was originally started by Mikko Hämäläinen, Andreas Karlsson and Teemu Tuulari. One summer day we got excited and decided that we want to build it out together. It was a pipedream of three guys who become four guys and who were really excited about the intersection of games and cities. We believed we could build something that would change the urban landscape and games forever. And we did, but are far from done.

What is Grey Area?

Grey Area is a game developer company based in Helsinki, Finland. We released Shadow Cities – a location based MMORPG for iPhone – globally in 2011. It has became a category defining game title. If you ask our fans, they will tell you there’s nothing like it.

Talk me through the first few months of running the business? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

The hardest part is always the starting. Taking that first step and going all in. You need to really believe in what you do and be passionate because everything will not go smooth and if you’re in it for the wrong reasons you will give up when you hit the first rough path along the way. And there will be a lot of those days.

How were you able to fund the business?

I still remember when Mikko posted to Jaiku (a Twitter like service back in the day) that he had quit his job and sold his car. The guys funded the early days from savings and minimal client work. When I jumped along we quickly raised €100,000 with which we launched the game in Finland. After that we raised €1.9 million to scale the company and launch globally.

Would you say the initial idea for the company, or that your business model has changed since 2010?

The big idea has not changed. We’re still out to crack the location based game play although the road to that has not been linear. If you have a strong and big enough vision, it does not matter even if everything won’t go as planned.

Your first game is called shadow cities? Tell us about that and how the whole idea came about?

We tinkered with different ideas, UI sketches and data sets for a long time before Shadow Cities was what it is today. It was a process of rather long iteration and getting feedback from our friends who played the game. We are super grateful for all those friends in Helsinki who played with us all those months.

How is it doing at the moment? Downloads?

We have a policy of not disclosing exact numbers, but we’re very happy with how Shadow Cities has succeeded.

I know its currently free for download at the moment, will you be adding any paid features to it?

Shadow Cities was build for iOS and at the time it was the only platform with in-app purchase capability. We build our business model around this free-to-play model and it has served us well. It will always be a free game with virtual goods for those who want to buy them.

How does someone who want to get their app discovered do? In other words, how do you succesfully launch your app? what are the procedures?

That’s the million dollar question. It really goes back to what you’re building. Shadow Cities brought so much innovation into the space that it was easier for us to build the marketing around that. Cross-marketing can be really powerful in the app space, but the best way to get discovered is building something that people really want and making it easy for them to tell their friends about it. Nothing beats a great game.

How big is your team now?

We’re currently a solid team of 17.

What would you say has been some of the most crucial that you’ve done to build the company to this level now?

Hiring more skilled people than I am myself. By looking at the raw skill we have in the company and the high standards in hiring I don’t think I would ever get a job at the company if I would have to apply for it.

What is your business model?

Free to play mobile games.

Is the business profitable?

The business model works great. I think it’s the future for all mobile games if you want to build a significant business.

What’s been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

It has to be the launch of Shadow Cities in Finland when we were at the office at 5am watching server logs and trying to figure out how we could bring to server down for a minute when there were tons of players playing through the night. I still remember Mikko sending people push message saying ‘Please go to bed people. It’s late’

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there?

Refuse to give up no matter what. Persistence correlates most with success. Much more than intelligence, network or experience. If you’re still thinking what’s the best time to start a company in your career the answer is yesterday. The second best time is now. You learn so much regardless whether you will be successful or not. You can always go back to where you were, but starting your first company won’t come any easier when you get older.

What kind of things can we expect in the emerging mobile gaming industry in 2012?

There will be more quality games that will push the boundaries of what a mobile game is. The games will become social. Social like we have used to in the web services space. Games will also start to be more like services in that they change every day for the players and are always connected. Playr data will play a much bigger role than it does currently. It will become part of the experience, not just metrics to optimize.

What can we be expecting from you and Grey Area in 2012?

We are currently working on two new games, which will come out in early 2012. That said, we’re just warming up. 2012 will be the year that mobile gaming experiences will stop looking like a shrink down Facebook games and start looking like something designed for mobile handset. 2012 is also the year when location will be cracked. We plan on playing a key role in both of these developments.

Where do you want the company to be in five years

I’m way too impatient to think five years ahead. I don’t think those places are yet invented where we are going.

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In the interview below, You learn more about Ryan’s story: Growing up, how the idea of MyBuilder came about, It’s early beginnings etc..

Can you give you some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

I was born in East Lansing, Michigan, while my parents were at graduate school at Michigan State University. My dad got an engineering job at Getty oil when I was 4 or 5 and relocated the family to Texas. I moved to New York City after University and then to Europe when I was 24.

