210. Jens Levin, Founder & CEO of Sitoo - No Overnight Success: 22 Years of Focus, Teamwork, and Playing the Long Game

Summary

The SaaSiest Podcast Ep. 210 – Jens Levin, Founder & CEO of Sitoo: "No Overnight Success: 22 Years of Focus, Teamwork, and Playing the Long Game"

Release Date: April 1, 2026
Hosts: Daniel Nackovski & Thomas Sjöberg
Guest: Jens Levin, Founder & CEO of Sitoo

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the journey of Jens Levin and Sitoo—a Swedish SaaS company that’s achieved international scale after 22 years of relentless refinement and teamwork. Jens unpacks the company’s crucible years, the need for razor-sharp focus, pivotal business model shifts, and the philosophy of building for the long haul. Throughout, listeners are treated to candid lessons on scaling, maintaining culture, and forging lasting partnerships. The conversation moves fluidly between personal leadership growth and hands-on advice for SaaS founders looking to go global.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Personal Behind the Founder

• Jens describes himself as both an entrepreneur and a family man. Early sporting experiences underscored the pain of losing and the necessity of teamwork—an ethos he’s carried into his business life.
• Quote (03:37): “Entrepreneurship is all about overcoming challenges and your family is an amazing foundation to be able to do that.” — Jens

2. Sitoo’s Evolution: 22 Years & Several Pivots

• The company began as a website builder and e-commerce platform “before Shopify existed.” The current focus—point-of-sale (POS) and in-store experience for non-food retailers—was only found after a decade of trial and error.
• Quote (11:02): “Since 2015, it’s a completely new business… we used our revenue stream from the old business to fund our new business.” — Jens
• Their major pivot came from realizing they’d never be best-in-class at everything; focusing on POS software and integrating with other players was the breakthrough.

3. Current Scale and Global Reach (11:51–13:55)

• 200 million SEK in recurring revenue, growing at over 40% YoY
• 135 employees from 16–17 nationalities, global customer base (27–28 markets including global rollouts for brands like Puma and US expansion)
• Emphasis on building a global team to support a global vision

4. Why Razor-Sharp Focus is Non-Negotiable (17:49–20:23)

• Initially hard to say "no," but essential for going global. Too broad a scope leaves you a “local champion,” only focus creates global contenders.
• Insights from mentors and the Nordic entrepreneurial ecosystem were transformative
• Quote (19:38): “If you want to go global, you have to have a razor-sharp focus on one thing. Otherwise you will remain local forever.” — Jens

5. Building & Benefiting from an Ecosystem (20:23–23:08)

• Sharpened focus made Sitoo a clear partner (not a competitor) in the broader tech ecosystem, enabling mutual referrals and faster integrations.
• Success depends on being clear about your value so others know how to partner, not fearing saying no to adjacent opportunities.
• Memorable Moment (22:13): “If you give love, you get love. So if you give love to other partners, they give you love.” — Jens

6. Team, Culture, and Long-Term Motivation (24:25–33:21)

• Major funding partner is Verdane (35% ownership), chosen for values as much as money.
• Employees and founders retain significant ownership, and early angels were critical.
• Building for Scale: Structure is essential—transition from founder-dependent knowledge to scalable processes, a turning point around 80-125 employees.
• Culture of operational excellence: “Factory beats heroes.”
• Quote (33:21): “If you create an environment where people love to be, then you have succeeded. …The team. The team. The team. The team.” — Jens

7. Longevity: Surviving the Long Game (32:09–36:08)

• Success is about loving the journey, your team, and finding meaning beyond just financial milestones.
• Founders must continually re-motivate themselves and others, ask challenging questions, and always treat every day as the first day on the adventure.

8. Go-To-Market: Geographic & Segment Expansion (36:08–38:21)

• Strategy: Secure the Nordics, conquer the UK, then take a US beachhead.
• Success in tech-savvy N. Europe is a springboard to international success.
• Viking Analogy (37:28): “You only live once and you have only one adventure, so why not go for it? …the planet is waiting for the Vikings taking over.”

