Omer (00:09.280)
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.
In this episode, I talk to Stefan Lavinia, the co founder and CEO of Data Talks, a customer data platform that helps sports organizations create world class supporter experiences based on their data.
In 2018, Stefan was running a consultancy and helping clients turn their data into insights.
But he realized that many of them struggled to figure out what to do with those insights.
So he and his team decided to build software to to help their clients get more value.
They built an MVP and started showing it around and it didn't take them that long to sign up their first 10 customers.
Most founders would have been delighted by that and Stefan was too at the time.
But today he looks back and wishes that they hadn't sold their MVP so quickly and we talk about why and what he would have done differently.
Also, when they launched, they hedged their bets and went after three different markets at the same time instead of picking just one.
That approach didn't work and cost them a lot of time and money.
Eventually they decided to focus on just one vertical sports.
And that's when everything clicked and the business grew faster.
We talk about why it's so difficult to commit to just one market when you're starting out and how Stefan and his team eventually got there.
Currently, Data Talks has about 500 customers and is generating around $250,000 in monthly recurring revenue.
So I hope you enjoy it.
All right, Stefan, welcome to the show.
Stefan Laven (02:01.530)
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Omer (02:03.210)
Do you have a favorite quote, something that inspires or motivates you that you can share with us?
Stefan Laven (02:07.530)
Yes, I do actually.
And it is quite short.
It is.
The best is yet to come.
Omer (02:14.010)
The best is yet to come.
I love that.
Okay, great.
So tell us about Data Talks.
What does the product do, who's it for, and what's the main problem that you're helping to solve?
Stefan Laven (02:24.040)
I think most a lot of people know about the concept of a customer data platform.
It's a platform where you collect all data about a customer, like behavioral data, transactional data, whatever data you need to understand your customer better.
So you collect that, you analyze it, and then you act on that to create a more relevant messaging and in the end, of course to drive more revenue.
So basically what the platform should do, if you've built it correctly, is drive more revenue.
Right.
So what we've Done is we've built that kind of a platform for sports.
So we built it for clubs, we built it for leagues, federations and governing bodies of sports, but it's in sports.
So that's what it does, it solves well.
Actually, one of the big problems in sports is they need to find sustainable ways of driving revenue and then they have problems in mainly three different areas.
One is to fill the stadium, meaning selling tickets and also driving match day revenue.
The second one is to drive a lot more merchandise sales.
And the third one, which is also an important one, is to create more or better and more lucrative sponsorship deals.
And data can be a really enabler in all of those three.
Omer (03:47.500)
Can you give us a sense of the size of the business?
Where are you in terms of revenue, size of customers, team?
Stefan Laven (03:53.180)
Absolutely.
I'll be happy to.
So right now we have a MRR around $250,000.
We're aiming this year to have an ARR around US$4.5 million.
We're pretty sure that we're going to get to that as well.
We have about 500 customers using the platform.
We have a team that is around 45 people, 16 different nationalities.
We have customers in 10 different countries, mainly Europe, but also Australia, not in the US yet.
Omer (04:32.450)
So the business was founded in 2018.
You bootstrapped it from the, from the outset and have you just gone through a funding round recently?
Stefan Laven (04:43.250)
Yes, that's, that's correct.
So, so we are bootstrapped with some help from, from family and friends.
But just now we actually sort of of did the first funding round with people from outside of the family and friends network.
So that's been really exciting to see how it's responding, especially in these times.
During the discussions with the investors, the macroeconomic situation totally flipped.
So that's been very, very interesting.
Omer (05:23.710)
Let's go back to 2017, 2018.
Where did the idea for this product and business come from?
Stefan Laven (05:30.910)
It materialized over a longer period of time.
So previous to DataTalks, I was running a consultancy.
We were working with the big data and customer insight and building those customized solutions.
And one of the things that we discovered was first of all, we were doing some of the things we were doing over and over again.
We felt that, okay, so this, well, okay, great that we can charge for it, but it doesn't make sense to be doing like the same thing over and over again.
And more importantly, the thing was that we didn't really believe that the solutions were giving the value.
They weren't really giving the customer the value that they deserve.
Right.
So that was a big issue.
