Keeping A Close Eye On Your Saas Product’s Core Vision With Niclas Lilja of Younium

I think the whole SaaS industry is going through some hard times, right?

But in the long run, I think the megatrends and sort of the transformation is so big. We will quickly rebound, I think. But also for our space, I think there will be a lot of exciting things happening. Welcome to SaaS Origin Stories. Tune in to hear authentic conversations with founders as they share stories from the earlier days of their SaaS startups. We'll cover painful challenges, early wins, and actionable takeaways.

You'll hear firsthand the do's and don'ts of building and growing a SaaS, as well as inspirational stories to fuel you on your own SaaS journey. Here is your host, Phil Alves. Today I have Nick Lidditt from Union.

Nick, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Phil. Great to be here. Thanks for taking the time.

So the first question I like to ask our guest is what problem does your product solve?

Great topic. Not one single problem, but we help SaaS companies in B2B to manage their customer subscriptions. So of course, that's sort of at the core of what they do. So we have them have it in order, have it in one place, automate their business around it. So quite a back office solution, I would say, but very essential for all B2B SaaS companies.

So it's like building a SaaS company instead of building the whole subscription engine, I would use your product or do I connect your product to my subscription engine to kind of like be able to do more?

So typically our clients, they would instead of, you know, developing themselves, all the mechanics and all the logics on how to build their customers.

And, you know, all that those structures, they would use us and they would connect, you know, their application or their service with us and let us do the heavy lifting when it comes to all those mechanics around finance, billing, taxes, etc.

So they can focus more on, you know, what can they do for their customers?

It makes sense because I guess like billing, it's kind of similar to every single SaaS. It's complex, but similar. And it makes sense for the founders to go and do their core part of their business and you allow them to not worry about billing.

Is that correct?

Very correct.

I think an analogy would be, you know, I don't think there would be anyone, you know, starting off to build a general ledger, right?

Because we just assume that you don't do that. You use a financial system where you have a general ledger. And I think we will be in the same position. And if you years down the road with subscription management and building. Tell me a little bit about your backstory and how you come up with the idea. Sure. So the backstory, I've been in this industry for some 20 plus years now.

You know, I got out of university in the early 2000s after the dotnet era and things weren't looking that bright. So I sort of looked for a job. I ended up in telecom actually. After doing studies in computer science and marketing. And then I ended up doing some work in telecom for a big company. I spent a year there and, you know, hopefully learned a bit.

It was quite the early days of dotnet framework actually. So back in the days where you could actually know every article on a website. You can't really do that anymore. I did like one year and I realized quite quickly that being in a real world, you know, really big company wasn't the thing for me because I felt like it didn't really matter what I did. That was the feeling.

So I quite quickly lean towards finding something else. And I found this small startup called Mediaus.

I mean, I don't think you're called company startups back then in 2004 or something. But it was really a startup, you know, single digit employees looking to do software. And I stayed there for quite some time. My plan was to never stay more than five years in any work, not live in the same place more than five years, et cetera, et cetera.

But I was stuck in Stockholm for some 13 years and I or more actually. And then also with this company for 13 years. And it was like a long trainee program, I would say. Sometimes say that I did everything except for being the CEO. I didn't do direct sales and I didn't work in finance. But I did consultancy work. I did support. I did some management. I started a development team in another country.

We scrapped our software that we had built and built a new platform for the cloud 10 years ago. So there are a lot of things happening. And towards the end, I did quite some work around pricing and contracts, all of those things. And also quite a lot of work around the topic of subscription management and billing as well.

And, you know, ransom implementation around that as well. And just thought that, yeah, maybe this can be something to do something different around. And I think I had the urge or the need to start a company for a few years already back then because it was getting a bit too big for me.

And I thought that all the people coming in, they were super smart and they were super bright and they were really good at what they were doing. And I felt like I'm not that good. So I sort of maybe I need to start something.

Of course, you need an idea, right?

