The Exchanges

Q without hiring a full-time CFO on my team. I can get all this done for a fraction of the cost. Do it yourself at nathanlacka.com forward slash pilot. Start today. So, so take me back to, again, personally, you have some ideas you've written down. You want to go build them. You're going to step down to see you. Are you the sole owner of quote field besides the investors?

A No, we, we were actually two co-founders, um, and yeah, a bit atypical. We were both, you know, forties. We were both, uh, yeah, reaching forties when we decided to, to step out of our, uh, employee job to start the, the entrepreneur adventure a bit on the, on the late, uh, at the late, late, I mean, you're still early. Um, and yeah, my co-founder Serge used to be the CTO. And, I mean, he is now, he has now stepped down as CTO, and we have a great CTO who replaced him about a year and a half ago. Uh, so he's still working in the company, but as a chief innovation, uh, officer. Um, so we're both founders who still own the majority of the shares, and now the, of course, the, uh, the investors that have joined us, uh, three years ago, they own the rest. And also the team, uh, owns Warren. So we decided Uh, two years ago that, that we wanted to have an employee stock option plan, not limited to a few key people, but open to the whole company. So we have, uh, now about 90 people of the employees of the company that own, uh, warrants of the company, uh, and, and they can, they will be able to exercise these warrants to, uh, to have shares.

AI assessment note: “No, we, we were actually two co-founders”

Q Well, congratulations. Now, where were you a year ago?

A Well, um, it's a good question. We were basically 25%, 25% lower in ERR because, yeah, the COVID crisis did have an impact on our activities. We were, we used to be growing around 50% a year. Uh, last year was, was rather positive, uh, but we, we, we slowed down the growth a little bit because we, we were impacted by, uh, Sectors like travel and sports and entertainment, which is a, which is quite an important sector for us. Uh, and yeah, most of these companies, they stopped investing in new MarTech tools and, and slowed down on their investments. So that was a bit of a slowdown of the growth for us, but it, it, yeah, allowed us to focus on, on capital efficiency and, and also, yeah, did the fact of, of launching new modules. And so we're ready to, to grow again, uh, at the pace where we're growing in the past.

AI assessment note: “We were basically 25%, 25% lower in ERR”

Q Well, that's good. I want, I'm curious. So, so how do you, how do you go about finding a CEO to replace yourself here?

A Well, no, that's a, that's a very good question. And for me, that's a great story because, uh, the, the CEO who is going to, yeah, be the full CEO, uh, from next month, uh, has actually joined the company seven years ago. So, um, he joined the company first as a, as a sales guy, uh, in Belgium, and then he became kind of the country manager, a sales country manager in Belgium. Then he became the, uh, the, the head of sale. Then he became the, he became the COO. And, and since, uh, January we are both co-CEO, so it's really someone that, that, uh, knows the product, knows the company, is, is fully aligned with the values, live the values. I mean, uh, and, and I think it's a great, uh, key to success is, is to have someone that, that is completely aligned with, yeah, with your objective, with your values. There's no bad surprise to expect. He's highly respected by the rest of the team. And honestly, for me that, that, yeah, that makes me quite proud to, to be able to have build a company that actually can live, uh, without the two founders and can really continue. So the founders and, and will not be impacted negatively on the contrary, I think.

AI assessment note: “the CEO who is going to... be the full CEO... joined the company seven years ago”

Q How do you think about the company's value today?

A Well, to be honest, yeah, I suppose it's, uh, it's, it's, it's following the same path, huh? I think, uh, we, we, we are, uh, valued around, um, the same, the same multiplicator. I think the multiplicators have really gone up, uh, in that space. Um, we, we have not been growing as fast as I said, uh, as fast as in the past, but, uh, yeah, we, we are, we are, Quite sound. We have a great team. We have really like marquee customers. Um, we are not really obsessed by an exit, uh, nor by a series B at the moment. So, uh, to be honest, we don't care too much about, uh, how much is the company valued. We try to focus on, on, on what we do and growing the business and keeping the customer satisfied and the team satisfied because I mean, it's quite a challenge these days to, To keep, uh, the team satisfied. You have all these people that are super bored of staying at home, um, and, and yeah, we, we, we used to be a company that was very strong on, on, yeah, atmosphere, and, and events at the office, and, and, and of course all these, uh, activities have been completely stopped, so it's kind of challenging to keep people, uh, the same level of motivation, and so, Yeah. Our focus is really there at the moment, rather than, than, than looking at a, uh, series B or a potential exit. I mean, that, that might of course come, uh, later on, but we are really not proactively looking for that.

AI assessment note: “to be honest, we don't care too much about, uh, how much is the company valued.”