Customer Acquisition Startup Strategy That Pre-Sold $42K

Omer (00:11.840)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan, and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies, and insights to help you build, launch, and grow your SaaS business.
Today's interview is with Ruben Timmerman.
Ruben is the founder and CEO of Springist, a comparison website that helps you find the right training program or course.
Ruben launched the business as a side project in 2008.
Today, the site has presence in four countries and helps you compare over 160,000 programs and courses.
Okay, now let's get back to the interview with Ruben, who joins us from Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
Ruben, welcome to the show.

Ruben Timmerman (00:57.950)
Thanks for having me, Omar.

Omer (00:59.950)
Now, I gave the audience a brief overview of your product and business, but tell us a little bit more about you personally.
Who is Ruben when he's not working?

Ruben Timmerman (01:08.030)
Well, as I already said, that's a tough one because I'm working a lot, but then again, it doesn't always feel like work.
So your introduction was spot on.
And what drives me privately and in business is the want to grow, the want to always experience new things, try new stuff, and keep learning.
So I'm always looking to try new things, and that's who I am privately as well.
And it's very nice that I get to play that out in.
In business as well.
I also have.
I have a daughter.
I live in Amsterdam, so that's my second side project.
My daughter, actually, she's the first.
And then Spring is a side project to that.
And I live in.
Live in Amsterdam, and every day I get to bike to my company.
5 minutes bike ride through the canals and stuff like that.
So pretty happy with that.

Omer (01:50.690)
So how does the bike system work over there?
Do you have your own bike or do you just pick up something that you see on the street?

Ruben Timmerman (01:56.370)
Usually the Average Dutchie has 2.2.5 bikes or something like that.
You have one for the weekends, one for at work or stuff like that.
And you have to lock it very tightly.
And actually, it's too bad it's not a video entry because there's actually a bike stand here where four bikes are stacked on top of each other in the office.
So I can share some pictures with you.
Yeah, for sure.
There's no way to park your car here, actually, because we're in the dead center of Amsterdam near the dam square.
So everybody comes by bike or walking via train, stuff like that.
Wow.

Omer (02:29.090)
All right.
So we like to kick things off with a success quote to better understand what drives and motivates our guests.
What is one of your favorite quotes?

Ruben Timmerman (02:39.490)
Yeah, not so much as a success quote, maybe even a quote, but it's from a cartoon that I love and it's something like the CFO asks the CEO so you know, what if we invest in learning, we invest in all these people and then they leave us and then the investment is gone.
And the CEO replies, well what if we don't invest in them and they stay?
And I like that quote because it applies to our business because we invest a lot in learning and we help companies do that.
But also because I don't view the world as a zero sum game where you know, not investing in something or not doing something, saying no never helps.
Actually I always want to take the next step, I always want to try, I always want to help someone else out and then I'll see what comes from that.
You know, there's no way that can play out negative.
And I like that quote.
Just invest, say yes and then something good will come out of it.
It's always better than not doing something.

Omer (03:29.820)
Yeah, that's a great one.
Now before we get into talking about the early days of Springers and how you got started, can you give the listeners a better understanding of the product?
Who, who are your target customers and what's the problem that you're trying to solve?

Ruben Timmerman (03:45.180)
Yeah, yeah, of course.
So the, the business model as you said, starts with the comparison side.
So we essentially do two things.
We gather all the data there is about education, elearning, video courses, elearning tools and everything.
So we want to gather everything that you can learn from in any topic as long as it's for professional growth.
So we don't do a lot of hobby stuff, it's mostly for stuff you want to learn professionally.
We gather all the data from about 5,000 different education providers and those providers might be a Udemy or Coursera, there might also be Harvard or local education provider and they can also be one trainer offering a training program or a workshop on a specific topic like PPC or something like that.
And really ranges from full MBA programs all the way down to half day events or even forklift truck courses, stuff like that.
And what we do, we gather all the data and we want to do transactions on that data business wise.
So we want people to request information.
So in that sense it's a lead generation business or we want them to book the course and then we get a transaction free from the education provider and there's one extra part to the business which is very essential is that we offer a tool for companies to organize their learning.
And so that competes with bigger LMS systems and companies use that internally to add their own courses to it and also to buy courses from external preferred suppliers.
So essentially that's just a white label version of Springist that a company pays a license fee for and we get a small transaction fee based on the bookings, the course bookings that they do.
And that's a very important part of the model because in learning it's very normal that you don't pay for it yourself, your boss, your employer pays for it.
Right.
So there's not a classical e commerce model in this sector, not so much, especially not in the eu.
But it's more like you request information and you convince your boss or your HR manager that you deserve to take this course because it's important for your growth or the company's growth.
So we have a sort of a secondary model there to help companies purchase procure learning courses or learning systems.
Got it.

Omer (05:55.170)
Now, you're not currently operating in the US right?
So you have sites in the Netherlands, the uk, Germany.
And Flanders is a part of Belgium, right?

Ruben Timmerman (06:07.330)
That's the part of Belgium where they speak sort of Dutch.
So half of Belgium speaks French and the other half speak Dutch.
And the Dutchies we serve with a Belgian site and we call that Flanders because that's a part of Belgium.

Omer (06:20.930)
Got it.

Ruben Timmerman (06:21.290)
And you're right, we do have a site in the US but it's sort of a beta to show to partners.
But we are not actively business developing that.
We're really focused on, let's say, the western eu.

Omer (06:32.450)
Got it.
What were you doing before you started Springist?