So around that time, I felt like maybe not all sauce companies are, you know, the perfect sauce companies, you know, that have strong virality and, you know, no sales people need it. It's only product-led growth. Everything just happens. It just explodes. Everything is online.

You know, it's all credit card payments, etc.,

etc., etc. I was used to, you know, like legacy versions of software, you know, negotiated terms, you know, it was never that perfect. And I felt maybe we can do, you know, a sauce around this to help like what I felt normal B2B companies. It makes sense. So that was actually, you know, how it sort of started.

So not a lot of like research, right?

Very like practical. I feel like that's how, even though we hear a lot about research, but I feel like that's how most companies start. It's a founder and the founder has a problem.

Well, you saw that problem and you wanted to solve that problem first for yourself. And then as you start getting deeper, you start to do research. But I think especially in the early days, it's you trying to scratch your own each, you know, think about like the GoPro camera. He did that camera because he was a surfist and he wanted a camera that he could use to record himself.

So that's where it's very different the early days from what happens later in the company, too. It's you think different about it.

And I mean, to some extent, that is also doing research, right?

But you don't think of it as research. But you spend your time doing something that you think should be done differently or you want something or you need something.

I mean, that's really like firsthand research as well, even though we don't think of it as research. So yeah. So then you left your job of 13 years to start this company. That's how it went. Yeah.

Then how did you fund it?

How did you fund this new company?

So it was not only me.

We were three people and we sort of sat down and made a plan and did a cap table and all of that and sort of divided depending on do we need some salary?

Can we invest some money?

You know, what can we sort of bring to the table?

And then we did a cut around that. But to some extent, low or no salary for some time was one way. But also some funding as well, even though on very low volumes from one of the persons who wasn't as involved in the daily activities. So we had a few different things to contribute with. So that was sort of from the early days.

But I think also that we were being a bit older.

I think, you know, if I would have done this when I was in my 20s, I might have done it differently. But I think we all had families. My co-founder had a new baby on his way.

And, you know, there were things we had a need for some stability in that. So we made sure there was some money in the company from the get-go. Makes sense. And take me through the process of designing the first version, building the first version of your product.

How it was and how long did it take?

I think it would be so, so interesting to also hear my co-founder, Fredrik, story about this. But as I remember it, it was basically me and him doing it. And he's the, you know, he's the good one when it comes to developing. I can sort of, you know, do tasks that are handed to me if needed. I think it was very, very low level of documentation and very informal.

We basically sat not together, but, you know, over, I don't know, some sort of web call. I don't know if it was Teams or Skype or something. And basically I said we should have something like this. And he started building.

And yeah, it sounds like a very bad process, but it was quite fast. So maybe it was very, you know, the right thing for us. But I think there were also, in all fairness, a few, I think, quite important decisions.

Like we had one discussion regarding like technology, for instance, like what should we do?

You know, how to approach that. And we went for the very pragmatic version that, you know, let's do something we already know. Let's not do something new. Let's do go with what we know. Because I was really concerned about speed since, you know, we didn't really make any money. I had an idea pretty clear in my head.

And I guess you're always sort of afraid that someone else will, you know, go faster than yourself.

So what technology do you guys use and how long did it take to get the version one done?

Yeah. So we're using Microsoft cloud platform, so Microsoft cloud, Azure, and then.NET Core for backend, and then Angular. There are probably more things right now, but that was sort of the core stack at the time.

But also another principle that we decided on quite early was like, okay, so how ambitious should we be when we're talking about building for scale, right?

And we decided let's build for, you know, the coming three customers. We totally ignored the fact or we didn't ignore, but, you know, we could have spent two years trying to build something that would, you know, work for 10,000 customers. But we totally took that out of the scope very early on.

And, you know, that is something you always have to be aware of and sort of play a bit of catch up. But we did it in order to actually get out, you know, in dialogues with potential customers and users as quickly as possible. And that's a great point that you bring because I have heard of a lot of companies that died because of over engineering.

