Life on Mars - A podcast from MarsBased
Welcome to Life on Mars! A podcast about technology, entrepreneurship and innovation from MarsBased. You will listen to stories of the best founders, investors, experts and celebrities from all around the galaxy every two weeks.
Life on Mars - A podcast from MarsBased
The CEO who made herself “irrelevant” (and scaled to millions ARR) / Laura Urquizu
What does it really take to scale a SaaS from a tiny Barcelona startup to a global leader protecting brands like major clubs and top electronics companies? In this candid conversation, Laura Urquizu (CEO, Red Points) shares hard-won lessons on going from SMB to enterprise, hiring fast in NYC (and fixing the fallout), balancing long-term strategy with short-term execution, and why the best CEOs become “irrelevant” day-to-day as teams outperform.
We dive into go-to-market, NRR as the north star, fundraising mistakes after a big round, building in the U.S. from Europe, and the AI behind Red Points (95% automated detection, 30M checks/day). If you’re a founder, operator, or investor, this one’s a masterclass in scaling under permanent uncertainty.
🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/
The best way to know that you are a good CEO is when your company is doing great and you are irrelevant on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:So we'll do an M&A and VC special because it's a very uncertain moment. It has been for the last I don't know 36 months, but I guess it's still a pretty hot topic, and so we're going to invite some of the experts in town and maybe from outside of town for this event. Then in February, our customary event at the MWC four years from now. Then we got either in March or April or 10 years anniversary. It's going to be pretty fucking big. So don't miss out on that one. And that's it, Without further ado. I'm going to be introducing our speaker for tonight. This is the moment where you get nervous. You don't get nervous at all.
Speaker 1:Not anymore.
Speaker 2:All right, all right, I'm going to change my presentation. All right, Okay, work the first time. We don't pay our speakers. They pay us with their time, Time of founders. We see C-level. She's pretty, pretty extensive, so we will pay her. We'll pay Laura, Extending up and giving her the biggest rock startup loss. If I were to teach such a time of three, I want each one of you to take on your fate and give the deepest rock startup loss One G three On your feet. Everybody Eat it out, All loud out to you.
Speaker 1:Wow, now I'm nervous.
Speaker 2:I need to stop the music because of the copyright violation on YouTube. I'd like to have the conversation going with some rock music in the background, because I know you like some rock music, so welcome.
Speaker 1:And how many times have you been welcomed on stage as a rock star? Well, I think this is the first time as a rock star. Is the first time and you know we share our love for, well, some rock groups, like what is the name of this one, Rammstein.
Speaker 2:They're canceled. Now Don't talk about Rammstein, they're canceled.
Speaker 1:I love Rammstein. As a matter of fact, Rammstein is a client of Redpoints. They are a client of us.
Speaker 2:Tell us more, tell me more.
Speaker 1:They protect their trademark and their logos and the t-shirts they do.
Speaker 2:I didn't know how did you get Rammstein as a client. Can you tell us the story?
Speaker 1:Well, they've been a client of us for many years and now, I think, about six years, so I guess you know well. First, maybe should I explain what we do. Maybe because online fraud that is related to counterfeiting, fake items, illegal content, fake websites and digital impersonation, which is especially, you know, fake, fake Twitter or fake profiles in Facebook, instagram and any social network profiles in Facebook, instagram and any social network, right, and we are broadening it because we are also now able to detect also fake ads, for instance. So this is something that really hurts a lot any kind of company and any brand, and at the end, rammstein, which are an amazing rock group. They are like a company. They are a business. They are very, very conscious of their value and they came to us. They wanted to protect themselves online and they were the ones coming to us asking for a protection. It was an inbound coming to us asking for our protection.
Speaker 2:It was an inbound. It's funny because, I mean, I wasn't going to go into this, but because I know the love of Ramstein that we share. And it's funny when you get a client that you don't expect them to be a company, right. It's when I read about Metallica they employ at least 3,000 people as a brand. Acdc, you know, the biggest brand, taylor Swift, famously, has made this really huge world tour, which it has been like a game-changing event for the industry, right. But it's really funny when you're like, oh, how the fuck did Ramstein contact me? You know, but how did they find you? Do you remember it was either like out on sales or it was just they Googled fraud protection online? Do you track where clients come from?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let me tell you something Since the very beginning. I mean, it's been a journey of nine years already and next year it will be our 10th year now since I joined my partners and we really started big with Red Points, or at least a journey. We were. At the beginning we were 10 people, now we are 300 people. We were born in Barcelona and now we have offices in New York, salt Lake City, united States.
Speaker 1:But, going to your question, since the very, very, very beginning we knew that Spain, for us, was nothing. We really wanted to go question since the very, very, very beginning, we knew that Spain for us was nothing. We really wanted to go global. No, so this is why, since the very beginning, in our case, we knew we needed to grow and we went for business financing right, and yes, I mean, there's amazing business that they are bootstrapping. In our case it was necessary to find the financing. So this is why to grow globally, to be able to show what we do globally. So, since the very beginning, our go-to market was international, so we built a team. Our go-to market was international, so we built a team. We built a team of outbound that was reaching the companies all over the world, no matter where those companies were. But also we dedicated a good amount of money to inbound, to web content, webinars, direct targeting, I mean inbound marketing. A big part of our financing went to marketing.
Speaker 2:Don't quote me on that. Oh yeah, quote me on that Because I think there's been like some interesting stories about Redpoint. When you mentioned that you were 300 people, I assume most of them were co-founders, because it's funny how it's famous, how Redpoint has had so many co-founders and on LinkedIn there are so many. We'll not go into that.
