[Applause] welcome inside please welcome Maria few people honest Laos s and this piece hello everybody this is the session that you would all like to be in called the road to success so we are going to talk about the success and I have with me here three very successful entrepreneurs and whoever all three of them started new companies you have different size of company you have different experiences and we are going to talk about the different experiences and talk about the new barriers the success stories and how it will put together the story of each of the company so I have with me is most of all from Universal robots the one of the very few unicorns that has been created in Denmark during the last 20 years and you have even checked out now from your from your child we're going to hear more about that and Una's Nelson founder of family children care management tool I will say I should put shortly I'm sure you would put some more words to it and we have Molly Malaya flew Babu who is the co-founder of the company spindle log you are a serial entrepreneur in the finance sector the the FinTech business so we are going to hear more about that so welcome to all of you and I would like you to give the audience here impression of how you got the idea of the company that you have developed so good and to such a success as you have it now so let us start with us Ben um the idea of universal robots where did it come from so what actually came out of a number of university projects so it's not like one person got one idea so the group of people that were brewing on the idea were all employees at the University of Southern Denmark where we were trying to help the shipyard at that time making robots for ship welding we could see a need for a new kind of robot that was more flexible easy to move around he's to use four people and we were talking about this kind of robot so I was an assistant professor at the University at that time I have a PhD in robotics and then me and one other guy called Casper story and what I call Christian care so we decided to do something about this idea we wrote a business plan and in 2005 christian castle and me quit our jobs at university and went in full-time to make this new kind of robot so again the idea was simply to make robots more accessible to humans to make it more like a tool that help people do their work rather than a machine that that kind of competes with people's jobs and so it was a pretty simple idea we we went out to a few companies and interviewed them looked at how they were using robots and we could see there was a need for this kind of more flexible approach to robotics so how long time from you getting the idea to so-to-speak liftoff when you could see the company how it could be developed so there's several kinds of liftoff so from we talked about the first time - we founded the company it was more like two years where half a year was negotiating with the University of who owns what in this process then from we founded the company - we sold a robot was something like three years where we had spent all our money we were completely bankrupt and we it was not a very good role but we sold actually the robots we sold at that time they they either caught fire or broke down within a week so it was not but we we charged a lot of money for them because people were willing to pay so yeah yeah that was not so good and we ran out of money we were in big trouble and we got fixed one to sign we were crying why we signed that a contract because it was so awful they hired in a professional management to run the business you can say to be more in control of the monocyte and actually since then we we finally had the financial we needed to start selling robots and focusing on that it turns out that we needed to sell around 25 robots a month before it was self-sustaining so we had no clue when we started the company that it would be so hard we thought we would sell robots develop at a robot sell them and so on we actually needed around 25 people in the company and said around 25 robots a month before it was a self-funding you can say and from there was organic growth we had more than hundred percent growth every year for seven years in a row I think and then it went down to more like 50% growth every year so it was really an explosive growth and today it's more than 700 people and yeah we sold four years ago for two and a half billion corner at Universe robots I sold we sold the company I was still working there for some more time but I have four months ago I quit so guys patience and that was what you could learn from that and then full speed when it when it is really taking the right shape so honest about family and a few more words about the idea how did you get the idea so I think the idea was was a process more than just sudden enlightenment and and we just knew what we wanted to do I started the company six years ago with my good childhood friend Henrik and and his little daughter started in a nursery at a time and we saw that everything from the parents to the nursery or the daycare was small notes paper and no one was reading it bulletin boards no one was looking at it and we thought okay this is there's something that can be done here to help out and to help streamline the process is both for for the nursery staff to make it easier and more fun for them at their work and also for the parents of course to be kept up to date in a way that will smother than you know taking pictures printing them out and then photographing them with your with your iPhone afterwards so that's sort of how it started six years ago and then we sort of you know it's something completely different today so the communication aspect of families maybe 10% so now it's 90 percent is sort of administration we call an operating system almost for for daycare so doing everything from their finances to staff planning to tracking your child development to to also various different things to still the communication of course so and you have over time and you have gone international no yes we we start out in Denmark we still you know have most of the team sitting in Denmark with 35 people that sits in Denmark now our main market is the UK and we're doing well there and then we're doing a little bit in Germany and we're just starting up but with a person in the US as well so that's gonna be the new the new venture so you know even though it's the road to success I would say we still far from success but we across the first couple of bumps on the road but we have a long way to go still yeah so not doing much and Denmark unfortunately that's a long story we've almost kicked out of our