I haven't heard about many companies that died because their software couldn't scale. Because when the customers come, we figure out and most SaaS don't make to one million or to $10 million. So that's the right way to think about building product. And I think it's like really complex as well.

If you're going to think about what will be required out of 10,000 clients in three years, that's very speculative, right?

You don't really have all the details in that scenario. So I think you're very much right about that.

So, Sami, we did that.

And, you know, I think our first customer implementations were in like eight months, but then also be aware that Frederick, I think he had a consultancy gig for like two months in the beginning as well.

So, yeah, maybe we spent half a year on that first version. I think we did demos like three months from the start, which were there were some disasters, to be honest, in the beginning. Tell me about a disaster. I love to hear about disasters. I just remember, you know, there were in the early days, I think.

Yeah, those who met me in that meeting still remembers it. And I think they are still laughing about it.

But, you know, I was presenting and this is how it should work.

And, you know, I had prepared and all of that. And I think maybe it was the third click I did when demoing and everything just goes bananas. And I had practiced like two hours earlier, but I think that was also perhaps, you know, an indication of how the development was in the early days.

Because we could have probably not only over engineered it, but we could also probably have over designed the whole way of, you know, version control and how to push things into production, etc, etc. But that wouldn't have helped us in the long run. But there were some really, really painful demos where it didn't work at all.

But I think, you know, everyone who's been there, everyone's been at the start at some point. And I think they sort of, we've been there as well, you know, coming together. And then they come back in a few months where, you know, we're in the next level. So that was very kind of them. But I know that I was really, really angry.

Usually not what you do at a client meeting, right?

Become really, really angry. So that is something that I care with me.

But also, I think the whole title, what we're doing is quite regulated, right?

We're talking about financial transactions in the end. And you can't really, it can't be almost right. It has to be. It's either right or wrong, basically. So there are some components of what we do that really requires you to be on point. And I think that's why it took us some time. But I'm really happy, actually, that we dared to go out really, really early and get feedback.

So even though I sort of blew the demo and, you know, it didn't work out in that sense, at least I got the feedback, you know, like, that is a problem. You solve something real. That's the right way. So you still get that affirmation and, you know, you get that feedback.

I think that was more important than the actual demo, right?

For sure. Just someone to take the time and come to your demo. If they have the problem, they're describing. They are there because they want to solve the problem.

So what worked for you guys in the early stages to attract and to retain customers?

How was your strategy to find customers?

Yeah, I think, you know, what I knew from because I think in the early days, it was very much me, at least the first year, the first customers. So I didn't know that much about marketing, to be honest.

You know, I'm not born into a social phenomenon either. So I have to work with myself. But I actually found, you know, quite a good, a few good meetups in Stockholm. And in Stockholm, we're quite a lot high density of our target companies meeting up once in a while. So that was really good for me because it was a very informal place.

You had a high density of potential, you know, clients and quite a friendly environment as well. Because as I said, I had never been working with sales.

You know, if my expertise would have been just like hardcore sales, maybe I would have been tougher, but I wasn't really. So that worked out really well for me to sort of get going and get a few connections and get, you know, a few invites and started working off that. But also in parallel, just doing, you know, super boring, cold calling, just, you know, just doing whatever works.

Because in the beginning, I mean, you don't need anything that scales. You don't need, you know, a hundred meetings. You just need a few.

I mean, you just need something. I tried to do anything, anything that was both comfortable and not so comfortable in the beginning.

Of course, that doesn't, you know, sort of solve the long term. So then we build more about, you know, structured marketing, structured sales processes and all of that. Yeah. Just finding that community was. That's cool. Yeah. Like I think in the early days, and it's kind of like been the team of all we have been talking about, we have to do things that doesn't scale. Right.

And as you do things that doesn't scale, you're going to be able to get your first few customers. You're going to be able to get a product to market. And that's what you did.

