Test Book Stories


T O R I ES
RTUP S
STA N DE RS
ROMOU
F
F
NOTES

O N E E RS
T H E P I
1 Vo lum e 01
Issue 0

i
 STARTUP STORIES
Welc
Star ome to
tup S
torie

Notes from Founders

s
I remember the exact moment I fell in love with startups and the entrepreneurs behind them.
Sitting in a coffee shop in Phoenix, Arizona, I watched as a new social media site, Tumblr,
launched from thousands of miles away for the first time. It was 2007 and little did I know
that a short time later I’d move to New York City and join the team to help build it.

Startups were nothing new in 2007 but
there was something that resonated for
me that wasn’t there prior to joining
Tumblr. There was a new admiration that
grew beyond the company itself and
sparked an appreciation for the people
who built these companies. These were
individuals who took a dream and created
it with little more than 0s and 1s. Out of
nothing, they built communities, online
stores and games. These new companies
changed the way we connect, create,
shop and share with individuals around
the globe.
Every startup that launches today has But one thing hasn’t changed. It’s the
the benefit of leveraging all of the tremendous passion and personal drive of
failures, successes and knowledge of entrepreneurs to still turn these ideas into
those companies that came before something big. This series is dedicated to
them. The advancements in AWS have these founders, their stories and the grand
reduced the overhead that companies visions they helped turn into a reality. I
traditionally needed to build applications hope reading and learning about these
by eliminating the need to provision data founders encourages you to take your first
centers and hire massive engineering step towards building the products and
teams to launch a product. Today, there experiences of tomorrow.
are small teams of two to five people
The future is filled with a world of
building autonomous vehicles, machine
community, sharing and helping. When
learning driven radiology, drones for
you do take that first step, we’re all here
commercial construction and more.
to help you along the way.
These technical accomplishments have
been made easier by the democratization
of technology through the millions of
customers building on AWS today. Our
Mackenzie Kosut
goal has always been to put the technical
Global Startup Evangelist, AWS
capabilities of the largest Fortune 500
companies into the hands of every
individual and today you have this at
your fingertips.
The Pioneers
Their path may not have been an easy one. But these tech

STARTUP STORIES
vanguards not only paved the way for those who’ve since followed,
they’ve also shown us what can be achieved if you have the vision,
01
talent and tenacity to take an idea from concept to reality. From Read how two expats’ irritation with
humble beginnings, these leaders have built pioneering global the status quo inspired them to change
brands and taken their organizations to new heights. the way money is transferred between
countries.

Notes from Founders: The Pioneers

02
Find out how a partner in a venture
capital firm is helping innovative tech
03
startups with advice, support and
investments of up to $5 million. Learn what a forward-
thinking venture capital firm
looks for in the pioneering
startups it supports.

04
Find out how one man went from
selling encyclopedias door-to-door to
founding a global business that now
05
serves 70,000 companies.
Discover how a startup that was just
weeks away from going under went
on to raise $131 million in funding.
 Transfer Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
wise
Partners Capital

o n s of

STARTUP STORIES
g m il li
Savi n ey
l e m on
peop
ch gu ru w ith on e ey e fir m ly on the
A te
rikus is
future, Estonian-born Taavet Hin
the
adept at anticipating the needs of
oyees,
world. One of Sk ype’s first empl
no w th e co -f ou nd er an d ch ai rm an of
he’s
service
Money moving service TransferWise launched on TechCrunch TransferWise – a money transfer

Notes from Founders: TransferWise

send
that ’s revolutionized the way we
in 2012. It had its first customer just 15 minutes later. money internationally. Taavet liv
es in
d tw o ch ild ren
TransferWise’s unique approach to currency exchange allows Lond on w ith hi s w if e an
wn
and is looking for ways to slow do
it to cut out the expensive middle-man, by storing money in af ter his se ve n- ye ar m ar atho n to th e top.
different currencies all over the world and simply adding to
or withdrawing from each fund. Now available in 40 countries
and sending money to over 70, this London-based startup Taavet Hinrikus
has reformed the outdated model for transferring funds Co-founder of Transfe
rW ise
over international borders and has saved more than 3 million
people a lot of money in the process.
‘Look for a solution to a personal ‘You can either talk about a startup, or
problem and you might find a business’ you can launch it’
I’m Estonian but moved to London in Back in 2011, my friend Kristo Käärmann
2007 to work for Skype. One thing that and I realized that updating this outdated
irritated me straightaway was how difficult approach to global transfers could change
it was to transfer money from Estonia to the world. Our conviction became even
the UK and vice versa. I would stand in stronger when we set up a private transfer
line for what felt like hours, only to be method for our friends and saved them
told it would cost €25 ($30) to wire the thousands of euros. We knew there must
money internationally. I’d then have to be so many other people in our situation. I
wait four or five days for it to arrive – all was quite pragmatic and just got started.
at a time when sending an email was I said to myself that we could either talk
instantaneous. The final straw would come about it, or we could just do it. We chose
when my bank statement would arrive and to do it.
I’d see they’d added their own charges and
used a different exchange rate. Ultimately,
I was losing about 10 percent of my
money each time I did a transfer, which
felt plain wrong.

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 Transfer Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
wise
Partners Capital

‘Launching a business comes down that comes from solving a problem or

to commitment’
Most people are afraid to take the first
step, but you need to be committed. If you
think it’s an idea with potential, then leave
your job and get started. Because if you
keep procrastinating, it’ll never happen.
We started working on TransferWise in
our spare time, but quickly realized we had
to quit our jobs. At the time, Kristo was a
STARTUP STORIES
improving people’s lives. Money should
never be the driving force. Banks work like
that and the culture there isn’t particularly
appealing. At TransferWise, our culture is
very different – and let me tell you – it’s
a lot easier to get people out of bed in
the morning if they know they’re doing
something useful. Hearing stories about
customers whose lives we’ve impacted