own country but we talk much more about the later okay we will absolutely come back to that and hear more about that well yeah spindle oak the idea to that please give an impression of how did it come to you yeah so spin alike shows you how you spend your money when you go and buy stuff at the supermarket and basically the idea came because we could see like my my co-founders he worked at a big bank and Nadia she was at a lot of bank advisor meetings and we could see that people didn't understand like how the small spending habits every day led to bigger financial consequences like if you had a very bad habit in the supermarket maybe you couldn't afford your dream home or your vacation so we wanted to like show that to the users and that's why we develop spin the look basically we do it by fetching your receipts from the supermarket digitally we have some algorithms reading the text and receipts translating that into an overview of how much you spend on candy or potato chips or meats of vegetables okay and where are you on the road to exporting the idea are you going internationally with the idea yeah at some point definitely I think in Denmark you have to think globally but we're starting with Denmark to prove our market because we have a very high penetration of digital receipts here so we can actually get from all the supermarkets except from one so this is where we start and then we were already looking at other markets and how to expand there and I would say our first expansion not to other markets but to other fields is to use the same technology but for you know co2 emissions so instead of seeing how much money you spend on candy you see how much the can you bought how much co2 it emits and all the other stuff you buy obviously okay when you have a session where you talk about the route to success two questions you need to ask one is your best moment and I think you can guess the other one your worst moment moment so your best moment is we obviously had a lot of good moments so a week we won a lot of awards and had a lot of success in you know as robots I think maybe the best moment for me was when we could see this product would work I mean we had spent three years building it we brought it out to a greenhouse we managed to in your own so we managed to set it up and he while eating a pizza and it took around four hours and then was actually doing something useful that was that was really nice to see we also yeah I don't know a lot of good moments we selling the company was that a good thing was the company was a really good moment to so somebody decided to pay twelve times our revenue for a bit twelve times the revenue for the company and so that was a lot of money and we said yes to that and the nice moment that's your best moment so far I think I was I was thinking about the question when you asked it because it for me it's been a series of small things and I think also as an entrepreneur you always on to the next thing almost so you know it's a great moment we've had the first customer said yes when we got our first funding or when we got our first nursery in the UK but but when I think back of it there's no there's no single moment that's sort of you know because I think we still very much on the move and they're still on the road you know hopefully to success so I don't I don't know I don't think back there's any like particular big moments that there's just a lot of smaller successes along the road and I think that's and and it goes same for the failures you know we make mistakes every day but as long as we learn from them and and and get up and move forward then it's okay and as long as we do it for the right reasons also you know that we don't make mistakes on purpose so so for me it's it's just a series of small things and I used to say you know the some of it hopefully it's positive you know the good decisions the bad decisions the some of it needs to be positive for it all to work out but it's not a single decision that makes a break or a single moment that makes a break it when we get up and then we try again you know and yeah I would say I agree it's a lot like this up and downs but if I have to single out some moments I would say it's definitely yeah when we got our first users and got the first positive user feedback and when we landed the inner booster and which is a grand you can get to develop some you know innovative products and when we did our first sales sue Carlsberg which is pretty big you know those kind of things and then we just had one like today this week where we launched this new app called co2 food and but there's a lot of ups unfortunately also a lot of time could you give an advice here to startup companies maybe here in the audience what could be the best advice of course patience is one of them but the other very good advice for for people sitting here listening to you already with very good companies what should be the best advice I would say it's definitely a patience but also persistence I think we'll always hear about these overnight successes and sometimes my parents like oh but you work for this for a couple of years like shouldn't you do something else because this company that I just read about in the newspaper was sold for two billion and and they just did it like this and this other company did it in two years and then you start googling the companies and they have a long history before like I think the the journalists are talking about them so persistence is important especially through all the the Downs that you experience during the day we have been talking a lot about maybe lack of talent or the problem with getting the right talent and also about investments as a capital for for new companies have you experienced some of those problems that has been highlighted very much during the day talent and money I think for my for my part you know so far so good we have 35 people in here but I think 20 of them are not from Denmark so I think you know the international aspect is extremely important most of them are from Europe because that's easier you have a few from outside as well and there we suddenly run into you know some issues with what we have to pay them and we'll it's a base salary or Commission and stuff like that so it gets more tricky so far it's been good but we also now all we are considering now you know should we have developers outside of Denmark because it gets harder and harder to hire it gets more and more expensive we have people out of school that I paid enormous amount according to my parents you know so it's it's it's it's it's a good it's a good time to be you know especially a developer in in Denmark