9. Hiring, AI, and the Future (38:22–40:56)

• Sitoo is aggressively recruiting, building complementary teams for the next phase—including major investments in AI (their agent now handles 65% of support tickets in 40 languages).
• AI is seen as a powerful co-pilot, not a people replacement.
• Quote (40:21): “Still, you need another 35% that needs people to sort out. …The world usually ends up in grey.”

10. Mentors and Sources of Inspiration (41:21–42:47)

• Critical hires (like CFO Peter Lander) transformed Sitoo’s focus on SaaS metrics and operational discipline.
• Jens offers to connect the hosts with other impactful figures in their network—underscoring the power of community.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• (09:04) “We had a website builder and then an E Comm platform...completely different environment back then.” — Jens
• (19:38) “If you want to go global, you have to have a razor-sharp focus on one thing. Otherwise you will remain local forever.” — Jens
• (22:13) “If you give love, you get love. So if you give love to other partners, they give you love.” — Jens
• (33:21) “If you create an environment where people love to be, then you have succeeded. …The team. The team. The team. The team. And the team.” — Jens
• (37:28) “You only live once and you have only one adventure, so why not go for it?” — Jens

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:10–05:05: Jens’s personal history and early influences
• 07:38–11:12: Sitoo’s journey and product evolution
• 11:51–13:55: Milestones in ARR, globalization, and team size
• 17:49–20:23: Importance of focus and how mentors solidified this strategy
• 20:23–23:08: Building strong partner ecosystems—“Vikings 2.0”
• 24:25–26:24: Funding and investor relationships
• 27:00–33:21: Scaling operations, culture, and processes
• 35:51–38:21: Vision for Sitoo’s future and expansion strategy
• 38:22–40:56: Hiring philosophies and AI in operations
• 41:21–42:47: Impactful mentors and paying it forward

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Summary Takeaways

• Overnight success is a myth—Sitoo’s ‘overnight’ took 22 years.
• The most successful SaaS companies obsess over focus, partnership clarity, and team.
• Loving the journey, investing in culture, and choosing the right people—internally and externally—are non-negotiables for longevity and resilience.
• Scaling isn’t just about sales or engineering but about exporting your decision-making, values, and operational DNA into every new hire and every market.
• Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Find your “holy grail” and double down.

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Closing Thoughts

Jens Levin leaves listeners with a powerful daily ritual:

(44:06) “Every morning I ask myself two questions. One, Jens, now we get going. This is the first day of the rest of this adventure—let’s go. …Two, what do you not know that you have to know?”

The episode is a must-listen for SaaS founders and leaders seeking inspiration and real-world lessons from an authentic, humble, and fiercely persistent European SaaS CEO.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[A]

You are listening to the Sassiest podcast in the world. Born in the Nordics. Democratizing B2B SaaS knowledge everywhere.

[B]

Hi, I'm Daniel.

[C]

And I'm Thomas. And we are experienced SaaS professionals that are curious about how other successful SaaS companies go to market scale, build winning teams and great products.

[B]

Join us on our journey as we speak to SaaS leaders trying to get hold of their secret sauce.

[C]

And today's guest is Jens Levine, the CEO at C2.

[A]

What I really believe is that when you have a SaaS service, you have to have a razor sharp focus on what you do and you have to have a razor sharp focus on who you are doing it for.

[C]

Hello there and welcome again to another episode of the SaaSys podcast. Daniel, how are you?

[B]

I am in Easter mode.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

Like Easter mode. Like we are. We have decorated the house with the yellow purple eggs.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

Bunnies. It's a lot of fun. It's a big thing here so we're really looking forward to it. The kids are home from school. Like, I mean I just come to realize, like, I love the holidays. I love the holidays. It's like it's, you know, having opportunity to spend time with families that's, it's hard to beat that.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

What about you? Did you also decorate your house?

[C]

As usual, I'm way behind you. So to be very transparent here, we still have some Christmas things that we need to put up in the attic again. But you know, we've been away in Thailand for months. My wife had a surgery and. Yeah, what else? I can blame it on my knees. Bad knees.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

But we're getting there and we're gonna, we're gonna, you know, get the Easter stuff down as well. And yeah, it's a short week but a lot to do. We are planning for three upcoming events, but the big focus is of course on the flagship event, Sassyest Malmo. The fifth year anniversary on May 5th and 6th and things are happening all the time. We will soon announce awards. So as usual we have the sassiest man, sassiest woman, sassy CEO and sassist company that we will announce at the event. So you will soon be able to vote for the candidates. Really excited about that. And then we have been to Paris and Munich and secured the locations and the vendors over there. So very soon you will also see more information about those events. They are coming up in mid June. June 16 in Paris, June 18 in Munich. And also really excited about some new territorial advances in those areas.