Speaker 2:But the thing is when you start selling kind of like when you professionalize the company a little bit and I know you have been spearheading sales for many years, as have I in my company, so we can compare the models but the thing is at the very first, when you try to sell to big brands, like it's your case, you lack the credentials, right. Your company is too early, it's too young, you don't have enough revenue capacity, you are not able to make the requirements for procurement processes. Say, you want to work for HP, they require that your company at least be five years old, have at least a million in recurring revenue, things like that, right. So as a startup, how the fuck do you do that if you normally don't have five years time? Right, I know VC money can extend your runway, but how do you get yourself in all of these procurement processes? How do you sell to big brands without credentials, without having a lot of time? What are your tricks here?
Speaker 1:Let me tell you something.
Speaker 1:I'm not the person, the right person to ask this question. I'm going to tell you why. So I mean, you know, redpoints is one of the fastest growing companies in Spain. It's been no, and it's still now one of the largest tech companies in Europe, I would say, and, of course, in Spain.
Speaker 1:But when we started, we were very small and we thought to address the problem that we were addressing with technology, only with technology, of course, with some services, but with technology. So we started building our platform. What happened is that when you say, okay, I'm going to start targeting clients, and then we learned that the largest clients in the world are the largest companies in the world. They were already being served by other people, people that they were. They didn't have technology, but they were doing it with services. So then we say, okay, wait, we want to be a global company, but we are not ready to serve the largest companies of the world. Let's start with the smallest companies of the world. So what we did and it was the best decision that we could, it was one of the decisions that explains the success of WorkPoints that it was to address and to go to target the small brands of the world, at the beginning, as we were learning and building our platform. So, as we were building our platform, we were serving smaller clients. And as we were stronger and stronger and our platform was better and better and more sophisticated, then we were serving larger clients. And better and more sophisticated, then we were serving larger clients.
Speaker 1:So for many years we were targeting SMBs and this is how we grew 300% every year, then 200%, and it was only two years ago. And remember I told you that we started our journey nine years ago. So two years ago it was when we really started targeting big companies, large companies. Now we have the I mean some of the best names of the world as clients of Redpoint. Some of them they let us tell who they are, some they don't. But well, you know the I don't know. The largest electronic company of the world, well, there are clients. The largest entertainment company of the world, there are clients. Real Madrid, there are clients. They let us say that.
Speaker 2:FC Barcelona. Don't let you say, they are your clients. I know that.
Speaker 1:We have a lot of football clubs, right, but what I want to say is that at the beginning we were no one. No one knew us. So we started with the smaller companies and once we were very well known, it was easier, of course. Then you have the credentials. And now let me tell you some of the larger companies of the world. They are the ones who come to us For the first time. That has happened this year several times.
Speaker 2:Because you have similar companies they can benchmark themselves against. Or like oh, you've been helping, I don't know, Real Madrid, probably some other football club, so Manchester City comes to you. So, oh, I see that you've got A, B and C. I assume I can be a client of yours. So is that how it works now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. Well, the thing is the following so for many years, we were addressing a problem that many people didn't see as a problem, not many companies or many brands. Now, well, now and it's because the problem of online fraud is doing nothing but growing like crazy Many companies and brands they they are for the first time, they are prioritizing this kind of uh of a problem in their companies. So now they are allocating budget, because some years ago not many of them, they were allocating budgets. Many companies, they didn't, even if they didn't even know that they had this problem. No, it was when we were calling them. It's like have you seen what you have online? Have you seen all the fake products that you have in the internet, in Amazon or Facebook or AliExpress? No, and they realized when we were calling them.
Speaker 1:Now most of the companies and brands are aware this has changed dramatically. So some companies that before they were not looking for someone. Now they are. And they scan the market. They see, okay, who is providing services for this? Who is providing a software for this, a solution? And we are there and by now we are well known to be the best ones with technology in this segment, not in this market and they call us.
Speaker 2:Since we had a preparation call the other day and we agreed that we wouldn't be talking too much about RappPoints early days, because there's plenty of podcasts about you on the internet. So if you're interested in the first seven years of RappPoints early days, because there's plenty of podcasts about you on the internet, so if you're interested in the first seven years of RepPoints, there's the podcast of Vipnik, the podcast of Kayfan and whatnot. We're going to be focusing on the last three years because it's something that she hasn't discussed publicly. And one of the things is how do you scale yourself to be the CEO in uncertain times? And when you went from you know you mentioned they were 10 people when you joined the company and now I don't know how many people you are, but you're ready. You will take the company to an IPO. I know it for sure. There are CEOs for each stage. Sometimes some CEOs can go from stage one to stage 10, right? So how are you facing this entrepreneurial voyage of leading a company as a CEO in different stages?
Speaker 1:I would say that that is one of the most difficult things to do. Very difficult, because at the beginning you have to do everything. When you're 10 people, you do everything. You do your own stuff, you sell, you help to define the product, you help the finance people if there's a finance people, no. So you do everything.
Speaker 1:And now that we are 300, and of course we will be a thousand then you will become more and more irrelevant. You know on a daily basis, and that's good, that's very, very, very good, because you're supposed to have people the best people that are managing the sales and the product and the technology and customer success, and if you don't, then you're not doing the right thing, right. So the best way to know that you are a good CEO is when your company is doing great and you are irrelevant on a daily basis, and that that for a founder CEO that was at the very beginning, it is the hardest thing to do because it's very difficult to accept and also because you tend to, you know, to go and say oh, let me show, no, no. So it's so difficult to rely, to trust the people and not to make the decisions for them. You have to let them and it's like OK, it's your call, you know what to do.
