The Exchanges

Q Can I ask you, you mentioned that you're around Google, you're around, you know, Facebook and all the big players in San Francisco. You are in intensely competitive markets. I interviewed, this week I interviewed two people, Fabien at Odo and Mark Benioff at Salesforce. Um, you compete with the biggest companies in the world. How do you think about competition?

A Uh, I feel like we have no competition, which We have plenty of competitors, but I don't feel like we have competition. I will, I'll explain why. Um, so we have a suite of business apps. Whatever you need, we have it. Like a CRM, accounting, logistic. So we do everything the companies need. And we do it extremely affordable. You start with 20 euro, it's 20 euro per user, and you get all these apps. Nobody did that. Nobody succeeded. On the market, you have two types of market. You have the large players, like SAP and Microsoft. They do several applications, but it's shitty, it's slow, it's expensive. And people are not happy using it. And then you have the small player, like Slack, MailChimp, uh, to send email Trello, Asana, and so on. They do one thing very well, so it acquired a lot of users, but they only do one thing. Nobody succeeded to do the benefits of both. Have all the applications that the company needs, and being extremely simple and affordable. So for me, it's more about cracking something that nobody succeeded to crack, rather than competing against others.

AI assessment note: “for me, it's more about cracking something that nobody succeeded to crack”

Q What a good deal for them though. Crikey. Okay, that's amazing. So then we raise that money and we replace the services side of the business. Now we can focus on UI. What happens next?

A So Odoo is open source. So even though I, uh, I started a software vendor model, we were still open source. So what we were selling is maintenance software and maintenance support, uh, bug fixes and things like that. So maintenance contract. So we stopped our service activities and we built a partner network all around the world. Um, it worked well. The thing is most, Customer, they were paying for the first year, but after, second year, they were telling us the software is good, I don't need my tenants anymore. So the business model was not great. Because the product was open source, they could, there was no, there was no license fee, so they was just continuing using the software, but not paying me.

AI assessment note: “So we stopped our service activities and we built a partner network all around the world.”

Q What do you mean when you say the commoditization of software? Because there are so many different people in so many different markets within your product lineup who have different views on UI, on workflows, on messaging. Like, what do you mean when you say about the commoditization of business?

A Um, if you look today, the small and mid-sized companies, they, they don't have a single application. They have a mix of a lot of different applications. They have a lot of spreadsheets, but they use Slack for discussion, MailChimp to send email, WordPress for a website. They have plenty of applications. These applications don't integrate well to each other. It costs a lot to maintain. It's not completely efficient. Something that nobody succeeded to do is to offer one platform that does everything they need in just a few clicks. And once you, and that's what we started to do. Everybody failed. Microsoft tried with Dynamics. SAP tried. Oracle with NetSuite tried. But the equipment rate on the market is still very low, less than 10%. So I do believe that once you get to the maturity level, Management software will be like Office. Uh, everybody uses the same Word and Excel and Slides and PowerPoint and everything. Uh, I think for management software it's gonna be the same. Uh, when it gets mature, perfectly integrated, and very affordable, then you, you can transform the market and offer this product for very low.

AI assessment note: “Management software will be like Office. Uh, everybody uses the same Word and Excel”

Q Can I ask you, you mentioned that you're around Google, you're around, you know, Facebook and all the big players in San Francisco. You are in intensely competitive markets. I interviewed, this week I interviewed two people, Fabien at Odo and Mark Benioff at Salesforce. Um, you compete with the biggest companies in the world. How do you think about competition?

A Uh, I feel like we have no competition, which We have plenty of competitors, but I don't feel like we have competition. I will, I'll explain why. Um, so we have a suite of business apps. Whatever you need, we have it. Like a CRM, accounting, logistic. So we do everything the companies need. And we do it extremely affordable. You start with 20 euro, it's 20 euro per user, and you get all these apps. Nobody did that. Nobody succeeded. On the market, you have two types of market. You have the large players, like SAP and Microsoft. They do several applications, but it's shitty, it's slow, it's expensive. And people are not happy using it. And then you have the small player, like Slack, MailChimp, uh, to send email Trello, Asana, and so on. They do one thing very well, so it acquired a lot of users, but they only do one thing. Nobody succeeded to do the benefits of both. Have all the applications that the company needs, and being extremely simple and affordable. So for me, it's more about cracking something that nobody succeeded to crack, rather than competing against others.