so that that's that's the hardest for us to hire and then next to it is of course you know international account managers you know we need to find people from Germany that's actually here and want to do sales or people from the UK that's your and want to do sales because we decided to do everything from here but yeah alternatively we have to start an office in London or Berlin and Sofia so it's it's we're always considering why are we here and then should we keep having everyone here so the easier to access to talent here and you know the bit of reputation Copenhagen has the easier it is to get people and then you know but it's been manageable so far but but now we also only 35 people we're not you know several hundred people so what about Universal robots could you recruit the talent you you need it for expanding the company the most of course a huge talent and I know Miguel was on stage just before phenoms robotics we had a good collaboration with them they now have made that job portal so and they even go on job fair so they're cooling goes to job fairs in southern Europe to present all the opportunities for the robot cluster and that attracts some people because then they're not just moving to a company to do a career they're moving to an equal in environment and the ecosystems to do a career and yeah interesting I mean we're in Odense I'm not from Odense but I can say it's impossible to get people from coke making to move to Odense but we can we can't get their people from Portugal to move towards it so that helps a lot with them with that recruiting and then we have people commuting also in them we we of course remain regarding salespeople we couldn't find the people who are willing to travel and all that so we decided to build offices around the world where we had sales so we have something like 27 27 offices I think all around the world now where for sales staff and some technical staff so for local support that was a decision in the beginning we were looking for export people based here that could language and technology it didn't I mean they weren't up there you can't find them and so with that's why we went with the other approach so you're telling this is a huge thing I think also the is hard to I mean I think the the limit of salary is not I mean it's possible to get people to Denmark to work but they are not they don't feel super welcomed these days and it's a little bit you know the bureaucracy is hard and all that so I think there the consequence is that there will be more and more development having happening outside and this is also what we did at some point we just started hiring people where we found them so we didn't care where they were we just made a you know you work from there and then we didn't it became like a global organization and that especially specialists we had to do that so we had some my gear specialists or product managers that we couldn't find in Odense or in Denmark so we just decided to hire them where they were and that also works but along the way the cluster help you there were a group of companies that you could come and work for yeah so we were very big part of creating the cluster I mean the cluster became more visible when we had the big exit so then suddenly oh there's something going on here and that kind of created a community so we've also been been talking a lot with the local government to help us build that and I think it has been very helpful so as I said it's not just a Korean one company you actually get into a whole cluster of companies to move around and and we can that way better attract very talented people what about the FinTech cluster does it help companies like yours yeah definitely and because the more focus we put on an EM field the more focused you get as a company and I think for example Copenhagen FinTech Thomas who was just up here before us they've done a great job of mapping all the startups and they also know that we exists so if something happens that's relevant to us and they like put the event or the people our way so it's definitely helped to have an ecosystem in their cluster around you I think for us also there's a lot fun coming the universities has helped a lot because we hire a lot of young people so you know and usually when we interview people that are here it's our the other if you study or they here for love you know that's the two reasons we see and we got a lot of people now next week for example we have to just start full-time Germans that's our full-time but they've been a student assistant with us for a couple years studied at CBS and decided to stay in Copenhagen beust I like the city so so I think also three universities if you have something really to offer afterwards we shouldn't underestimate the you know how many students we have to get here from other countries because a lot of them really want to see if they can stay here let's talk some more about the ecosystem and the framework in Denmark for for tech businesses digital hub Denmark wants to create a lot of new unicorns in Denmark during the the coming years do you think the environment and the political framework that we have in Denmark are supportive of this and other things we could advise the politicians to do to to make the dream come true of tickets are often my - to have more unicorns yes I think it's generally moving in the right direction I mean it I think it was harder earlier than now I think there is more it's more cool to be an entrepreneur there's more money that are willing to take risks not as much as in the u.s. still for sure but it's kind of moving in the in the right direction I think of course there's a lot of things we can do and I don't know which way to think maybe we should ask you here I was in that entrepreneurial board last year the Basque government had a board trying to with the Tommy Ellis hitting that trying to before he was a minister trying to find out what what we can do in Denmark and I see I thought we got we could agree a lot of things that Denmark shouldn't do so not don't get involved in this and that I mean there's so many of these public initiatives that are worth nothing that we shouldn't get in all these consultants that go around and help startups they're just - yes they don't help you start upcoming I think you learn ten times more for many years an insult okay and then I also I'm not a big fan of the tech transfer functions that universities I think they they do more bad than good and there's no way there these people are making back their money they they try to sell patents to companies and all that and so there are some things that it in my control itself I think and then have