Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, TwentyThree™

Thank you. Give him a hand. Thank you. Thank you for having me. What is it called? I wanted to talk a little about growth and how to hack growth, which is today's topic. But first and foremost, I would like to quickly start by giving some context on TwentyThree, so you know who we are and what we do. We have been partners in Internet Week Denmark for the last couple of years and are proud to be part of it this year and try to bring the event and all the good content out to the world. TwentyThree is a full-cycle company that started with me writing a blog post 15 years ago, and today we have a company. So it's a long journey from a paradigm shift we spotted that time. And it was when we all got camera phones in our pockets and had the opportunity to press a button and share it with the world. Will it change the world? You have to sit and calmly say it has. Today, more than half of what is shared on the Internet is visually contained, pictures or video. And I don't even think it was then. There is a somewhat younger version of Thomas wrote this, I thought it would be as wild as it is today. What is it called? We have offices in Copenhagen and San Francisco. We have 30 people. And we are right in that growth phase. We are actually more people than we were when we sold it. So it's also a journey in itself. We make a product called TwentyThree. It's a video marketing platform, the core to running an organization's video in their marketing stack. What is it called? It has developed the product for a long time. Globally, reasonably market-leading, together with two or three other competitors at the moment. What is it called? It has 300 customers. In the whole world. Recently, we have been publicly made by the Jewish Bank, which you probably know. Changed over from their old solution. And so the Jewish Bank is running today also at TwentyThree. And where we are, and it's also part of growth. It's like this, to keep on standing on it until the growth comes. We are a fairly large company, according to normal Danish conditions and so on. We don't cover 2.75 million bills and so on. But we have actually so far in the video marketing platform category not really reached what is called product market fit. And the interesting thing for us, and why we have a very sad moment, is that the category is actually just about to reach it at the moment. And we think that's enormously exciting when something you have fought for for a long time actually starts to come home. What happens at the moment is that the category suddenly goes from being something that was very niche, so you could still build a solid platform. To be something where we see it move very much right away. And it's of course also interesting that in all other of these categories on the marketing stack, there are several hundred competitors. But in this space we are only 3-4 companies globally. So it's some very big things. What happens is that video is now on all platforms today. Video is not only YouTube, video is Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Your email, newsletters, landing pages, everything is video. And that's the first thing. That means that the challenge has changed from this bizarre idea that video was YouTube. And today all marketers have a completely different understanding of what video is. The other thing is that we have started to integrate video into the marketing stack. So we actually know who plays the video, instead of just knowing how many plays it has. Video is for most brands about half of their time-consuming engagement on their platform. For many brands more. That means that it's a time-consuming engagement, not reach or range. But the time-consuming brand engagement is video over half or up to 80% of the numbers we see. And the crazy thing today is that video is not tracked. Everything else you do when you open a newsletter, when you go in and click on a page, impact and lead scoring and all this marketing automation, which is also part of growth hacking. What's it called? But video is not tracked today. And it's completely crazy that it's not. And that's why we're starting to see some dynamics where we have customer meetings where people just say, I'll see how to get it done tomorrow. We don't know how to use the data. But you understand it's completely crazy that we don't have this data. And the last thing is that Category 1 is about achieving a product market fit in that you can really get all the flows through marketing. That we can put live thumbnails into the newsletter. We can send you to a landing page on your own website super easy. Instead of sending people to YouTube. We call it the infinite loop. That you send an email newsletter to 100 people. And if you put a video in it, that's what people click on most of the time. And then you send them over to YouTube and then you can try to start paying Google to get them back on your own website. What's it called? And then you could run in an infinite loop forever. Google made money all the time, but it doesn't make any sense anymore. So the interesting thing is that a rare category you've worked on for a long time can suddenly reach that inflection point. Where the category actually starts to go mainstream. And that's what I'm talking about. You have this marketing stack that you have today. The different tools you put together to run your marketing platform. To run your growth. We have many customers who have 45 different tools in their marketing stack. So this is a greatly reduced version of it. And what we see now is video from maybe 25, 30, 50 in a marketing stack. For a few customers, an important thing. But for most of them, not particularly important. To the point that, according to our opinion, we think it might be number 4 or 5 most important. So that's the first recognition when you think about growth. There's something happening here. We see the data. We see the empathy. We see the reaction in the dialogue with the customers. That now this is starting to be in a completely different way than it has been before. What is it called? It's a completely different type of customer that is interested. And they are very enthusiastic. Suddenly