Nordic founders prioritize longevity over US-style growth sprints
Rasmus Holst · This Danish CEO Hit $30m ARR using Unique 14 Hub Model Selling Software for Microsoft Ecosystem · Apr 16, 2024 · at 6:14
LMS365 CEO Rasmus Holst compares European and American startup mindsets, reflecting on why Nordic SaaS companies scale more conservatively than their US peers.
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“Often we are a little bit timid. There's a little bit of a glass ceiling in, in the Nordics. We're super good at longevity building businesses, but the burst and the window of opportunity that, that Americans see and that they cherish. And hey, I have the opportunity now. We often forget here and thereby it becomes more of a long, stable growth rather than these burst sprints that you're able to do with the U S.”
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“And if you look at our publicly traded competitors, like it to chamber or cornerstone, we certainly outgrew them.”
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“Our quota philosophy is attainable, so that's probably more Nordic than it is American and that meant that we run 14 hubs, which is essentially SDRs and business managers as a hub, and of the 14 hubs that we run 13 of them made quota or above last year.”
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“Ah, that's in that range. It was bought half in cash and half in share. So the numbers is there, thereabouts. Yes.”
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“The Series A was for twenty million. So it was actually under the premise that we have a world-class cash flow engine. When you sell to Microsoft customers, they're used to paying upfront. So that made us bootstrapped all the way up to eighteen million dollars…”