Notes from Founders: TransferWise

consultant at Deloitte and I was working keeps us all going.
on a mobile startup in Switzerland. We
‘I’m lucky enough to live in a city where
both wanted to focus on TransferWise
my company can flourish’
full time, so it was an easy choice. Our
London is a pretty exciting city for
focus was on getting our product ready
startups, especially in financial tech, as
for market, so using a cloud infrastructure
it’s one of the rare places where finance
provider was far more efficient than
and tech really come together. In London,
building our own.
we have a significant population with a
‘You have a better chance of success if background in both, which is amazing.
you’re doing something you believe in’ There’s a whole ecosystem around
I have a background in startups, so it’s a financial tech in London – lawyers, design
world I feel comfortable in. I’m not sure companies, everything. I have to fly
I would have enjoyed a normal office job around the globe for TransferWise, so
after tasting the excitement of building London being an airline hub helps a lot.
something, but I never had the urge to And luckily, it’s also a nice place to live.
launch a startup just for the sake of it.
With TransferWise, I saw an opportunity
to build something that would make the
world a better place, not just further
my career. Everyone has their own
motivations, but you have a better chance
of success if you’re doing something you
really believe in, rather than just because
you like the idea of being an entrepreneur.
‘Changing the world is a far more
powerful motivator than making money’
Find an answer to one of the world’s
problems – something that impacts a
lot of people – and if your solution is 10
times better than anything else on the
market, then eventually it will work. The
motivation to help people really inspired
me in the early years. I believe financial
success happens along the way, but it’s
much less motivating than the thrill

2

‘I didn’t accept the status-quo as a
child, which later gave me a head for
problem solving’
Coming from Estonia gives me an edge.
I had the same problem as everyone
else with an international background:
I was badly served by banks. Would I
have known that, if I’d been English? I’m
not sure. I also grew up in a Soviet and
post-Soviet world, which definitely gave
me an aptitude for fixing things. If our
washing machine or car broke, we couldn’t
buy another one, so I had to learn to be
resourceful. That environment makes you
hustle for solutions and learn not to just
accept the status-quo.
‘In the tech world, the only constant
is change’
Our relationship with banks is changing
rapidly. Ten years ago, your bank was a
bricks and mortar place; now it mainly
Transfer
wise
exists on your smartphone. Who knows
what the next decade will bring? Progress
moves at ultra-high speed in the tech age
and the only constant is change. You can’t
assume anything will be the same in a few
years’ time. If you keep that in mind, you’ll
be in a good place.
‘TransferWise grew faster than we
could have imagined’
In 2011, we were five people. By the end
of 2012, we were 30 and now we’re 1,000.
We grew much faster than we could ever
have imagined. Once you grow, you can’t
do anything hands-on, so making sure
you have strong teams is crucial. Egos
can be dangerous and this holds true for
everyone - from the person on the help
desk, all the way up to me and Kristo. Part
of our culture has always been to be very
helpful and know the customer is more
important than the team and that the
Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
Partners Capital
STARTUP STORIES
team is more important than ego. We’ve ‘In a high-pressured startup
got a long way to go together – there are
Notes from Founders: TransferWise
environment, everyone occasionally
3 million people using TransferWise, but needs proper time out’
there are still 7 billion people who don’t. I run to work most days, even in my
busiest periods. That’s essential downtime
‘Choose providers that allow you to
for me, where I can step away from the
be flexible’
minutiae of growing a company and figure
Our vice-president of engineering, Harsh
out how we’re tracking against the long-
Sinha, finds the flexibility and automation
term view. I’ve also always made time
support offered by AWS particularly
for my family. People underestimate the
helpful, as it allows our engineering
power of holidays – we try to fit them in
team to grow at its own speed. AWS’
around business travel, which helps a lot.
security groups and VPCs enable us to
At TransferWise, we’ve just introduced a
have infrastructure that supports flexible
paid six-week sabbatical for employees
routing, but has solid access control. As
who’ve hit four years. Everyone, not just
our business expands to more countries
founders, gives so much to building the
around the world, we’re planning to
company, so it’s important they have
leverage AWS’ global infrastructure to
time out.
deploy services instead of having to build
our own.
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Partners Capital

‘There are other things in life than work’ ‘Life comes in phases: there’s a time for ‘Perfectionism never gets you anywhere’ At a glance

I’m no longer CEO. I gave up that role
last year after seven years of what felt
like running a marathon, in a sprint. We’d
built a company that was profitable and
growing fast and I could see there was
a long journey ahead. While seven more
years of it would have been amazing,
there are other things to do in life. The
company is in a great place, so I passed on
work and a time for family’
I’ve had a couple of kids and it’s wonderful
to finally have the time to get to know
them. My kids are two and four and were
born while the business was at its most
frenetic. Five days after my son was born,
I had to go to Australia for 10 days for
work. That’s not ideal, but I did what I had
to do. Luckily, I have a very understanding
STARTUP STORIES
I have a poster in my room that says:
‘Done is better than perfect’. It sounds
negative, but it’s not at all. When you’re
building a company, the most important Taavet Hinrikus moved from
Estonia to the UK in 2007 to
thing is to just get started, but so many
work for Skype.
people have a tendency to lock themselves
in a dark room until their product is He was frustrated with the
perfect. That’s the wrong approach, as expense and hassle associated
you need to get your idea out to market with transferring money

Notes from Founders: TransferWise

the CEO job to my co-founder and I’m now
chairman, which means I’m still involved,
but less caught up in the day-to-day
running of the company.
family who accepted that my company is
important and that this was a moment in
time and not forever.
to see if it works. An 80 percent job that’s internationally.
done, is worth far more to the world than So he co-founded TransferWise
a perfect product that’s never completed. with his friend Kristo Käärmann.
Over time, you can see where you need to
improve; but in the initial stages, just get It launched on TechCrunch in
it out there. 2012 and had its first customer
within 15 minutes.
AWS’ security groups and VPCs
enable TransferWise to build
infrastructure that supports
flexible routing.
Today, TransferWise has 3
million customers and transfers
money to 70 countries around
the globe.

www.transferwise.com

FOUNDER STORIES
PLAYLIST

Founder Stories

CONCENTRATE GET PUMPED CHILL-OUT

Estonian Dance Yrself Happy

Lullaby Clean Pharrell
Arvo Pärt LCD Williams
Soundsystem

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4
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Partners Capital

p tive

STARTUP STORIES
g dis ru
Ba ck i n s
s t ar tup
Pa uline Roux joined ve ntur e ca pital
r tec h
fund Elaia Partners in 2014, af te
ng
spending almost a decade worki
in investment banking. She’s one
of Elaia Partners was founded in 2002 by Xavier Lazarus and