I’ve always loved art and architecture. I wanted to be an architect when I was about 10, then I decided that I’d be a professional skateboarder, then I realised that art was my true calling. I got a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and was fairly successful as a painter until I moved to rural France and found it a little bit harder to sell my work.

When I was in France, helping to start an artist’s commune in the Ardeche, the only job opportunity I had was working with a German stonemason and builder. It kept me from starving, but I also really liked it. It combined my love of architecture, the outdoors, and it fit nicely with the part of me that loves working with my hands. There were times when it was just plain hard work, but it was a lot better than most jobs. I was lucky to happen upon it.

I usually did other jobs while trying to make it as an artist. I worked for a few years as a restaurant cook, I did set design on a film (which I hated), I was a substitute high school teacher, I did a few office jobs, was even a lifeguard when I was 17. When I lived in New York City, I did a lot of things to get by. I bought bicycles at police auctions and fixed them up to resell, worked on motorcycles, fixed furniture, and cooked for the hippy commune where I lived on Staten Island.

My wife is English, so when we decided to get married and have kids in 2001, it was pretty apparent that we’d be quitting France and moving to England. I carried on with Stonemasonry in Bristol, and found that I really enjoyed living in England. 11 years and 3 kids later, I’m pretty Anglicised and very happy living in London. When I go back to the states, people are surprised to find out that I’m American. Whether that’s good or bad is another question!

Tell me how the idea for MyBuilder came about?

Since I had a fairly diverse set of experiences, it wasn’t hard for me to see that the construction industry in the UK was broken. This was always a point of frustration for me, so there must have been some sort of script constantly running in the back of my head. One night in 2004 I woke up at about 3AM with an amazing business idea – fully formed. I woke up my wife and said “honey, honey, wake up… I’ve got a great idea. We’re going to be rich!” She told me to shut the hell up and go back to sleep.

Not taking her advice, I went downstairs to the kitchen table and wrote everything down. So MyBuilder was literally born in a dream. I’d never heard of anything like it before, so I felt that I completely owned the idea. I never really had any doubt as to whether I should pursue my idea.

Talk me through the first few months of running the business? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

Though I was utterly and completely driven, I knew nothing at all about web businesses (or business in general, for that matter). It was a long, hard road before I was actually making any tangible progress. Most of the ‘progress’ in the first couple of years was me learning the hard way through repeated failures. I knew nothing about web technology and I’d never hired anyone in my life. I didn’t know anything about accounting. I didn’t know what a Limited Company was and I’d never heard of a VC or angel investor. I went to my bank and asked to borrow £200,000 to start a business. I was surprised when they said no.

Looking back on it now, it wasn’t actually a bad way to go about starting a business for the first time. If you’re so ignorant that you don’t know how long the odds are and how incredibly hard you have to work, you’re more likely to dive right in. And diving right in is the best way to learn – sink or swim. Plus, the stakes are very low when you’re working from your garage and you didn’t have much of a job to quit. All the mistakes you make are small when you’re only burning £200 a month. If my bank had lent me £200k, it would have been a disaster.

The hardest part in the very early days was the constant insecurity of knowing that I knew very little, but not knowing exactly what I needed to learn. I had been working on the business full time for a year and a half before I found the SETsquared startup incubator at the University of Bristol and actually started meeting people who had relevant experience and could mentor me. With people to support and challenge me, a proper working environment and the beginnings of a network, things started to happen.

What is MyBuilder?

MyBuilder is a web marketplace that connects homeowners and tradesmen. At its core is a feedback review system that holds tradesmen accountable and rewards them for excellent work. The website is free for homeowners, who post jobs describing what they need to have done. Tradesmen registered with MyBuilder apply to the jobs they’re interested in and homeowners can shortlist and hire the tradesmen they like. Homeowners can see a tradesman’s entire work history on the site upfront, and read real feedback comments from previous clients who have hired them. We actively protect our feedback system and show every review, warts and all, so that homeowners have a clear and accurate picture of who they’re hiring before they enter into a contract.

Would you say the initial idea for the company, or that your business model has changed since its launch in 2008?

MyBuilder today is fundamentally what I dreamt of back in 2004. I changed the name from Buildersite to MyBuilder in 2008, and the way in which we make money has changed many times, but those things are basically details. Our market is the same. The vision, mission and ambition are the same. I wasn’t a web entrepreneur looking for an idea or a way to make money. I really did and still do care about the construction industry and I want to help make the world a better place. I saw a problem and wanted to solve it. The problem is still there, and luckily my idea was a good one. We are making a difference and there is nothing better I could think of to do with my life.

How big is your team now?

