Startup Spotlight Q&A: B-Yond

Collectively, we’ve moved from the telegraph, to the telephone, to the handheld cell phone, in less than 200 years. Since its inception, telecommunications has been the backbone of business around the world. As business and technology advances, telecommunications and communication service providers need to advance with it. This is not without the support of a multitude of startups offering new solutions.

B-Yond is one of these startups, bringing modern-day solutions to communication service providers through artificial intelligence. We took some time to speak with B-Yond’s COO, Rikard Kjellberg, to ask him more about himself, his vision, and B-Yond.

Founder Bio

As the COO of B-Yond, I work with an awesome team of leaders and domain experts to bring AI-powered business transformation to our telco customers. I have spent the bulk of my career in Silicon Valley. Although I love what California has to offer in terms of sports and nature, I ended up here for the same reasons many others do: My startup was acquired and I was offered the opportunity to experience this side of the Atlantic. I am passionate about technology and people. I believe that great products are possible when you work with great teams. I value group dynamics as much as the individual while I also believe in self-reliance. When you can manage your own work well, you can also help others.

In a sentence, what does your company do?

We deliver AI-powered network intelligence and automation solutions to the largest Telcos in the World.

Describe how and when your company came to be.

We started working on the Infinite Network in 2017. The Infinite Network is the idea that telcos will need to implement web-scale operational models to compete in the software-defined future.

What makes your company different in this market?

We combine domain expertise, automation, machine learning, and cloud-native software into a solution that eliminates the long pole in go to market for communication service providers — service and application launches.

What milestone are you most proud of so far?

Our second product deals with a tier-one operator. Why the second? Because it proved that our product is more than a one-trick pony.

How do you build and develop talent?

By bringing together a team with a wide range of expertise and experience. By a leadership program anchored in our core values with an emphasis on developing emotional maturity within the team.

What are the biggest challenges for the team?

We are widely distributed. We have worked hard to keep us together via our core values. This starts with great leadership. When that leadership needs improvement, we have made hard decisions that are paying dividends today.

What’s been the biggest success for the team?

Having the top three telcos in North America as our customers with all three giving us repeat business. We celebrate this every day of the week. We also do virtual social events, like after work and anything fun you can do during a pandemic without getting into trouble.

What advice would you give to other founders?

Someone once told me that leadership is measured by the willingness of others to follow my lead. This point has guided me in very helpful ways. Add value to others, focus on the issues and park your emotions, help others and stop offering only opinions.

Who is your cloud provider?

We work with Oracle (OCI), AWS, Google, and Azure. We have to be cloud-agnostic (multi-cloud) since our customers dictate deployment model.