AI assessment note: “I feel like we have no competition, which We have plenty of competitors”

Q What a good deal for them though. Crikey. Okay, that's amazing. So then we raise that money and we replace the services side of the business. Now we can focus on UI. What happens next?

A So Odoo is open source. So even though I, uh, I started a software vendor model, we were still open source. So what we were selling is maintenance software and maintenance support, uh, bug fixes and things like that. So maintenance contract. So we stopped our service activities and we built a partner network all around the world. Um, it worked well. The thing is most, Customer, they were paying for the first year, but after, second year, they were telling us the software is good, I don't need my tenants anymore. So the business model was not great. Because the product was open source, they could, there was no, there was no license fee, so they was just continuing using the software, but not paying me.

AI assessment note: “we stopped our service activities and we built a partner network all around the world.”

Q When we speak about the team, I actually spoke to one of your investors, I think it was one of your investors, or team members, I can't remember which one said this, but they said that you said, I hire people for being world class at something. The flip side is that they are catastrophic at other things. Can you talk to me about that?

A If you look for people that are perfect in everything, you will get people that are average in everything. I mean, if you want people who speak multiple languages, who is a good developer, who is a good communicator, Probably it's gonna be average. So if you dismiss people because they are bad on something, expect to have average on everything. If you want people who transform your company, they have to be extremely good on something. And for that, you will have to accept their weaknesses. So I train our, um, recruiters to look for the strengths and accept some of the weaknesses. Some you can't, but, uh, it's important to not look for people. So when you discuss after, the aftermath of the interview is more about Uh, how is he a very good developer? How is he a very good something? And not about, I think it doesn't speak that, that language very well, or it doesn't do that. You focus on where is good rather than weakness.

AI assessment note: “If you want people who transform your company, they have to be extremely good”

Q That one's really stuck with you, hasn't it?

A Yeah. Yeah, because I went too far. I really wanted to build something open source. It was my passion. And I went up to the level where I couldn't pay salaries for years and years. And, and it's funny because I, what I wanted to do is to build an open source software. I wanted, that, that was my purpose. And, uh, it turns out that when I decided to switch to an open core business model and say, it's not only, it's not anymore 100% open source, it's only 80% open source and 20% for free. I could 10 times the development team, so now I'm contributing way more to open source than before. So it was bad computation from my side.

AI assessment note: “Yeah. Yeah, because I went too far. I really wanted to build something open source.”

Q I love that. Okay. With the growth, there are always challenges. There are always problems with culture, with scaling teams. What are the first things that broke?

A Not so much. So one of the big issue I had at the time is that I deceived the community because I build the community with me on the open source mindset. Like we are open source. We will always be open source and the property is bad and we are not like that and things like that. And, um, I fought to keep this open source business model, but To the point where we were close to bankruptcy, so I had to switch. And when I switched to open core, it started, it started a big fight with the community. They were deceived because we built them on another story, and so the marketing was very bad. A lot of people criticizing us or partners were leaving, trying to find competitors, but the product was good, so the majority of them stayed with the product. Looking back, if I had, uh, if I had pitched them correctly, like, We are today open source, but maybe in the future we will need to monetize, then I wouldn't have had that many issues.

AI assessment note: “one of the big issue I had at the time is that I deceived the community”

Q When we speak about the team, I actually spoke to one of your investors, I think it was one of your investors, or team members, I can't remember which one said this, but they said that you said, I hire people for being world class at something. The flip side is that they are catastrophic at other things. Can you talk to me about that?

A If you look for people that are perfect in everything, you will get people that are average in everything. I mean, if you want people who speak multiple languages, who is a good developer, who is a good communicator, Probably it's gonna be average. So if you dismiss people because they are bad on something, expect to have average on everything. If you want people who transform your company, they have to be extremely good on something. And for that, you will have to accept their weaknesses. So I train our, um, recruiters to look for the strengths and accept some of the weaknesses. Some you can't, but, uh, it's important to not look for people. So when you discuss after, the aftermath of the interview is more about Uh, how is he a very good developer? How is he a very good something? And not about, I think it doesn't speak that, that language very well, or it doesn't do that. You focus on where is good rather than weakness.