Notes from Founders: Elaia Partners

rs at th e fir m and lives near
si x pa rtne Philippe Gire. The firm specializes in the digital economy and
Elaia’s headquar ters in Paris.
currently manages more than €250 million ($300 million)
of investments. Partner Pauline Roux manages investments
across a range of startups, including Tinyclues, Criteo,
Pauline Roux Agriconomie and talent.io.
Partner at Elaia Partn
ers
‘We invest in game-changing ‘We’ll never be the driver of a company,
technology’ but we can help with navigation’
Elaia Partners has a very narrow focus. We’re the person in the passenger seat
We mainly invest in disruptive tech helping to read the map. We’re not the
startups, including software, big data, driver, but we can offer advice. We avoid
AI and complex technology companies telling businesses what they should be
that we feel have the potential to make doing and instead help them understand
a huge difference to the world. We every challenge and figure out how to
invest in pre-seed, seed and Series A overcome obstacles.
fundraising rounds, as well as some very
When you’ve helped 50 or 60 companies
early stage companies such as spin-offs
like we have, you get a lot of experience
from academic research or laboratories.
in different areas. For example, if one of
Typically, we’ll invest from €500,000
our portfolio businesses asked us whether
($600,000) to €4 million ($5 million) as a
they should sell through direct distribution
first ticket, then we’ll support companies
channels or indirect distribution channels,
along the road with reserves that we’ve
we’d be able to advise them. We’re a bit
kept aside for investing in Series A, Series
like a mentor.
B and so on.

5

‘We help startups to turn their tech
into sellable products’
Founders sometimes need our help to turn
an innovative technology breakthrough
into a usable, sellable product. Early stage
companies also often need support to
build their team. Disruptive tech companies
tend to have a team of really nice tech
guys and quiet engineers, but they’re often
missing sales and back office staff.
Transfer
wise
‘We invest in less than 0.5 percent of
the companies that apply to us’
We receive around 2000 project
applications each year. We go on to meet
with around 400 of them, then we carry
out a much deeper analysis of 30 or so
before choosing a final seven or eight
deals to go for. We narrow down very fast
and we’re super selective, but once we’re
at the deeper analysis stage, we choose
the senior investor that will be sitting at
the board of the company if we do end up
closing the deal.
Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
Partners Capital
STARTUP STORIES
‘We’re not VIPs’
It’s not nice for a management team to
Notes from Founders: Elaia Partners
be passed around, so we keep things
as consistent as we can by assigning
partners to projects. What we try to tell
entrepreneurs - and this differentiates
us from other VCs, is that we’re not VIPs.
When you’re with Elaia, you become
part of our family and you can rely on
everybody here.
We want our partners to be good at
everything and to be as much of a
generalist as possible. It wouldn’t be
good if we were all experts in everything,
because when you’re too experienced, you
have more power to convince people and
we don’t want to drive the direction of the
companies we invest in.
6

‘We’ve been supporting some of our
clients for a decade’
Most companies we invest in are so new,
they have under €200,000 ($240,000)
in revenue a month. It’s fine though,
because we need time to help them
develop before they’re sold or go up
for initial public offering. The average
duration of ownership is six years, but
we’ve been supporting some businesses
for around 10. We have to think long
term, yet we have to be very agile on a
daily basis because the companies are
changing very fast.
When you’ve been there for a company
from the early stage, your interests are
very aligned with those of the founders.
You understand the challenges they’ve
faced at each step and know the path
the business has been on. It means we’re
better placed to help the founders make
good decisions.
Transfer
wise
‘I’m the bad girl of Elaia!’
I used to be an investment banker, so
I’m seen as the bad girl of Elaia! I spent
almost a decade dressing in suits, being
very serious and boring. My experiences
have taught me a lot though, like how
to anticipate later stage challenges
and problems so that you don’t make
mistakes in the early stages. It’s helpful
for companies that are growing super-
fast, as they often panic about managing
their growth. There is absolutely nothing
boring in what I do now; my motivation
comes from seeing new tech and growing
as an investor. I also get a huge kick
when my portfolio companies build great
teams. When people who are employed
elsewhere decide to give up a great
package and high salary to take the same
risks that the founders took when they
started the business, it’s a clear indication
that they believe in the venture and want
to be a part of it. I love that!
Elaia Freigeist
Partners Capital
‘Work is about more than money’
I used to earn much more as an
investment banker and worked hard to
get yearly bonuses. Here, I work for my
portfolio companies to be successful. I
owe it to my startups and my long-term
bonus builds over the entire portfolio
journey. I respect people who work for
money, but in my opinion, it’s more
important to feel fulfilled.
I want to have an impact on creating and
supporting startups and developing new
ideas. My partner makes me feel good
about my job. He’s an entrepreneur with a
startup, which reminds me why I do what
I do, because he’s the type of guy I could
help to build a successful business.
Pipedrive Collibra
STARTUP STORIES
Notes from Founders: Elaia Partners
‘It’s not all desk work’
Being an investor is different to how
people imagine. Sure, we help our
portfolio companies, but we also have to
raise funds ourselves to invest. We have to
make sure that our partnerships grow and
develop and we’re constantly scouting for
new companies to invest in.
Each partner has a MacBook, a phone and
the technology to work from anywhere,
so while we’re based in Paris, we all travel
quite a lot. Most of the companies we
invest in go international very quickly, so
we travel to their new location to say hello
and have board meetings in their new
offices. It’s not dull desk work from the
same spot every day, thankfully.
7

‘Think of the funding partnership as
a marriage’
Startups can be tempted to just tell
investors what they think they want to
hear. That’s not going to work well in the
long run. The first board meeting after
fundraising is known as the ‘Oh, shit!’
meeting in the industry, because it’s when
the cracks you didn’t see before are often
revealed. Honestly, if you want funding,
don’t try to oversell everything in the
fundraising process. Also, check out your
investor’s references in the same way that
they check out yours. It’s a partnership
you both need to be happy with. Think of
it as a marriage.
‘If you want funding, you need to stand
out from the competition’
Startups always say that they’re the only
ones doing what they’re doing and that
there’s no competition. There will almost
always be competition. In the six-month
period when car-sharing was the current
trend, we saw 25 similar projects. We’re
now seeing waves of companies focusing
on AI.
The more you can differentiate your
company, the stronger your chances are
of convincing an investor that you can do
something different and special.
Transfer Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
wise
Partners Capital
STARTUP STORIES
‘When it comes to infrastructure, there’s
no value in doing something twice’
Most of our entrepreneurs need a very
robust and scalable infrastructure, so
Notes from Founders: Elaia Partners
we suggest they go to AWS instead of
starting everything again on their own
from scratch. There’s no value in doing
something twice; if it exists - which it
does with services like Amazon Elastic
Compute Cloud, then use it and just build
your own intellectual property on top.
Each time we start investing in a business,
we give them €100,000 ($120,000) of
platform credit for AWS. Then, when they
get more mature, we help them find the
best AWS options for AI. These can include
things like semantic recognition, video
recognition, image recognition and other
stacks they can build intelligence on top of.
‘Money can help you to succeed, but it
doesn’t guarantee success’
Cash might give a business the ability to
recruit the right people, to have better
offices and to grow – but it can’t buy
talent and vision. Having little money isn’t
always a bad thing: sometimes the feeling
of having no other option but to succeed
can lead you to find new solutions.
8