Ruben Timmerman (06:37.330)
I was actually working as a freelancer.
I had a blog and from that came a lot of training and speaking gigs.
Actually, I was blogging@userkey.com so that's a mix of usability and anarchy.
And usability, or what's now commonly referred to as user experience, was really my thing for 10 years before I started Springhurst.
Before that I had a small online marketing agency.
So I was basically doing consulting in user experience and search engine marketing.
And from the blog came speaking gigs and trainings that I did for large corporates.
So I was doing training and I also helped some education companies market their products online.
Redesign, conversion funnels, A B testing and search engine optimization, stuff like that.
And from that came the idea, actually the research into comparison sites.
If you look in Google, it's a very simple trick that anybody can do.
Look in Google, look in the top 10 in SEO and look in the top 10 in AdWords and then count the amount of comparison sites versus the amount of actual providers of the product.
So you Compare Delta Airlines versus Expedia, where you compare booking.com versus versus a hotel somewhere, and you can count how many comparison sites and how many actual providers there are.
And that shows you the balance in the sector.
And my thesis was that Google wants to have a balanced result page query deserves diversity.
It's one of the things they have in their patent, in their patents.
So I noticed that in the education sector, if you search for a course like management course or, you know, whatever education, you would find nine or 10 education providers in both the organic and in the comparison and in the AdWords results.
So I thought there's a, there's a gap in the market here.
And I just tried to fill it with a site that brought all the education providers together.
And pretty much immediately it started to take off because the education providers said, well, interesting, we think it won't work, but you're sure we'll join your site.
And as soon as we had all those education programs in the Netherlands where we started, the SEO started working because there was obviously a gap in Google and we could just quickly rank in the top five or 10 for queries like time management course or Prince 2 or project management or stuff like that.
And that's how it took off, essentially.

Omer (09:04.010)
So you launched the business in 2008, but it started off as a side project, right?

Ruben Timmerman (09:10.260)
Yeah, yeah.
What I did, because I didn't have any funding or anything, so I did it next to my speaking and my consulting stuff.
So I just thought, well, what I like or what I didn't like about the speaking and consulting was that I was always running after someone else's agenda, someone else's deadline.
I was just telling people how to market their site, but I never did it myself.
And that started to itch.
You know, I felt like I should do it myself.
And also I wanted a steady income stream.
I thought it'd be nice if you have a bit of money coming in every month without me having to prepare for X hours and, you know, write reports for hours.
So that's my, that was my first thought to, to have a steady income stream.
And so that was the side project of it.
And then after about two months or something, I really had to stop working on the other things because this thing took off so, so fast.
So I didn't have any expectations and then just took off.

Omer (10:04.600)
So let's talk a little bit about what happened in those two months.
So you're working on this yourself.
You probably don't have a lot of time because you've got your day job, which is keeping you pretty busy.
How were you getting these providers to sign up with you?
Were you having to send a bunch of mails, get on the phone?
What was the process you were going through to get these initial people sign up with you?

Ruben Timmerman (10:36.900)
Yeah, so a big part of it was fake it till you make it.
Because I could do a lot of my work at night, writing reports, preparing presentations, and then I would have to give a presentation during the day and that would earn me a few thousand euros or something like that.
And then the rest of the day and night I could work on this side project, reaching out to these education providers, preparing materials like descriptions of Personas of the site or of the future business models.
I thought lead generation would be the model turned out to be right.
But nobody thought it could.
And I just started calling them up and I said, so, I'm Ruben, I'm good at this Internet marketing thing.
I know how booking.com works.
I consulted for them.
So I could claim like, you know, I know this thing, this comparison thing, and this is okay, if we put all your education programs on our website and then who knows, at some point I might ask for money, but for now it's just about putting all your stuff online.
You know, no risk.
Let me do it for you.
You know, I just copy paste the hell out of it and put it all in a big WordPress WordPress blog.
That's how it actually started.
And then I quickly hired a programmer that I knew from a past job and I asked him to sort of create my first mvp.
A site where you could actually find and compare those training programs.
It was super simple, just a list.
You know, you go to time management and you see 10 time management courses from 10 different providers and I just put them in by hand.
The data might be outdated in half a year, but who cares?
And I just kept calling education companies and I just said, I have this dream.
There should be an Amazon or booking.com for learning.
I'm starting it.
Can I add your stuff and maybe I'll call you in a month to ask for some money with a business model.
But I promise you one thing.
Listing on the side will always be free.
It will always be risk free, and you can always be listed for free.
And we still have that today.
But of course, business models on top of that.
And I was honest with them, I just said, no, I Don't know what the business model will be like, but I'll tell you once I know.
But I'll guarantee you'll be on the site for free and there will be models on top of that and might be lead generation or bookings, but let's first get your stuff on the site.
And that's how it started.

Omer (12:49.080)
So you were getting each provider's information, creating WordPress pages for each training course or program, and then what did the developer do?
It was basically like kind of indexing links to these different pages on WordPress.

Ruben Timmerman (13:04.030)
Yeah, he was creating new pages to get better overviews, you know, hacking a few things.
And then quickly we started working on sort of as soon as we had validation from those providers, you know, saying, yeah, okay, sure, show us what you can do.
Then he started working on this first version of the comparison site, which was essentially just, you know, better overview, filtering, search and all those things.
But we didn't have any of that.
It was just a bunch of pages with listings that led to other pages, no comparison.
And he just started working on that.
And then we quickly hired two freelancers to help him.
Because I had one big trick in the beginning, because some providers knew me a bit from my Internet marketing blog and my talks.
And I said, well, you know, we're going to start with lead generation pretty soon and I'm pretty sure that will take off like hell.
So if you pay me €6,000 upfront, you can get the entire year of leads for free next year, 2009.
So I said, if you pay that upfront, that's good for me.
I'll be honest with you, I can use the money for paying my programmers, but I'll guarantee you get the whole year of leads for free.
And I sold, I think six or seven of those, just raw selling power by cold calling and convincing them.
And that gave me the capital to hire more people.
And what happened afterwards?
The year afterwards, we started with lead generation, a form where you could request information and they would have to pay 1% of the training price for each lead.
And all of those companies made a profit on that.
They all would have paid more if I would have stuck to the 1%.
But I took the risk and they did too, and they were rewarded for it.