And the reason was that a lot of customers were asking us, great, now we get insights.
We understand a lot more about our customers.
That's fantastic.
We understand a lot more about our supporters.
But now what do we do now?
I mean, we have to, like, how do we start using this?
So that sort of led us through to the insight that we need to build a platform.
We need to build it specifically for a vertical that shows that we know the business and that it directly and instantly gives value back to the user.
And the user, as we see it, is the marketer.
Omer (06:45.920)
There was a product called Data Talks, which I thought was the one that you had started back in 2014.
Was that a completely different product?
Stefan Laven (06:53.200)
No, that was actually not a product.
That was actually two very, very skilled guys working with marketing automation that also saw that.
They saw that there's so much data floating around and we're not using it.
And I was talking to them and saying, yeah, we understand how to use it.
Let's.
Let's do something together.
This is what we want to build.
Are you interested to join that?
And that's when we acquired.
So it was actually acquiring the competence of those two guys.
And so we did that.
So we acquired a company that was called datatalks.
And we actually liked that name, so we kept the name.
Omer (07:31.790)
Tell me what happens then.
So the acquisition, you've got this team in place.
What did you do next?
Stefan Laven (07:38.790)
Yeah, so then we had, like, we.
During the last part of 2017, what we had built was an MVP.
And we had been able to present or actually sell that mvp, incredibly enough, but we had sold that MVP to customers.
So then when we had the launch in January 2018, we actually had a customer with us.
And then we just sort of developed from there, just trying to sell that what we had a lot on like PowerPoint, PowerPoint level, but that's how we did it.
And then also putting as much resources as possible into building or improving the.
I would say building the product.
Improving.
That would be saying too much.
It was building the product.
Omer (08:28.360)
So what did the MVP do and how many customers did you end up selling it to?
Stefan Laven (08:36.010)
We actually had pretty good growth with customers during that period.
It was fairly easy.
We did one smart thing.
So since we didn't have enough big of a team, so we needed to find out, like, figure out how do we collect, how do we get the data in so we can start analyzing it.
So then we said, let's.
That's used the different marketing automation systems.
Out there.
So let them do the collecting and we just bring it out from those systems.
So just build, like, easy integrations and then put it into.
Mainly like, they ended up in dashboards, like sort of dashboards.
And in those dashboards, you could start creating segments and then exporting those back to the marketing automation.
The value was that you could actually very easily from going from getting an insight, doing the analyzing of your customers, and then right there and then creating segments from that.
So you could understand this is who we should be targeting.
Well, can I find these individuals?
Yes, I can.
I can, right there.
And then I can create a new segment and just put that back and start.
Start my activations on that.
So that was the value.
That was the big thing.
And that insight actually led us to starting to develop the product in a way where we saw that we need to have something in the product which we now call the segment builder, like being able to build really good segments and being able to do that seamlessly from finding an insight and then going right into the segment pillar.
It's hard to describe it if you don't see the product, but that was how we started off.
Omer (10:19.230)
I just want to make sure I've understood this.
So today, the product.
Product provides those insights, but also gives customers a way to act on those.
That information.
And then.
But the MVP in the early days was sort of the insights part.
Stefan Laven (10:32.140)
It was much more the insights part and creating of the segmentations, but no activations.
So then we had to, like, push those back into whatever tool that you were using for the activations.
But that was not like, that was not a sustainable solution.
So we had to do two things.
We had to.
We had to develop, like, better analytics, better segmentation, and also more activations.
Omer (10:55.940)
Got it.
Okay.
All right, so you've.
You've built this product.
How much were you charging for it?
Stefan Laven (11:03.060)
I think it was like.
I think it was like something around, say, $1,500 per month.
It was something.
Something like that.
And that is our lowest price point right now.
Omer (11:16.760)
And so how many customers did you sell it to?
The MVP.
Stefan Laven (11:19.880)
Oh, the MVP.
I would say we sold it to, like, 10.
10 customers.
And actually one of those customers is still with us today.
So they've been through all the different versions.
They've been very patient.
Omer (11:33.560)
So it's interesting because a lot of founders would be very happy to take an MVP, go and sell it, get those first 10 mythical customers who aren't your relatives and whatever.