[B]

All right, there's A GEO expansion that's happening. We're excited about that. We're also excited about the next guest here. So I think we should just. He's knocking on the doors here. We should just let him in.

[C]

Absolutely. And they are also on an expansion journey for sure. And yeah, let's go and talk to Jens. Today. We are super excited to have no other than Jens Levine here as a guest in the Sassy podcast. Glad to have you here, Jens.

[A]

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

[B]

We're super excited, like Thomas said, to have you here, Jens. Like I think last time we spoke must have been three years ago. I probably have seen you in my LinkedIn feed or somewhere. But it's been some time and you guys have made quite some progress since then. We're going to talk a little bit about that. But before we dig into your work here, who is Jens? I think I've heard a rumor that you and I like the same football team.

[A]

Yeah, we do. I'm actually born in southwest Sweden, Skoda and I came to Stockholm when I was 10 years old and I'm very passionate about building things and I've done that all my life. And so it was, you know, entrepreneurship is something that is very. I'm really, really excited about, but I'm also a team player and I realized that if you're going to build anything in life, you have to have the best team around you and you have to have trust in the people that you work with. And I think trust and share the same passion and have an objective that you are reaching, reaching to try to achieve together with great, great team players around you is an amazing experience. And I think that's me actually. But I'm also a family man and I really appreciate my family. My wife is my best coach and she has helped me a lot. As you know, entrepreneurship is all about overcome challenges and your family is amazing foundation to be able to do that.

[B]

100%.

[A]

Yeah. So I'm combination of an entrepreneur and a family man, I believe. Yeah.

[C]

And you mentioned, I mean, being a team player, how important that is. Does that mean that you have a sports background?

[A]

Yeah, I did a lot of different kind of sports when I was a youngster. But when I was a youngster it was not a little bit, it was not the same kind of environment that is today. Today I believe everyone want to be Zlatan. But way back when I was doing a lot of different sports, we were doing it for fun, you know, and we were doing, we were trying out different sports because we were so excited about it.

[C]

So.

[A]

So I've done a lot of different sports. Yes.

[C]

Yeah. Any. Anyone in particular? What was your favorite?

[A]

Winning, I guess.

[B]

That is a great answer. Any sport. I'll take any sport as long as I win.

[A]

I, I actually, I don't think the purpose of losing in that sense. You know, it's the worst pain ever to lose. Whatever you do. It's so painful. So you just want to avoid it.

[C]

Absolutely. And you mentioned you're very passionate about entrepreneurship. What was your first entrepreneur endeavor? Did you sell pencils when you were a kid?

[A]

I was selling at the university. I was selling university merch because I didn't have any merch back then. So we were doing merch and I've done a lot of different things. But, you know, selling is something that I have been a big passion for me since I was very young. And you know, I don't know why, but I just love it, you know, so. But then I had. When I started out after university, I came to an environment in a company that they encouraged people to start out new initiatives. And I think that environment created the right circumstances so I actually could become an entrepreneur. So one day I left that environment and I decided why not do it by myself? I mean, now I've built a lot of different things for this company, but why not find some really good team players and build something together? So I think it's all about what environment you are in that encourage you to become the person you are, I believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And that has led you to where you are today. And if there's somebody here that doesn't know situ, like tell us shortly, like, what are you guys all about? What do you do and for whom do you do it?

[A]

Situ. If you go into any shopping mall In Scandinavia, around 30% of all stores are using SITU. And what we do actually is that we are helping them out with the in store, in store experience. So we do all the point of sale, we do all the omnichannel capture. We do the. We are like the operative system for an in store environment. Taking care of shipments, warehousing a lot of stuff. And we do that for mid size and large retailers. All right, so that's our. And we don't do it for food, we do it only for retail. Retail, non food, as you say it in Swedish, we call it sellenschepsvarhande, but you don't have that word in English. So it's retail, non food. So that's what we do.

