“The thing I hate the most is potential left unused” — Peter Sazonov, CEO & Co-founder of Treamer

There’s a multitude of ways in which an entrepreneur can bring values to society as a whole or change the life of other individuals for the better. These rewards might come when a problem is successfully solved and every single potential is seriously taken into consideration. Entrepreneurship is a journey, and it seems like everyone goes through it differently. Let’s meet Peter Sazonov, CEO & Co-founder of Treamer — a groundbreaking digital platform for hiring temporary labor quickly, reliably and in a fair manner. In this interview, Peter will share with us his entrepreneurship experience as well as valuable advice for all ‘entrepreneurs in the making’, who are enthusiastically perfecting the art and will stumble into success in one day.

Tell us a bit about yourself — your professional and personal background.

My name is Peter. I’m CEO and Co-founder of Treamer. Graduated from Aalto University, I have a background in tech, business and product development. I have been in startups for 12 years, Treamer is the second case I am with. Previously, I was building a hardware startup (wireless charging solutions), with Maija Itkonen and we made an exit in 2013. On a side note, sports are always close to heart, especially combat sports (I am a former Finnish champion in Thai boxing and won a bronze in European Championships in 2014. Today, I’m also coaching MMA fighters and trying to be the best father for a soon 5 years-old very strong-willed girl.

Could you introduce ‘Treamer’ to our readers?

Treamer is a Maria 01-based startup, providing an on-demand staffing platform that connects businesses looking for blue-collar workers with the members of the Treamer app.

Had the idea of founding Treamer been always in your mind? Or was it something born out of your situation?

In the beginning, Treamer was a peer-to-peer marketplace for small chores and tasks. The idea was to create a platform to connect individuals looking for help at home with the local community. However, we quickly noticed that local businesses wanted to use our service. Their challenge was to find people to do small jobs on very short notice and no staffing service was able to do it for them. Therefore, our app and its members became a new open platform staffing service.

The staffing needs are globally moving more and more to last-minute service and this has become our niche — because of our platform’s design, the type of jobs in it and a large number of users, we can deliver the staff to our clients much faster than any other competitor. Our platform gives everyone a fair chance to succeed, regardless of their background.

The story of Treamer is a truly typical startup growth story. You first have an idea, you create the MVP. Then, you try launching it and start collecting data. At some point, you will realize that things are surprisingly different from what you initially expected. At this point, you might have two options: either changing the product to fit the market better or bringing it to another market. Once you pivot, you might end up finding something special. For Treamer, we understood that we were actually disrupting the staffing market, which was good news. The €457bn staffing market is offline, hyperlocal, plus fragmented. In fact, the traditional services are unable to dynamically serve the market and engage with people who are looking for new, faster and more transparent ways to earn, whilst entering the employment market. As clearly as it manifests, this is the problem that we are solving.

Reflecting on my own experience, I grew up in the Eastern part of Helsinki in the 90s, during the worst depression Finland faced since the second world war. Back then, things were not so ideal. People were unemployed, families separated, finding jobs was not easy and there was no trust in the labor market. Would any of those stories have ended differently if there had been a similar service to Treamer? I want to believe that. Personally, I want to give a chance to prove that anyone can be a valuable employee, regardless of background or situation. The thing I hate the most is potential left unused.

In 2018, Treamer’s public equity offering campaign, via Invesdor, received a good start and successfully exceeded the €300,000 target. Running a cohesive and eye-catching crowdfunding campaign takes planning, how did you make your campaign stand out?

Our team acknowledged the importance of the campaign and were extremely dedicated to making it successful, so everybody participated. Our previous investors and other people close to our case also intensely contributed. We also discussed with other successful startups to get insights and guidelines.

Putting more effort into the campaign in terms of material quality, planning, multi-channel use, visualization and letting the other people talk about us, was the key. During the campaign, we had a strong heartbeat on the communication and kept the audience updated on how things were progressing. Lastly, a strong lead investor and the natural network effect of our service proved to be significantly crucial as well. You need to plan your actions to every detail and consider it to be an intensive marketing campaign.

I also have to give credit to Vera Lindström from Invesdor, she helped me a lot during the process. Thanks to Invesdor, we were able to invest in growth in Finland, leading to proving the case even further. We just raised a bigger round that would fuel our growth internationally, €1.5M led by Alma Media. We were also approved for the Business Finland Young Innovative Companies program, through which we can get up to €1.25M non-dilutive additional funding.

What has been the journey of being your own boss like?

Absolutely demanding, nonetheless, it has its own perks. I think the quote from Ben Horowitz’s book — ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’ would nail it. In that book, Marc Andreesen and Ben were discussing:

“Marc: “Do you know the best thing about startups?”
Ben: “What?”
Marc: “You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.”

What has been the most positive experience of your entrepreneur journey?

The feeling that comes after avoiding the WFIO situation, pronounced whiff-eee-o, is an acronym that stands for “We’re Fucked; It’s Over.”

What is your advice for people who aspire to start their own business?

One thing that I love about the startup ecosystem is openness. You can get a meeting with anyone and get their opinion on what you are building. If you are willing to do it, you will find the right people to support you and your case. There is always someone who has already done the things you want to do. Meet, listen and learn from their experience.

Another way is definitely reading. There are several extremely good books. My all-time favorites are ‘From Zero to One’ by ‘Peter Thiel’ and ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’ by Ben Horowitz. Especially ‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’ is recommended for those who want to become an entrepreneur. It is a very personal and honest view of how hard it is to create and lead a growth business.

Thank you very much for sharing your story with us, Peter!

Peter has emphasized the openness of the startup ecosystem and we couldn’t agree more. ‘Being your own boss’ is a challenging yet meaningful journey, thus our entrepreneurship program is coming to your help. The Shortcut’s B.Y.O.B. (Be Your Own Boss) — our 3-week entrepreneurial program will gear up your skills to create a viable company. Who knows, maybe one of the next great business ideas could be yours! Apply now!