‘It’s crucial to have a good relationship
between VC and startup’
Early companies and failing companies
usually need the most attention from
us. When things aren’t going so well, we
don’t just say: ‘Too bad!’ We have to show
confidence and build confidence because
the managers in a failing company are
usually worried, tense and thinking
they may lose everything. It’s crucial to
have a good relationship at times like
this, because you need to assess what’s
happening, why it’s happening and if we
can fix it together.
Transfer Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
wise
Partners Capital
At a glance
STARTUP STORIES
Elaia Partners was founded in
2002 by Xavier Lazarus and
Philippe Gire.
‘I’m quite attached to my plant,
The French VC focuses on
Henriette’
disruptive tech startups and
In my downtime, I try to spend time away
takes a hands-on approach,
Notes from Founders: Elaia Partners
from screens. I do things outside like leveraging its team’s expertise
walking along the river in Paris, which is and network to support its
close to my house, and running or reading. portfolio companies.
It’s interesting that people like Steve Jobs
and Bill Gates raised their children very far It offers new clients €100,000
from screens. I like having a normal life ($120,000) of platform credit
and sharing things with people, not with for AWS.
a computer. In fact, I sometimes share Elaia Partners co-founded
things with my desk plant, Henriette. She’s France Digitale - an
super green and the only plant I’ve ever independent association for VCs
had that’s lasted over six months (I’m very and startups.
proud). Everyone in the office makes fun
Pauline Roux is one of six
of me because I talk to her!
partners at Elaia.
She joined in 2014, after a
decade in investment banking
and also sits on the VC Council
Platform of Invest Europe.
www.elaia.com
FOUNDER STORIES
PLAYLIST
Founder Stories
CONCENTRATE GET PUMPED CHILL-OUT
Muy Tranquilo Hakuna Matata Les Deux
Gramatik from Guitares
The Lion King The Stephane
Wrembel Trio
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Partners Capital

Guidi n g a
on

STARTUP STORIES
w g e n er at i
ne
When software developer Alex Ko
launched his first company back
ch

of sta r tu p s
in 20 04, he had no idea he would
the
end up becoming an investor in
d
next generation of innovators an Freigeist Capital’s co-founders, Alex Koch, Frank Thelen and
nture

Notes from Founders: Freigeist Capital

entrepreneurs. As a partner in ve
capita l fir m E4 2, A le x su pp or te d a range Marc Sieberger, are using the money and skills they’ve gained
d
of German star tups. E42 rebrande building and scaling successful businesses to offer vital
Fr eige is t Capi tal in 20 17 an d no w
to
specializes in game-changing tech
and support to the German startup scene. Freigeist Capital focuses
ni es . A le x lives in Bonn
co ns um er co m pa on early-stage startups and its current investments include
with his family.
a natural ice-cream brand, a golfing app and an aviation
company. Financial assistance is only a small part of what the
venture capital firm provides; its real USP is the hands-on
Alex Koch support offered to all of its investments.
Co-founder of Freigeis ‘We want to support innovators’ We invested in mytaxi (the German
t Capital
Our goal at Freigeist is to support startups equivalent of Uber) and Wunderlist (a
and give young people the money to be productivity and organizing app), both
able to innovate, realize their ideas and of which we ended up selling on to much
bring those ideas to life. We actively seek larger companies. We also launched a
out investment opportunities. document management system called
Doo, which later morphed into Scanbot.
‘We started off as entrepreneurs’
In 2016, we handed on the day-to-day
Frank, Marc and I first worked together in
running of Scanbot and now mainly
2004 on a photo service company called
focus on supporting startups through
ip.labs. We sold the company to Fujifilm
investment, rather than starting new
in 2007 and invested the money we made
businesses ourselves.
back into the startup scene.

10

‘We invest in everything from potato
chips to microchips’
We have a diverse portfolio with tech
on one side and consumer products on
the other. For example, we work with
Lizza, which makes low-carb pizzas to
sell from its food truck, online store and
supermarkets. And on the tech side, we
have Lilium Aviation – an unbelievable
startup building electric-powered jets that
can take off and land vertically.
‘We consider around 15 applications
a day’
Our CEO, Frank, has been a judge and
investor on ‘Die Höhle der Löwen’ (a
German version of ‘Dragons’ Den’ aka
‘Shark Tank’) since 2014 and all of the
investment deals he agrees to in the show
are actually made by Freigeist. We also
receive a lot of applications. Every day, we
each take around five applications to have
a closer look at and then we’ll discuss the
most promising ones together.
‘You need a great startup team to
attract an investor’
The three of us work well together
because we have complementary skills
– Frank is responsible for marketing
and networking; Marc does everything
legal and business-related and I’m the
technical guy. So when we’re considering
investing in a startup, we want to see
that the startup team has a good range
of complementary skills and that each
person is fully behind the business.
Transfer Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
wise
Partners Capital
STARTUP STORIES
Notes from Founders: Freigeist Capital
‘We don’t invest in startups if they don’t
want to run their servers on AWS’
I’ve been pretty dependent on AWS
since 2009 for all my own products and
startups, because it has everything I need
and it makes things simpler. We don’t
see any point in working with startups if
they don’t want to use AWS. They’re just
going to waste time and money on server
infrastructure when everything they need
is already established on the AWS cloud.
For e-commerce startups, we recommend
Elastic Load Balancing. We also use
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud for
servers; Relational Database Service for
the databases; and Amazon S3 for data
storage. We use caching systems like
ElastiCache; Auto Scaling for growth and
many more services. For some startups,
like data intelligence or AI businesses, we
take advantage of some of AWS’s machine
learning services such as AWS Deep
Learning AMIs.
11