Of course, going to these events, it wouldn't be something super scalable, but going for a couple of events and bringing a few customers, it's what worked in the early days. And that's kind of like the early days. It's about that. It's about figuring out what you can do, even if it's not scalable, to get people using your product and making your product get better.

And also just to, you know, just to get to talk to people as well. Because I found that, you know, it would have been awesome to just put up, you know, this marketing campaign and, you know, it would have just, you know, come in tons of potential leads.

But at the same time, in the beginning, I found it to be so crucial to actually have a dialogue, not only about what I had planned in advance to talk about, you know, but also, you know, where the discussions have all then you've got new input and new ideas and you heard about new use cases.

So having that like in-face person-to-person dialogue, I think gave a lot of extra value to me, at least. Yeah.

It's like you're looking to your product market fit, right?

You're trying to build a product that's going to stick. And as you're talking to your early customers, you're able to do that. I remember talking to this guy and then he was like, I believe your first 100 customers should have your cell phone. So they can tell you what's not working, what's working, and then you change it from there. But it's very different in the beginning.

Yeah, that's so true. That's so true.

What is the first oh shit moment that comes to mind from your SaaS journey so far?

Yeah, I guess oh shit can be both in good, in good terms and bad terms, right?

Yeah.

I really, in good terms, I think, you know, just getting that first real customer, I think that will always stick with me because, you know, when you get sort of the final proof that it actually works, it's not only friends and family, but someone who really, really needs it.

And I remember also that, you know, they, so basically, you know, I met them, we talked, and then we signed, and then I also understood that they were spending, you know, like every month, they were spending two weeks just doing their monthly billing, sort of gathering all their data, understanding how that mapped to the contracts, figuring out all the discounts and all the, you know, ifs and buts and do's and don'ts and, you know, all of that.

And of course, you know, if it takes two weeks to bill your customers every month, you will have a problem if you, you know, grow. If you become twice as big, you know, your monthly billing will take a month. It becomes a real problem, not only like something that we construct, but I mean, that is, you know, that will lead to bankruptcy because you won't have any cash flow.

So that was, you know, something that I remember very much.

And, you know, like the oh shit moments, you know, when you have, I mean, everyone have problems and errors, right?

I think like when I realized that there's actually a lot of money that will be billed by us. And if it's not done, someone, you know, won't get paid, you know, and that dawn on me.

And, you know, there have been occasions where I felt like this is really bad if we don't solve things really, really fast.

But I think like most of those moments are around customers and, you know, their use cases and both, you know, like the use cases that we've thought of and that we present and that, you know, but also that after a while, you see that they are doing something different or they are doing it for a different reason or they are thinking in another way, which is also really good.

And you learn from them. I think that is really cool as well. And finally, I mean, the people in the team, I have to say there have been a few moments where I've been quite struck by, you know, the number of talented, great people I get to work with. So that is also something that's really something that I really remember.

And, you know, get reminded of as well.

Yeah, for sure. Having a great team makes a big difference.

So could you share like a very smart decision that you made in the early days of your company?

A very smart decision. I think one we already mentioned to build for the next few customers and not for the 10,000 customers we don't have. But I think another one was that we very, very early narrowed our ideal customer profile and therefore our target segment a lot. We made it super, super narrow and super, super small in order to try to be really good at something.

So we have quite a few criteria on how to sort out who are the real top prospects and who are not. And I think we did it early enough for it to actually, you know, make a difference. When I look at our customer base, they are all very similar. So like if we decide to invest in developing something, it will more or less be something for everyone.

And I've had the experience of having a very shattered customer base where it's not like that. And it makes it really, really difficult if your customer base is too shattered, I think. And for us, I mean, a relatively small company still, although growing, I think it's a real extra power to have a very, how do you say, like a customer base with very similar needs.

That means everything we can, everything we do can really help all our customers. So and if we hadn't been very, very hard on our how to qualify our ideal customer profiles, we wouldn't be here today.

Yeah, I think in the early days, maybe you're going to be like, no, every money is good, but it's not. It's a trap because then you're going to have people pulling you different directions and you don't have the resources to serve everybody. Right. So you have to know that's definitely a very smart decision that you guys made.