[C]

And you've been around for more than 22 years. So was that sort of the business from the start or how has the business evolved over the years?

[A]

Oh, way. No. You know, when you start out, as all entrepreneurs are doing, you have one thing that you believe is the thing, but then you realize over time that you have to. You have to adjust. So we were struggling in my point of view, for 10 years before we found our holy grail. So we found our holy grail in 2015.

[C]

What did you start with? When you started 22 years ago, what did you go to business with back then?

[A]

We had a website builder and then an E Comm platform and we were doing a lot of stuff. So it was a completely different environment back then.

[B]

So you were Shopify before Shopify existed. That's pretty impressive.

[A]

Yeah, it's quite. But I remember today when I went into Shopify, their website and they had 10,000 websites run. They were like live with 10,000 web shops. I remember that. So this is way back. And then in 2015, we found our holy grail and we realized that because back then we met a guy that said to us that somewhere in the future the E. Com and the in store experience will blend together. But back then we didn't have the words omnichannel, unified commerce and things like that. So we said, this guy is probably right, but he has a wrong way of solving it. So we decided to build an E Com platform and add a point of sale. But then we realized that we were really bad in E Comm. So we decided to focus on point of sale only. And that is the best decision ever in Citos history. Because when we made the decision to only have razor sharp focus on the in store experience and cooperate with all the other vendors that were doing ecom, we're doing erp, we're doing CRM loyalty, we're doing payments, we're doing pim, we're doing a lot of different things. Then all the ecosystem understood who we were and then you got this boost on your business. So in 2015, we were rolling out our first store actually. And in 2017 we decided to go only razor shop, focus on the in store experience.

[B]

So essentially, if you say like since 2015, it's a new business.

[A]

Oh yeah. We don't completely new business.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we have no revenue streams from the old business. So we could actually start out all over again in a new company if we so like. But we used our revenue stream from the old business to fund our new business.

[B]

Yeah. Which makes a lot of Sense.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Talking about revenue, let's put some numbers on your business today that is thriving and doing really well. What can you share with us in terms of ARR how fast you guys are growing? We're also curious like you mentioned that you serve a lot of customers here in Scandinavia. Are there a certain amount of people in your organization? Like how many people do you need to support these operations? So far, right here, right now, today

[A]

we have a recurring revenue on 200 million sec. We have a growth rate year on year on 40% plus.

[B]

Congratulations.

[A]

Yeah. And we don't lose so much money. So our burn rate is super low. And we have today 135 employees from 16 or 17 different nationalities. So I really believe that if you want to go global, you need to create the global environment. And you do that by different cultures, different backgrounds and stuff like that.

[B]

So do you have customers all over Europe or all over the world?

[A]

Yeah, I mean for 10 years ago we rolled out our first store. It was actually on Leed in a centrup outside Stockholm. A small toy store. That was for 10 years ago. Now we are rolling out puma globally in 40 countries. So yeah, we have stores live now, I think in 27 or 28 markets. We are going live in this, this year in, in the summer on in India with 450 stores. We have American retailers running our platform. And so so today we have plus 300 retailers using our solution. It's mid size and large retailers.

[C]

Do you have to be on site when you're rolling out in 40 countries?

[A]

No, no, no, no, we don't. It's a SaaS solutions. We don't do that.

[C]

Okay, you never know. You never know.

[B]

But do you, do you work with local partners to support this? Because like you said here, I assume your system is integrated to a bunch of different local players and so on. Do you have some kind of system integrators that are supporting these deployments?

[A]

Actually yeah. How it works today when you have an implementation project. I can use an example. You know there is a big, big organization in a big company in Scandinavia called Vonor. They, they have brands like Cubus, Dressman, Big Book, Levi's stores, Junkyard. They have in total 1,000 1,200 stores in five countries.

[B]

It's like so funny. It's like Norway's claim to fame in E Commerce. It's like anybody selling anything E Commerce, that's the group you go for in Norway.