Omer (14:44.380)
Wow.
So €6,000 is about almost $10,000 US dollars.

Ruben Timmerman (14:50.060)
Okay, maybe more like eight or something.
But yeah, right now then it was 10, I'm sure.
Yeah.

Omer (14:55.420)
So you'd been starting to build up this, I guess, this library of content on WordPress, and presumably there wasn't much of a downside for these providers because you were doing all the work, you were building out the pages, you.
It didn't impact anything that they were already doing on their own websites.

Ruben Timmerman (15:16.250)
Some thought, some were afraid and they didn't participate really, but most did.
Yeah, some were afraid that I would, you know, compete with them in SEO, which was true, but that would have happened anyway.
So some were just like, yeah, whatever, you know, this is, this will be a new reality in a few years.
And some thought, nah, this will never work.
And then so they also said, okay, because they weren't threatened because they said it wouldn't work anyway.
So there was no downside.
And also I was honest with them and a bit harsh sometimes.
I just said, you know, we are a search engine and you are in Google already, so there's no way you can block us anyway, but, you know, let's cooperate instead of Coral.
And most were very realistic about it and that's, that's how it took off.
There was no downside for them.

Omer (15:57.670)
I was going to say, in many ways, you didn't even have to talk to these guys, right, if you wanted to.
There was really nothing stopping you from building out these pages anyway without their permission.
I mean, you were operating as a search engine and you were ultimately driving traffic back to their sites anyway.

Ruben Timmerman (16:14.200)
That's very true.
But it turned out to be a very important thing that I did do that.
It was just a hunch, it was the way I worked.
And it also connects to the quote I had.
I immediately opened the conversation to them, I showed them my business plan, my Personas that I defined for the site, I asked them for feedback, I took them along the journey.
Actually, I really tried to do that so that we would build a relation.
And then two months later, when I started, started the $10,000 offer, they knew me, they knew my plan, they knew we had some initial success and they were in on it, right?
They were like the first ones that participated and I really told them that, like, wow, you said, yeah, sure, we'll join.
Here's our high resolution logo, here's the info we want listed.
And I listened to them and that gave them the feeling that we're in it together.
And that really helped closing those first deals.
So I'm sure that if I would have just done it like you said, just said, we're a search engine and we have your stuff online and then try to sell to, they wouldn't have been so compelled.
They would have said, yeah, what do you want from us?
You know, so I'm sure that helped in Insight.

Omer (17:16.640)
I think that is an incredibly important point and a lesson for all of us because, you know, there is that kind of like the kind of the Google thing, right?
Which is we don't need to talk to you, we're going to crawl you, we'll index you and that's the way it is.
Or you have the, you know, maybe the one, you know, the single founder, kind of maybe somebody who was in a similar situation to you who is also building the same content.
But it's not out of kind of arrogance, it's just they don't want to have those conversations.
It's easier just to build a product without going out and talking to people.
Right?

Ruben Timmerman (17:57.790)
That's very true, but a very, you know, very big mistake.
Actually, that's one of the mistakes we made.
We tried to do that approach in Germany when we launched there, so we were already pretty successful in the Netherlands and we thought, let's speed this up, let's not talk to those providers, let's just get them on the site and then call them.
And we fine tuned that approach.
In the end, it did work.
But in the beginning we made the mistake of crawling them and then calling them up and saying, so you're on our site, you want to get some leads, we'll give you 10 for free.
And then we're all like, oh, whoa, whoa, wait, who are you?
Where are you from?
The Netherlands.
Internet, this is also scary.
Get us off your site.
You know, so in the end, we did do that, but we tweaked the conversation and the messaging, you know, a lot.
And we made that mistake that you just said, you know, from.
Not necessarily from arrogance, but more from logic.
Like, there's no downside to this.
But the other side didn't listen to.
There's no downside.
They were more like, wow, what's going on?
Why did you do this?
So logic doesn't apply.
That's a very important lesson.

Omer (18:56.960)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So we talked about the first two months that you said that, you know, you started out, you started to get some, some initial traction.
At what point did people start paying you?
How long along the, how long was it before you started getting these six or seven companies to start giving you the €6,000.

Ruben Timmerman (19:18.510)
That's after two months, actually.
I think, I'm not sure I'd have to look it up because I know I want to know even, but I think it was the first two or three months and I signed the first one and the first one was really key because then I knew, you know, there's money here and it's okay, I can ask for money, it's worth something.
And then right when that happened, I also started to sell this idea of leads, which was new for this sector in the Netherlands still.
And I would just.
I just came up with this model of 1%, just 1% of the trading price for each lead.
And I started selling that as well.
And we didn't have any lead generation forum by then.
We were just, I was just selling that.
I would say, well, this is coming, you know, and you'll pay 1%, just like €10 or €15, 12, 12, 16, $18, something like that per lead.
And they said, well, how does it work?
And I said, well, don't worry about it, you'll get the leads later and are you up for it?
And I started selling that pretty much right away, together with the 6,6k euro offer.
I would say, well, this lead thing is coming.
You can either pay them, you know, for each lead, but then you won't know how many, you don't know how much you'll pay next year, you don't know how to budget it, or you can give me 6k upfront and we'll call it even for the next year.
And you'll probably save a lot of money on that.
And for those bigger education providers, that was not a lot of money.
I realized that I knew their marketing budgets, I knew their revenues from just looking around.
So I knew that was a gamble they could take.
And for me, it was a lifeline, of course.

