How to go global from the early stages
By Alexander Theuma
The SaaS Revolution Show is a weekly podcast that brings insights and tactics from leading SaaS entrepreneurs and operators across the world. Hosted by Alex Theuma, the show is brought to you by SaaStock. You can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast.
Bjoern Zinssmeister, CEO and co-founder of Templarbit, started programming when he was ten. It was part of the perks of growing up in a small town with no cinema or shopping mall at sight to distract. Years later, when he had exchanged the small European town for San Francisco, he would figure out just how many successful entrepreneurs had shared a similar remote beginning.
Bjoern left Germany for San Francisco as soon as he graduated university. In 2010 there simply wasn’t enough interesting tech coming from Europe to keep him around. It was all in Silicon Valley.
Before he founded Templarbit, a developer-oriented security platform, Bjoern took seven years to learn the trades of building and running tech companies. His journey started at Match.com up and concluded in Design Inc where he was the CTO.
It was after Design Inc closed shop gracefully and even returned some of the money to investors, that Bjoern finally felt ready to start something from scratch. He sensed it had to be what he knew best — Security. The idea of Templarbit, a name inspired by the Knight Templars, was born. Quickly on, Bjoern and his co-founder Matthias Kadenbach managed to grasp the interest of Y Combinator and got in the Summer 17 badge. Since then Bjoern has raised $3 million in Seed funding and has already gone global.
Listen on to hear:
- How to pitch to Y Combinator with confidence
- Does going to Y Combinator help
- How to go global as an early stage company
- How to conquer the Asian market
- Why closing a company even with a million in the bank may be the right thing to do
P.S.
Bjoern is one of many speakers we will have at SaaStock18 alongside the likes of founders and operators such as Corey Thomas, CEO at Rapid7, Frederic Kerrest, COO at Okta and Brynne Kennedy, CEO at MOVE Guides. Sign up for our Insider Sale by April 1st to get a 2 for 1 ticket discount code.