But it's a tough decision as well because, I mean, you will always feel like you're not like choosing something. You're leaving something on the table.

That's the feeling, right?

But I think the effect is quite the opposite.

But it is, I think it is a hard decision just because of that. It feels like you're giving up on something. You're leaving something. Especially when you're like, oh, my, that could be good money.

Form was such a real thing, right?

The fear of missing out. It's real. And you have to deal with that in your mind as founders all the time and you have to be able to overcome that. And I mean, you don't have all the answers.

I mean, it's easy now to say that was a really smart decision. Right. But back then, you know, ah, you know, let's see. This should be good, but let's see if it works out. Right. Like I say, it's easy looking now.

So I want to look back and how about a very bad decision that you made, like a mistake at the time we didn't know was a mistake because that's how it is decisions. We don't know what it is at the time. Right. I guess.

I mean, all honest, there are a lot of them. There have been hires that weren't done, for instance, but I don't really want to go into names, but that is, of course, one thing to some extent.

Also, like perhaps do even more on sales and marketing earlier, you know, believe even more earlier, but that's perhaps more of a broad thing. There were, I think we've done a few like product, you know, like, I mean, I think there are like one or two things around the product that we didn't really follow the ICP either.

So, so there are different things. Kind of summarize. And a lot of founders say that. I like a lot of our mistakes as founders is going to be around hiring. You hired the wrong person because like each person counts in a small startup. Each resource that goes out and you write the wrong person and that will have an impact on your business.

And the second thing they talk about is building the feature for the wrong customer. And even though you guys were like trying to have that one ICP, that's the ideal customer, it's still a trap that can outfall until when we build a feature and like, oh yeah, no one's using this or like only this one customer is using this feature.

And that's kind of like what you share, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess it's the same thing about this. Like it's easy to now say that it was a bad decision. It goes both for the good and the bad. Yeah. It's easy to say in the future, but when you're doing like the feature, well, this feature is such a good idea. Let's build it.

And then you build it like, why did you build this?

That's true. Yeah. But a few moments.

And if you could go back in time, meet yourself with 2017 when you started this company, what would you tell yourself?

Be even tougher and, you know, do more on sales and marketing actually even earlier than you were.

I guess that would be very like that was, I think for me, because that was my weakness, right?

That was where I didn't have, you know, any background. I didn't really know how to do it. So that was what I had to do. And I think just do even more even earlier. Yeah. I think that's the thing.

How does the company look like today?

How big are you guys?

How big is the team?

Tell me about like, how big is the team?

How big is the team?

Tell me about like, it's been a couple years now.

How does the company look like?

Are you public with revenue or anything that you can share so you can kind of understand the size of the company today?

Yeah. But we're around 60 colleagues, customers around 150 in both Europe and North America. We've been growing the last couple of years around 80 to 100% a year at least, both on team size and the current revenues. I guess that's sort of, and we've got offices in Stockholm and Malmö in Sweden. We're in Philadelphia, North America. We're also in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. And we've got a dev team in Krakow in Poland.

So quite a diverse and international team as well. Still super focused on B2B SaaS and preferably with a bit more of like advanced subscriptions, if we can call it that. Not only the online high velocity $99 million check out credit card get going, but perhaps negotiated deals or perhaps higher value deals. So that's where we're at. Origin is more in Europe. So doing more and more in North America.

Got a great team with people in Dallas and Chicago and New York here. So you started in Europe.

Why do you make the transition and start getting people here in North America too?

What's the strategy behind and how?

Tell me a little bit about that. Like how it is building a SaaS product in Europe and trying to also penetrate into the US market. Sure.

So I mean, we talked about that really niche ideal customer profile. So when we've done our long-term planning, it's been quite evident that as a growth strategy, we then need to expand geographically because I'm from Sweden. So we started out in Sweden and the market is just not big enough. Then we would have to have a different side. So quite good.