Omer (20:49.140)
Yeah.
And thinking about the lead generation piece of it.
So how were you?
Did you have a plan on how you were going to track this stuff and figure out how much to charge them?

Ruben Timmerman (21:02.160)
And yeah, the plan was, while the charging thing was sort of planned, I thought, how many leads do you need for a sale?
And I thought they can.
Well, first I thought, how much marketing budget do they actually have from their revenue?
And I said, well, 10% at least.
Come on, 10% of your revenue from putting people in a classroom and training them for like €800.
10% you can spend on marketing, right?
And I thought, how many leads do you need to close a deal to close one sale for a training course?
And I thought, well, one in 10 would be easily doable.
So I said 10%.
One in 10 is 1%.
And that's how we started.
And I just started telling right away.
And until today, that is still the model.
There's no math behind it.
There are some negotiation Sometimes it's a bit, bit less if the company is really big, but usually it's 1%.
We turned out to.
When we started bookings, we upped the 10% to 15 and even 20.
So 20% is now doable.
We know that, but the 1% is still a valid thing.
And then about tracking, you said, how do you track that or how do you start with that?
Well, first of all, we didn't have any leads, so I just solved the promise.
But I knew that it would make sense.
You know, you are interested in education course, but you need more info because it's very complex product.
So I knew intuitively it would make sense to do lead generation from the user side.
And I also knew that the education providers would be okay with following up on them with a brochure.
Usually then it was still on paper.
They would send you a paper brochure or if you were lucky, a PDF.
And then what happened was that we put this form online and the form would just be an email form to me, of course, and I would just send it to the provider and say, hey, you have a lead, please call them up or do something with it or whatever.
And that's how it started.
And the first few forms, we didn't even store them in the database.
We just thought, well, let's see what happens.
And it really took us like half a year or something before we thought we should actually store these leads so we can email them sometime or do something with them.
At first it was just emails being sent to me and the provider and I would have this overflowing email box of leads.
And that was when I thought, wow, you know, this is something.
And then we started optimizing, but that was, that was labor.

Omer (23:15.450)
So I want to talk a little bit about how you started getting traffic and the word out about the business.
But before we do that, I just have one question.
The €6,000 that you charge and you said you had six or seven companies sign up for that, how many no's did you get?
Like, what was the success rate of the.
How many conversations did you have?

Ruben Timmerman (23:36.650)
I think just twice that.
I think my closing rate was about 50% because I remember every time I drove back from a meeting like that, I called my program and said, I have one.
And it almost felt like they all got it because they were already part of the journey.
So I knew all of them.
I didn't say I wouldn't do a cold call and then offer them the 6k deal.
No, I took them along the journey of how we are going to launch the site and change the world of education and how it would be a new funnel for them, a new traffic channel for them, and how it would be, how it would all make sense.
I would listen to their feedback.
You know, what is a lead for you?
What do you need?
How does your marketing department work?
How does the sales department work?
How will they follow up?
And then, you know, only after three, four or five conversations I would start saying, you know, okay, it's going to happen, the lead thing.
And you gave me the input for that and you said it was a good idea.
So how about you pay me this amount and I'll guarantee you the whole year of free leads.
And I made a back of the napkin calculation for them, like, well, we have this much traffic and we're growing and I think it will be great next year.
So you'll probably get this amount of leads, but you know, no promises.
But if it's, if it's only, you know, a quarter of this amount, the 6k is peanuts.
And they bought into that and it turned out to be true also.
So that was very instrumental, of course, to our later success.
That wasn't bullshit.
But I never over promised.
I always, I was always clear.
I always took them along with me and that really helped close those deals.
And I think ye, that's why the closing rate was 50%.

Omer (25:13.530)
Did you have to give them any kind of guarantee for them to give you that money or.

Ruben Timmerman (25:19.450)
No, that's.
No, the guarantee was the trust.
They trusted me.
They knew that if I screwed it up, it would be bad for me.
So I was very open with them.
You know, my reputation as a marketer was on the line.
You know, I was sort of famous really between quotes, you can see my quotes, but I'm doing quotes I listen to.
I had a blog that was well written and they knew I knew my stuff.
So if I screwed it up, if I didn't deliver on my promise, then it would be bad for me.
And they felt that as well.
So they were like, yeah, we can trust this guy if he doesn't deliver the leads and doesn't know how to market.
And then his whole consulting gigs thing is also not so successful anymore.
So they knew I was in with my own, what do you call it, flesh or something.
So they trusted me and that was all the guarantee they needed apparently.

Omer (26:09.780)
So how did you go about marketing the site and building traffic?