But when you and I were talking, you were saying, I kind of Wish we hadn't done that.
I wish we hadn't sold it to them.
So can you tell us about that?
Stefan Laven (11:56.450)
Yeah, absolutely.
So one of the.
I would say one of the major.
Well, as always, there are a couple of major lessons, but one of them is definitely what we did was okay.
So when we went into it, we said, okay, we have to have like a specific user in mind.
We have to build it for it.
It's not a tech product.
It's built for the end user.
So it's the marketer.
That's who we're building it for.
We need to give them the power of using data and see that it can actually drive revenue from data.
That was it.
And we also said that to be able to do that, we have to also be vertical specific.
We can't build one size fits all.
That won't work.
Right.
So then we said, okay, so what verticals should we be targeting?
And all textbooks say that, yeah, choose one.
Choose one customer type or one vertical.
And we sort of said, nah.
Wow, one.
That seems a bit.
That seems scary.
So we pick three.
Right?
That was a big mistake.
That was a big mistake.
We should definitely have gone with one vertical and like, just.
Just gone with it and made sure that we got a good product market fit and.
And could like scale the sales and marketing and everything from that.
And then if we wanted to expand.
But since we chose three, it was really hard for us to find a good or.
Or get to the state where we could see that we had a good product market fit.
That was really difficult.
And it was also.
It put a lot of stress on the team, like trying to juggle all of these three and having different messages and things like that.
I mean, the team was very, very small.
So, I mean, it was.
That was a big mistake.
And that also, it's something that we were a little bit suffering from still today, since we do have.
I mean, we're totally focused in sports today, but we do have customers in other verticals and they need support as well.
So it sounds really strange, but that's not the best way for us or for them, to be honest.
Omer (14:02.450)
So when you started out, you had sports as one vertical, and then retail and utilities were the other two.
Yes.
How did you figure out what those three verticals were going to be?
Stefan Laven (14:16.050)
Okay, so that's a real good.
So sports was like.
That was a given.
First of all, we got.
We acquired a.
First of all, we already were working in sports.
We love sports.
We were working in sports early on.
We hired a guy who came from the sports world.
So that was a given.
Retail was that we had a couple of good retail clients.
It's a huge market.
We saw the potential and everything was.
It was very opportunistic.
This whole idea of how to find those verticals and then utility was the same thing.
We saw that there was a big need for a platform like ours in utility.
We saw that they could benefit a lot from it, and we were actually getting early traction in that vertical as well.
So.
Well, okay, so we said, let's go with these three.
We should have said, like, no to some of the traction in utility, for instance, and in retail.
Omer (15:13.340)
But that's really interesting, what you just said there, because there's one thing.
If you're going in and saying, we don't know which of these three verticals to focus on, so we're going to hedge our bets, we're going to try these different areas and figure out which is the right place.
But when you were just describing the verticals, there was a lot of passion.
When you talked about sports, it was experience.
There was already a skill set.
And you said sports was a given.
So it was interesting that you already had that conviction about that one vertical, but still felt that you needed to hedge your bets and spread your efforts across a number of areas.
Stefan Laven (15:52.710)
Yeah, I know.
It was like.
It was a feeling that we were more safe to go with three instead of just one.
That was it in our minds.
It was like not believing what every textbook tells you that.
Like, be very specific and say, no, no, that sounds scary.
So let's go with three.
That was basically it.
We.
We should, of course, listen to what.
To what others, like founders and other very smart people have said.
But that's.
That's okay.
Omer (16:25.780)
So that was around 2018.
Stefan Laven (16:28.500)
Yes.
What.
Omer (16:30.140)
What were the main takeaways from building and selling that mvp?
Were there any surprises?
And then where did you go next from those learnings?
Stefan Laven (16:40.180)
All right, so.
So one of the.
So one of the main learnings also was that we actually sold the mvp, Right?
So we did sales, which means that we.
The expectations from the customers was actually that we sold something that should work.
Right?
Which didn't always work.
We should have.
We should have been.
We shouldn't have sold it.
We should have been a more honest and saying, hey, listen.
Because the ones we were selling to were the earlier adopters, right?
I mean, they were the.