Speaker 1:I gave you my trust, you go and do it. So how do you do this? You go and do it. So how do you do this? Well, just first acknowledging it, then finding the best people you can have with you and then focusing on what you have to people. And when you are selling I don't know dozens of millions of ARR, like it is our case, then it's more about strategy, about institutions, about your shareholders, if you have them, about big clients, about all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:What is, I mean, my framework for scaling myself as CEO? And you know there's a huge gap between your company size and mine. But my framework for scaling myself is I try to find somebody that by hiring this person I will bring more revenue into the company. I'm a sales-oriented CEO and I used to edit the podcast, for instance, which is pretty stupid. But as a bootstrap company, well, you do it. But then I realized, okay, if I hire somebody to do that seems like it's a loss for the company, but I can spend more time in sales and I increased my sales percentage, the income I brought into the company. Right, or I'm hiring a marketing person now. So this is my framework of scaling myself. What have you used? Delegate, outsource, automate, eliminate. How do you do it? What's your rule of thumb?
Speaker 1:Well, the thing is, as a CEO, you have to think always about the ROI that your decision brings to the company, and the ROI, not all the time, is a number. It's like when you bring a person, is the revenue going to increase, which is what you said, or it is the, let's say, you know, the well-being of the people is going to increase, or is the churn going to decrease? Or our reputation? Or is this person helping us to open Asia, if we want to open Asia? No, it's always. That is the thing that you always have to think.
Speaker 1:And another thing that I use a lot of my time, a lot is aligning the people. You have to align the people is aligning the people. You have to align the people. At the end, I usually say I say this quite often that a CEO is like a conductor in an orchestra, right, and you have to make sure that everybody is playing the music. That is a melody, because at the end you can have someone doing the violin, someone doing the piano, someone. Well, it has to sound like a melody, because if you just have people playing the instruments and playing music but it's not online, that is a total disaster. So, for me, being a CEO is the most similar to being the conductor of an orchestra.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, that's from you to the rest of the team. How about to yourself?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I suffered imposter syndrome two years ago. Right, what other things? So how have you avoided feeling, oh, this project is too big for me. I was good enough for stage one, but not stage two. How do you mentally prepare for all of this?
Speaker 1:You're lucky if you only felt it until two years ago, because I think that every CEO that scales feels the imposter syndrome almost every day, on an everyday basis, because it's normal.
Speaker 2:Because you hire every day. You hire three people a year, but sorry, go on.
Speaker 1:No, but listen, this is something that you know. To have a good network is also very important, a network of other CEOs, or you know, if you're not a CEO, if you're a CFO or you're a CTO, to talk to other CTOs, other CFOs, because it helps a lot. I do have this network, and a big one, and this is something we talk a lot usually. You know, everybody does, and if someone says he does, he or she doesn't know, that person is lying. He or she doesn't know that person is lying because at the end, you started, when, when the company was very small, and you learned, uh, you learned through the, the journey, no, and everybody makes so many mistakes. I've made so many mistakes and you learn by doing. And, of course, now, if you come prepared no to this, uh, to to the, to the company, or you have some experience to fund or to build your company, you have an advantage. But even if that happens, believe me, you're going to make so many mistakes and you're going to learn by doing.
Speaker 1:Listen, as I said, now, at Redpoint, our revenue is dozens of millions of ARR. I'm going to be the good CEO until we are 100 or 500 or 1,000, or maybe when we are, I don't know, 70 millions? No, I have no idea. But believe me, believe me, that is something that I want to experience, that I want to learn. And some days you think, oh my God, what am I doing? No, what am I doing here? And I am supposed to be a rockstar CEO. So if I'm supposed to, this is what people say no. So if I'm that, and I feel that way, everybody does- you are a rock star, don't doubt it.
Speaker 2:So, but how about? You're also an angel investor, and we have discussed this. I'm also investing myself is how do you perceive people? How do you analyze the founders that you might potentially invest in according to whether? Do you think they're going to be the right people to take the company from zero to one, of course, but from one to 100? Because probably you can do that. You can take the company from 10 people to an IPO, but you're a rat at Avis. Usually, people are like you know, I could take the company to 20 people, to 50 people, maybe to a series A, but then they fuck off and they replace themselves with somebody else. How do you scrutinize this? I'm curious.
Speaker 1:What a question.
Speaker 2:It's only good questions here.
Speaker 1:What a question, alex. Well, first, when you're an investor, you see the stage, a very, very early stage. The only thing that matters is people. It's not only people, it's the person that you have in front of the company. That is the key person. And if that person is going to be able to build the team, and not only that, if that person is resilient For me, the most important thing is if it is resilient, Because everybody that has done a journey of at least two years, three years or if it is 10 years, you can imagine.
Speaker 1:This is a total roller coaster. It's always up down, up down. Some days in the morning is wonderful and in the evening is a total disaster. Right and same day, you have the best news and the worst news. So the only thing that you have to make sure is that the person is resilient, consistent, is going to continue no matter what. And well, of course, if this person is like that, then you have to trust this person and see where it gets. And, at the same time, it's important to know if that person is a good person, because if that person is a good person, good, resilient person, that person is going to realize when maybe the project is too big for him, her no, and then say, well, I got to bring someone else here now to help me. So that is usually good people who are able to see that. So those are the two for me, two key factors, and that's interesting because it brings me to a realization that I two for me two key factors.