when you meet them and are more enthusiastic than we and our people are. And see that it will change the world and so on. Then you know, okay, something is going to happen here. There is growth. And that's the first indicator that is important. So what is it called? It's our own growth story where we are right now. So right now we do all the hard work. Namely trying to move and make growth. What is it called? Unlike a company that has developed itself a little quietly. That is to say, we have moved a lot in the team. To set a team that can act at the highest global level. Where we are making partnerships with the greatest players in the world and so on. And not sitting in Copenhagen or Denmark and negotiating a little here and there. But sitting in partnerships with the greatest actors in the world at a completely different level of playing than it was before. But it is really fast. Just before we could talk and ask a few questions and make some ballads with the old rascal Hannu. What is it called? I would really just quickly talk a little about that growth. Because it is so interesting that concept of growth. How many here in the room like growth? Oh, okay. Many like growth. As a first question I would say I don't really like growth. Personally, I think growth is hard. You can't like that the stomach is growing. That's not good. What is it called? We are living in a time right now where consumption is still lower than it was before. We are living in a culture where consumption and growth culture is not necessarily what we actually go up in. We can go up in near things instead of the flashy things about cars and talking kitchens and all that. So I don't know. This with growth is an interesting concept to start with. And also something that sometimes you might have a little difficulty with. Also as a product man and idealist and such. Why should we make all this growth? Is it really important? That's why we live in a world where there are a lot of talented people who are freelancers and have fantastic lifestyles. It's something completely different to make growth, I can tell you. If I wanted to have another lifestyle or to lie on a beach, then you should do that. Or run around and have that free life. Run around and do lectures and have fun. All this nice things you could probably do and live a nice life. The challenge with growth is that it's the opposite of this in many ways. Then you can try to have fun while you do it and live a sensible life. But growth is this fantastic thing in that it allows the product you make to impact a lot of people. With PODI we have reached, in the course of 12 months, over half a million organizations in the world that are starting to use the product. What is it called? And some of them sell of course in terms of growth hacking, not onboarding 100% and so on. We have reached a point where we can start a flight and see the world in a different way. And it's fantastic when you have a PODI as the core idea of a product. When you can build your own apps for something you have worked on for many years. To suddenly be where you weren't just sitting in a basement or a apartment and had a good idea and had worked on it for many years. But suddenly it's actually going out and giving meaning to many people. I think that's cool. Then growth is cool. What is it called? It's also cool when you actually have a company that is sustainable, that actually makes money and you can start doing some funny things. And build a strong culture and do all the things you would do if you were a CEO. Instead of sitting in a place where you don't have the resources for it. In 23 we are moving to Marrakesh every January. Which started as a hack. It's a real marketing hack. Because we discovered that Norwegians had a lot of tickets for 800 kroner. So we didn't just have to work for a week in Marrakesh. Instead of when we started the year. In the beginning we weren't that many people that it didn't cost that much. Now it of course costs more. But. But it's still quite cheap. Off season and stuff. And then we sit there and the sun shines. It's fantastic. So. What is it called? That's one of the reasons why growth is fun. A challenge is of course that growth requires personal growth. Because it requires that you are with yourself on the whole journey. And you are pushing yourself in new situations all the time. That's what we used to call the BMW syndrome. And as soon as people had the opportunity to buy a BMW. Then their business stopped growing. Because then they had reached it. And they had been able to get the bank to convince me to give them a real loan. Even though they were in the business. And then everything was fine from there. The challenge is that when you grow. Then you are constantly doing things you haven't done before. You are constantly trying to push yourself a little. One of the Danes who have done the very best is for example. One of the other old ruffians. Mikkel Svane from Zendesk. Who today is the CEO of a stock-sourced company with 2,500 people. Try to imagine how many steps he has to take up that stairs. From being five people in a basement. Or a loft in Copenhagen. As it was an old townhouse. To the journey it is. To be a good CEO for 50 people. To be good at 250 people. To be good at 500 people. To be good at being stock-sourced. To be good at running a huge company. That is starting to buy other companies. And so on and so forth. It is completely different jobs. It is completely different personalities. And it requires. And it is an enormous personal growth to be on. So the starting point here is unfortunately growth. In reality it is personal growth. Because you have to keep changing. Then we have this growth hacking term. Which of course we will just be a little negative about. Which I also heard earlier. We would rather not say that. But that is actually what you came to hear about. What is it called. And what I can say is. For example in San Francisco there is nothing that is not called growth. Everyone is called something with growth. We actually had to train our team. What is it called. That you used to call that. That is now called something else. And it is a term that in reality. Many people think. It gets a