The journey of building a successful AI company, culminating in its acquisition and the integration of company cultures post-merger.
The journey of building a successful AI company, culminating in its acquisition and the integration of company cultures post-merger. It explores how Generative AI has impacted the company's growth and industry position.
But in the end, we simply ask one question back. How much revenue are you going to commit to? If the answer is we're not going to commit to any revenue, then we're not going to integrate. You need focus and you need to be very clear on and very harsh about it and you need to say no many more times than you say yes. All righty. Hello everyone and welcome to the Dealmaker Show. So today we have a really exciting guest, an exciting guest that has done incredible stuff. You know, he um he recently sold his company and we're going to be learning about, you know, like the whole building, scaling, financing, and exiting. I mean, he's been involved in two acquisitions for over a billion, you know, each. So, a lot to learn, you know, whether it's how you find product market fit, how you think about co-founders, raising money from the right people and why, as well as how to find the right buyer
for your business. So, again, brace yourself for quite the inspiring conversation. And without further ado, let's welcome our guest today, Phil Heltoig. Welcome to the show. >> Yeah, great to be here. Thanks. >> So, originally born in Germany, so give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up for you? >> I you know I was born in in Germany in the early 80s and uh I think it was a really good time to grow up. Uh we were really the generation that grew up pretty much without technology and then as technology emerged, you know, getting into computers really early on. I have an older brother and he um had a Commodore 64 which I inherited at one point. So I started computer programming at the at the age of nine. I'm not sure you can really call it programming. I was maybe you remember you bought these magazines and it had all the code in it and then you typed it
all into a computer and you hoped you didn't make a mistake and then you had a little game or something afterwards. And then of course the internet came out in the early 90s and um yeah, it was an exciting time. It was a time where we still knew every uh all the nuts and bolts of of every computer that we had and we built it all ourselves. And I think this had a a big impact on me always being curious around technology and yeah it was great. >> So I know that in your case you know like you were there in Germany for for quite a bit you know before you decided to pack the bags and out of all places go to Australia. I mean Australia is quite far away from Germany. So why why Australia out of all places? >> Well it always been quite international. I went to language school in England and I went to high school in the US for a while. But then in university it so happened that the
um Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane was our partner university. So I studied in Müster in Germany and Qout was our partner university and they had these scholarship programs where you could go over to Australia to study um for a bit. And so I did that for for six months and quite frankly the day that I landed in uh in Australia I knew that um this was a place where I definitely wanted to stay for longer. I don't know if you've ever been there but uh if you have then uh then then you'll know what I'm talking about right eternal sunshine people are really nice uh hardworking uh yet very easygoing and I really like that. And then I got the opportunity to um establish a business over there. So I went over to study and then I came back to Germany. I went back to Australia to finish my master's thesis at SAP and then I got the opportunity to establish the subsidiary for
Australia and New Zealand for a Danish software company called Sitecore. Sitecore was one of the first web content management systems that was using Microsoft technology.NET technology at the time was really successful already in the United States and in um in Europe. I think they had around maybe 40 odd employees um when I joined and so I joined in in Australia to build up the Australian New Zealand um subsidiary. We became very successful in that um very quickly. I think we were the third largest subsidiary worldwide within within a year or two and then expanded from there on out to other countries in Asia, helping to establish um subsidiaries in Japan and other countries before then eventually returning to Europe and um in 2013 >> to be a bit close to the family >> close to the family but also you know close to where all the action was happening to I'm sure because I mean
the company went from 40 employees to about a thousand or so you know by the time the the transaction happened. So >> that's right. >> And the company again, you know, got acquired by about 1 point $1.2 billion, something like that. I mean, that's crazy growth, crazy outcome, too. Amazing opportunity for you to be able to learn. What does it feel and what does it look like to be able to be part of a rocket ship like that? Because it sounds like you really took that playbook for your next business, which had a similar outcome in terms of numbers of an acquisition. So, what were some of those lessons that you got, you know, from from your experience there? >> And you you're you're pointing at something uh something very true that I I've always thought about it like that. I thought that my time at Sidecore was like really well-paid university, right? Business university
essentially, right? Because of course, I made a bit of money, but um the most important thing was that I really learned how to scale an enterprise software business, right? Site goal was in a way copying the Microsoft model where it was all about partners. So you attracted partners, you enable partners, partner training so that partners, you can use partners as a as a very mature gotom market motion to really break into into many deals that you otherwise couldn't have broken into. And so I learned a lot u I learned a lot from that both in in terms of um how to shape the GTM from generating leads qualifying leads in marketing and BDRs SDRs running deals end to end closing the deals then working with customer success to actually keep the customers happy. So the whole GTM motion I wasn't involved that much in product. I mean, I'm I'm traditionally from a computer science background. So, I
was a little bit involved, but not that much at um at Sidecore, but really also leading a business because if you if you run a subsidiary in Australia for European business, then you're pretty much on your own. Like, you don't really communicate with headquarters that often. And they kind of let you do your thing, right? Because they go like, "Well, yeah, you know, let him try whatever he wants. If it works, that's great. If it doesn't work, well, it's just Australia. that's not that big a market. So, um I learned a lot in building um very high performing teams, creating a good team spirit and I actually learned one thing from my good friend um Banna Hansen and who was the founder of Psychore US and so he was a he was an experienced business guy already when I started um in Australia and New Zealand. So I met with him in the US and he told me a couple of good things and one of the things
was he had established something where every year he would take his whole team on a trip. So company trip they would go usually I mean being Americans they would usually go to Mexico Cancun or some place like that and the little special thing about that was that he wouldn't just take his employees but he was he would take their employee his employees and their partners and families right so he take the wives and husbands as well because he said you know what if someone is on the road all year long selling your software sure they make some money and that's all good but if we if we give back through something like this trip and if we have a good time we shouldn't just give back to him. we should also give back to in this case then for example his wife right so I learned that from him we established that at um sidecore uh in in Australia and New Zealand and we created an amazing culture
through that and other means and then that's also something I took into my into my next business where we kept doing these trips at one point we got too big and we we couldn't do them with the partners anymore but um we kept doing these trips all the way um until just after the acquisition actually where We took the whole global team to Sicily with Cogni and uh it's always been it's always been a great time and if you think about it one way to rationalize it as a business leader you pay around $2,000 per employee for this trip. Now what you could do you could you could not do the trip and you could pay out a bonus. So but if you're paying someone two and a half thousand in bonus what do they actually get? Right? They get half of that because of tax. And for someone who makes 150 grand a year or more, if they get a bonus net of one and a half grand, that's not special, right? They look at
it, they go…