Speaker 2:That's interesting because it brings me to a realization that I had, you know. So I've been investing only for seven years now, so I haven't invested through the previous downturns, but I'm coming to the realization that good entrepreneurs are those who grow companies in good times, but they grow them even bigger in bad times, Right. And so now I have got more of a historical perspective. But my question is kind of like circling back to scaling yourself on how did you deal with the last three years? We had, you know, COVID, the crisis in Russia, the crisis in Israel, the tech downfall, the logistics chaos two years ago because of that blockage. So how did you make it to navigate all of these difficult circumstances as a CEO? How did you step up and say, look, we're going to do this, we're going to operate in shorter terms or we're going to build a crisis team in the company? What three, four key things did you do during these last three years?
Speaker 1:Okay, these last three years have. Okay, these last three years have been something totally extraordinary. I think no one has faced any time, three years like this. But what I think is that this extraordinary now has become the ordinary, because, if you think about it, like, every quarter something happens. Something happens.
Speaker 1:I was discussing with you earlier today that you know it's the last quarter of 22. For us it was such an amazing quarter. So we started January so confident. No, and it was like, wow, january 23. Well, this is well. I say, okay, okay, I made it. Now I am the person that you know, everybody is doing everything in the company. I'm enjoying the ride.
Speaker 1:Then, january, the clients disappeared. It was like, well, where are the clients? Well, january, you know, january Christmas, and then February was the same and it ended up being a terrible first quarter this year. So what happened? So everybody was like, what is this? So in one quarter the circumstances changed dramatically. Right, so we have to get used to this extraordinary that now things change every quarter. So we can't do like we used to do yearly budgets now. Well, of course you can do a yearly budget, we do a yearly budget, but that budget you have to review it on a monthly basis, not even quarterly, a monthly basis because you have to watch very closely what is happening in the market. So what I've done is this following very closely what is happening in the market, happening with the clients, happening with technology, where the world has changed.
Speaker 1:In January, you know, all this generative AI wave started and now look where we are. So what's going to happen in 24? We don't know yet, but something's going to happen for sure. So you have to trust very much the people. You have your executive committee, and if you're not happy with your executive committee, then you have to change your executive committee the fastest that you can. And you have to trust them very much because they are in the journey with you. No, and you have to be very realistic and you have to know you have to learn to play in the short term and in the long term, because the problem in this kind of times is that if you focus very much in the short term, you are making a mistake, because your company needs that. You, as a CEO, you focus in the long term too. So you have to have good people that they are very focused in the short term so you don't lose yourself thinking about what's happening today.
Speaker 2:Okay, similar to you, we also experienced this. We also experienced that. You know, last quarter of last year was incredible and we set the goals for this year on March based, and today I was reviewing the goals for the year with my two co-founders. It's like they don't make sense. They didn't make sense six months ago, you know. So for next year, no yearly goals, only quarterly or maybe monthly goals. I don't know yearly goals, only quarterly or maybe monthly goals, I don't know. So I'm thinking maybe you know it's a really good point. I I had an epiphany right now is maybe ceo has to have some way like somewhat the head in the clouds to see the longer vision. Strategy needs to be long term, but operations needs to be short, short term. Right, so your company is bigger and therefore you can split all these areas of the company into more people. So what areas help you to think long term and which ones focus on the short term? How have you split this in the company?
Speaker 1:I will say all of them have to have a long-term and short-term, because, at the end, even the financial goals, even the financial teams, have to have long-term goals, otherwise they won't execute well on the short term Revenues. They have to have the goal of the year, especially the leaders, right? I mean, you're right that my company now is bigger, so there are different layers, right? So the salespeople let's put it that way the account executives and the SDRs, those are the ones who have to focus in the short term because they have monthly goals short term, because they have monthly goals. No, so that. But the VPs in the sales and, of course, the CRO, no, they have to be be in the short but also in the long term. It's a very, it's very important. It's very important that, um, that the CRO, the chief revenue officer, and the VPs, they think in the long term.
Speaker 1:And let me tell you why Because when you're very small, when you're very small, growth is the most important thing, so you sell everything to everybody and you don't care about anything else.
Speaker 1:Then, as you grow, and especially if you are a SaaS company, like we are a software company, then the quality of the sale is very important. It's so important? Why? Because otherwise, if the client wasn't the right fit, it's going to churn. So you're going to end up having a churn that is going to be as big or even bigger than your new sales, and if that happened to you you're totally screwed up. Then that is a problem. So you have to sell good and I know it's very difficult for salespeople when you have the opportunity to close a deal and someone tells you well, this is not the right deal because we can't deliver what this client expects. Not to close it is so difficult but at the end it's the best thing for the company in the long term. So even the revenue people they have to think long term, not the account executives, but the medium and the large and, of course, product and technology. I will say those are long term.
Speaker 2:And how about communication and transparency? Because in the last three years, a lot of companies had to do massive layoffs. There were the EREs and ERTOs and whatnot. Some companies were not able to raise funds or they had to go for flat rounds, bridge rounds, extension rounds whatever euphemism you might want to use or even down rounds. Right, there's a very thin line that you have to calibrate of whether you should say things too early or too late. Right, if you say too early, you might cause alarm in your company. You tell them, you alert them about something that might not happen Look, we might have to lay 10% of the people off so they can prepare themselves. Or you tell them too late. As a CEO, it's pretty fucking difficult to do that. How did you do it? What was your way of thinking?
Speaker 1:That is also one of the most difficult things, because, at the end, not is prepared to know everything in a company, right so, but at the same time, at the same time, I think that transparency and bluntness is the best thing, no Boredness, and to tell the people what's going on. So I guess that there's also different levels of information. Right, because in the good times and in the bad times, because even in the good times, if you say that things are too good, that may lead people to conclusions that you don't want them to be at, those conclusions, right?
Speaker 2:So, in our case it's like can you give an example?