[A]

Yeah, but they are a fantastic company in my point of view, with a great culture. But how it works. Why I use that as an example is that you have, before you roll out, you integrate CITO with all the other system in the system landscape. So if you have like a pim Ecom, you have a erp, you have a loyalty platform, you have a lot of other OMs, maybe you have a lot of different platforms, you integrate it into your system landscape. And when you do that, you also enable a lot of opportunities to replace legacy systems that you have used before and you replace it with other new services. So in their case, it took one year, that project, but when they started to roll out the stores, they rolled out 1200 stores in nine weeks. Wow. You know, in the same same way, I mean, we rolled out our first American retailer for two years ago, I guess it was something like that. It was a company called rally house in US and they are present in 28 states. So when we sold this, when we signed the agreement, then they had a problem with their stores because they had a broken point environment in their stores. So we decided to go with a poc, you know, pilot. And then they realized that pilot is much better than our existing solution. So then they rolled out in 28 states, 350 stores in four months from the starting point, including all the integrations with all existing systems. So with our kind of solution, you have a really, really, really different ball game than you have with legacy technology in the stores. So we are changing the mindset. And the reason we can do that is because we have only one solution. Every single customer is using one solution. So there is only one version of Zito. That means that all solution, all customers, if it's like Puma in Hong Kong, or if it's some customer in Hong Kong, Europe, or in Norway and Sweden, everyone is using one solution. And when we update the solution, everyone gets an update. So we are doing, I really believe in the SaaS business model, because if you are a retailer or if you are a large company, you want to make sure that you have the ability to know how to forecast things and you have to be sure that you are not alone doing everything. So what I really believe is that when you have a SaaS service, you have to have a razor sharp focus on what you do and you have to have a razor sharp focus on who you are doing it for. And then an icp, and that means that within that icp, you have to find as many as possible within that icp and then they help each other. So that means that a lot of users are supporting the other users with a lot of knowledge and to have that impact on your business is amazing. So everyone is gaining value by being part of that community as long as you only focus on one thing. So I think the most important thing if you want to go global in my point of view, is to keep on focus on one thing, have this razor sharp focus and say no thank you to everything outside.

[C]

Was it hard from the beginning? Because I think you mentioned this, how important it is with focus, but I mean you came from your background when you have done a little bit of this, a little bit, bit of that.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

So was it hard to start with that?

[A]

Yeah, in the beginning it was because in the beginning when you start out of the business, you just want to make it to work.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You just want to make sure that you can pay salary.

[C]

You want to satisfy everyone both internally and externally, Right?

[A]

Yeah. And the first step in an in building a company is all about can I get this to work in a point of, say in a point of view that I can survive on it. In the beginning we were only three people and today we're 135 people. So in the beginning you have a different mindset and your stress in the beginning is can I get the money to pay our salary so we can survive on this business? And then in that case it's very easy to say yes, thank you. So in the beginning it's almost impossible to say, to say no to potential revenue streams. But what I was lucky to have is that in 2015, you know, in Sweden, which I think is fantastic with Sweden, is that the entrepreneurs is helping each other. So very successful entrepreneurs are, when they have been successful, they have like a big need of helping out new entrepreneurs. So back then, before we had this in place, I was lucky to get three very successful entrepreneurs in Sweden to help me out. And one of those persons said to me, Jens, if you want to go global, you have to have a razor sharp focus on one thing, otherwise you will remain local forever. So if you say yes to everything, you can become a local champion, but you can never ever become a global champion.

[C]

Yeah, but what happens then also is that, you know, if you're doing sort of many different things, you're maybe implementing the product and everything, you're not dependent on every anyone else. But if you go really narrow, really focused, then you need to do the ecosystem play, you need to work with other type of tech vendors, maybe you need an implementation partner and so on. And it's a big undertaking. So what can you tell us about that? What's the positive aspects of it. What is sort of the challenges, would

[A]

you say when in 2015, when we shifted focus, or actually 2017, when we decided to only do one thing? What happened was that I realized that when we have a razor sharp focus on one thing, the ecosystem around us could actually analyze what CITO was all about. And then they knew what is Cito related to us? And they knew we are a partner. CITO is a partner, not a competitor. So when we did this, we started out our partnership with a couple of different vendors in our ecosystem and we realized that they supported us and we were helping each other to gain success. So we were pointing at each other. That meant that all these partners in this ecosystem, they didn't have to do everything by themselves. So if you are too wide, the partners will not like to cooperate with you, because then they don't know who are you and what do you do. But if you are razor sharp focus, you have a lot of great technology companies in Scandinavia that are having the same understanding and they only do one thing. So then out in the world we are helping each other. So, you know, we are having the same office together with, in London, as example. We are working with a lot of great, really great technology companies in Scandinavia. And we look at ourselves that we are out there, the planet is waiting for the Vikings taking over, you know,

[B]

and that is version 2.0. Vikings do a comeback.