‘If you want investment, you need to
implement your idea’
Investors need to see that a startup is
more than just a PowerPoint presentation
of an idea. Once a startup shows that
they’ve tried to implement something,
we’ll know that they’re really behind the
idea – that it’s not just a concept.
Many of the people who pitch to us
have an idea, but don’t have the team,
the money or the knowledge to actually
implement it. For us, this doesn’t work
at all. Lots of people have ideas and lots
of people want to start a company, but
you really need to show us that you’re
behind your idea and starting to innovate.
Find some people to help you before you
come to us. Then we’ll see you as a serious
founder, not just an ideas guy.
Transfer
wise
‘Tech startups tend to attract higher
investments’
The amount we invest depends on the
topic, the product and the nature of the
startup. Technical startups are likely to
get more money, while smaller products
in the food area tend to need less. Our
investment usually starts from €100,000
($120,000). However, we’ve also invested
€1 million ($1.2 million) before. It really
depends on the individual deal.
‘We’ve held some of our investments
for a decade’
People say that it takes investment
companies around seven years to exit
or to be completely independent from
the startups they invest in. I’d say that’s
probably true on average. However, some
of them are done and sold within two
years, while some of them stay in our
portfolio for 10 years.
Elaia Freigeist
Partners Capital
‘It’s not really about the money –
it’s about the skills’
The money we can invest is seed
investment; we can’t invest big money like
US investors. Most of our startups say that
the skills we bring into their company are
more important than the money. We work
with our startups every day if needed -
helping them to write software, get set-up
with AWS and so on. We’re basically part
of their team.
Pipedrive Collibra
STARTUP STORIES
‘We try to make our whole team
Notes from Founders: Freigeist Capital
available to startups’
There are no restrictions on who a startup
can contact here throughout their journey;
they get support from the most relevant
person for their needs. So if the startup
has a technical background and we need
to support it with some pieces of software,
for example, I’ll be the person in charge of
the relationship. Marc will then jump in for
any legal matters. All 10 of our staff share
an open office in Bonn, so when a startup
needs advice, we can quickly figure out
who’s best placed to help.
12

‘It may seem easy, and it is fun, but
being an investor is hard’
Sure, we’re independent financially and so
we can select the businesses we like and
which investments appear the most fun.
But if we invest money in startups, we
have to make sure we’re doing a good job
for them. One really challenging area right
now is hiring, particularly for software
companies. Good software engineers are
really rare at the moment, so we have to
look globally for people. As a CTO, I try
to hire the best people for the startup
because it’s really important that they find
the best engineers, the best technical guys
and the best ways to implement ideas. We
try to make our startups very attractive to
employees by creating a good atmosphere
and bringing in new technology.
Transfer Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
wise
Partners Capital
‘You need to keep moving your At a glance
STARTUP STORIES
business forward’
I think Steve Jobs had the best advice
for startups: ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish.’
Every time a startup sees a potential Alex Koch, Frank Thelen and
opportunity or development, they should Marc Sieberger launched their
grab it. You need to keep innovating; first company together in
keep on finding ideas and ways to further 2004.
your business. This could mean bringing They went on to launch a
in new staff, installing new software, document management
Notes from Founders: Freigeist Capital
using new technology or creating a buzz system called Doo, and invest
on social media. Never stop moving your in several businesses.
business forward.
In 2011, the trio decided
to focus on investing in
the startup scene, so they
launched Freigeist Capital.
Freigeist offers early-stage
investment to startups
operating in tech or consumer
goods.
www.freigeist.com
FOUNDER STORIES
PLAYLIST
Founder Stories
Spotify account & internet connection required
13
 am li n i n g t h e
stre

STARTUP STORIES
les pr o c e s s
sa
s’
Timo Rein has almost two decade
pe rie nc e in sa le s - fr om th re e months’
ex
or in
selling encyclopedias door-to-do
lif or ni a, to 11 ye ar s as pa rtne r in a
Ca
tonia. Surrounded by post-it notes and frustrated with clunky,
sales consultancy in his native Es
Th e la tter po sitio n sa w him ha nd ling expensive software programs, Timo Rein and his colleague

Notes from Founders: Pipedrive

d
clients such as Coca Cola, PwC an Urmas Purde, decided there had to be a better way.
is sa n. Ti m o co -f ou nd ed sa le s so ftware
N
in 20 10 an d lives ne ar the
firm Pi pe dr ive
rs in Es to ni a w ith his After teaming up with three developers, they created
fir m ’s he ad qu ar te
wife and three children. sales software system Pipedrive. The idea is simple – one
dashboard provides an at-a-glance view of all sales in the
pipeline, so sales can be tracked from first contact and
negotiation, to done deal.
Timo Rein
Pipedrive’s subscription-based service is now used by
Co-founder of Pipedri
ve 70,000 companies in 170 countries. The company has raised
$30 million from investors and now employs more than
350 people across offices in Estonia, USA, UK and Portugal.
‘My kick-in-the-butt moment’ My ‘kick-in-the-butt moment’ came a
I made the decision to start a business few years later after a chance encounter
when I was in my early 20s. I was thinking with an old friend from my door-to-door
about the best way to go through life selling days. He asked what I was up to
while providing for myself and my family. and when I told him I was a partner in a
When I did the math, I realized it would sales consultancy, he said: ‘I thought you
probably be best to own a company, were a doer, not a consultant.’ I remember
which meant I’d have to start one. It feeling stung. Those words really hit home
took another 15 years before I founded and although it was still another five or
Pipedrive, but the seed had been planted. six years before Pipedrive, when the time
came, I was much more eager to go ahead
than I might otherwise have been.

14
 Transfer Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
wise
Partners Capital

‘I sensed they’d been genetically ‘I thought: ‘I’m the worst. Why am I

modified by the experience’
While at university, I spent three months
selling encyclopedias door-to-door in
California for the Southwestern Company.
Two of my friends had already done it and
I sensed they’d been genetically modified
by the experience. They had a kind of calm
and confidence I wanted for myself.
STARTUP STORIES
doing this?’’
That job was a crash-course in
understanding human nature because it
put you on the doorstep of strangers and
you saw everything going on in their lives
at that particular moment. The biggest
revelation was a personal one. One of the
main things I discovered was just how big
a difference confidence can make. When

Notes from Founders: Pipedrive

I started out absolutely convinced nobody
someone bought from me, it was such
would buy from me, but was determined
a boost. I’d be practically dancing from
to last through the summer. I made my
house to house for the rest of the day. But
first sale on day three, but when the lady
when nobody showed interest, I’d soon
said: ‘Yes’, I was thinking: ‘Really, are
start thinking: ‘I’m the worst. Why am I
you kidding?’ I started shaking because I
doing this?’ I learnt where my own limits
didn’t even know how to take the credit
were and how to just keep going.
card payment.
I remember that moment so clearly and
overall, the whole three-month experience
is a pleasure to look back on, even though
it was difficult to go through at the time. I
still have a map of Los Gatos in California,
which was where I sold the encyclopedias.
Just looking at the street names brings
back intense memories.
I remember hating Mondays, because any
security or conviction I’d had by the end of
the previous week would have vanished.
You reset the clock every Monday and
started from zero again. Whatever you’d
had going was washed away and you had
to rebuild yourself again.