a positive effect I think the the mindset has changed it is so much cooler now to try to do something it's less gentle oh and more full speed ahead I think and Dave and yeah I think it's moving in the right direction but you came from the University as a professor and made your own business so could that be some incentives and the universities to promote people who would like to to start up their own business coming from from universities there could be but why I mean why not just say they can if they want and we don't interfere so it's not necessary in sense I think it's better they just you know just do what they do I mean get out of the way get out of the way yeah so to create the next unicorns in Denmark what Maria what what do you think should be done that's a good question well I think it's yeah it's about supporting the entrepreneurs obviously I think yeah them there's more money but just need even more like if you look at the valuation here you can multiply them by ten or even more if you go to the US so it's just like valuations are not high enough we don't have enough capital compared to outside of Denmark and I also you know in the fin psych field we have banking licenses and a lot of the FSA and a lot of these regulatory systems so I see a big big synergies and big corporates collaborating with the startups or being more risk willing to for example implement your system or try out a new product or something like that or collaboration and I think we have a great like we have a great environment in the startup ecosystem where people are always helpful and willing to like get you on to the next level or share something if you need that we're I think whenever like I'm on a phone with them with a larger corporation or or even just organizations where it is not too they're a little bit more closed off they it's it's not the same thinking in networks and how can we help each other for free it's more thinking about how can we monitor monetize this as fast as possible or how do I minimize the risk and that makes sense because when you're hired in a big organization if you do something that sticks out and you fail you will probably get fired if you don't do anything and you just stick to the path a little bit you're you're safe more or less whereas you know in instead of startup world you have to stick out and you have to try out different things and most of them will fail and so it's just two different mentalities but you don't ask the politicians for help that's the conclusion here yeah I think I think they have - and some good things like very concrete thing has been some tax credit on development that we've used you know so you get some money back in advance and you know we just helped us a lot and some cash flow but generally no we were then you know originally as I talked about being almost been kicked out of that mug we we sell to the public because 90% of daycares run by the public in the mark and they're you know the biggest help would be of course to buy the product and not suddenly go together everyone and built their own product from scratch from one of the consultancy companies so so that's why we have now selected markets like the UK where it's 90% private and not 90% public but it's just a bit of a shame as a teeny stubborn or an taxpayer that I'm paying to something that's competing with myself but that's alright we have been talking a lot about AI and also how Denmark could maybe speed up the investments in AI in in a bigger scale we are talking about Europe lagging behind the investments that China and the US are doing in that field do you think the Danish tech business is on top of what is happening in AI you come from different part of the tech business are we are we in a very good shape there or should we shape up so to from my perspective we're not in a very good shape there's a lot of things we can do but we also not completely lost I mean there is a lot of knowledge in Denmark about the AI and neural networks and and hardware acceleration your network so I think we're not completely lost I don't know I think we need the big data of course to have anything use a lot of AI and probably not many companies or institutions in Denmark have access to that volume of data that we need so I think we're a little bit hurt by we don't have those big pools of data that is needed I don't know maybe you know more about this than I do but that's at least how I see it I think the technology we can master it's not that advanced I mean it's just basically some it's you can download it Morris for free as an open-source libraries and then try filling with it but you need the data of course the datasets that we have more public data than many other countries and its source or something that needs our help Denmark is working on your experience yeah yeah I think you're totally right we need the data and we need to be more open with the data and now we have GDP are coming in but we which can be a hindrance but also an opportunity and for example we needed to collect a lot of receipts to train our artificial intelligence and so we collected all these receipts from the stars and we took pictures of them and we fine-tuned it and then we also as I mentioned before we hook up to these digital and solutions and but we've actually had quite an uphill battle here because like half of the receipts come from Starbucks which is it was a startup and that get us all your receipts from a lot of the supermarket's from metro food six billion or male maids etc and and they sold two myths and they're not willing to share they tried to do everything they could to prevent us from from getting receipts and it's not like we're trying to dig into their database and take all of their receipts we have users who wants to use our service and what is to see what they spent their money on and to do that they can request you know to get their Starbucks receipts in spender look um and it's just yeah it's just been a battle where we would like to collaborate so then it's hard to train the machines so making data available the public data we we have is a very good way to start are there other good ideas to to promote you could say companies developing or based on AI I think it's a lot about liquidity again a cash I see a lot of pictures of AI companies but when you dig into it most of them don't have AI and that says actually also why I don't like to say the word AI because it's like my [ __ ] detector goes off when I hear it and I know some really successful startups like who are at least on the road to success and and then they claim to be using AI but when you dig into it they're not yet they're planning