Otherwise they wouldn't have jumped on it.
So if we would have had an honest conversation with them and said, hey, listen, we have this idea we think it's a great fit for you.
You're obviously interested, so let's do it like this.
Let's do it like a joint development.
We are bootstrapping this, so, so we don't have any investors.
So we would really like to charge something for it.
But I mean, this is it.
We'll not charge much.
This is what we need to charge and it's an MVP and be more honest and like doing it like in a joint development project or something like that.
I am quite sure that those early customers would have said, yeah, I'm fine with that because they were early adopters, so they were interested into finding out how this could work.
They saw the potential in it.
So we should have gone that way.
So that was a big learning and then going from there.
It was a big leap to just really start investing in the development of the product, just getting everything out of the way and just really focusing on developing the product and to make it in a state where we could say that now it's like a first version and it's really working.
Omer (18:32.080)
You talked about how you felt that you didn't set expectations better with these MVP customers.
Stefan Laven (18:40.159)
Yeah.
Omer (18:41.840)
What was the implication of that?
What problems did that cause?
Stefan Laven (18:44.960)
Well, actually, the biggest issue was that it made the expectations.
They thought they were buying, like, more of a finished product than we were, than we had.
Right.
So then you understand that those clash the expectations and finding out that the product wasn't as finished as they thought it was.
And we didn't think that we were like, it's not like we were saying something that wasn't true or anything.
It's just that, I mean, the stability of the product wasn't there.
So there were a lot of like, fixes that needed to be, to be, to be done and things like that.
So, so that, that was the, the main, the main implications of, of that
Omer (19:30.710)
Outbound has been probably the biggest driver of growth for your business.
Let's, let's talk about that.
What, what exactly were you doing and how did you figure out how to make that channel work for you?
Stefan Laven (19:46.060)
Since, since we didn't have like, any basis, we were very like, always short, short on, on cash, so we had to like, spend it wisely.
So it was natural to like, do the outbound, because that, that was just, that was just hard work.
So you can always spend a lot of hard work.
There's no end to the budget for hard work.
Right.
So, so, so we did a lot of cold calling, a lot of cold emails, but also we started Doing also our own events, like seminars, inviting seminars with different topics, but always like connected to data activations, revenue through data, all of that, but just keeping at it.
Basically just a few people came in the beginning so we had to get some friends in there so it wasn't totally empty.
But then we were getting some more and more traction.
So that was actually something that was working like having these breakfasts, seminars and that kind of very simple events.
But those, those actually work as, as good lead generating activities.
So we, we just kept at it.
And one of the good things we did also was that we tried a lot of different messaging and like, okay, so how are we now doing the, the cold calls?
What, what does the script look like?
What do we need to change what's working, what's not, what's working, what's not working, and so on.
And the same with, with cold email.
So we've always like had, had or been pretty good at trying different things and not being afraid of doing something in a different way.
Right.
So I think that's been part of the success.
And then once we had some more money, we also went to some external events, like networking events and things like that.
Having a booth that was also really good lead generating activities.
And then as we started getting some more traction, that's when we felt that we need to have something else.
We need to start working a lot more with content marketing, like trying to get into that place where we could like be seen as more like thought leadership and taking that approach.
So that's, that's when we, a little bit too late, but anyway we hired a person that could actually drive, drive marketing and especially start building that content marketing and doing that with quality.
In the beginning we didn't do that much, but what we did was with quality and it was in one channel, but we focused on that and we got that right and saw that we were getting the traction for the content and okay, so that's good.
We have the right to approach to it.
And then we sort of just expanded.
Expanded from there, I would say.
Omer (22:39.490)
What were you doing with the content?
Was this mostly for SEO purposes or were you promoting it and trying to get it in front of your target
Stefan Laven (22:48.690)
market and other ways we did that, but very limited.
We didn't have that much budget for it, so it was very limited.
But we did try to get it in front and just try to drive them to our, our website and try to convert them there in some way.
And in some of the content was just for brand awareness purposes, just, just trying to Start creating a brand awareness and those kind of things.
But that's actually worked quite well.
I would say that our.
Our content works.
I mean, the content marketing works, I must say.