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, um, for instance, for instance, um let me give you an example, metrics Now in the, in the, in in the, in the, at our stage metrics are very important.
Speaker 1:No, uh, stage metrics are very important, no, and so not everybody knows the metrics by heart. Not everybody knows what a positive I mean an nrr over a hundred percent is right. So if you um or not, not everybody and knows the difference between how, what is the, the, the level that nRR has to be in enterprise or what it has to be in SMBs, because in enterprise it has to be over 100% for sure, or even over 110% in the case of SMBs. Over 85% is pretty good in the case of SMBs. So, depending on how you want to play those metrics and how important is the weight that you give to enterprise in a company or to SMBs in a company, if you don't explain properly, you may lead to the wrong conclusion and people may not understand it. Well, people from product or from technology that they forget, forget, not this kind of things. So I think that sometimes you, if you give too much information, you may lead to, to, to, to, let's say, to confusion.
Speaker 2:Yeah I I thought I thought you were gonna refer to when you raised the round. Yeah, last big round and, um, I think I shared something controversial on Twitter and pretty well known for my stupid, blunt opinions, but I shared that bootstrap companies. We tend to be more conservative and more sensible about our money because it's our money, right, and every penny we spend, and sometimes we're overly cautious and we are not ambitious just because we're afraid of losing that money because it's ours. But I also said that VC-backed companies they tend to be less cautious and they squander much more money and a lot of people jump to my throat saying, oh, it's not like that, it's the other way around. So what's your take on this and what have you learned from the latest round that you've raised?
Speaker 1:take on this and what have you learned from the latest round that you raised? Well, listen, that is also a good example. No, it's like uh, sometimes people, people, when I call, in some occasions, companies are not ready for the amount of money that comes to the company. And let me tell you something In 2019, we raised around 38 million euros Dollars sorry, because the dollar and the euro, they were very different and we did it in dollars 38 million dollars and that was, yeah, in that occasion. It was four years ago, and the company was not ready for that amount of money. And the company was not ready for that amount of money. I would say we were not mature enough and senior enough to understand how we had to invest that money. So we made so many mistakes, so many mistakes.
Speaker 1:And, for instance, now we have this many millions for marketing, this many millions to build the team, so we started building the fastest, the better go-to marketing SDRs in New York. We had so much money, we were hiring SDRs. You know what. Everybody knows what an SDR is, because, I mean, sdr is a role in the sales area. It's usual in the SaaS companies, no, that they are the ones that they have to reach to a buyer person in a company and to set up a meeting. This is what an SDR I mean. They do more things, but, in a short way to say it, this is what they do. So we started hiring people like crazy in New York. Sdrs like we hire, I think, like 20 SDRs in a month.
Speaker 1:You can imagine that when you hire this fast and especially in New York, well, you don't hire all good people, you hire a lot of bad people. No good people, no good people, no good professionals, let's say with experience. Let's say good people, they were probably good people, but listen, so what happens? There is like then you have a team that is too big, unexperienced, the leader was not prepared for that. Then you have to start letting go of the people, firing the people, and then you have a problem because the culture and the environment, everything gets like really toxic, really bad. So that happened to us when we had an extraordinary amount of money. We were growing like crazy and we were making so many mistakes so many times. This kind of stuff isn't necessarily the best thing that can happen to you. Then we learned and we got much better at managing a very large amount of money because of the mistakes, because, as I said, you learn by doing mistakes and we made a lot of mistakes.
Speaker 2:It's funny you mentioned that, because when I, you know, I interview a lot of people event number 143, but I might have to be over a thousand people over the years and pretty much every single of them they're like I have the best team. So either everybody's lying or I have a wrong conception of the word best and it means something different, right? So what do you do when you realize that you haven't? You're really lying to yourself. You're not hiring the best people Because, as you mentioned, like, everybody's hiring the best, but lots of companies have got more money, or they were before you, or they have more recognition because they are from this and you are from Barcelona, which from the US.
Speaker 2:You're changing that, but Barcelona wasn't perceived as quality software up until now. Maybe You're one of the first companies selling technology from Barcelona, right? But up until now the US wouldS, would buy to the US Everything that was not the US. It was offshoring, low quality, low cost and whatnot, right? What do you do when you realize that you've hired a lot of people that were not the right fit for your team, because that happens a lot in high gross companies.
Speaker 1:Okay, alex, let me tell you something. So we are this company from Barcelona that 65% of our revenues come from US. Right, we've been really, really successfully in US and, according to what some investors tell me, in Europe and M&A companies and investment banks, this is quite extraordinary A company from Barcelona that hasn't moved to the United States, that is selling this amount of money to clients in the US. So we can say that we've been quite successful. So people ask me how have you been so successful in US? And the answer and this is where I'm answering your question is because I've been always so, so realistic. What does that mean? So I knew that when we went to US, I decided to go to US in 2018. Decided to go to US in 2018. So in 2018, from Barcelona, we already sold to around 35, 40 clients in US. 35, 40 companies in US, no. So we said, well, if we are doing this from Barcelona, there is a clear market fit, let's go to US. So where do we go to US?
Speaker 1:Well, we chose New York for two reasons Because I was the one who had to go all the time and say, well, barcelona, new York, is so much better than Barcelona, san Francisco, and in our case, we didn't need to be in Silicon Valley like other companies. So, for my own health, I decided New York. And second, because we wanted to build a sales team, and everybody knows that no one sells like people from New York. They go with a knife in their mouth, eh God. So this is why I chose New York. So I knew when I was going to New York that we were nothing. So probably the people that we will get will be the worst of the worst of the worst, because the good people they were going to work for American companies, for American startups, who knew these red points, coming from Barcelona, what is that? So I knew that our first hires they were not probably the good ones. So I knew that we had to be very fast at calibrating these people and replacing the ones that they were not good.