to but and and I think that's one of the hurdles right now is that we're using it so much that we're kind of overusing it so it's not really maybe it's not that cool to use AI as a word anymore because it's just like everything goes into that basket yeah it's just [ __ ] I were actually doing it and and then we need cash to get from you know we say the word until we actually develop the neural networks and the machine learning okay let me end by asking you we're talking about all these unique columns that we would like to have what role does it play to have unicorns in the country role models you could call it for the companies it does it doesn't matter to have these big companies in a country that is famous for SMBs and having a lot of small countries these role models are they necessary to to drive progress into into the tech business you I think it makes a massive difference you know we have companies that that actually built and stay here also you know we have a lot of unicorns that's traveled to the other side of the pond the problem with that is that big organizations a lot of qualified people but on the other side so they don't then go into the ecosystem after they you know they'll have a lot of confidence is that Unicorn so what we've seen it's by defying in in Sweden for example you know they have so many people sitting there now they're then going out into building other setup I think you mentioned it was well with Owens and robotics you know you're building a big robotics company there and then suddenly it's burst into hundred different startups from people that have experience and goes into something else so I think it's a it's a very important part of building and it takes time you know to build unicorns and to have you to come sex to stay here and not you know just have a little development office which most of them have and then have a thousand people sitting in San Francisco because that's only gonna help modulate you're gonna have some things that are then coming back and investing and a little bit of expertise but you're not gonna have that whole you know thousand people that suddenly has a lot of knowledge about everything and goes in to build other startups and joined other startups and stuff so we need we need the first couple of good ones to to get things going and I think that's what we see with robotics you know but but we need the same thing I don't think we've seen the same at scale in Copenhagen yet did you spend time mentoring other companies while you were yeah I was I was part of the Stalin poppadoms robotics to where we take in companies and we decide if they should go in or be kicked out and we'll go back and redo their business plan and then if they get in they sit in on shared office with other startups and they're managed by their own business plan if they don't deliver according to their own milestones they get kicked out again and there's a whole I mean it's actually pretty good accelerator because morally more than half of the people were companies we let in seem to get traction so that's a very good hit rate and I was I've been part of that from beginning together with their meeting so yeah I think that that whole ecosystem is important I was just thinking also about what is a Danish company and what is the Vicks ones role here because you unit she moved to San Francisco we stayed but got bought by a us-based company and I think as soon as you're a fixed fund involved and they were involved in a lot because that was the best way to get funding before that was any you can say other funding available then they always have to exit again and if you have that situation you know you need to BA have a buyer and if the company successful it has to be a big buyer and and that many Danish companies who have a strategy to buy you can say big startups so that will naturally lead to everything is kind of sold and that's not good but I think that's sell out too early we don't have the guts sometimes to stay in a hang in there and really take the big bet are also thinking we have a number of people now that has enough money to go all the way and if we I mean when we made Mir so I was not the founder of me about I listed in Meerut universe row after I sold you know us robots and we didn't invite the Vikrant me in there so we actually we also sold that but we didn't have to sell it we just got a very good price for it so if we can get more of these companies that are not owned by somebody who has to sell again that of course will also mean that the more will stay community orange here okay oh yeah two years from now what are you that's a good question hello I still will spend a lot or yeah I think it takes a while to build a company so probably still would spend the luck hopefully you know selling a lot and doing very well in Denmark okay and also outside of obviously but trying to keep every everyone in them like unless two years from now family where is it it's a long time but yeah no I'm I'm still gonna be the CEO family and and I think it's still you know as long as it's a fun ride which has been we're gonna be you have us as to make it my biggest market hopefully in two years time but with office isn't in like and then you know but we will also have an office in New York or in the u.s. of some sort so but yeah this is long and we far from finished so yeah we're still doing in two years time so it's been you have to answer the question two years from now where are you oh that's a good question so I quit my job recently I have enough money so I don't need to worry about that and also my kids don't need to worry about that so the question I have to fill in meaning in my own life and how do you do that and then my wife put me in front of the offense well what is that UN goals this Christmas is that what are gonna do about this now okay that's a challenger so what we did is we we started a company that invests in robotic technology startups and also to consultancy work because III know about robots and I and I believe that we can make the world a better place from robots I don't believe in rolling back technology to 200 years back because we can't feed the population we have today and so the only humane way forward for Humanity is through more technology I can contribute with robots I believe strongly that is helping humanity not making life's worse even though it's not automatic you can't say technology always makes lives better but it can make life better so we have to manage that and so that's one I what we're gonna do and then half of all the earnings of that new company goes to charity okay thank you very much please give them a hand [Applause]