Ruben Timmerman (26:14.980)
Largely in the beginning it was SEO and I was good at that because I had a search marketing agency.
So it was Mostly about creating new content.
Because a comparison site never has unique content.
Well, sometimes they do if they translate it and it's unique.
That's in travel and hotels that happens a lot.
So they translate one hotel description in 40 languages like booking does and then you have 39 unique pages.
If you translate them your urgently, that's what, that's how they work.
But for us that wasn't relevant because education is very local, local business.
You know, you have a course and then the language of the course decides the language of the description of the course.
And that is our content.
And that content is not unique by definition.
So what we from the very first day set out to do was create new pages based on those on that content.
So the snippets of the trainings coupled with a description of the topic, of the generic general topic.
So unique description on what is time management.
And then we would add the courses under that and that sort of constitutes a new page for Google.
And we knew that, I knew how that trick worked.
So that's what we started out with.
We just started creating very valuable landing pages for people who were interested in learning about time management.
And that got our SEO started.
And one other very sort of for the SEO people out there, they'll know, you know, content is very important.
But then there's this other part which is authority or links or whatever.
Right.
So what I started to do was the same thing that I did with providers was I blogged about my whole experience with what was then called Eduhub still.
So for the people that want to check it out, it's all online still.
It's called Eduhub Edu Hub Eduardo.
Yeah, for education and then Hub.
Okay.
Yeah, if you Google that you'll find Spring is because that's what we rebranded to later.
Funny story by the way.
Maybe can get back to that later.
But I started blogging about it on the blogs that I was already writing on and what I would explain on those blogs was how do you start a company?
And while I was starting the company I blogged about it and that generated a lot of attention with links to, to our site.
And I would write about how I'm starting this training company and people write about how I'm starting a training company.
So that's perfect content if you want to start a trading company, you know, so it was all very self fulfilling there.
So all this content I created, I used my existing network to get links about the company I was starting.
And that's still the case.
Springist is about learning As a company, because we learn a lot, but we are also helping other companies learn.
And that's why the whole SEO and link building thing work, because we were just talking about what we're doing and people like that because they wanted to know, how do you start a company?
So that's what I just shared very openly, including business models, my doubts, everything.
And people wanted to link to that.

Omer (29:08.700)
Okay, So I think some people listening to this might say, okay, I get it.
You know, back in 2008, 2009, SEO was a lot easier, but that couldn't possibly work today.
So, you know, you've launched other sites in other markets, such as Germany.
You mentioned, when did that happen?
And have you been able to take the same approach to build traffic in those other countries?

Ruben Timmerman (29:38.700)
Yeah, it's not the same approach, but I would say not the same literal approach, but the same bigger approach.
So for Germany, a big part was again, getting the data first, you know, making sure the site works.
You can find some courses on some topics.
That's what we started out.
That's the same.
And then we started to be very open.
That's also the same.
We started to share our story with media and say, hey, we're new, we're from the Netherlands.
We're, you know, it's a bit scary.
We raised a small sum of money.
We would talk about that, just be very open and approach media with that story, the story about us.
And they liked that because it was so open.
We talked about how much investment we had.
We talked about our doubts, about the fact that it was the first time for us.
And people like that sort of openness, that transparency and also being vulnerable to a lot of criticism.
And people reward that with trust.
And trust online means you get links from companies that trust you want to link to you want to write about you.
And that's what we did.
So in Germany, it was a bit more primary and social, mostly pr, you know, reaching out to media with an agency, but also just me on my own going to Germany, sharing my story.
That was what people liked about us.
So it was a bit less SEO, purely, you know, putting content online and asking for links.
And it was a bit more a media strategy.
And if we.
And that was in 2011, 12, sort of like starting in 11, really launched in 12.
And today, I think the equivalent would be a lot of social stuff, you know, sharing the story socially on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever, and get that story out about what you do as a company.
And I think that's easy to resonate with because you see that all the time, right?
If you read whatever new tool about Slack or about how Valve organizes like that, it's very much about if I want to do how the team is formed, what the business works like, you know, this excitement of the startup.
And by sharing that, people buy into it and start to link to it and like it and share it and retweet it and stuff like that.
And that's the same approach, just being very open with it and not thinking like if I share my story, you know, people will steal it or stupid thoughts like that.
So in that sense, I think it was the same, but it was a bit less SEO focused.
Because Indeed, SEO in 2008 is different than now.
Then again, in a lot of sectors it's still like that.
And Google hasn't changed that much.
If you don't do spam or stupid stuff, then it's still the same.
Build good content, get good partners to link to you.
That's all the same.
And that will remain the same because you're adding value to users for users, and then Google will reward that.
So SEO hasn't changed that much, actually.

Omer (32:27.820)
Looking back at the early days, what do you think was one of the biggest mistakes that you made?

Ruben Timmerman (32:35.270)
Well, I hired this programmer without knowing how programming works.
I knew I was tech savvy and I knew how to talk to him, but I had some doubts about his work.
And what happened was that I solved those doubts by giving him more freedom because I thought that's probably the problem.
He will probably work harder if I give him more responsibility.
And then, you know, when that didn't work, I gave him even more.
I named him my co founder.
And I said, well, you, you know, you're part of the team.
And you know, really, come on man, let's, let's pick it up.
Let's pick up the speed.
And what happened was sort of nothing.
Nothing really changed in what he did.
And he was a good guy and he built the first product.
So I don't want to say it was, it was he was bad or anything, but it just wasn't a good fit.
We had a different view on life and I should have let him go like a year or maybe two sooner because I knew we weren't a fit and we weren't maximizing our output.
He didn't motivate me, I didn't motivate him in the way that I could.
I guess looking back at it, I'm sure of that because with other people it did work.
So I had doubts And I should have acted on those doubts sooner.
And that's the big mistake.
And that's something I really learned to do quicker.
And especially with people, if you have doubts about people, that's all the reason you need to break it up.
You still have to be respectful, you have to think and you have to be mindful of how you hire, etc.
But if you have doubts, act on them, because usually you're right.

Omer (34:10.260)
Has that experience changed the way that you hire and manage people now?