little bad rep from time to time. But what I can like about it. Is this thing about growth. And this thing about hacking. What is it called. And that is in reality. The business that has always done. In a way it is a little institutionalization of some principles in a marketing department. If you look at the definition of it. Then it is in reality not at all stupid. That you iteratively experiment. It is an innovation. Instead of hiring a marketing man. Who just wants to spend some money on buying ads. Or something else. Hopeless. What is it called. That you do it through marketing channels. And product development. And think it holistically. It is also quite new. What is it called. And then the last thing. That you are always hunting this scalable growth. You want to have. And not just. The hard growth. So growth hacking in reality. I think in reality. Is a fantastic term. The more you think about it. And the fantastic thing is. That we are starting to build our organizations. And our businesses. After these principles. And that is the new thing. It is not just buzzword. It is that all organizations. All successful startups. Are orchestrated in this way. That the central team. Is the growth team. Across product and marketing. And when it becomes very large. Then you hire a CMO. And start to make some of the traditional marketing things. And of course. What is it called. To have the more traditional marketing organization. But growth hacking is really the core. In being an entrepreneur for me. And the core. That we actually now have started to have a practice. And some tools. In the way we organize ourselves. When that is said. Then all the tools. And marketing automation. And the numbers. And all the other things. Then the history and the purpose. Is always. The core in growth. That with Podio. We wanted to change. How people work. It was a story. That started a movement. That we with 23. Work on. To change. How we communicate. Visually. Instead of textually. What is it called. Is what we all burn for. What we build. An energy around. Every time you write. A landing page. Or optimize. A conversion flow. Then it is still about. The DNA. And the purpose. And the purpose. Of your business. That should be reflected. Into that. You can not just start. To do something. That is completely. Disconnected from the other. And that is what many. People often forget. So. We have here. In many years. Had this big fight. With people. Who want to make growth. That they thought. You should start. With doing scalable things. But scalability. Starts with things. That do not scale. We have an office. At Ford. In San Francisco. At the CalTrain station. In Soma. There are about. 600. Big Internet companies. And start-ups. Within. Good distance. There are 50,000 people. Walking past. Our shop. Every day. Which is a video studio. With Podio. At a pop-up store. What is it called. We have these bikes. A fleet of six. In the whole world. That run around. Here. So. Saffro S2 of them. What is it called. So. Growth starts. And growth starts. With all the things. That do not scale. The things. That start the movement. And then you can start. Connecting back. To the things. That really scale. Then. Is growth. Is there a tendency. That it is only about. Looking at your data. But data also starts. To try out something. Looking at the data. And then you start to believe. In your instincts. And then you start looking. At the data again. So. The whole. A lot of growth. Is about. Instinct. And purpose. And the data. Yes. Of course. That is clear. Because anything else. Would be stupid. Then. There is not even. Any description. On this. Now. I see. Across. A lot of companies. Also different types. What is it called. I think. It is. A fantastic thing. It is funny. But it is also. Hard. So. We are considering. It. Thank you. Thank you. Thomas. It is funny. You are right. Like. I have been in some roles. I had to change. Some things. When we were hired. We would like to change. But we would not change. So it starts. It starts. Yes. A cavern. I can see. Hoon are we screeningầu some skilfully . Yes. That is leave the book. All right. This holds. No. True. No. I. Right. So the thing about being up against for free, I know there are nuances to it, but the thing about being up against for free, how do you differentiate and how do you handle it compared to YouTube? We're not up against for free, so it's pretty easy. But we are. No, we're not. We were maybe once. I would rather say that the interesting thing is when you fight against something that is absurd. It's hard, I would say. The way you've looked at YouTube the last six or eight years, and you can also argument that the way you look at Facebook today, is in many ways absurd. It goes against all best practice on what marketing is. It's an illusion of the platform. You see something that is a media platform, which they also call a TV platform, a media platform, and then you think it's a technology platform where you can put your videos up. It's a fantastic, magical... It's a fantastic, magical... So I would rather say that's what's hard. And that's what we've fought against. Because you sit in meetings where you just have the most evil discussions you can ever have. All marketers know that you have to set up these tools, you have to have the data on your own platform, and all marketers know that. So that's why it's about being in close contact with the market and understanding what's going on. And then see when it changes. Today it has completely changed. If you're a serious marketer... Again, we're not talking about... ...the big picture. If you're a student in a basement who puts a video on YouTube, we're talking about people who have marketing stacks that cost $50,000 in service fees a month or more. What's it called? All heavy markets... Well, heavy... There are hundreds of thousands of these globally. What's it called? It's not even a big company. It's a digital brand that's very data-driven and very marketing automation and growth hacking focused. So I'd rather say that... Of course, you're against it. There are always alternatives that are free. I could also hack some open source and spend 100 hours on it, and then it was free. It's not