There are 15 of us on the team and we’re currently hiring in Customer Service, Marketing and Tech. We use the Symfony framework, so we’re always looking for talented PHP developers who like or are interested in Symfony and/or PostgreSQL. We’re also doing a recruitment drive to try to convince some of our tradesmen to down tools and join the customer service team. It’s really important for us to get people on the team who understand what it’s like to be a tradesman and have to hustle every day for your bread and butter.

What would you say has been some of the most crucial [things] that you’ve done to build the company to this level now?

Bringing tech in house was by far the single most important thing ever for MyBuilder. As a tech company, outsourcing your tech is a disaster. When I raised a seed round, the first thing I did was hire our CTO. He’s still doing a fantastic job and I never have to worry about our technology. If I want to change something on the site, it just gets done. I’m not exaggerating when I say that prior to having tech in house, small changes could take weeks or months. Something that could have taken a month before might take less than a day now. As an entrepreneur, you get a lot of ideas – some good, some bad. You have to be able to try things out and make changes quickly, to keep up with your pace of thinking and learning. If the development process is gummed up, everything grinds to a halt and the team gets frustrated and negative. Competitors pass you by and the business fails. It’s mostly poor execution rather than poor ideas that kill startups.

If I didn’t realise this, and if I didn’t value tech and work hard to understand it and stay involved in the development process, I’m certain that MyBuilder would not exist today.

What is your business model?

Tradesmen are our customers – we don’t charge homeowners for anything. We have a small membership fee for tradesmen and we make most of our money from ‘shortlist fees’, one of our unique inventions. We charge tradesmen a small fee when they get shortlisted.

Here’s how the site works:
1. Homeowners post their job
2. Tradesmen express interest in the jobs they like
3. Homeowner compares feedback, profiles, work history, etc. and shortlists the tradesmen they like. Shortlisting exchanges contact details and incurs a small fee for the tradesman.
4. Homeowner makes the hiring decision and the work gets done
5. Homeowner leaves feedback for the tradesman when the job is done

Is the business profitable?

Yes, we’ve been profitable on and off since 2009, but now pretty strongly profitable.

How many users do you have now?

We’ve had around 400,000 users register since launch.

What was the experience being one of the winners of seedcamp in 2007 and how have things change since then?

Seedcamp definitely facilitated and represented a big step forward for me and for the company. Though I feel that I benefited more from Seedcamp than any other company in 2007 and possibly even every year since. London was in dotcom mania and Seedcamp was new and very exciting. The press seemed to latch on to my idea because Buildersite was probably the easiest Seedcamp company to understand and relate to… and they loved the fact that I was a stonemason rather than a business school graduate. Shortly after the event, someone rang and told me to buy a copy of the FT. There was a big story on Seedcamp and a half page picture of me leaning out of my office window. The article began with “Ryan Notz…”. Then there was a big story on Buildersite in the Sunday Times and traffic went through the roof. I got a call from the CEO of Travis Perkins and not only did they want a partnership, they wanted to invest in the company. It was quite weird going from zero to hero even though nothing had fundamentally changed. Three years of hard work and hardship paid off all in one go. It was pretty incredible.

You’ve been very successful in raising investments, why? what advice could you give to startups looking to raise finance for their businesses?

Well, I would challenge that statement actually. Trying to raise money for 3 years with only my Dad and brother to show for it is a pretty poor result. It’s more a case of “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”. But it’s true that in the end, I was successful at raising money and that’s more than a lot of entrepreneurs can say. Clearly a bit of tenacity is important, but I also credit myself for not getting my priorities the wrong way around. I always saw raising money as a means to an end, or even a means to a means to an end – not a goal in itself. Today I would even go so far as to call raising money a ‘necessary evil’. The goal is to build a business and if you can do it without external cash, that’s fantastic. But if you do need outside cash, you can’t stop working on the business. A lot of entrepreneurs fall into the death spiral of spending so much time trying to raise money that they ignore the business. Investors take their time deliberately – in part to monitor your progress. If the business is stagnating, it gets harder and harder to raise money and they just spend more and more time pitching and then it all falls apart.

When you do finally raise money, it’s not the time to crack open the champagne. It’s time to shit your pants because you’ve now got real responsibility to look after someone else’s money and expectations to perform. But you also can’t let yourself get distracted by every little comment or request from your new shareholders. You have to double down and focus on the business. What really matters is not that you respond to your investors’ emails within 5 minutes, it’s that you deliver a return for them by successfully growing your business. The best way to do that is still to do it your way.

