10
EESTI ELU reedel, 5. augustil 2022 — Friday, August 5, 2022
Nr. 31
Tech startup realism with the co-founder and CEO of Klaus Vincent Teetsov English-language supplement to the Estonian weekly “EESTI ELU” Tartu College Publications Founding Chairman: Elmar Tampõld Editor: Laas Leivat 3 Madison Avenue, Toronto, ON M5R 2S2 T: 416-733-4550 • F: 416-733-0944 • E-mail: editor@eestielu.ca Digital: www.eestielu.ca
Estonia, take a bow. But let’s not lower the curtain yet It’s no longer news, but it still deserves attention. By midApril, Estonia had donated proportionally more military aid to Ukraine than any other nation – including the USA and the U.K. And the war is far from being wrapped up. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Eco nomy, Estonia had supported Ukraine by 220 million Euros. Per capita, this amounts to one third of its total military budget. By that time, Latvia had also donated nearly one third (220 million Euros) of its military spending, with 13% for Poland, and 11.6% for Slovakia. The Kiel Institute has also compiled info on aid that had been promised. By mid July, Estonia had filled 98% of the 250 Euros promised. This com pares with 96% for the 450 million euros committed by Norway, 88.9% of the 260 million by The Czech Republic, 84.6% of the 80 million by Holland and 82.6% of the 50 million offered by Lithuania. Following the above line-up are Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Australia. At the bottom of the list are New Zealand and Greece. At the time only ten European nations had lived up to their promises. South Korea, Portugal and Croatia had not yet delivered any of their pledges. The state with the Europe’s leading economy, Germany, had promised 675 million Euros in support of Ukraine but fulfilled its stated obligations by only 3.9%, by 269 million Euros. Within Europe the largest mili tary donation has been Polish, with 100% of its 1.8 million Euros delivered. Worldwide, the USA by far leads all other countries. By mid-April, the USA had com mitted almost four times as much military aid as all other 30 Western countries combined. Of the 6.3 billion Euros pledged, 2.33 billion had been delivered by mid-July, that be ing 38.4% of the promised amount. Canada had delivered 82.5% of its intended military support, this being 920 million Euros. These statistics can be con fusing, but the Keil Institute points to their actual signifi
cance. It concludes that it’s the very same Eastern European nations within NATO, who border on Russia and are being identified as possible Russian targets in the future, who have made per capita the largest contribution in supporting Ukraine’s defence against Russia. When comparing the size of their economies, with the USA and Germany, it’s re markable, but not unexpected that Estonia, Poland, Lithuania and Slovakia have been the top four donors. In terms of each country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Estonia has provided military aid amounting to nearly 0.8% of its GDP. This is followed by Poland with 0.17%, Lithuania with 0.06%, Slovakia with 0.05% and Sweden at 0.045%. In absolute terms, the USA has been in a class of its own with massive assistance, but per capita it ranks sixth, with military aid amounting to approximately 0.04% of its GDP. Still, one notes that the USA’s contribution is larger than the entire European Union aid. The USA is far from the war zone, but gives substantially more than the EU, with some of these states situated within range of Russian firepower. As of this writing, Ukraine has borne the human cost of fending off a brutal attack by an autocratic, aggressive foreign power. But who is winning? Both claim to have the forward momentum. A skeptical tone about this has in general domi nated Western media for several weeks. But according to experts, it’s the new batch of weapons supplied by the West that seem to be now making a difference. Their enhanced accuracy and longer range give the Ukrainian defenders a reason to adjust their tactics – to go on the offensive. The latest news that Kherson may be freed from Russians, would not only be a key strategic victory, but could also boost Ukrainian morale and shake Western media out of war fatigue slump. By the end of July, Ukraine had liberated 44 villages and towns in the region, clearly as a result of more effective equip ment. But to maintain its resur
The tech world is enigmatic. From its exterior, we hear about seed capital, and mas sive rounds of series A, B, and C funding. We’re told about the seven “unicorn” compa nies founded by Estonians, with one billion dollars in value or more, and read about the bright minds behind them. So is a good idea all that it takes to grow a successful new company? It didn’t take long for Martin Kõiva, the CEO and co-founder of Klaus, to dispel this concept when I asked if he knew the recipe for a billiondollar company. When it comes to enticing investors with clever ideas, Kõiva says, ideas are “only one part of the equation and a less important one in my opinion. Any idea can be a billion-dollar idea if you execute it well. I’m definitely in the camp that does not value ideas too much.” To this point, Kõiva refers to the quote that says, “Ideas are just a multiplier of execution... Ideas