15

‘I wasn’t doing my job as a father,
husband and provider’
There was a saying when we sold door-
to-door: ‘Everybody thinks of quitting.
The point is that some people don’t.’ I’ve
never seriously considered giving up on
Pipedrive, but there’ve been moments
when I’ve struggled to find a solution
quickly enough.
I’ve found personal challenges hardest to
deal with. The worst was when I was in
California on the AngelPad three-month
incubator program, while my wife was
back in Estonia with our two kids and
had just discovered she was pregnant with
a third.
It was almost winter and the heating at
our family home had been cut off because
we hadn’t been able to pay the bill. I had
to figure out from thousands of miles
away how to get that heating put back
on and felt really bad, like I wasn’t doing
my job as a father, husband and provider.
Those are the moments which shake you.
Transfer
‘Raise money when you don’t really
need it’
When it comes to business problems, one
of our most challenging was four years
into Pipedrive, when we were looking for a me is asking myself: ‘So, what am I going
long-term investor. I’d started negotiating to do now?’, because that’s the only thing
with various parties, but most seemed too
concerned with short-term gains.
Very early on in the process, we almost
ran out of money and found ourselves
unable to follow one of the golden rules of
funding, which is: ‘Raise it when you don’t
really need it.’
The biggest difficulty was maintaining
the confidence and poise needed to meet
potential investors. It also created a lot of
tension with my co-founders and existing
investors, because we had to tightly
control expenses. Eventually, we found
a bridge investor to help us through the
darkest moments and went on to close
Series A a few months later.
Elaia Freigeist
wise
Partners Capital
‘What can I do right now?’
Everybody has a different way of trying
to rebalance themselves when things go
wrong. The one thing that always helps
you really have control over. It’s easy to
think: ‘Everything’s going wrong and
there’s nothing I can do.’ To snap yourself
out of it, you have to think: ‘Yes, it’s awful
and I hate it, but there must be something
I can do to alleviate the situation or find
some kind of short-term solution.’
Pipedrive Collibra
‘I’ve never managed to find a balance
STARTUP STORIES
between hoping for the best and
suspecting the worst’
When it comes to building an organization,
mistakes are inevitable. I’ve found reading
and hiring people comes with experience,
but it’s a process that takes a lifetime
to master. I’ve never managed to find a
balance between hoping for the best and
suspecting the worst and I’ve taken too
Notes from Founders: Pipedrive
long to part ways with people when it’s
not working out.
When we’re hiring, we try to understand
a bit about what makes a person tick and
what motivates them when they make
decisions. The end goal is simple – we
want our employees to be who they are,
rather than trying to be somebody they’re
not to meet a set of expectations.
16
‘You should feel that if you don’t do
this, something will be wrong later in
your life’
Starting a business is a leap of faith. At
some point, you feel you’re literally falling
so then it becomes about seeing where
you land and taking those first steps.
It requires a very strong internal drive and
motivation, because as soon as you decide
to impose your will on life, you’re going to
be hit with adversity.
It’s so much easier to just wander through
life. But once you’ve made the decision to
start a business, you’re going to be tested
– whether the product will do what it says
it will; whether you can get your business
off the ground and whether you can get
customers to return.
That’s why you should feel that if you
don’t do this, something will be wrong
later in your life. It’s a case of having to go
through with it because if you don’t, you
won’t be able to live with not having tried.
If you don’t have that compulsion, you’re
more likely to end up quitting.
‘Your product needs to really help
people’
If your business is just about trying to
make money, I don’t think it’ll work. Your
product needs to be something solid
that really helps people. Then, you need
to execute the idea and find the right
business model, which is not as easy as
it sounds. You have to understand how
people usually go about buying whatever
you’re building. Having a business requires
world-class effort on both the product and
the service side. If you’re willing to do that
from the beginning, there’s a good chance
you’ll be successful.
‘We’d fight like crazy over some product
questions’
Although we started with five co-founders,
there are three active now because one
left a few years ago and another had a
health condition and had to step back.
Looking back, you couldn’t find five
more different people, but we had an
underlying respect for each other. There
STARTUP STORIES
were fiery discussions between two of
my co-founders and they would fight like
crazy over some product questions, but
that’s what happens when you’re building
something everyone’s passionate about.
It was a stroke of luck having people
who wanted to work with each other and
towards a goal, so we were willing to work
Notes from Founders: Pipedrive
through our differences.
To scale up our business, we needed
Let
it be
cloud services. We chose AWS because
it was well-documented and there were easy
a variety of services. It’s been good for
DevOps and has allowed us to start small
and grow big. Using AWS has meant
shorter development cycles and one of
the things we’ve found most useful is its
dynamic infrastructure.
‘Let it be easy’
We all have such busy travel schedules that
our executive team jokes our location isn’t
geographical – it’s a time zone. Sometimes
I go to the office and people ask me: ‘Do
you know where your desk is?’, because I’m
constantly moving around.
I take photos of my wife and kids with
me when I’m traveling. I also carry a piece
of paper with the words ‘Let it be easy’
written on it. It’s taken from Tolly Burkan’s
book, ‘Let It Be Easy: 12 Actions to Create
an Extraordinary Life’, and reminds me
that things can be done with ease or with
extreme tension. I look at those four words
to help me loosen up during major and
seemingly stressful events.
17