Speaker 1:And let me tell you something One of the first hires in the US is a person that is still with us. I love this guy. He's now managing a good amount of people in the office in New York and he started with us as SDR, but it was one. So I hired four and one, stayed three out, then another four and well, this is how I did it. This is how we built a good team, a good initial team, by knowing that we had C performers and some B performers that could be A performers, and then replacing the C by B, being very, very realistic, knowing that we were no one over there. Because if you go there and you say, oh yeah, you know, I have one guy, that is the best guy, that is it, well, you're not telling to you the truth. I mean, you're lying to yourself.
Speaker 2:I'm liking this really sick. No bullshit approach. So my next question is going to be piling up on that right. In the entrepreneurial world, there are a lot of myths and some half-truths, like you know, fail fast, fail often, go big or go home. That might work for some people, but they don't work for everybody, and if you assume them blindly which a lot of entrepreneurs do, then you end up going the same path that everybody else has taken, but you cannot go somewhere else new right. So which is the biggest piece of bullshit that you have encountered in your entrepreneurial career? That you're like okay, this is a myth, this doesn't work for me, but it might work for somebody else.
Speaker 1:What a question, alex, because you know that I'm not a bullshitter, that's why you're here.
Speaker 1:But I hate bullshit and I fight bullshit. Well, let me tell you something. When you the worst is, like you know, when you find an entrepreneur that you know in an event like this, and oh, how things are going, wow, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, everything is wonderful, so I'm doing great, amazing with then you're like, oh well, I am the only one like having I don't know issues on a daily basis, and so for me, that is the worst. That is the worst. That is the worst.
Speaker 1:The need to say continuously that everything is great and it looks like in our environment. There is this need of saying, oh, everything is awesome, everything is amazing. If you're in Europe, everything is great. If you are in New York, everything is amazing, and you are in San Francisco, everything is awesome. That is the and it's the same, great, amazing, awesome. So why do we have this need? And of course, I mean it's not about telling this guy oh, let me tell you all of this, but you can be more honest and say, well, yeah, you know, yeah, we're doing, I mean struggling this, that. So I hated this need of saying that everything is wonderful, wonderland. Sometimes our ecosystem is wonderland or Disneyland.
Speaker 2:It's funny because I always say that startup events are kind of like Instagram for startups, right, because everybody's like oh, life is wonderful, my company is fantastic. Then, six months down the line, they close shop because they run out of money right, but it was fantastic. And Then, six months down the line, they closed shop because they ran out of money right, but it was fantastic and wonderful six months ago. So my next question is and we have to wrap it up with a couple of quick questions but is what are you struggling with right now?
Speaker 1:That's a good question. Okay, I think we've changed quite a good number of things, so at the moment we are good. But let me tell you, for us, a company of our size that is already quite big and that we are bringing a lot of new clients every every month, the biggest thing to look at is churn the clients that they don't stay with us right. So, for a SaaS company, that is something that you have to always look at and, as I say, I would say that now we are in a good position, but it wasn't like that, let's say, one year ago. It's like when I say, okay, we need healthy metrics, all the metrics have to be the good ones For the size that we are.
Speaker 1:It's not only about growth anymore, it's other metrics. I mentioned it already three times, but this is very important when you grow. So, when you grow, one of the metrics that is key is NRR. Nrr over 100% right, I say no, in large companies, 110 average or mid-market over 100 and smaller maybe like over 8,500, is good enough for SMBs. But those are key, key metrics for any healthy SaaS. So those are the ones that we are looking a lot and I wouldn't call it a struggle, but it's something that we sweat to improve it every month.
Speaker 2:Because it's hard to learn. But sometimes you know, focusing too much on a KPI might make sense for a certain period of the company career, like for us. For us, for instance, last year, we said we will not grow in revenue anymore because bringing in more revenue is bad for the company. We'll focus on profit and we even tune down the revenue and we increase our profit. Right, it's kind of like you're obsessed with one kpi because make it at the beginning, it makes sense. But in SaaS companies there's a trade-off right. Sometimes if you want to increase your growth, you have to do it at the expense of increasing the churn a little bit for a short term and then you can improve it later on. But if you don't do it, you will not grow. So sometimes it's counterintuitive.
Speaker 2:So last question we're going to open the floor for questions because they will be much more intelligent than mine, but this is a signature question. This is the most difficult question we ever do at this event, which is everybody has got a useless superpower. A useless superpower. So let me explain. A useful superpower is I'm very good at this, right, I'm very good at whatever, like at organizing events, no, but a useless superpower is something that you do exceptionally well, but it's fucking useless. It's like I do it every day and I don't know why, like I always misplace my mobile phone, or I always manage to lose my keys while I'm traveling, or I always show up at the airport at the wrong day. This is useless superpower, but it's yours. And you do it very fucking well, but you don't know why. Which is yours.
Speaker 1:Wow, you should have prepared me for this we got the best answers.
Speaker 1:A useless superpower I would say useless superpower Losing time at the beginning of the day. I'm great at that. No, it's like I'm very, very slow and I love it. I love it. I love being slow at the beginning of the day, taking my time to have breakfast reading the news, reading Twitter, putting I mean writing something in Twitter, and oh, Twitter is a useless superpower. Now I got it. Now I got it. That is my useless superpower, because I love it. I have a lot of fun. I've discovered wonderful people, like Kat, like yourself, like many others, but if you think about it, it's a useless superpower Twitter, and it is because I am a slow person in the morning.
