Daniel Wickberg
Founder & CEO, Aira. On 1 show, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveaira.app ↗
Daniel Wikberg founded the Stockholm-based CRM and revenue automation SaaS company Upsales in 2003, taking it public on Nasdaq First North in 2019. In 2026, he spun out the AI sales platform Aira from Upsales to lead as CEO while retaining a seat on the Upsales board.
1shows
2appearances
26statements
8resolved
8supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
Everything Daniel Wickberg said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Wickberg: UpSales can triple revenue from existing customer base alone
“So when I talk to investors, I usually say that we think that we can triple our revenue without bringing in a single new customer because the potential in the existing customer base is still massive.”
Wickberg: High-churn graduate sales hiring burns out top performers long-term
“It, it's not a long-term initiative because the people who are able to hit the numbers, they grow tired of this kind of banging the head against the wall strategy.”
Wickberg: Enterprise sales reps can carry 3x larger quotas upmarket
“We realized that the right type of salesperson can carry like a three times bigger quota.”
Wickberg: UpSales pays $120k to $150k OTE for $1M quota reps
“Their OTE would be around Between a 120 or a 150,000 dollars.”
Wickberg: Adding 5 to 10 good salespeople could boost growth to 50%
“Just finding five or 10 more good salespeople can bring us from 30% to 50% in growth rate.”
Wickberg limits public investor meetings to two days per quarter
“So I spent two days every quarter in investor meetings always in, in relation to when we released the quarterly reports.”
Wickberg: Public listing aids recruiting through financial transparency
“Especially when recruiting people, it has been an advantage that, you know, people can read our numbers and read the CEO comments and yeah, you get some increased exposure basically.”
Custom Consulting Funded UpSales' Early Survival But Slowed Down Scalability
“And I think you know, the early days, we never raised any capital. So you know, our first 10 years were like, Barely breaking even, you know, struggling to pay the bills every month. So we used to do a lot of customized consulting stuff for our clients. And I …”
Going Public Was the Easiest Way to Preserve Majority Shareholder Control
“Going public and, you know, I'm still the majority shareholder turned out to be like the easiest way to continue running the business the way I want to do it.”
Why UpSales Deliberately Reduces Initial Deal Sizes for New Customers
“We almost try to kind of decrease the deal size when the customer joins us, because it makes everything easier and it decreases the risk for the customer as well. So, so yeah, we just try to add as many customers as we can and then grow them over time.”
Why Fast-Growing Tech Company UpSales Pays a Dividend to Its Shareholders
“We're one of those weird, fast growing tech companies who also pays a dividend.”
UpSales Trades at 7.5x to 8x EV/ARR With Zero Debt
“It used to be 200 in, in January before everything blew up, but I mean, I think we're net cash. We don't have any debt. So I think enterprise value ARR multiple is around 7.5 or eight, which is lower than a lot of our peers, I would say.”
Wickberg: UpSales current MRR is around $1.2 million
“Yeah, it's around 1.2 million dollars is the current MRR.”
Wickberg: Two-thirds of UpSales growth comes from existing accounts
“So, so I think maybe two thirds come from existing accounts and one third from new accounts.”
UpSales sustains approximately $250,000 in monthly net profit
“Yeah, I mean, I would say pretty much the same. We had a really good quarter in, in Q four.”
UpSales generates around $200,000 in annual revenue per employee
“I mean, I think now we are at around maybe 200,000 dollars per employee per year in revenue, something like that.”
Wickberg: UpSales sets $500k to $1M quotas for experienced sales reps
“Now we are more and more looking for, you know, people with five, at least five years of experience selling software and giving them a quota between 500,000 dollars up to a million dollars per year.”
UpSales Built SaaS-Specific KPI Tracking Because Other CRMs Made It Hard
“We do revenue recognition. We do all kinds of ARR and MRR analytics, and we spend quite a lot of time to, you know, enable our customers to manage SAS specific KPIs and targets, which is kind of a hassle in most other CRMs.”
UpSales Jumped From 600 to 1,800 Customers Overnight After Partner Migration
“And a lot of these very tiny customers migrated to up sales a while back to some, we went from like 600 customers to 1800 customers almost overnight.”
UpSales Is Growing ARR by 30% to 35% on $9.8M Base
“So one year ago we were at 9.8. So we're growing the error at around, you know, between 30 and 35%.”
UpSales Raised $3M in Its IPO But Never Needed to Spend It
“Yeah, so we did a secondary, a pre-IPO, which was around four to five million dollars. And then in the IPO, we raised around three million dollars but we never actually used that money because we had a debt.”
Wickberg Sold 10% of UpSales in a Pre-IPO Secondary Transaction
“So I sold 10% in, in the pre-IPO. And I had a partner our former CEO who was CEO for almost five years. He had seven or eight percent. So, so the total was like, 18% that was sold in the pre-IPO.”
UpSales Currently Maintains Net Dollar Retention Around 115% to 120%
“I think we are today at around one 15, one 20, somewhere around that.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Daniel's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Aira | 2 | 26 | 100% 8/8 | full record on Top Founders → |