Navigating Challenges with a Strong Team w/Sverrir Stein Sverrisson

Welcome to another episode of the Whole Human Podcast. Today I'm speaking with Stein Sverre Søren. That's not correct. It's Sverre Stein Sverre Søren. I even messed up the connection there. I'm sorry about that, Sverre. Welcome on the show.

Thank you so much, Peter.

Sverre is the co-founder of Godot and also working on Travia. And for the people who don't know who you are or what those companies do, would you mind introducing yourself for the audience?

I would be delighted to, Peter. Thank you so much for inviting me to your podcast. So my name is Sverre Steff Sverrejson, a proper Icelandic name. I'm the youngest of 3, and it seems as my parents ran out of ideas, so they named me after my father. Well, that's how it is here in Iceland. We carry the name of our father in our surname. Yes, I am working for Godot, a company that was founded in 2013 by myself and my friend Svenni. We, we are friends for decades. We studied together and we actually spent some time together in Denmark where we studied at the Danish Technical University, DTU, in Lyngby. Um, and we, it was a coincidence that we moved to Iceland both at the same time, and quickly we decided that we wanted to do something Together, we wanted to do something that involved software development. We wanted to do something, tap into a market that was growing. The Icelandic tourist market was, you might say it was in its beginning of exploding. In 2012, 23rd annual visitors in 2012 were somewhere around 600,000, 700,000. Today we have 2.2 million visitors. Coming to Iceland in 2024. So we jumped into that sector. We, we started the company Godu and we started working on PMS market. What we do at Godu, we, we develop property management systems. We develop the whole ecosystem for hotels to operate perfectly. And we looked into the guest experience, we looked into the operational side, and of course the sales and the marketing side for the hotels.

So how big is the—

how big is what?

How big is the company today?

Uh, today we are 140 employees. We are operating in 3 countries or 4 countries, you might say. We have an employee in Hungary. And I was actually finalizing hiring an employee in Panama yesterday. We've been growing and yeah, so we are by far the biggest travel tech provider in Iceland and our product range is quite big today. We are not only in the PMS sector, we are actually operating a car rental distribution system. And Pravia, as you mentioned, which is a portal for, it's a B2B portal for travel agencies to book directly into the live inventory of the hotels. Yeah, we are quite big and we've been doing quite fine in the last, yeah, ever since we began our journey.

And, and you've been doing this without any external funding, is that correct?

Yes. We, we, we are like a good example of a successful bootstrapping company.

Yeah. It's, uh, it's really a remarkable story to, for 2 guys to build a company like that in an industry which I can imagine is fairly competitive and, and has maybe some larger tech companies also trying to supply solutions. Why do you think you guys have been Successful? What is it that you have done and understood better than others?

I think we have been fortunate in terms of the team we have. We, we obviously tapped into a market where there were external companies from different countries were operating here, but what we found was lacking was the service levels. It was okay. Easy route for us to, uh, to, to sell the value proposition into the Icelandic market. In the beginning, we obviously, we gathered around us a very nice team, old friends, people who have some experience from the hospitality industry, the tech industry, and we just started working hard, driving around the country, introducing the product, the services. And basically in the beginning we were sharing the emergency fund between the small team. And so yeah, the team and just being willing to work hard is, I would say, the foundations of our success so far.

Thanks, Peter. So I've been to Iceland a couple of times, and, and for the people who have not been, it's a fantastic tourist destination, but it's also a fantastic people, right? The people you meet are funny, caring, hardworking, to your point, and maybe also a little bit stubborn.

Yeah, I think I think you just nailed it there. We have this saying: "Tätä rättästä." Everything will just be okay. We we don't look at obstacles as obstacles. We look at it as a possibility to grow in some directions. We we on our journey we've bumped into many obstacles on the way, and looking back. These are the those are the ones who have actually helped us growing into the next stage and the next stage. Icelandic people and the office here, it's this is what drives me. I wake up in the morning still today, and I look forward to come to work because we have somehow managed to gather a bunch of professionals in development, in onboarding and support and marketing and sales, and and we all are. Still as eager and enthusiastic to, to do a good job for our customers. We put service level here, and I think that has helped us to become, to get that status on the Icelandic market as we have today. Our customers, they're happy with the customer service.

And now it sounds like everything has gone, so to speak. You've done a lot of things. Over the years, but has there been times where it felt like you would have to close up shop and go home, or you wouldn't succeed? Has there been obstacles or things where you're like, this is the end of the line, we're not going to survive this? Have you had any experiences like that?

Obviously, our revenue model is based on subscription models, and then parts of it are based on how well the, our customers are performing. Because we, we do offer what we call the suite operational services. We offer our customers like a service in our back office. It's called, we have revenue management. We do email answerings and phone answerings and an extended service package to the normal software as a service package we're offering. And when COVID hit us, obviously the whole market just went From here to zero in one moment. And, but we, we had some critical meetings and we decided to use that time to not lay off people, but rather to prepare for the time when the market will wake up again.

No.

