Startup of the Week: Serial entrepreneur ditches executive position to focus on new customer service solution in a blood-red market

This post is also available in: Danish

An overdraft of DKK 25,000 was all Anders Eiler and his co-founder had to work with when they founded Meebox in 2010. Over the next six years, the company became one of the fastest growing and most popular web hosting providers in the country before being sold to team.blue.

Since then, he has worked as an intrapreneur under the new owner, who with venture capitalFuel for startups' rocket ride. Venture capital is pro investors who create pool funds to seek innovation, and to mentor. It is high risk, high reward journeys.... More backing grew from 45 employees in Denmark to more than 2,000 colleagues across Europe. The rapid growth took him past positions such as CTO for Cloud.dk, Head of Development and CSO for E-Commerce in Denmark. But ultimately, it was also the growth that made him leave the company.

“All good things come to an end and we grew apart. I learned that corporate life and I don’t fit together. When you grow, there’s a lot of development that needs to happen. But I just have to realize that I work better in a small setup than in such a big setup. That’s why I needed something different,” Ander Eiler says.

He took a break to recharge his batteries. In fact, he spent the first three months doing as little as possible, including traveling to Japan. But after 15 years as an entrepreneur and intrapreneur, the urge to create quickly began to stir again. The result is the startup Herodesk.io, which challenges the big software vendors in customer service.

Not a deep plate

It’s no news that customer service today is delivered across phone calls, emails, Facebook, chat bots and a multitude of other channels. It’s also nothing new that there are software solutions that help tie customer contact together across multiple channels. But while competition for customer service software is already fierce, Anders Eiler sees a gap in the market.

“I’m not the type of person who invents the deep dish. But I can look at a market, analyze how the market is developing and see if there is a potential. And I believe that in the last handful of years, this market has opened up from the bottom up for someone who wants to make something simple and cheap that does the job,” he says.

The solutions from the big, established players have become more sophisticated, but the needs of small and medium-sized businesses in particular are not nearly as complex. That’s why Herodesk.io was developed as a simpler and cheaper solution that better suits them and their needs.

“You get a system where you can consolidate your inquiries across channels. Email, Facebook, Instagram, etc. On the other hand, the system talks to the webshop and ERP system, so all inquiries and all relevant information is gathered in one place. So when the customer posts on Facebook, the system already knows the customer and knows where the order is, making it easy for customer service to give a good answer,” explains Anders Eiler.

The system isn’t revolutionary, but the founder believes there’s a gap in the market – and he has a personal relationship with customer service.

“At the core is facilitating great customer service. It has always been close to my heart, so when I saw an opportunity in this space where I could come back and work with product and development, it seemed like a no-brainer for me to jump in,” says Anders Eiler.

Deliberate bootstrapping

In September, Herodesk unveiled its solution to the public, and in the weeks that followed, Anders Eiler got the first indications that there was indeed a need in the market. 100 free users and the first five paying customers found their way to the platform. In the following months, the solution has grown to 200 users and 15 paying customers.

“It’s a bit difficult to measure whether it’s a success yet, but I’m just really grateful that people are willing to give it a chance and that some people think it’s so good that they’re willing to pay for it,” says Anders Eiler.
So far, the development is bootstrapped with money from the founder himself. And he hopes it stays that way.

“I’ve just come from a project that’s really heavily funded, and I’d like to go the opposite way and see how far you can push it,” says Anders Eiler.

Customer and revenue goals are therefore not as important yet. For Herodesk.io, it’s first and foremost about building a great product. If he can avoid getting an investor on board and instead have a healthy business with a handful of colleagues in a couple of years, he’s happy.

“Whether you choose boostrapping or venture funded, it’s not right or wrong. They’re just different ways of doing it. And as an owner-manager, you have to be very clear about what you’re saying yes to on one journey over the other,” says Anders Eiler, but still leaves the door open for an investment for growth:

“Of course, this doesn’t mean that I will flatly reject or turn down any offer that comes my way.”