are worth nothing unless executed... Execution is worth millions.” He sees this distinction in the criteria of investors and also saw it before ever founding Klaus. Between 2014 and 2018, Kõiva was working at Pipedrive OÜ, an SaaS (Software as a Service) company which they describe as “the first CRM [cus tomer relationship management] platform made for salespeople, by salespeople.” Pipedrive was founded in Estonia in 2010, and became a “unicorn” in Novem ber 2020. If Kõiva had to name one thing that made the company stand out, it would come down to the quality of the people they hired. He says, “...in the end, they determine everything else.” On top of this, the feeling that global expansion was an option made for an ambitious company. In 2016, he went with the company’s executives to repre sent Pipedrive at Web Summit, the major technology con
gent optimism, Ukraine urgent ly still needs additional war technology for improved recon naissance and also mounting at tacks instead of defending posi tions. Observers on location say that most Ukrainians are re signed to a long, protracted battle with Russia. But their fury with the Russian attack and their tenacity to regain their rightful territory, leaves little doubt that with enough of the right fighting tools to repel Russia’s assault, Ukrainians will not back down. We have to match their tough defiance with our political will to stay the course. LAAS LEIVAT
Marcus Kolga, President Emeritus of the Estonian Central Council in Canada, and Ambassador Toomas Lukk at a recent gathering in the Estonian Embassy in Ottawa. The Ambassador was receiving guests who wished him well at the end of his three-year term as Estonia’s representative in Canada. The Council presented him with its Medal of Merit in recognition of his success in strengthening ties between Canada and Estonia, especially in regard to the defense of democracy and independence for the formerly captive nations of east and central Europe. Photo: Ülle Baum
ference in Lisbon, Portugal. Seeing the potential of the city and knowing that they needed a second large office in Europe, Pipedrive decided to send Kõiva to Lisbon for six months to help set up an office and run Pipedrive’s branding campaign there. Four years into his time at Pipedrive, Kõiva noticed that there were no good solutions to the challenge of customer service feedback and decided that he wanted to start his own company to solve that chal lenge. Thus, he founded Klaus in 2018, along with Kair Käsper (whom he had known since middle school) and Egon Sale, Klaus’ technical co-founder, who took on the task of build ing the prototype “when we had nothing but an idea,” as Kõiva describes the company’s begin nings. In short, Klaus is a software solution that enables companies to efficiently review their customer service interactions. Kõiva gives the example of calling an airline, when calls are monitored for quality pur poses. He explains, “We are the software that somebody would use to review those calls. We have some [clients] that have thousands of support agents, and giving them feedback manually is a very cumbersome process. We integrate with their help desk software, the tools that they will use to actually talk to their customers – Zendesk, for example.” It’s a system that addresses the “anxiety about what is be ing said in the body of conver sations” as Kõiva puts it, and allows clients (including Sound Cloud, Duolingo, and Epic Games) to “systematically im prove the level of customer service quality” The solution has been popu lar enough to secure “$5.4 mil lion in funding” as reported by Tech.eu in September 2020. And the process of attracting investment is not as dramatic as we might think it is. Bureau cracy and rituals are limited be cause “everybody’s just trying to move really fast.” A deal can
Photo used with permission from Martin Kõiva.
be made over email if it’s not possible to meet in person. Overall, entrepreneurs must come up with a concise pitch presentation that combines hard facts, a product story, and proof of achievement. Moreover, one needs a strong team, a product, and even a few customers to show for. For their achievements, in 2020, Klaus was added to start up hub LIFT99’s “Estonian Mafia” Wall of Fame in Tallinn. They’re up there with Bolt, Wise (formerly Transferwise), and Pipedrive. Though Kõiva humbly contests that Klaus “hit the minimum criteria”, he says it’s a great feeling and voices his respect for the previous generation of startups who have “enabled Estonia to be on this path”, from Hansabank in the 90s, to Skype, to companies like Pipedrive and Wise, which led to a new generation of startups. The newest generation, which includes Klaus, is de fined by “embracing the idea that you can work from any where and hire from anywhere” (the entire Klaus company has been working remotely since they started in 2018) and that “you don’t need to have a massive physical presence in the US to be successful.” Klaus is headquartered in Tallinn, a city he deems to be special because it’s “such a small place... Whatever happens is known immediately and that can be a good thing.” It’s a tight knit community. In Tallinn, Taavet Hinrikus, one of the co-founders of Wise, might be (Continued on page 11)