[A]

So that means that we help each other a lot. But to be able to help others, you need to be razor sharp focused in what you do. And they have to be a razor sharp focusing what they are doing.

[C]

Yeah, fun fact. Me and my wife, we just ended the Viking TV series yesterday night. So.

[A]

So, so what I'm saying is that, that there are a lot of great entrepreneurs and a lot of great tech companies that could support you if they know what you're doing. And then of course, if you. It's all about what my grandmother told me when I was a kid. If you give love, you get love. So if you give love to other partners, they give you love.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

So that's how it is. And so the partner ecosystem is very powerful if you want to go global. But then you can't be too wide because if it's hard for them to analyze who you are, then they will not support you.

[C]

Yeah, you can't have overlapping offerings either because it can be tempting, you know, to, to take a little bigger chunk on one end and so on, and then you don't play as well with your teammates. Anymore.

[A]

And then you remain local forever. So you have to say, you have to be really good at saying, no, thank you. But you can't do it too early because it took us 10 years to. To find our Holy Grail. 10 years. So if we. And we said yes to a lot of stuff before we found our holy grail, but if we wouldn't, we were struggling for a long time. And people are not talking about that period of time ahead of the success. They usually start to talk about a company from the success and then after the success. But you know, to build a company, you have to be very, very committed. And you have to understand it's not a track and field race, it's a crossing country race. It's a marathon. And you have to wake up every single morning and go out there and do whatever it takes to become successful. And if you can do that for a long, long, long time and have the right teammates, you have to have the right teammates. Because if you don't have the right teammates, you will never, ever be able to do it.

[C]

So how are you funded? How do you fund an operation like this?

[A]

We are funded by. Our most important investor is Verdain and they have today 35% of the shares and they are contributing a lot and they have helped me out a lot to create the right foundation to be able to actually scale. And there is one situ before Verdain and one situ after Verdain. So I think if you're going to scale big time, you need to find the right investors. And before we decided to go with Boudain, I was out there meeting, I think between around 20 potential investors. But the reason why I decided that Verdain was the right choice for us was actually that they were really, really good people. And it's not only about, you know, it's so easy to find the wrong people out there and then you will never, ever be successful. But if you find people that you love, then you can actually become really successful. And that's the main reason Verdain has been a really, really good change for Sutto, which has helped situ a lot.

[C]

And how much do you own and sort of the employees of the company?

[B]

Company?

[A]

I own myself and my family 20%. And then we have, we have a lot of team members owning in the company and then we have some external angels that came out that came in to the company in the beginning of our journey. Without them, we wouldn't be where we are. So it's like you need to find good people from the beginning and Then all the journey. So I've been lucky. So I have always found really great people that have believed in situ and that makes it possible for us to be successful.

[B]

I'm also curious here. So if we look at situ post 20, 15, 16 and 17 here, that's where the flywheel started, where the magic started with the partners and so on. But I'm also imagining you find yourself after 10 years with a new company, with essentially a new product. You're still trying to figure out product market fit at this point. How do you think and look at building for scale, building for the future while you're still fairly new and fairly young. You need to get it off the ground, but you also want to build something for the future. How was that balance for you?