free anyway. And on YouTube, you're still the product. So I'd say it's more about the hard part, being against something that just... And it takes time. It's also about growth. It takes you to wait. At some point, you can just sit and beat people in meetings. It's a matter of courage, isn't it? It's a matter of courage. It's a matter of courage when the category is courage. And at the same time, it's a challenge when the category is completely absurd. And that's what it's been like on video. But it's also cool when things change. Because then people are just like, hallelujah. And then they're like, that's completely insane. Why don't we have... We have tools for everything else we do. And we don't have anything on video. And then people say, that's completely insane. We'll have that tomorrow. Yes, we will. What's it called? So that's what changes. In general, it changes quickly from one day to the next. So that's also exciting. And then there's a question that gets a lot of traction. I'll read them up now. What is your growth engine? How do you grow? Tactics, channel, etc. So quite specifically, what do you do? What are you doing? What kind of people are you? And what are you working with? Yes. What's it called? We're still in a fairly early phase here at Growth. We're 30 people right now, including product development and everything else. What's it called? So we're still like most startups, still trying to find it. And I think it's the same with travel. We do everything that everyone else does. We have a lot of little above the line activities with cycles and stores and stuff. Do you have an employee? Stop, because something's starting to come out. Do you have an employee who has growth in the title? Yes, we have four, I think. Four? What are they doing? Try to share that. We have some who do events and hack events. We have people who hack analytics and influencers and build influencer marketing. We have people running our fund. We have people running marketing operations. We have people who. We are about to hire a head of growth right now. What is it called? So we have all these things. But in reality, I would say the answer for me is more than a journey. With Podio, for example, if you later have to explain what we did, we never found our goals. It was free products, so there was some inner variety and so on. We never found it at home. We spent a lot of money on marketing. Most of it was used reasonably optimally. We had a very strong DNA and purpose from all around the world to make workshops where there were 12 people to start with. So in the end, there were 100 people. And the first 12 were completely, wow, I was at the first Podio meetup in Berlin. So again, for me, the answer is always the combination of these things you try to do and build it up over time. 23, we are probably 12-24 months from, I would say, really here in Ramsen, where we can just double down and know that we can only do one or two things or make fewer. We are still going to, in this case, for example, back to the YouTube question, to change a market perception, which requires some other steps than just running your funnel and running your AdWords spend and optimizing it and so on. You can't do that where we are right now. You have to do some more different things at the same time to move the category. You still don't insist on bootstrapping and not having extra capital in, because it's basically just what you lack, a decent amount of money, and then the pedal to the metal and get the real growth hackers on and so on. That has nothing to do with growth hacking, but it might be about growth. We are still bootstrapping today, which is also something that is a bit unclear. I'll explain how we managed to get to where we are today without taking any money. Personally, I think it's an interesting idea to try to see if you can prove it. Now we are also going to be big enough in the future so that we can get other types of growth financing that are not equity-based. So I'm not that dramatic either. I invest in a lot of companies myself. And most of them travel to the United States with their venture capital and so on. So we'll see at the end of the year what we end up doing when the category actually moves so quickly. So again, it's about timing. Right now I'm not using any time on it because the category will move four or six months or more before. If the best B2B SaaS investor comes into the world and really wants to do something, then we'll have to look at it. But I wouldn't just take the money right now for the money's sake. It should be because there were some who really had some competition. Thank you for being able to get over it. Despite how smart it is, despite how many years of experience and how many endless thousands of iterations I have in the product, a huge, huge amount of money can actually move you over. Yes. Yes. We'll take the chance. No, let me say it again. It's all about being in contact with the market. Right now we are in a super crazy time where it's actually out of the question of growth. It's a huge question that all other categories in the marketing stack have 100-200 companies that act globally. Super contested categories. Social media tools, anyone. What's it called? And you can build yourself a big company in Denmark on that anyway. What's it called? And the wild thing for us is that there are actually only three or four competitors or two, three. We count three normally. What's it called? And that means, of course, that the category will hopefully get a lot of competitors. Because that means that the category will start to become more modest and more serious. Or the category will be established. We are a place where we coined and terminated the video marketing platform 12 months ago. Our two main competitors have now adopted it. You know, that's also when Jan starts copying someone, you know, then you start to be happy. And then afterwards. Yes, of course, you make some money out of it. If you come from specific cities in Canada, where one of our main competitors comes from, then you see something very strange on our website because we have to try to get them to copy something new. They also copy our product all the time. So that's fantastic. But