Omer (23:21.810)
Were you still targeting all three verticals at this point when you started on that content strategy?
Stefan Laven (23:27.500)
Yes, but very, very quickly.
We dropped the utility part.
That was.
That happened about the same time when we started saying, like, we need to be more strategic about this.
We need to start working in another way than just outbound.
That was basically at the same time that we dropped the utility.
Omer (23:44.460)
Okay, why did that vertical go?
Did you have, like, no success there or was it.
I think it's.
Sometimes it's easier if you have no success because then it's.
You can just say, yeah, that's out.
But when you get a few customers, they're like, oh, I don't know.
Stefan Laven (23:58.360)
We actually had it.
We still have a few.
We had a few customers.
So we were actually closing deals there.
But we saw a couple of things.
One was that it was really slow.
I mean, it took a lot of effort, a lot of time.
So it was a very long sales cycle.
And we saw that this will not suit us.
It will not suit where we want to take the company.
And then we also looked a little bit more like a structured approach to looking into that market.
And we saw that it was.
It was very different depending on what geography you were going into.
The.
The.
The market was very different.
So we saw that it would be very hard to scale with that vertical.
So then it was a quite easy choice to say, well, no, this is not.
This is not a vertical that we should be pursuing.
Omer (24:48.420)
Okay, so then you're left with retail and sports and so content and the outreach, the cold emailing, the cold calls that still continued.
Yes, focused on both those two verticals.
Were you mainly targeting customers in Sweden at the time?
Stefan Laven (25:09.470)
We have always had the ambition to go internationally.
So what we were.
Yes, of course, Sweden, that's like.
Of course.
I mean, that's our home market.
So that was natural to be there.
But then we were very quickly out in Europe, and then we specifically went to the eastern part of Europe.
Actually, that was also a market that we saw that we were getting some really good traction.
They were very open and are very open to new ways and new ideas and new solutions.
So that was actually a very good market to start off with.
Omer (25:49.880)
And the cold outreach, how well was that working for you?
I mean, we mentioned earlier that outbound has been the biggest growth driver for you.
But doing cold calling or cold email is often not a fun experience for both sites.
Nobody wants to make that cold call and nobody wants to receive one.
And many, many startups, many founders, you know, they try that but they never really figure out how to do that well.
And there are plenty of examples out there of people doing it badly.
The emails that you and I and people listening to this will get every day, which makes it even easier for us to just ignore that noise because it just keeps coming through.
So what was your experience and why do you feel that you were able to make that channel work for your business?
Stefan Laven (26:44.050)
Okay, so, so this is a, this is a, it's a, it's a bit of a tricky question, but I would like to answer it this way.
We didn't really have a choice since we, I mean we were bootstrapped, so we didn't really have a choice.
We didn't have any big marketing budgets to like go, go in and try to sort of warm up the market and, and do a lot of advertising and then try to like get those inbound leads.
So, so that was one, one, one aspect of it.
But we did, we did manage to get it work pretty well.
And where we did actually see, see some good traction with the outbound was in, in sports.
So that, that was, that was one of the, the, the markets where actually the outbound was, was, was working.
And also specifically we went into a part of Europe where not like it's, for some companies, it's not the first choice.
So it was also we didn't target like, we didn't go to the big markets like Germany or the UK which are, I mean they are really tough.
We chose other ones, smaller markets.
And that also made it a little bit easier where saying that we were from Sweden could help and well, we could use those, those things for us that, that could actually work for us.
But I mean, yes, yes, cold calling, cold emailing.
It's, it's tough.
It takes, it takes a lot of volume to, to make it work.
But at that time it was like that that was what we had that, that we could actually that that was the choice we had.
Omer (28:21.840)
So eventually you also dropped retail and you went all in with sports.
That happened quite recently, I think maybe about a year ago.
Stefan Laven (28:33.980)
Yeah, yeah.
So we saw in the beginning of 2021 we, we saw like the, the first signs of like maybe we, we need to rethink this strategy.
And there were a couple of reasons.
One was that it's really hard even if you're like starting, starting to build a little bit larger Team.
It's still hard to keep like two messages alive and trying to be like, really have the credibility of like for a smaller team to say that, yes, we're in retail, a really huge vertical, and yes, we're in sports.