What could you say has been some of the key things you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

One of my revelations is that business is largely common sense. Don’t let yourself get caught up in complicated logic and business school jargon. Analytical skills are hugely important, but the fundamentals are surprisingly simple. You’ve got to focus on the big picture or you will get lost in the woods. As an artist, I’ve also been pleasantly surprised by how creative business can be. I love problem solving and I truly believe that anything is possible. Well, maybe not time travel… but most of the stuff you want to achieve in a business is definitely possible.

What’s been your most memorable moment so far on your entrepreneurial journey?

Certainly winning Seedcamp was up there. Although earlier on, I won an elevator pitch competition in Bristol, sponsored by HSBC. I remember they pulled out a shiny trophy and a giant plastic cheque for £250. Then came the photo op with the bank manager, both of us holding the big cheque. He shook my hand vigorously and said, “If there’s anything I can do for you, just ask.” I replied, “Actually, there is. Could you give me a loan for £20,000?” He did.

What pieces of advice could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there?

Do something that’s meaningful to you; and whatever you do, be the best you can possibly be.

What can we be expecting from you and MyBuilder in 2012?

We will continue to improve, launching new features, improved processes, a new business within our existing business, and we’ll keep gaining market share and demonstrate to even more homeowners that it can be easy to find a builder that you can trust. We’ll also enjoy converting more tradesmen to a new and better way of finding work.

Where do you want the company to be in five years?

I hope that we’ll have more of the same, just bigger and better. But who knows, there could be some big surprises over the next five years that even a time traveller would find difficult to predict. Crap, I’ll be over 40 too!

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In our conversation, I ask Vladimir a few questions on his journey so far as an entrepreneur and running uberVU, and how his business has changed over the years.

Hi Vladimir, Thanks for doing this interview with me.

It’s my pleasure.

Can you give you some background information about yourself, were you the entrepreneurial type growing up?

Not at all, I grew up in a small Romanian town. My mom was an engineer and my dad was an history teacher and if I think about it now there was no one around me who started or owned a business. To this day my dad tells me to stop calling myself an entrepreneur because it’s not a proper job and it makes me look jobless.

During my time in high school and university, I studied computer science and never thought of starting a business, I was just passionate and more into computers. My dream job back then was to become a coder and work for Microsoft, it’s funny how things end up.

In my second year of college I decided to start up an interactive agency and later partnered with 3 friends (2 of which are still my cofounders at uberVU). We had no idea what we were doing but we had 3-4 years to learn all about it so why not?. Learning business seemed more interesting than learning how to wire a network.

Tell me how the idea for uberVU came about?

We had an CMS called Bluo (5 years ago everyone had a CMS) and while working on version 2 I had an epiphany moment, at the time we were doing a lot of social media for the company and our clients so I figured out the personal website is loosing its importance.

Facebook and Twitter + all the platforms who were popular back then (remember Delicious or FriendFeed?) were about to steal the thunder of the personal website. So we said: let’s build a CMS for the social web. That was the seed of what has grown to become uberVU.

What is uberVU?

uberVU is an social media intelligence platform. We are a comprehensive end-to-end social media solution helping our clients to monitor anything that’s being said about them, their products or their competitors, to measure and report on key metrics and to engage with their customers or top influencers. Our clients love how easy they can use our services especially the fact that we are a full-package

Talk me through the first few months of running the business? What would you say was the hardest part of starting the business?

I guess we had no idea what we were doing. You can see this is becoming like the theme of the interview, But we persevered, started talking to clients and 2 years later we got something people really wanted to use. So I guess this is the hardest part initially: coming up with something people need.

Would you say the initial idea for the company, or that your business model has changed since its launch in 2008?

Yes. Many, many times. We moved from B2B to B2C, then we had an API strategy, etc. We had no idea so everyday we brought another crazy idea to the table and kept persevering.

How big is your team now?

We are almost 30 people.

What is your business model?

We are a SaaS business. That means companies buy access to our software by paying a subscription fee.

Is the business profitable?

Yes.

What was the experience being one of the winners of seedcamp in 2008 and how have things change since then?

Seedcamp changed everything. They helped us transform an idea into a business by putting us into the limelight, exposing us to the right investors and charter customers.

What could you say has been some of the key things you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

Everything takes longer than you estimated. So you need to have patience.

What pieces of advices could you give to aspiring entrepreneurs out there?

Start charging for whatever it is you’re building.
Start now!

What can we be expecting from you and uberVU in 2012?

We will be expanding in the US. We already have a very cool office in Boston that we opened in 2011. From a product perspective expect some revolutionaries features and a lot of polish. We hope to disrupt the industry.

Where do you want the company to be in five years?

We will be one of the most important players in this space. If not the most important one.

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