‘Everybody wants a winning coach’
I prefer a physical book to an electronic
version because I like to underline stuff.
Something about that process really
feels good. Right now, though, I’m in a
period where I’m almost allergic to books
because it feels as though if I get into
the wrong one, it’ll take me somewhere
I don’t want to go. I’m more interested
in learning about professional sporting
coaches where there’s such a lot of
expectation because everybody wants a
winning coach. Seeing how they approach
the job, deal with wins and losses and
grow the team is fascinating.
‘Music clears my mind’
When I want to clear my head, music has
to be one of the best drugs out there
because it changes everything instantly.
Music is my coffee because I never
developed a habit of drinking that stuff.
My early life was all about The Beatles,
Bob Dylan, Mike Oldfield; then I moved on
to REM and Nirvana and nowadays, I listen
more to Teenage Fanclub, War on Drugs,
Simon & Garfunkel and The National.
At a glance
STARTUP STORIES
Timo Rein started his sales
career selling encyclopedias
door-to-door.
Almost two decades later, he
founded Pipedrive with Urmas
Purde, Martin Henk, Martin
Notes from Founders: Pipedrive
Tajur and Ragnar Sass.
Pipedrive makes it easier for
sales professionals to manage
the sales process and offers a
digital platform, as well as
iOS and Android apps.
Pipedrive links with 100+
other software products,
including MailChimp and
Google Calendar.
The firm opened a new data
center in Germany in 2018.
www.pipedrive.com
FOUNDER STORIES
PLAYLIST
Founder Stories
‘It’s proven a worthy challenge’
I don’t think my former sales colleague
and co-founder Urmas or I could ever CONCENTRATE GET PUMPED
have imagined the scale of the
organization we’d end up creating with
Pipedrive, so in that sense, it’s way
beyond anything we’d planned. On the
other hand, we had a clear vision of what
the product experience should be like
Deep Sleep Losing My
and still have that same vision eight years Solfeggio Religion
on. We wanted to build something that’s Frequencies REM
simple to use and really helps people in 528Hz
sales. It’s proven a worthy challenge.
Spotify account & internet connection required
18
 Transfer Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
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Partners Capital

STARTUP STORIES
sen s e of th e
aki n g
It ’s hard to imagine a world witho

M
ut big

a ta
data; but back in 20 08, few peop

b ig d
le gave

chao s of
it much thought. Felix Van de M
aele
had the vision and foresight to sp
ot an
opportunity. At just 23, he co-fou
nded
one of Belgium’s first data govern
ance

Notes from Founders: Collibra

platforms with Stan Christiaens,
Benny
Verhaeghe and Pieter De Leenhe
Getting people within a business to agree on what data er.
Collibra’s headquar ters are in New
means isn’t always easy. Collibra makes sense of the chaos. City, where Felix now lives with hi
York
s wife
The company was something of a slow-burner, but as ‘big and 10 -month-old baby.
data’ became a buzzword, so did Collibra. Six years after
inception, Collibra raised $131 million in funding. Today, it
operates across North and South America, Europe, Asia and Felix Van de Maele
the Middle East.
Co-founder of Collibra

‘I was inspired by a book’

I was born and raised in Belgium, which
isn’t really known for its entrepreneurial
climate! There aren’t many business role
models and only a very small venture
capital community. A well-known Dutch
expression is: ‘Just be normal.’ Basically,
you’re supposed to do what’s expected ‘We knew from the beginning we were
of you. It’s not like in the United States, going up against the big guys’
where businesses can raise a lot of money The name ‘Collibra’ is down to a
from the start, just go for it and where combination of things. We’re focused on
failing is good because you learned bringing people together to agree on what
something. Belgium has a really risk- data means, which is a social process.
averse culture. That’s where the ‘coll’ part comes from,
as in collaboration. Then the word ‘libra’,
In my early 20s, I read a book about Silicon
like library books, knowledge, equilibrium.
Valley called ‘Founders at Work: Stories
Also, ‘colibri’ means hummingbird and
of Startups’ Early Days’. That book really
we liked that analogy. We knew from
inspired me, and I thought: ‘If people in
the beginning we were going up
Silicon Valley can do it, why not here?
against the big businesses, and we
Why not me?’ And that’s when I
liked the agility and flexibility of a
co-founded Collibra.
hummingbird versus the larger, slower
moving incumbents.
19

‘When we first started as a group of
twenty-somethings, it was hard to be
taken seriously’
At first, there were so many people who
told us that our business would never
work. We had a lot of cards stacked
against us; we were right out of school and and knew that if we didn’t win the
had zero experience. We needed to have a contract, we could go under. It was a very
little arrogance, ignorance and choose to
just not believe the naysayers.
We really were doing it for the right
reasons; we felt it was important to give
companies a way to manage their data.
In a way, it was a good thing we were
three or four years early to the market,
because it gave us the opportunity to
learn and we didn’t give up. We raised
a little money and focused on our
customers, which helped us grow our
business slowly, but surely.
Transfer
wise
‘We almost went under’
Our story isn’t one of easy success though.
At one point, we only had enough money
to keep us going for another two to three
months. We were in dire need. All of us
founders had already cut our salaries
by half because we didn’t want to fire
anybody; we needed our engineers. We
were bidding on a project against IBM
stressful time.
We ended up winning that contract
because our proposal was cheaper than
IBM’s by €1000 ($1200). It was an
amazing feeling to triumph over such a
large, established company and I know
we wouldn’t be in business today if we
hadn’t won.
That was a pivotal moment, but there
are so many of those decisions, so many
pivotal moments when you run a
business. You don’t necessarily realize it
at the time, but looking back, you wonder
what might have happened if things had
gone differently.
Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
Partners Capital
STARTUP STORIES
‘We didn’t start making real money until
six years after Collibra’s inception’
Entrepreneurship often gets romanticized,
but in reality, it’s really, really hard and
requires a lot of sacrifices. You have
to do it for the right reasons, or else
you’re going to give up. When you start
Notes from Founders: Collibra
a company, the odds are against you.
It requires time away from friends and
family and a lot of hard work.
Having a successful business sometimes
just takes luck. You have to time it right
and if you don’t time it right, you have to
decide how long you’ll keep going. We
had to wait six years before the timing
was right.
‘Startups need to focus on their
customers’
Ultimately, success means sticking with it,
being customer-focused and thinking big
from the beginning. We moved to New
York because most of our clients are in
the United States. It was important for us
to keep on going, to be open-minded and
focused on fixing the things that weren’t
working. For us, our customer base was
always very important and something we
attribute to our success.
20