Speaker 2:This is why that's a good one. That's actually a very good one. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, so there's going to be we're going to be opening the floor for questions. I don't know if we got the dice. Animal dao aguelda. Oh, yeah, yeah, so you can just toss it around. It's a microphone. It doesn't look like it, but you talk into it because then it will go into the video.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it works. So one question per person. Say your name and please don't pitch. All right, who wants to be first? I know there's a lot of pressure here.
Speaker 5:first, of all, first take care early bird. Hi, I am alex.
Speaker 2:Uh, I have a question like for the company of your side, how do you decide which people you let go when you don't talk with them on a daily basis? With somebody with whom you don't talk on a daily basis?
Speaker 1:Because I don't decide. I mean in our company. In our company, we have been lucky enough or let's say, well, it is not luck We've been managing well enough to not have to do layoffs like other tech companies. We haven't. But of course, we are very, very demanding on performance and this is how you have the best team. No, or the best team you can have. I don't want to be here.
Speaker 1:So now it is the leaders of every team, the ones who decide who are the good performers and the best performers, and the best performers and the non-performing people.
Speaker 1:When someone is non-performing, we usually put him or her on a PIP, an improvement plan, so this person has an opportunity to improve and we give this person feedback to improve and we give this person feedback.
Speaker 1:But the ones who are, let's say, the owners of their areas are the leaders of every area. I said before, when you are a CEO, you have to trust. That is the most difficult thing, and it's very, very difficult because sometimes it happens that the one you have to trust, sometimes, sometimes it happens that the one you have to trust, the leader of one area, comes and say listen, laura, this guy is not performing, and it happens that this guy may be someone that you like a lot, and then it's this moment these are the difficult moments for a CEO that you have to say, ok, I got to trust you and maybe you try to convince, right? Well, listen, have you seen this ad? Well, analyze again. Please take a look again. But if the leader decides that this is a non-performing person and non-performing can be not only numbers or development, it can be also a toxic person, someone that is non-performing as a person that is a toxic apple for the team, oh, no, no, we do quarterly reviews, quarterly performance reviews, yeah, Over there.
Speaker 4:Hi, laura, thank you. This is Marco speaking, so my question is what do you think is the most challenging happening right now in the environment that we are economical environment? For you, what would you say that's the most challenging in terms of talent right now retaining or hiding or capabilities? What's that, and even more here in the local environment in Barcelona?
Speaker 1:For me, the most challenging I think I said before is that the extraordinary has come with the ordinary. We used to say that we are in permanent change has come to the ordinary. We used to say that we are in permanent change, and I think that when we were saying that some years ago, that we were in permanent change, we had no idea what permanent change means. That is what we are facing now, right. So I will say that that is the most difficult, that it's very difficult to make long-term plans. No, like you know, if I remember 2019, I said before no, we went and hired 20 SDRs. Now, I will never do that, not only because it was a bad idea, because we were not ready, but because how are we going to do that if we don't know if, in the next quarter, something is going to happen? So, for me, the most challenging is that is to make decisions in longer than six months. No, it's like okay, let's see step by step if this is going well. Right. So that is very difficult.
Speaker 1:And, of course, the talent, the fight for good talent that is always in our ecosystem.
Speaker 1:That is a permanent challenge, a permanent one In our local. Let me tell you what it is and that is, I will say, more for larger companies. As I said before, we are one of the fastest growing companies in the ecosystem. So for us it's been a challenge to find the people, the right people, for the next step, because we were the first ones growing, of course, us and Travel Perk and some others not the only ones, but a few group of us. So when we were growing fast, I didn't find the right talent in Barcelona for the next step, for the simple reason is because there was no one ahead of us. And now, thank God, I mean, the ecosystem is larger and there are more companies and there's plenty of people that they've been in experienced companies going to younger companies, right, but that is a big challenge that we have and we still have it. I think we are not enough the number is not big, the number of companies to have the experienced talent that we need.
Speaker 3:My name is George. I find your story very inspiring. Laura, thank you. My name is George. I find your story very inspiring. Laura, thank you Particularly that you have Rammstein as one of your clients. Talking about clients or customers, could you please explain to us a little bit how, from a customer point of view, how they measure the quality of service that they get from you, how they assess that you are providing them the service that they're looking for two, three, four KPIs metrics? I would be curious to hear, and perhaps also at the end, if you can give us an example when your company Redpoint really screwed up on a very important client on one of those methods.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Yeah, so listen, in our case it's so easy because I told you at the beginning that we fight online fraud and on a specific basis. That means that we detect the infringements, we monitor and we remove them. We remove. So a client is very, very, very happy if we find a lot of infringements and we remove a lot of infringements. So that is the answer. No, that is the main KPI for them Number of detections, number of enforcements and the speed that has to be fast enforcements and the speed that has to be fast. The fastest the better. So the happiest clients are the ones that they see the number of infringements decreasing like crazy. They see the number of enforcements like being a lot of them and fast. Like being a lot of them and fast. And, of course, our clients the longer they stay with us, the more they appreciate this, because we have a lot of information and how big it was the problem when they came to work with us and how this problem is decreasing over time. No, and they see this in the reports, they see this in the platforms. So that's easy.
Speaker 1:And I would say that you were saying who is that client? Well, I think once we tried to get one of the biggest clients of the world. This was six years ago and we were not ready. So they came to try us and, of course, we did a poor job because we were not ready and they left and that client was Nike. That was, yeah, it was sad, but now we have a lot of big clients that we're ready and they're very happy customers.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sharing. That's very brave of you. Last question we got the last question over here, right, oh no?