Ruben Timmerman (34:17.860)
Yes, we have a very clear hiring process where we have not that many talks, actually.
One talk with me and two talks with colleagues per job applicant.
And then we do a trial.
And a trial is two to five days of working with us, usually for free.
And you really get access, full areas.
We make you a Google Apps account.
You get access to our Asana, to all our Google sheets with all the data in it that actually even has, you know, our bank account numbers in there, stuff like that.

Omer (34:49.690)
Wow.

Ruben Timmerman (34:50.450)
Yeah, that's what trials get.
And we put them on the spot.
They get a to do list in Asana and it's huge.
It's too big.
We already know that.
And we give it to them and say, you know, welcome, this is your first day, good luck.
And we do tell them a bit more, of course, because we say, we don't care what the output is that you generate.
We care about how you act, what questions do you ask, who do you talk to, how do you present yourself, which task do you pick, you know, and based on what, et cetera.
And we do that trial and that really, that's really a great way to really get to know someone.
You know, they're in the company, they're talking to a lot of people.
You see how they bridge gaps in their knowledge and stuff like that.
And yeah, we've introduced that along the way.
I don't even remember when it wasn't even that conscious.
And now that's really our way of hiring.
And everybody knows that.
And people, you know, when they come in for an interview, they're like, yeah, you have this trial thing, right?
I can't wait to get started.
So that really helps.
And also self filters, you know, people that don't dare to do that, they won't even come in.
So that's something we changed for sure.
Yeah.

Omer (35:57.370)
Looking back at the last few years, what has been one of the hardest things about building this business?
What is one thing that you, you kind of wish you had known or had been better prepared for?

Ruben Timmerman (36:11.450)
Yeah, not that much, actually.
It was mostly the mistakes I mentioned with, you know, when you have doubts, act on them.
That's something I've learned a few times.
The hard way with people, actually, that's the most important thing.
But also with partners or with directions.
And I think as an entrepreneur, you really have to trust yourself, your own judgment, because you.
You took the leap and others didn't.
And that means you probably.
You're probably doing something right.
You have to reward yourself with that, with some trust.
And that's the biggest thing that was the hardest for me to learn to know.
Like, yeah, you don't have enough data to make your decision maybe, but you have your brain, and it's saying something, and you have to listen to that and act on it now and not tomorrow and not in two weeks, not in two months.
And I learned that the hard way.
And I think that was the hardest thing.
And for the rest, it's been a smooth ride because I always thought, what's the worst that could happen?
You know, lose my house or something?
Because I have some debts, of course.
But, you know, how bad is that?
I'll find a job.
And that's what I always have in my mind.
So there was never.
It was never that hard.
We had hard times.
We didn't grow as fast as we wanted to.
Always.
We had to let people go.
That all happened.
But I always viewed that.
Those things as learning opportunities.
So it doesn't feel like hard times to me.
Although I have to say one thing maybe about scaling internationally, that is really hard.
If you want to do that, you really better know what you're doing or have a lot of money.
And we didn't have both or either, I have to say.
So, yeah, going into Germany and the UK at the same time was a mistake.
Also, trying out to do.
Trying to do that with new people, trying out new marketing methods in new markets, that was a huge mistake.
We should have done less, you know, we should have just did the exact same thing.
And if it doesn't work, stop doing everything, because you cannot handle that complexity of new people doing new things in new markets.
So internationally, that's one thing I really learned.

Omer (38:09.720)
So you took some funding, when was that?

Ruben Timmerman (38:14.920)
Twice, actually.
Once in 2012 from a group of angels.
We were already profitable then.
I knew those angels from my network and I asked them for business advice, and I got some money to go with it.
And then another time in end of 2013, really, in December, from Sanoma Ventures, which is a Finnish publisher that's very big in the Netherlands, as Well, and in Western Europe.
And that was sort of a series, a round, so a pretty small still.

Omer (38:39.720)
Okay.
And what was the reason behind that?
Was that to help you with your international expansion?

Ruben Timmerman (38:45.480)
Yes, very much so.
We spent a lot of that on the international expansion and the Sanoma deal because they are a media company.
There was also a lot of media budget involved in that, sort of on top of money.
So we spent that, for instance, on television and radio advertising in the Netherlands to really become a brand here.
And that has worked pretty well, actually.
That brought us from being a profitable, nicely growing, organically growing company to this level where people in the street also say, oh, education, yeah, this spring is ting.
I've heard of that.
That's the level we're at right now.
It's not like, of course you go to springist.
It's more like spring something.
And that's enough because people recognize us when they see us in search results.
And that's what we did with the money from Sanoma.

Omer (39:29.740)
Got it.
Okay.
What sort of revenue are you guys doing at the moment?

Ruben Timmerman (39:33.980)
A few million.
That's what I'd say about that.
Okay.

Omer (39:36.980)
And are you still profitable?

Ruben Timmerman (39:38.860)
Yeah, although in different sectors.
You know, in Germany and the UK we're really spending a lot of time still, and that will take a while.
We know that.
So we have pocket money to keep doing that for a while.
But in the Netherlands, the flywheel of a comparison side is really going just automatically new users come because we have a lot of reviews, and to those users come the providers because they're looking for more revenue for them, and providers bring more education data, and that brings more SEO power.
So that's going to sort of, sort of by itself.
And we just have to fuel that growth by putting in new features.
For instance, we just launched a feature to add your trainers to your trainings, which is still pretty new in this sector.
To be able to actually see the trainer, it sounds weird, I know, but that's really new.
And with that, we sort of make the flywheel bigger, but it's already going.
So that's.
That's sort of Netherlands.
And the other two countries are still making losses, but that's.
That's okay.
Where we have time for that.