Yeah, but can you really do both?
I mean, that's tough.
And also having two messages creating a website that sort of can appeal to both, that is quite challenging and demanding.
So that was one thing that started like, it started to make us think a little bit.
But what really made us, what really made us drop like the retail focus was that it was no doubt.
I mean, if we just looked at the amount of leads coming in and saw the conversions and everything was like sports.
That's where you had the.
And where we saw that we had the product marketed.
So when we went into these meetings with the customers and we show them the platform like in sports, they said, wow, yes, this is what we need.
Yes, yes, you nailed it.
Give us this.
Where in retail was more like, well, yeah, it's okay, but maybe we're not ready.
There are other options out there.
That was the more of the response and I wouldn't blame them because if I look at, we always built it like for sports first.
So naturally the product market fit was better there.
So that was, that made us drop, drop retail and go into sports.
Omer (30:25.389)
At the beginning you said, you know, we should have just focused on one rather than the three.
Stefan Laven (30:30.270)
Yeah.
Omer (30:31.070)
Without the, the benefit of the hindsight that you have now, if you were back in, in sort of starting out, what do you think you could have done differently to get to that point and that focus faster?
Stefan Laven (30:48.260)
Woo.
That's.
Omer (30:51.380)
Was this just a.
You just maybe intuitively you knew sports was the vertical, but you just didn't have enough confidence to make that bet.
Stefan Laven (31:01.470)
Exactly that, that, that is exactly it.
And maybe I wish we would have had someone who had made the mistake earlier and said, listen, guys, go with sports, forget the rest, don't worry about it.
You'll.
That's what make you.
That will make it work for you.
So, so forget the rest.
These are the problems you'll see if you go with these three.
But we didn't have the confidence.
That's exactly right.
We didn't have the confidence of saying that, no, let's go with sports.
We thought it was a safety belt to have more and it was, it's the opposite.
So that's definitely like, like it's such a, such a learning.
So, So I think someone, if we would have had someone who would have like advised Us and said, listen, go, go with this.
Omer (31:48.390)
We've talked about some of the downsides of trying to have these three verticals, you know, working them in parallel.
How did things change when you then said one vertical sports?
How did that change the way that you ran the business and the focus of the team?
Stefan Laven (32:05.040)
It was huge.
I mean.
I mean, huge.
I didn't, I didn't even.
I couldn't even imagine the impact it would have, like, on.
On the company as a whole.
Like, like the team.
All of a sudden, everything just.
Just came together.
The whole team focused on one vertical into sports.
One kind of customer the product is built for.
This is one message.
Everybody knew what they were doing.
Everyone was running in the same direction.
It was like, boom, flipping a coin.
It was.
It was amazing to see.
I mean, not just from.
From the sales and marketing, but the whole team.
Product development, customer success.
Everyone in data talks that it was awesome.
It was awesome to see.
And I think, I mean, that has nothing to do with.
Or maybe it does, that we do have a passion for.
For sports, but I. I don't think that that's the thing.
It was more that.
That we had one.
Like, we.
Everyone knew this is one reason for us to exist, that that was it.
So that made it so much easier.
Omer (33:14.730)
Yeah, that's powerful stuff.
You know, intuitively, we.
We all know that's the right way to go.
Getting there is always so hard.
Stefan Laven (33:23.050)
Yes.
Yes.
And I think you're on.
I think you're to the point when you say that it's about having the confidence and having the guts to actually do it.
I think that.
Because that, I think, is what was lacking in our case in the beginning.
So that's also.
That's a really good point there.
Omer (33:44.330)
Let's talk a little bit about fundraising.
You bootstrapped the business for largely most of this time since you launched in 2018.
You went and raised some funding recently.
When you and I were talking earlier, you said, I wish we had done this.
We had raised money sooner.
Stefan Laven (34:01.400)
Yes.
What.
Omer (34:02.280)
What do you think would have been different if you had been able to do that?
Stefan Laven (34:05.560)
Very good question.
And, and there's actually very.
There's a very specific answer to it.
And I think, once again, it's about choices.
Right.
Making the right choices or the right decisions.