Speaker 6:Yeah, my name is Angel, and thank you, laura, for being so open in your talk. Can you hear me?
Speaker 2:We can't see you, but we can.
Speaker 1:I'm here. I mean thank you all for coming. I mean I'm impressed how many people you're back there, thank you so no pressure.
Speaker 6:Now I see you. Now I see you and yeah. So my question is I work in biotech and whenever we go to, we try to engage with potential customers, or when we talk with investors, they always, you know, they're always oh, there's this company that is doing this, there's this company that is doing that. Competitors and their news coming out suggesting the technology is moving in the other direction, moving in the other direction. So how do you manage this and not let these real threats or potential threats distract you from what you really need to do? And how do you remove, how do you manage, that doubt?
Speaker 1:This is such a good question because, listen, when we came, we started no, as I mentioned before that there were already other companies no Doing the same, addressing this problem, but not with the technology. So those competitors, when they saw us, they didn't care that much because we started with SMBs and they discarded the SMBs and the mid-market. They only wanted the Louis Vuitton, the Adidas and the Nike and the Apple of the world. So they were well, they didn't bother us that much. What happened is that then we grew. We grew a lot. We grew a lot in number of clients and our platform and because our technology was so good, I didn't mention it. But our technology is also based in artificial intelligence. We've been doing artificial intelligence for many years now. Artificial intelligence that is mostly machine learning, image recognition, logo recognition. Now we are also using generative ai for speed, but we've been doing, as I say, machine learning and and around the computer vision for many, many years. And because we were doing this, we built a very good platform and we were the best ones and we are the best ones in the world at what we do.
Speaker 1:But the competitors then they started to say that what we said that we were doing, it was impossible that we were lying, that this thing that they say is impossible they're lying, can't be done. They say is impossible, they're lying, can't be done because they didn't know how to do it right. So they were saying that. And our sales guys? They were desperate because, laura, they are saying this and I said, forget about them, forget about them, let's look at them carefully.
Speaker 1:But we continue with our pitch, with our plan, with our platform and proving our clients or our, in that case, the leads, the potential clients what we can do, what we can do. Show them the demos, talk to them, explain very well the value proposition and forget about what the competitors are saying about you and, as I say, you have to watch them carefully. But forget Even some competitors they were especially in the US that they are very aggressive. They were doing advertisements, no, where they compare themselves against us, saying really bad things about us and some of our salespeople. They wanted to push back, no, and to say I say forget, we're not entering this war, we will just show the market how good we are. And it happened.
Speaker 2:It's funny that you mentioned AI. My good friend, carlos, in the audience, sent you a question on LinkedIn about machine learning and AI. I don't know if you can share some specifics about what you do with generative AI, because he's too shy to clearly ask that. But give him the mic, because now he's not shy. He's sending it on LinkedIn.
Speaker 5:but Hello, my name is Carlos. I think it was maybe too technical question, but I always wonder about companies in the US and in Europe, especially on the AI space. How do you manage the data Like? Do you have some policies that are different for the data that you use for your models in Europe versus the models that you use in the US? Do you have a unified platform for all that?
Speaker 1:No, we use the same model and the thing is that we I mean the data that we gather is public, it's out there in the internet. It's not a specific data of the public, it's out there in the internet. It's not a specific data of the client, it's out there in the space. So we gather it and the specific data of every client. We only show it to that client and that is written by contract right. And when we use it for the models, then they already signed that we can use that data for the models, but of course, with any specific information about the specific company. And it's only signed. Everything is in the contracts. They authorize us to do that.
Speaker 2:Okay, last one, but it's got to be 10 second question and 10 second answer. Okay, you're separating us from the beers man. No pressure, oh, wow.
Speaker 7:Wow, just kidding. Go ahead, I'm Juan. Thank you, laura, for hearing your story. I'm curious. On the beginning you mentioned that RedPoints was one of a kind, because you were using technology to fix a problem that was only fixed with a service. I think that's an awesome path to take as a company, but it has a very big challenge of how do you know your product is ready to fix the problem in the market? And second is, how do you get your first clients when you are just a technology against a service with 100 employees?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is a very good question. Well, I mentioned that one of the reasons why we decided to sell to smaller companies instead of the larger companies of the world is because we were building a platform and we were learning with the clients. So at the beginning, the features that we had I mean they can't compare to what we have now. There were fewer and in some cases there was manual work being done until we could build it and in many cases the products that we built, they've been built with the help of the clients. The clients have told us what they wanted and then we built it. So this is how we did it at the beginning. At the beginning, the features were quite basic and everything that was not basic it was being built at the same time that it was being sold, and we were using people when we couldn't reach with technology and we were using people when we couldn't reach with technology.
Speaker 1:Today, 95% of everything we do is automatic 95. And only 5% has the intervention of someone. That is usually related to validation, because for us I remember this is very specific but very short we detect, validate and remove, but we can remove only what we are sure that is bad stuff, because imagine that we remove legal stuff, then we are in a problem. So validation is very important and in some cases, when we are not very sure there's human intervention, we are not very sure there's human intervention and even sometimes many times with that, if we are not able to say if something is fake or is not, then we don't do anything, we don't enforce right, and today we process about 30 million links per day. This is what we do today. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Please give it up for Laura. About 30 million links per day, this is what we do today. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, Please give it up for Laura. It's been phenomenal.
Speaker 1:Thank you, it was a pleasure.
Speaker 2:All right. So now there's some food and some beverages. I think there's a fridge over there, but like there's beer and water water on the top over there and there's food. So thank you for coming. See you in the next year.