Omer (40:36.710)
Okay.
Now, one thing I wanted to touch on in this conversation was the way that you use.
Let me get this right.
Holacracy.

Ruben Timmerman (40:47.190)
Holacracy.

Omer (40:47.990)
Holacracy.
Yeah.
So you have an interesting way.
I mean, first of all, can you just explain to the audience what that is?

Ruben Timmerman (40:55.590)
Of course not.
It's way too complicated for that.
I'll just say what it is and I cannot explain the whole concept, but I encourage every startup entrepreneur to look into Holacracy because it's, it's very helpful for you if you don't want to manage your company in a very classical, old school way.
And that's what I didn't want to do.
So then I found Holacracy because I was into gtd, getting things done.
And for me, Holacracy is getting things done for your company.
It's a very strict set of rules of how to process information, how to do meetings, how to take decisions, how to take decisions on how the company operates.
For instance, who does what, which roles do we have, which accountabilities do we have.
It's a process for deciding those things.
And for an entrepreneur, it is a system to fall back on.
You'll still have to create.
Holocracy is called an operating system.
You'll still have to create your own apps, so you can create anything you want with Holocracy, but it's an operating system that helps you make decisions that, that helps you sort of govern your processes and stuff like that.

Omer (42:08.110)
Can you give me one?

Ruben Timmerman (42:09.230)
But that's the easiest way to explain it.

Omer (42:12.150)
Yeah.
Can you give me one example of something that you do which is different to maybe what a traditional organization would be doing?

Ruben Timmerman (42:20.990)
Yeah, for sure.
The meetings in Holacracy are very strict.
So they have a format with agenda items that's predefined and there's a format in who talks when and who does what in a meeting.
And that is so strict that your meetings become extremely efficient.
It's really absurd.
I invite everybody who's in Amsterdam to come by.
We have Holocracy safaris here, I call them now.
People check out our meeting and they, they usually leave with a feeling of, oh my God, I've seen the future of meetings and it's so nice.
Wow.
I want, I want to have that too.
So meetings in Holocracy is really, and that's just a simple output of a very strict set of rules that after some training people can do.

Omer (43:02.910)
And has there been any.
How have your team reacted to it?
Is it.
In many ways it sounds very like, you know, rigorous and I've got to follow these rules.
But how is, how have they reacted to it?

Ruben Timmerman (43:18.030)
So that's one of the reactions for sure.
But what happened was I decided to adopt it because I knew the alternatives.
The first alternatives continue in total chaos.
Like every startup does Right.
So up till 10 or 15 people, that's okay.
You manage your company at the lunch table, that's when you talk, that's how.
When you make decisions and you know, the founder rules it all, that's what happens.
That's okay up to a certain point.
But if you want to scale it, you have one other option, which is continue in chaos and go down, or start introducing classical management layers where you say you are in charge of this and, you know, you listen to your boss, you do what they say, and you know, as long as you do that, you be a happy camper.
And I didn't want either of those.
I didn't want chaos and I didn't want the classical management way because I felt there was something better for me and for the people that work with me.
And for me, that meant giving people more authority, more autonomy to make their own decisions and to also, you know, really own stuff and also be held accountable for it.
And that's also something I always had in the company and within the chaos, you know, up to 10, 50 people, that was fine.
I could still manage that.
But you cannot manage autonomy with 20, 25, 30 people anymore.
So that's why I thought, I need a system.
And I came across Holocracy and thought, this is a system.
I can use this to keep the dream alive of autonomy and people going fast and us as a company going fast, but not introduce bureaucracy and management layers and stuff like that.
Got it?

Omer (44:47.250)
Yeah, I know there are companies like Zappos and Medium.
I think those are two of the companies that I saw on the Holacracy website.
So, yeah, it's definitely something I think I'm going to look into more as well.
How did you learn about this?
Was it.
Was it a course that you found on Spring?

Ruben Timmerman (45:04.360)
Yes, it was.
It was.
You know what we did?
We said we want to get better at gtd.
And I have one wish.
Everybody that's good at GTD has this wish.
I'm sure you want everybody to do that because it's so nicely productive, nicely flowing.
You have conscious decisions, you have a mind like what?
Which is how David Allen puts it.
And you want everybody to work like this because it's so nice.
And then there's this missing link in GTD because GTD is your own system and it doesn't tell you how to talk to other people or not talk, but more how to deal with tasks that I ask from you, or how do I deal with a project that we are working in together.
How do you do that.
So I called the best GTD trainer that we had in the Netherlands, Marco Bogers is his name.
Props to him.
And I said, I need GTD for my team.
Can you teach us?
He said, well, I can teach you gtd, I can teach your whole team.
But I've heard of something, and this was four years ago or something that's called Holacracy.
And I think that might be the answer.
So we did a workshop with him, two hour workshop and then a two hour workshop on Holacracy with Dietrich Jansse, our Holacracy coach.
His site is energized.org I want to plug that because he's awesome and he taught us Holacracy.
And after the course, you know, the half day course, everybody was like, GTD is cool.
But this Holocracy thing, wow, this could really be a huge opener for us, but also for other companies.
So let's just try that.
And that's what we did.
We hired Dietrich to coach us.
He trained us a bit.
We were one of the first companies in the world to do it like before Zappos even.
And we just experimented with it and he taught us and we learned it along the way.
Along the way.
It was not for everybody.
It was definitely a bumpy ride.
Like for Zepos, we're having a very hard time adopting it across, I don't know, 3,000 employees or even more and that stuff.
And we were with like 15, but we learned and now it's really, it's.
The Holocracy system itself fell to the background.
It's not something we talk about all the time anymore.
And it has made us really hyper productive, I think.
Yeah, I definitely encourage people to check it out, to learn, to adopt some practices of it.
It resembles gtd, it resembles Scrum and Agile a bit, but it's meant to run your entire company with it.
And you'll have to adopt your own practices within it.
It's an operating system.
It doesn't tell you how to run your company, but it does help you structure your own decision making, structure your own management structure, etc.
Awesome.

