Mikkel Svane

Everything Mikkel Svane said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.

SAASTR Insight

Svane: Bad angel investors ruin early startups with personal agendas

“I see so many examples with small startups, where, you know, they get ruined by early angel investors, who are, you know, spending all their time challenging the company, and like, have their own agendas, and like, don't focus on just making the founder great,…”

Mikkel Svane Aug 23, 2017 ▶ 9:15 Zendesk From Day 0 to Today: The Lessons Learned

SAASTR Insight

Svane: Flexible pricing and packaging is competitively disruptive

“Being really flexible with your pricing and your packaging can be really, really competitively disruptive. That you can come with a price point, or you can come with a pricing model that works for your customer, that is almost, that feels designed for their ne…”

Mikkel Svane Aug 23, 2017 ▶ 23:14 Zendesk From Day 0 to Today: The Lessons Learned

SAASTR Insight

Svane: Fundraising is about future positioning, not valuation

“What matters is that you grow up, you get out there, and I think for any kind of fundraising, it's ultimately not about the valuation. It's really about the team and the path you set yourself up for after that.”

Mikkel Svane Aug 23, 2017 ▶ 26:16 Zendesk From Day 0 to Today: The Lessons Learned

SAASTR Insight

Svane: B2B startups can disrupt legacy vendors via consumer-oriented CIOs

“Everybody here who has a B to B startup, it's, there's a huge opportunity right now because a lot of the established vendors are lacking tremendously behind. You have a whole new generation of much more consumer-friendly, consumer-oriented CIOs and executives …”

Mikkel Svane Aug 23, 2017 ▶ 28:10 Zendesk From Day 0 to Today: The Lessons Learned

SAASTR Assertion Supported

Svane: Zendesk Scaled From $0 to $10M ARR in 36 Months

“Zero to one took us 18 months, and one to 10 took us another 18 months, so of course it was a very, very busy 18 months”

Mikkel Svane Aug 23, 2017 ▶ 15:43 Zendesk From Day 0 to Today: The Lessons Learned

SAASTR Assertion Supported

Svane: Zendesk operated with no sales team until $10M run rate

“Until, kind of, our first, you know, until, like, ten million dollars in, in run rate, we didn't have sales. It was all a self-service business.”

Mikkel Svane Aug 23, 2017 ▶ 20:18 Zendesk From Day 0 to Today: The Lessons Learned

SAASTR Assertion Not checkable as stated

Svane: Zendesk expanded from small UK division to thousands of Adobe users

“Our first Adobe customer was a small division in the UK, and now we have, you know, thousands of people within Adobe using our software. Same with Disney and a lot of other organizations”

Mikkel Svane Aug 23, 2017 ▶ 24:00 Zendesk From Day 0 to Today: The Lessons Learned

SAASTR Assertion Supported

Svane: Zendesk has close to 100,000 business customers globally

“Been on this journey for almost 10 years now and have close to a 100,000 businesses around the world using our software for providing great customer service, great customer engagement.”

Mikkel Svane Aug 23, 2017 ▶ 1:40 Zendesk From Day 0 to Today: The Lessons Learned

The other half of the tape: Mikkel Svane's own voice is left out of every number here. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Statements about Mikkel Svane, by other people (1)

SAASTR Assertion Supported

Yellurkar: Zendesk generated $312M in revenue in 2016

“Three hundred and twelve million dollars in revenue in 2016, that's about three hundred and twelve million dollars more Than when Kristoff and I met you.”

Devdutt Yellurkar Aug 23, 2017 ▶ 2:36 Zendesk From Day 0 to Today: The Lessons Learned

One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Mikkel's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.

Show	Role there	Eps	Statements	Record
SAASTRLEDGER	Founder & CEO, Zendesk	1	8	100% 3/3	full record on the Official SaaStr Podcast →