AI assessment note: “If you want people who transform your company, they have to be extremely good”

Q That one's really stuck with you, hasn't it?

A Yeah. Yeah, because I went too far. I really wanted to build something open source. It was my passion. And I went up to the level where I couldn't pay salaries for years and years. And, and it's funny because I, what I wanted to do is to build an open source software. I wanted, that, that was my purpose. And, uh, it turns out that when I decided to switch to an open core business model and say, it's not only, it's not anymore 100% open source, it's only 80% open source and 20% for free. I could 10 times the development team, so now I'm contributing way more to open source than before. So it was bad computation from my side.

AI assessment note: “Yeah. Yeah, because I went too far. I really wanted to build something open source.”

Q Yeah, like, how do you think about winning with a horizontal product when your customer is everyone?

A Instead of being the best in one industry, what we wanted to be is to be the best in applications. So we wanted to be the best CRM, or the best accounting, or the best website builder. And that's the way with these things. Not based on customer, but based on applications. So we think, I think that as these applications get mature, uh, pretty much all the CRM, they look the same today. Um, so it's not so much about CRM for that business or that business, they are the same. So it's more about the quality of your product now rather than how you customize it for a specific segment. And I think as part of, for my vision is to commoditize the management software market. When you see that as a commoditization, I think everybody will use the same CRM, the same accounting, the same website builder. It doesn't have to be dedicated to one industry. It's like a phone. Whatever your, your industry, you use the same phone.

AI assessment note: “Instead of being the best in one industry, what we wanted to be is”

Q Yeah, like, how do you think about winning with a horizontal product when your customer is everyone?

A Instead of being the best in one industry, what we wanted to be is to be the best in applications. So we wanted to be the best CRM, or the best accounting, or the best website builder. And that's the way with these things. Not based on customer, but based on applications. So we think, I think that as these applications get mature, uh, pretty much all the CRM, they look the same today. Um, so it's not so much about CRM for that business or that business, they are the same. So it's more about the quality of your product now rather than how you customize it for a specific segment. And I think as part of, for my vision is to commoditize the management software market. When you see that as a commoditization, I think everybody will use the same CRM, the same accounting, the same website builder. It doesn't have to be dedicated to one industry. It's like a phone. Whatever your, your industry, you use the same phone.

AI assessment note: “it's more about the quality of your product now rather than how you customize”

Q I love that. Okay. With the growth, there are always challenges. There are always problems with culture, with scaling teams. What are the first things that broke?

A Not so much. So one of the big issue I had at the time is that I deceived the community because I build the community with me on the open source mindset. Like we are open source. We will always be open source and the property is bad and we are not like that and things like that. And, um, I fought to keep this open source business model, but To the point where we were close to bankruptcy, so I had to switch. And when I switched to open core, it started, it started a big fight with the community. They were deceived because we built them on another story, and so the marketing was very bad. A lot of people criticizing us or partners were leaving, trying to find competitors, but the product was good, so the majority of them stayed with the product. Looking back, if I had, uh, if I had pitched them correctly, like, We are today open source, but maybe in the future we will need to monetize, then I wouldn't have had that many issues.

AI assessment note: “one of the big issue I had at the time is that I deceived the community”

Q What do you mean when you say the commoditization of software? Because there are so many different people in so many different markets within your product lineup who have different views on UI, on workflows, on messaging. Like, what do you mean when you say about the commoditization of business?

A Um, if you look today, the small and mid-sized companies, they, they don't have a single application. They have a mix of a lot of different applications. They have a lot of spreadsheets, but they use Slack for discussion, MailChimp to send email, WordPress for a website. They have plenty of applications. These applications don't integrate well to each other. It costs a lot to maintain. It's not completely efficient. Something that nobody succeeded to do is to offer one platform that does everything they need in just a few clicks. And once you, and that's what we started to do. Everybody failed. Microsoft tried with Dynamics. SAP tried. Oracle with NetSuite tried. But the equipment rate on the market is still very low, less than 10%. So I do believe that once you get to the maturity level, Management software will be like Office. Uh, everybody uses the same Word and Excel and Slides and PowerPoint and everything. Uh, I think for management software it's gonna be the same. Uh, when it gets mature, perfectly integrated, and very affordable, then you, you can transform the market and offer this product for very low.

AI assessment note: “Management software will be like Office”