Omer (47:35.390)
All right, Ruben, it's now time for our lightning round.
I'm going to ask you a series of questions and just I'd like you to answer them as quickly as possible.
Ready?

Ruben Timmerman (47:43.640)
Yeah, we're born ready.
Right?

Omer (47:45.320)
All right.
What's the best piece of business advice that you ever received?

Ruben Timmerman (47:49.080)
Yeah, it's not even advice.
It's something one of my investors reminded me of when we were having A tough time.
I invited him to speak to the entire company, share our experience.
And he said one thing.
He said, running a startup is like a heartbeat.
You know, it expands and it contracts and that's okay.
We just let some people go because some things didn't work.
And he said that and I just felt this sigh of relief and I said, wow, it's okay to in your growth contract as well.
And that was just a big one.
It's a heartbeat.
So to all entrepreneurs out there, it's okay if the heartbeat contracts as well, because that's part of pumping blood through your company.

Omer (48:25.290)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?

Ruben Timmerman (48:28.810)
I would recommend the book Getting Teams Done, which is from my Holocracy coach and also the upcoming Holocracy book from Brian Roberts Robertson, just to check that out.
But also Blue Ocean, Blue Ocean Strategy.
It's a great book on defining your own business model, defining your own space.
And that's.
I think it's a huge classic and I love reading it.

Omer (48:47.850)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?

Ruben Timmerman (48:53.210)
Yeah, that's the thing I started out with today, to not view the world as a zero sum game.
If you give something to someone else, it will multiply and it's not something that's taken out of you.
So always say yes, always share, always help someone, always say yes when someone asks you for an interview, even though you might not be sure what you get out of it or how much fun it will be.
You know, it's my Friday night, but I'll do it because I'm sure I'll get something back from it.
So if you have that approach, then you'll be more successful than when you're trying to be protective or whatever.

Omer (49:22.910)
Yeah.
And I really appreciate you doing this on a Friday night, by the way.

Ruben Timmerman (49:26.030)
Of course.
Well, I have a beer and people couldn't see that, but I did have a beer, so that's, that's okay.

Omer (49:31.870)
I don't know if this question is worth asking, but what's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?

Ruben Timmerman (49:38.510)
Life is filled with them.
But the tool for us is Asana.
And I just wrote an article on medium.com about how we use Asana with GTD and Holocracy and it's really hardcore for the hardcore GTD fans out there.
But yeah, if you want to go down that path of conscious decision making a mind like water, mindful decisions, then definitely check out Asana and GTD and Holacracy as well.

Omer (50:04.670)
I'll Include a link in the show notes to that.

Ruben Timmerman (50:07.230)
Yeah.

Omer (50:08.110)
If you had to start over tomorrow, what type of business or market interests you the most?

Ruben Timmerman (50:14.910)
Learning still for me, learning next to health is the most important thing in life.
And if I do another thing, I would probably do learning as well.
Or maybe something on helping entrepreneurs run companies.
That's also a passion of mine, which maybe you noticed in the, in the interview as well.
I like to optimize things, so it will either be learning because of, you know, learning itself or running companies and optimizing that and just, you know, doing that better is always something I want.

Omer (50:43.410)
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?

Ruben Timmerman (50:48.210)
Haha.
I get up at 6.
I love that for early morning productivity and I'm actually doing a lot of trials.
So I just started a trial two days ago to not eat sugar for a month and that's been going pretty well.
I feel okay.
So so far so good.
I like doing productivity trials.

Omer (51:08.080)
You know, I tried that sugar thing and I just went really grumpy.
And the one thing you realize is this sugar in everything.

Ruben Timmerman (51:15.970)
Yeah.
You have to watch out though.
I mean, beer has natural sugar, so that's okay for me.
Natural sugar is fine, but just no added sugar.
Okay, that's, that's my, that's where I draw the line.
But so far so good.
I had a long day.
I still feel good, so that's great.
I hope that reflects in the interview.

Omer (51:30.770)
And finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work?

Ruben Timmerman (51:36.130)
That's the toughest one for any entrepreneur, I have to say.
My daughter, I mean, that's who I spend the most time with outside of the company.
It's probably just as much time with her as with my company.
So that's, that's the only honest answer I get I can give.
I don't have much of a social life.
I have two kids, which is my daughter and my company and I divide my time between the two of them.

Omer (51:56.130)
Awesome.
Ruben, I want to thank you for joining me today and sharing your experiences and insights with our audience.
And thank you for letting us get to know you a little better personally as well.
Now, if folks want to find out more about springest, where's the best place for them to go?

Ruben Timmerman (52:10.850)
You can start@springgest.com or springgest nl d e co uk then just check out my Twitter stream.
My Twitter handle is Rubzi R U B Z I E and I tweet a lot there as well.
So you can check that out too.

Omer (52:24.140)
Awesome.
Ruben.

Ruben Timmerman (52:25.460)
Thanks again.

Omer (52:25.780)
I wish you continued success in the future.

Ruben Timmerman (52:28.140)
Thank you very much for having me.
And have fun with the rest of your podcast.

Omer (52:31.300)
Thank you.

Ruben Timmerman (52:31.740)
Cheers.