Yes, we've had some times where we were uncertain about the future, but I would When looking into the rearview mirror, I can fairly say that the COVID period time was the time where we took some of our products from phase 1 to phase 3 and phase 4. We put more resources in developing Travia. And Travia, for example, we just launched it in, in the beginning of 2020. And the revenue model is based on transaction fees where travel agencies, they can book directly into the live inventory and, and the hotels, they will, they, they save tons of time. They get all the bookings just like they're coming from Booking.com or Expedia or whatnot. And, and in the beginning of 2020, it all looked so great. Tons of bookings in the platform. And then just in a split of a second, everything canceled. And we don't charge anything for canceled bookings. We had to sit down, we had to re-strategize the journey for Travia. And, and then when the market— markets reopened, we could see the platform was— had become more mature. And last year, Travia processed the second, it was the second highest source of bookings in the Icelandic market, just after Booking.com. And today we are actually, we are expanding that product to the global markets and, and we're doing actually very fine there, you know.

Have there, you've got a good club, right? 140 employees. Have you had offers to sell the business in the past?

Yes, we've had, there are, we've had offers in the past and we have offers today and there are many interested buyers. They are, they like what we're doing and we, I think we, we are basically having discussions with the funds every month. But yeah.

What's prevented you from, what's prevented you from selling so far?

Before, I think before taking that discussion seriously from our side, we would really like to get a bigger footprint in global markets. Obviously, the value of the company would But then on the flip side, we still love what we're doing and we like to maintain control of what we're doing. I think, yeah, it's a bit of a mixture of those 2 factors.

As long as you're having fun and as long as there are new challenges or new markets to conquer, and as long as you can support your growth through your revenue, Which you can. There is no reason to sell, is there? Unless you wanted to go sit on a beach somewhere or do something else. Yes.

But me, like every other Icelander, I go once a year to Tenerife and I do my 2 weeks on the beach and then—

And you come back, you're totally red like a lobster. Exactly.

My skin is, my skin has become so mature that the tan color I used to have when I was 25, it's For long gone. So now I'm just like a lobster. No, it's, I, I, we really like what we're doing. We have a great team. We have an amazing CTO, amazing squads of developers working on different missions. We are, sometimes we think we're doing too much. We, we need to work hard to maintain the focus. Remember, where are we going? And, but, but we really like what we're doing. And lately we've been expanding our focus to different, or into the global market area. And we're like reinventing our journey as it goes. And it's fun to come to work, meet the guys, look at what we've been, the key findings in the new market areas. Is this feasible market for us? What is the expected growth in that market? Is there a gap for us? Market entry strategies, reinventing the value proposition for the different markets, and it's just fun. We, I think we're a fun company.

And, and, and when you look at your fine partnership, what do you think is the secret to you guys have been able to do this together for so long?

Because I think we are equally, we're just 2 idiots. We are good friends, really good friends, and we've done lots of things together. And it's not just me and him. We have, we have way more people in here who are contributing to the success so far. And I would say it's because of the whole team, not just one or 2 persons. It's, I think it's fair to say that we could never been able to get this far without everybody's contribution. And it's 140 people, and I'm not going to name drop all of them, but, but we are, you know, a great team.

One of the things that stood out when you and I first spoke and, and we talked about potentially doing this episode. Also, then you highlighted the team and many founders do that, but there's a difference because it's clear when you talk about it that it is paramount, that it is the 140 people, some of whom have been with you for a long time, who've been able to build the success that you guys are building together. And I think that sometimes is forgotten, honestly.

Yeah.

Many founders talk about the team, but you don't really get the sense that they really care and value them as much as you do when you talk to you.

It's, yeah, it's true. But see, the thing is, we are, we have people who are professionals in business intelligence. We have people who are way better than we are with everything regarding the culture of the company. We have people who are, they know how to program in different programming languages, and there are people here who are way more organized than we are. And if you look at the team we have and how we have managed to structure the company, I think, yeah, it's just fair to say we, we would both probably be doing something totally different today, not for them. It's just how it is. And, and there's a good family vibe here across the borders. And I think what we have managed to create is a, an amazing culture. And I think that's the most important thing because looking back, spending more than 10 years in this journey, it's like a good chunk of your life and it just ne— it needs to be fun. It needs to be meaningful. And obviously we need to see some success. We need to know what we are planning yesterday is creating some friction today and moving some mountains tomorrow. This is, it's a mixture of everything. And yeah, as I told you, when I arrived into this interview, pretty unprepared, but it's, I could spend hours just being emotional talking about each and every person in the company.

Right.

They are just like a family to me and to everybody here.

We'll round off there. I think that was a beautiful last statement about the kind of company you've built and why you've been successful. So thank you very much for joining me today.

Thank you.

And to everybody listening, this was another episode of the Whole Human Podcast. If you want to learn more about Tverrstein Sverreson, And Guru, we will link to him and his company in the show notes, and you can go check them out. They're really doing some remarkable stuff. So thank you again and have a good day.

Thank you.