Meet a Founder: Nikolaj Matis
Today we highlight Nikolaj Matis, a Geek, a Tech Evangelist🦾,a Motivator🚀, the CEO of SalesLeadify & Head of Sales — DACH at Mainstage Incubator.
Nikokaj, why don´t you tell us your story?
What captivated me into the IT sales is my interest in advanced technologies and the urge to connect and communicate with other people.
Over my 10 years of experience in IT-Service, Software and Hardware sales, I was able to expand my knowledge, establish various contacts and get to know company structures as well as their processes. I would like to share this knowledge because “sharing is caring”.
My vision is to help tech innovations from Germany to succeed and to support Startups. With the establishment of SalesLeadify, I am realizing this dream.
Why and When did you decide to start?
A Startup company always gander for expeditious growth. This is achievable with a smart growth strategy and a clear roadmap. SalesLeadify is a sales channel which can be a helping hand for startups to become large and valued technology companies across Europe.
Setting out a scalable company is always an intimidating and daring task. One of the biggest challenges for startups is to align themselves with sales and to establish contacts.
Unfortunately, an own sales department is expensive and not always promising. SalesLeadify was founded November 2019 to give the growing young companies a voice and support to drive their innovations and ideas across Europe. We manage this by offering you an alternative to high fixed costs: variable and success-based sales services.
It’s an hard task, but how would you summarize your journey as a founder?
Starting your own business takes a lot of courage, hard work and determination, but it’s also a lot of enjoyment… Especially when you can bring good added value to your customers and partners.
On my journey as a founder, I got to know many new technologies/startups and was able to realize myself and my vision of helping other startups grow.
You recently started a Joint-Venture with MainStage Incubator, can you tell us more?
Mainstage Incubator and SalesLeadify have already started an Alliance Partnership 1 year ago. Since the cooperation has always been very good and Swen Wegner, CEO of Mainstage Incubator and I already know each other from previous job positions, we decided to unite our companies into a joint venture. SalesLeadify is now responsible for sales in the DACH region for the startups in the Mainstage Incubator portfolio. The startups from the SalesLeadify portfolio will thus also have the opportunity to benefit from the additional resources of Mainstage Incubator. We have thus created a win-win situation for technology startups and can support them now even stronger in sales, fundraising and internationalization.
What are the next big milestones, projects or steps for you and your team?
First of all, all SalesLeadify partners will remain and will have the opportunity to join the Mainstage Incubator programme. Secondly, the sales team in the DACH region at Mainstage Incubator will be further expanded and the sales of international tech startups in the DACH region will be driven. On the other hand, we are already planning many new events for startups and end customers together.
How did Covid impact you and your clients?
Like many other companies, the Corona crisis hit us hard. Especially if you founded a company just before the crisis started, you had to struggle a lot. Even now it is not easy, but you must never lose sight of the goals you have set. Life as an entrepreneur will never be easy and is never a 40-hour-a-week job. But that’s what happens to every company once in a while and everyone who survives this crisis emerges stronger than before, like a phoenix from the ashes. You must never let it get you down and you must always stay focused and inventive.
As a motivator, how are you looking ahead of this crisis? Please motivate our readers =)
First of all, stay focused and don’t lose sight of your goal. Every company has to go through a crisis once, but there is also a time after. See this crisis as motivation and work even harder on yourself and applaud yourself when you emerge stronger. I am always saying, “What doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger!” and this is exactly the thought you have to keep in mind.