it's again, it's a validation. It's a growth validation. That's when you say, okay, there's something here. But at the same time, it's also, now we know, now we have to act in a different way. Because now it's a commercial execution challenge. Now it's not that we have created a category. And it requires some other skill sets and some other personal profiles and more capital. And we haven't thought about losing it after spending so long on it. What is it now? What is it called? We started 23 as a video marketing platform. As a video marketing platform, right? Yes, we started that. 2009 is like this. But we have Steffen and I, who are the founders. And we have, what was it, we discovered last week that we had worked together for 14 years. What is it called? It was the longest partnership I've ever been in, or whatever the story is now. So it's also part of growth. Steffen and I have done it if it's been longer. What is it called? But it's like that. That's where we started to hold annual, what is it called, partnerships to celebrate that we are still on the top of our relationship. Right here on the drop-down list, Thomas, there's a really good question. Could you try to give a concrete example of how you think UX product goes into marketing and vice versa? Yes. Because as you said, that's what it's all about. It's product and marketing. Yes. So we're a B2B SaaS company. That means we don't have any in-app virality or anything like that. We have a little bit of user adoption in the company where we can optimize and do some growth hacking. It's primarily a company that has some in-app virality. For example, Podio was the largest growth generation in-app virality. So there it's more classic dynamics or Clue, which is a female health tool that there are large hacking opportunities to get the men on board. Because then you can double, in many cases, at least the users. What is it called? That's where you see these very strong product marketing combinations. In B2B SaaS, it's more of a simple approach. But it's not necessarily. Because there's a head of growth. How much influence does he have on the product? How much influence does he have, the person responsible for the product, on the marketing part? So completely concrete. How do you do it? Ultra concrete. Ultra concrete. Ultra concrete. Ultra concrete. So we still have a lot of what we call forums. So we have product marketing forums. What's it called? We have market forums. We have a lot of things where we check in and have some Slack channels and so on. But also physical meetings where we discuss these things. So we try. Right now, I'm still saying it's not easy. Also, I'm a lot of marketing and product CEO. My experience is not big scale commercial execution or anything. What's it called? So right now, I'm going to say it's easy. We're probably at a stage here. Right now, we're setting it up to run for the next 12 months or so. Where you're starting to encounter some other challenges in terms of prioritization. So we're not talking about organization. It's more of a question of framing and coining some topics that we then discuss. Ultra lightweight hackathons all the time, you could say, in some way. Yes. And then we're doing, of course, also ... Now we're all innovation theorists. We have to do hackathons. So of course, for some reason, it's something you can get a little mad at. But we do them, of course. We actually do a lot of exploratory things once a quarter, too. Where we try to see new things in our product. We don't make new products, but we play for a week. Where we give ourselves a week to play. In a day, it becomes more and more serious every day. So it's fun to play sometimes. And then we can just ... If you could answer briefly. Last question. If you had just started with an online software solution, what is your best concrete advice for growth? And try it out. It's not a good answer. So you can't say ... Smile. I would say, if you are yet another online SaaS software platform, I would say really know what your goal is and what your story is. If you look at all the companies that really end up being great, as it is called, then it's always what differentiates. That you have a group of people who are really, really passionate about the area they make, are really passionate. And they are really ambitious about the area. Contrary to the fact that I pivoted this week from this category to another category and three months later pivoted to the next category and so on. It may well be that the story was three years old, but in reality it was something that most of us had worked on for eight or ten years or something like that before. Or rather, the total time span was eight or ten years. In 23, or 23, we have established that it has been quite a few years that we have been doing this. And I really think that the real ... The real ... The unique differentiator is always that it is really a team that really, really burns for it. It sounds very basic, but nowadays I think it typically disappears a little in the focus on which investors you have on board and all kinds of other things that sound very fancy. What's it called? So, I mean, because it's what connects your landing pages, your tribe, it's what makes your first users go viral, or because there is word of mouth, if it's B2B, SaaS, that they are really, really enthusiastic. Because the product is running around and evangelists for it. Again, very basic, old-fashioned marketing approach, which has always been ... If you do something, it's valuable to people. And people also want to be part of the tribe. I mean, I usually say people always focus on when you don't have anything. I don't have any customers. What are you doing? Then you do it to a positive degree, some customers. You can be the first customer. Hooray. I have some kind of challenge. I don't have any partners. What am I doing? You can afford it. I have five places to be the first partners in the world on this product. Wow. Okay. I've just created scarcity. What's it called? And it's one of these tricks, to see that you don't have anything, and then turn around to a positive advantage, and what's it called? To put everything you don't have on the scene. Let's leave that point here.