Be international really, really quick has been in the books from the get go more or less. And I think the maturity around SaaS is higher.

Of course, in the US, it's more or less the birthplace for SaaS as a concept. So the maturity is good and people know what we talk about and we don't have to educate the market. I would say competition is also a bit higher, but I think it's also something that toughens you. You get to compete. I think that's good for us. We feel pretty confident with our niche.

But I do think like you said, what it's like, I think just the fact that we come from a small country with like 10 millions of inhabitants, we know from the start, like, okay, we can't do anything here. We can start something, but we have to think of how to build this to work in other countries as well.

Otherwise, there's no point. So that is something that we have with us, both in how we think, but also in how we build the product and how to make it scale for bigger organizations, perhaps organizations with entities in different countries, etc. So that's usually a strength and something that we try to leverage, of course. So from the get-go, you know, like this is a small country. I need to build something international.

That's part of the foundation for how you're building this company. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, you know, when I did the count, like how many potential customers do we have in Sweden?

It was like 250.

Can't really go to anyone and say that you're going to be a big, huge success if there's only, you know, if that's the entire market, right?

So and I think it's always growing as well.

And, you know, there are adjacent markets as well. So I'm not worried, but I definitely think that is something that was very clear to us from the start that we need to expand early on.

So I mean, like just like last year, we opened up new markets like Germany, UK, US, Canada, and France and Belgium. So that was last year. So we feel like we have, you know, presence that we can now work with. That's awesome.

And how does the future looks like?

Hmm, bright.

That must be the answer, right?

What are you excited about in the future?

I think we're super excited about both.

I mean, like the company and, you know, the journey that we're on.

I think the whole SaaS industry is going through some hard times, right?

But in the long run, I think, you know, the mega trends and sort of the transformation is so big. So we will quickly rebound, I think. But also for our space, I think that there will be a lot of exciting things happening and perhaps not only talk about, you know, top line and growth, but perhaps also like more around efficiencies is perhaps a topic that's of more interest right now.

And I think it's reasonable, not only in bad times, but also how can we sort of take another step and be even more mature around SaaS?

And I think that's also something for us then to work with as we want to support all these companies. So excited about that. Excited about being in North America as well. I'm only since two months love it. I'm very excited to see where it will take us this year as well. Welcome to the United States. I moved here 12 years ago and it was interesting.

Doing business here is both easier and harder because there's so much more competition, but there's also so much more resources. And it is fun to do business here in the United States. I love it.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So thank you very much, Nick, for your time. I have one final question that I like to ask every founder that comes on the show.

The question is, what book do you recommend for other SaaS founders?

There are so many, right?

But I guess like the good to great is Jim Collins.

Is that correct?

I mean, that's a great one. I really enjoy the first break all the rules as well. More around hiring.

Oh, there are so many books. They are so good.

A lot of smart people, right?

Yeah. A lot of good books, but those were at least a few perhaps not so SaaS oriented. I guess just looking into all those like books on predictable revenue and those classics, I guess, are for everyone as well.

But yeah, I love all those books you mentioned. Good to Great is such a good book because SaaS is a company at the end of the day. And I think even right now when you're talking about the climate and the economy and how things are a little bit iffy, if you think about the good to great principles, you realize the companies that were working on those principles, they're going to be okay.

And they're going to be just fine. Yeah.

I think, I mean, if you're doing great things, you will also be able to do great things even in hard times. So sorry.

Yeah, perhaps time to do a reread, right?

I know. Why I get inspired. That's for sure. Thank you very much for coming to the show and sharing the origin story of your company. Thank you so much for having me.

If people want to know more about you and follow you, what's the best way to do?

LinkedIn is one way. And a lot of what I do is around our company, Unium as well. So we're in all the normal places. Unium.com on LinkedIn as well. And I think reach out to me on LinkedIn is a good way, if there's anything. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. SaaS origin stories is brought to you by Dev Squad.

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