So in 2019, like, in the end of 2019, we landed a huge customer.
I mean, like, whoa, it was a mega deal for us.
So it was like a really.
A lot of cash, a good deal.
It was like it was also giving us a Lot of revenue in professional services.
It was fantastic.
No, it wasn't.
Now, after seeing, like, having the answers, it wasn't.
Because what happened was like, having this mega customer makes you.
It takes basically all resources, right?
So then we were struggling with having resources left for product development.
We were having.
Struggling with having resources for other customers and customer success.
And so then we were like, finding, okay, so how do we actually move the company forward?
Now we're just supporting one, one customer.
So even if it was a lot of cash and it sort of funded us for, for, for a long time, it would have been better there and then to actually do a fundraising.
Take the same amount, but do a fundraising, because then we could have actually put that cash to work and develop the company, develop the messaging, develop the product, develop everything else.
So that's something that I realize now that if I go back and I'm in the same situation again, then I would say, great, it's really good that we can land a mega deal like this, but this means that we have something that's valuable.
Now let's go out to an investor and show this because we'll get, we'll get the same funding at least, and, but we can make more use of that.
We can take, we can take steps much more faster with having funding that's focused for just building the company.
So that's, that's like.
And that sort of made us wait with the fundraising, good or bad, but, but that's.
And then, I mean, then we started getting other clients in.
So it sort of eventually turned out really well, but it, I would say we put us back like 912 months.
Omer (36:39.420)
So was your intention always to raise money at some point, or was this, let's try to bootstrap as far as we can, and if we need to raise money, we will.
But what was your sort of view
Stefan Laven (36:51.180)
to this from the beginning?
We've had like this ambition that we want to go global.
So we said at.
At some point to be able to do that, we will need to raise funding, but let's find the right time to do it.
So, so we knew, we knew that we had, we had to raise, do some fundraising eventually.
And we, we were totally fine with it.
And that was like, where we were heading.
We just didn't know when we should
Omer (37:18.430)
wrap up, move on to the lightning round.
So I've got seven quick fire questions for you.
Stefan Laven (37:25.560)
Sure.
Omer (37:26.200)
What's the best piece of business advice you've ever received?
Stefan Laven (37:29.960)
Know when to give up.
Omer (37:31.960)
What book would you recommend to our audience, and why Then I would read
Stefan Laven (37:36.840)
Factfulness by the professor Hans Rube Sling a Swede.
And I would recommend it because he brings data into explaining the state of the world.
And it shows with data that we're in a much better state than we think we are.
Omer (37:54.900)
I like that.
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful founder?
Stefan Laven (38:01.380)
Determination.
Omer (38:03.380)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Stefan Laven (38:07.380)
Do not procrastinate.
So that's both a habit and the tool.
Omer (38:11.220)
I would say what's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the extra time?
Stefan Laven (38:16.870)
Okay, so I have an idea of how to disrupt the player agent market.
Omer (38:21.750)
In sports?
Stefan Laven (38:23.190)
Yes.
In sports.
Yes.
Yes.
Omer (38:25.590)
Okay, you're not going to tell us anymore what's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Stefan Laven (38:32.950)
I've actually been a gymnastics coach, but I've never ever done gymnastics or even been interested in gymnastics, but I've been a coach for a gymnastics coach.
Omer (38:44.190)
Wow.
And finally, what's one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Stefan Laven (38:48.590)
Music.
Omer (38:49.390)
Awesome.
All right, great.
Well, Stefan, thank you so much for joining me.
I appreciate you sharing this story and taking us through from the early days of the idea through to where you are today.
If people want to find out more about data talks, they can go to datatalks.
Se.
Yes, that's great.
And if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Stefan Laven (39:15.520)
Then I guess look me up on LinkedIn or drop me a mail.
Stefan Lavenata talks SSE awesome.
Omer (39:24.880)
Thank you so much.
It's been a pleasure.
And thanks for staying up late to have this conversation with me.
Stefan Laven (39:32.080)
Well, thank you so much for having me.
It's been a pleasure.
Omer (39:34.800)
Yeah, same here.
Thanks a lot.
Stefan Laven (39:36.280)
Cheers.
Cheers.
Bye.
Bye.
