Take them from A to B: Salarium Wins SSW 2014
Meet our Seedstars World Winner! Philippine Salarium offers a leading HR tool that impressed the jury and won an equity investment of up to USD 500K from Seedstars. The completely self-seeded and bootstrapped startup is enjoying a monthly growth rate of 15% and has customers like DHL. Judah Hirsch, CEO of Salarium joined us from the Philippines in Geneva. We sit down with him to discuss the win.
Seedstars World: Hey Judah! Are you excited to have won?
Judah: Very much so! It’s been a crazy week and this win was the ultimate way to end it. I may be a bit biased because of the win, but it was a great week and learning experience.
At SSW, we privately joke that we are the United Nations of startups. How did the other global entrepreneurs impact you?
Judah: It was a really diverse group of startups and together we had experience doing business almost in every country of the world. There was definitely a lot to learn from each other as well a lot of potential for collaboration. For example, one of the Seedstars World 2013 CEOs, Simeon Ononobi of SimplePay, joined us for the Final Event and is helping us with Salarium’s payment suite. We’re also reaching out to other startups in the Seedstars World network to learn how they tackle payment and SaaS issues.
Salarium is a leading human resource tool for emerging markets with customers like DHL and Red Crab (Restaurant chain in the Philippines). What are your next milestones and what do you plan to do with the Seedstars investment?
Seedstars World’s investment will go primarily into hiring more people, especially for sales. We have a great product and just need to get the message out there with sales and marketing.
What did you think of the Final Event?
Again, as a winner, I might be biased. (Laughs.) It’s an unbelievable experience as for connections and collaborations, for learning experiences, and off course for investment opportunities. Seedstars World’s work is incredible. It does 3 years of VC work in 9 months, thanks to its selective process. The startups here were all very strong and that speaks volumes for the SSW dealflow.
How is the startup scene different in the Philippines than what you’ve experienced in Europe?
The problems each startup solves is very different, especially between Emerging Markets and more developed nations. After all, a problem like that solved by OkHi (uses geolocalization to create addresses for the 4 billion people without proper street names or house numbering) is not one you’ll encounter in Switzerland. Still, we had a chance to discuss with Swiss entrepreneurs and getting a new perspective on your product is always helpful.
Do you have any advice for future SSW entrepreneurs?
Your pitch is not your business. Your presentation can be really good but your business terrible, and vice versa. That being said, you really need to stick with a simple and clear message. You don’t need to discuss A to Z, but you need to take the listener on a clear journey from A to B.