‘Finding funding in those early days
wasn’t always easy’
In the beginning, nobody wanted to
give us funding. It was very hard and we
were in Belgium, which only has a very
small investment community. We had
everything to prove and no track record.
But when we started to grow, we had
proof from our customers, the numbers
and the feedback. Then it became a lot
easier and it shifted, and now we have no
problem with funding.
‘You have to be ready to evolve with
your business’
The initial business plan you start with is
never the one you’ll end up with. That was
certainly the case with us. The software
we initially built has changed and there
have been numerous small adjustments
and calibrations along the way.
We have data protection legislation,
privacy laws and GDPR now, which just
didn’t exist a few years ago. Collibra helps
organizations meet their requirements,
address their customers’ concerns and
trust their data.
The market changes and evolves as
the world changes, and you have to be
prepared to adapt your business to meet
the needs of the market. You have to learn
and learn and learn – it never stops.
So many businesses operate on the cloud
now. AWS has a lot of credibility with our
engineers, so it was the obvious choice
for us.
Transfer Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
wise
Partners Capital
STARTUP STORIES
Notes from Founders: Collibra
‘Big data is changing the way
companies operate’
I think we will soon see a shift in
companies when it comes to big data.
There will soon be entire departments
dedicated to managing data, just like
human resources, the IT department,
marketing, finance, etc.
Every company is now going through a
digital disruption and it’s all about data
and machine learning. Everything is
shifting toward data, so companies have
to spend more money organizing and
processing huge volumes of information.
Now everyone uses data in their job and
the result of that is chaos. If you have
a meeting with five people, you get
five different reports. You’ll have five
different numbers and everyone argues
and discusses whose report is correct.
It’s a simple question, but not everyone
will agree on what the data means, which
creates uncertainty. There’s a need for
trust surrounding data. We bring control
and order to the chaos so that people can
extract value from their information.
21

‘My job is different every six months’
Just as you have to evolve with your
business, you also have to evolve in
your own role. My job as CEO changes
frequently. As long as I feel like I’m doing
a good job and the board feels like I’m
doing a good job, I’ll just keep on doing it.
You have to push yourself out of your
comfort zone, which isn’t always easy or
fun, but it is important. You don’t know
what’s coming, so you have to be ready to
just jump in that black hole and go for it.
It’s important to keep focus, get everyone
on the same page, execute effectively and
balance new initiatives.
‘Building a team can be challenging’
The biggest challenge for me as CEO
is the people. The people are the most
important thing to get right and the
hardest thing to get right. If you’re
growing quickly like us, from 300
to 400 people in one year, there are
organizational challenges to deal with.
You have to hire the right people and then
make sure those people are successful.
Transfer Elaia Freigeist Pipedrive Collibra
wise
Partners Capital
At a glance
STARTUP STORIES
Felix Van de Maele co-founded
Collibra in 2008, with Stan
Christiaens, Benny Verhaeghe
and Pieter De Leenheer.
As one of Belgium’s first
data governance platforms,
Notes from Founders: Collibra
it took a few years to really
get established.
At one point the business
almost went under, but a
lucrative contract won
against IBM pulled it back
from the brink.
Collibra uses Amazon RDS to
‘I get my best ideas while walking’ ‘I hope my story inspires others’ manage and scale databases
I like to walk and when I’m thinking, I need When I first read those Silicon Valley and Amazon CloudWatch
to move. People see me pacing or walking startup stories, it encouraged me to give it to monitor resources and
around the office and they know I’m a try. Reading those stories was the most applications.
thinking. In general, when I walk outside valuable, inspiring thing for me.
I get the best ideas, when I can think
That’s why I don’t turn down opportunities
about a subject long and hard. www.collibra.com
to speak at conferences or be interviewed
With all the craziness and chaos at work, for articles or books; I want to give back
I need calmness at home to feel balanced. and tell people about my journey in the
I love to cook – it distracts me away from hope that it inspires others. FOUNDER STORIES
the business and at that moment I’m PLAYLIST
And by no means is my story over. We are
creating something, working with my
still in the thick of it; still executing our Founder Stories
hands and being creative. I also enjoy
business and still learning as we go.
calm, quiet weekends with my friends
and family.
‘I’m a New Yorker now, but there’s one
CONCENTRATE GET PUMPED CHILL-OUT
thing I miss about Belgium’
We still import chocolate from Belgium.
In my opinion, there is no really good
chocolate here in New York!
‘Books are still important to me’
My pictures are digital; my music is digital; In The Alive Airwaves
and I read on my Kindle. But there are Waiting Line Pearl Jam Ray
still some books I keep paper copies of Zero 7 LaMontagne
because they have sentimental value.
That book about Silicon Valley
businesses is still on the bookshelf Spotify account & internet connection required
at my parents’ house in Belgium.
22
follow the PIONEERS
Taavet
H in ri k
us
TRANSFERWISE
TransferWise launched on
TechCrunch in 2012. Taavet
Hinrikus and Kristo Käärmann
started the money moving
service because they were
frustrated by the inconvenience
and cost of sending money from
London to Estonia. TransferWise
is now available in 40 countries
and sends money to 70. It uses
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud
and other services to build
infrastructure that supports
flexible routing.
Pa
u
Ro line
ux
ELAIA PARTNERS
Venture Capital firm Elaia
Partners specializes in
innovative tech startups that
‘have the potential to make a
huge difference to the world’.
A typical first investment is
between €500,000 ($600,000)
and €4 million. Partner Pauline
Roux helps the businesses
Elaia invests in to get started
on AWS and offers new clients
AWS credits worth €100,000
($120,000).
Alex
Koch
FREIGEIST CAPITAL
Venture capital firm Freigeist
Capital supports game-
changing tech and consumer
companies. Co-founder and
serial entrepreneur Alex Koch
has been an AWS customer
since 2009. He will only invest
in startups that use AWS
and recommends AWS Deep
Learning AMIs, Relational
Database Service, ElastiCache
and Amazon S3, in particular.
Timo
Rein
PIPEDRIVE
Pipedrive makes it easier for
sales professionals to manage
the sales process. Timo Rein
co-founded the startup in 2010
and it’s now used by companies
across the globe. Using AWS
has led to shorter development
cycles. Pipedrive offers a digital
platform, as well as iOS and
Android apps and links with
more than 100 other software
products.
STARTUP STORIES
Notes from Founders: Follow the Pioneers
x elE
eli Ma
F de
Van
COLLIBRA
Felix Van de Maele co-founded
Collibra in 2008 when he was
just 23-years-old. Six years later,
the data governance platform
raised $131 million in funding.
It now operates across North
and South America, Europe, Asia
and the Middle East. Collibra
uses Amazon RDS to manage
and scale its databases and
Amazon CloudWatch to monitor
resources and applications.
 NEXT STEPS

STARTUP STORIES
STARTUPS
AWS TA R T U P S B LOG
S AWS S o r s tories
Star tu p s b lo g f
d to th e A W S
Hea nce

Notes from Founders: Next Steps

t a k e s m o re ec h n ic a l g u ida
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Launchi n g a s e lia ble an d o ns . W h e r ever
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F O R S T A R T U PS
S M A R K E T P L AC E
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o u s e th e A W S Mar Sign up to
wh o - m arket, g e t your
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Sign-up to red s c a le your
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gain brand visib t a in ably.
ly a n d s u s Building a new startup?
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