#RVoSu – Silverfin, Joris Van Der Gucht
The Real Voices of Scale-up Series.
Intro’
In 2013 Joris decided to solve the frustrations he had with financial software and launched Silverfin, a B2B SaaS company. What began as an easy and simple reporting tool has now evolved into an open platform tool for financial professionals. Silverfin has since been coined as the “Salesforce for financial data” by TechCrunch and is used by companies such as Deloitte.
Listen to the full podcast here.
What motivated you to start Silverfin?
Before starting the company I was an accountant. I was very frustrated with how we did our job. We never questioned our way of working, manually in excel spreadsheets. I had a naive idea that it was possible to change that way of working. Then I had the luck of meeting Tim, my Co-Founder and we started building the company.
At the start we didn’t have any plans to go international. The focus was on finding clients and securing sales. We were fully bootstrapped which meant that revenue was very important for us.
Initially we got a lot of nos. Maybe we were too naive. But we kept going and all of a sudden it happened, people wanted to use Silverfin. Clients came in and we hired our first people. We secured a big consulting firm in Belgium and I thought, this can really become something.
You initially bootstrapped the company. When and why did you decide to fundraise?
We were close to €1 million recurring revenue when we decided to do a seed round. Why? The experience and the knowledge of the investors was very important. It was about learning.
We continued to grow and at the end of 2017 we met Index Ventures. They were pretty excited about our story. We wanted an investor with a global network, who could help us find talent on an international scale so that we could take the next step and build a global company. They ending up leading our Series-A round last year.
We read your interview with ING and liked your comment that, “It’s easy to start a company but much harder to scale one”. What growing pains have you faced?
Last year we had ~20 people in the team, this year we’re a team of 60. As we’re scaling there’s a lot of people coming into the company and we’ve had to start building a culture and some processes. Some people won’t like it and might want to move on. Scaling really is a people thing. We have to make sure everybody is aligned. That’s the biggest struggle as we speak.
One of the key issues identified by the UK government’s sector survey was building partnerships with corporate clients. You already work with some prominent names, such as Deloitte. What advice would you give to those founders?
Persistence. Keep your focus and listen to your clients. Deloitte is a very good example; we engaged with Deloitte 3 years ago and at the time Silverfin was not the right fit. We learned, we engaged, we listened, we tweaked our product and we went back. Of course you always need a little bit of luck and some momentum but persistence is key.
You launched in Ghent and have several European offices. You chose to come to London because it’s the biggest financial hub in Europe. Were you deterred by the current political landscape at all?
Not at all. In London we’re really building our commercial heart. Why? Access to talent. It’s easier to find very good talent relevant to B2B SaaS here. We can discuss Brexit but we’re building a high growth technology company so London is not our end territory. We want to build our commercial heart here and grow a global company.
Have you had to adapt your business model to new markets?
Yes and no. We live in a time where everyone knows that things are going to change everywhere. Our technology is there to help them. People are more open to buying new technology but every market is different. The power of Silverfin is that it can adapt easily to local needs. The UK market is slightly risk averse to buying new technology, however it is totally different in the Nordic market. So in the UK we take more of a ‘land and expand approach’ whereas in other markets you can choose Silverfin and go all-in from day one. You have to find your sweet spot in the market and that takes some time.
What’s one piece of advice you wish someone had shared with you before you started out?
Go to market as soon as possible. In the beginning you are in doubt, should we launch now? Should we wait? Should we have already done this? You have to talk to a lot of potential clients, learn from those conversations and make tweaks. Then go to market early. Go fast and break things. That needs to be ingrained in your culture, in the DNA of your company.
Persistence is also really important. Persistence means if you get no from a client it doesn’t mean it will be no next year. So really following up, building in a sequence of activities. We have some big names in our client portfolio, but success is only based on persistence.
What is the end goal for the business?
We want to build a global company. It’s the only goal we have.
–
To find out more about Silverfin and their international expansion click here.
To listen to the full interview check out the Techspace podcast.