[A]

It's a very good question because I think first of all, you need to find your holy grail. That's the first step and it can take a long time. Then when you have founded that, it's all about scale. And to be able to scale, first of all, you need to have the right teammates with the right skills. And you have to be aware of that. This is a team sport. That's how you build big companies, that's how you build successful companies. Team sport. And within the team you have different skills and you have to combine those skills to be a team spirit. That's what you have to do. And then of course, you need to start to invest in structure and way of working process. Because in the beginning, all the skills were in the heads of the entrepreneurs and that is not scalable. So what you have to do as an entrepreneur, you have to transform yourself into become structured and where you're working. So you need to tap out all your knowledge into structured capital. And that is why you use system, you use software, you use guidelines, you use a lot of stuff that make it possible for other people to consume and not only consume, add their twist on it. So become even better, right? So what's amazing with great teammates is that they are better than you in the most of the things in the world. So if you find great team players, they are contributing with their skills, so the entire company become even better than it has been before. So I think in the beginning people tried to create this hero culture, that some people are out there doing this great gigs and they are like the best ever. But I really believe that when you really can scale is that when you transform the hero culture into something I call factory ready, meaning you can make, because the factory will always beat the heroes. So that means that you need to actually build the structure, the foundation to be able to scale big time. And I think the big shift in CITL was actually when you are around 80, 85 employees, everything has to be scalable, otherwise you stop your evolution. So I read a lot about that and I read a lot of articles about saying that between something like 75, 80 to 125, that's a big, big, big shift in any company in the world.

[B]

So what does this mean in practice for you when you reached that, when you felt like, okay, we gotta formalize structure, process our way through certain things, like in practice, what did that mean for you as a CEO and for you as a business?

[A]

First of all, I think an entrepreneur has to be true to themselves in that sense that they have to understand what they're good at and what they're less good at. So when you know what you're good at, then you should recruit people that are really good and great in stuff that you are really bad in. So that's the first step. And then what that means in practical is that you have from top down, you have a management team that are really, really structured and they have the mandate and owning different parts of the organization. And then within those teams, within every single team, they have their own leadership team making sure that they are part of the organization is doing what's necessary. And then you need to also add a lot of other things. You have to understand how important operational excellence is. So I mean that in a dev team you have DevOps. In a revenue team you have rev ops, you have a lot of people only focusing on building the foundation of the company. And before, if I, you know, when we talked for a couple of years ago, we didn't have anything of that. So it's like the three, three, four last years where we have started to invest heavily in foundation and you have to appreciate people helping you out, building the best company ever. So and in that it's everything is about can you maintain the team spirit, you can maintain the passion and you can maintain a razor sharp focus, saying no thank you to everything that is disturbing yourself in your journey, then you can win.

[B]

And what's been your secret to maintain this over a long time? Because it's all about longevity. You've been at it for 20 something years here, obviously you pivoted and so on. But what's the secret to maintain the positive spirit, to maintain and evolve the culture, to keep going at it day in, day out.

[C]

You don't want to lose.

[A]

No, you don't Want to lose. But then I think the secret is very easy. You have to have people around you that you love. That's how it is. I mean, if you have people around you in your life that you love, they give you the energy that you need to keep on going. And that means that you need to have a family life with a lot of love, and you need to have a working life with a lot of love. So what we do is that we invest a lot in our staff in creating this great culture. And I believe that if we can have an environment, a working environment that people love to give, go to by themselves. Not like, okay, you have to work every. You have to be in an office three days a week and two days a week, a week. You are remote. Those kind of regulations doesn't work. If you create an environment where people love to be, then you have succeeded. So we invest heavily in our team because a team is a difference. And I think that is the secret. The team. The team. The team. The team. And the team.

[B]

The team. I'll take that. And we have a pretty awesome team here, Thomas. It's like, you know, we're a lot of love. Three people in the core team, and I don't know, an army of freelancers. But I think there's quite some love here. A lot of love.

[A]

Yeah. Because if you have the love, then you actually also are aware of that every single day is not the best day ever. You will have a lot of challenges in your entrepreneurship. Yeah. And to be able to keep on walking, you know, keep on running, then you need to have people around you that are helping you out. You know, when you have a bad day, Thomas might have the best day, and then you are together.

[B]

You know, it's so funny. I don't know if it's funny or sad. Like, usually Thomas and myself, we start every morning together, although we're in separate cities here. And it usually. It's a telegram, messages, you know, hey, how are you? Or something happened last night that maybe the other one didn't see the email coming in. There's a little bit of a pre exercise before we meet in our first meeting that sets the tone a little bit. I usually know already after that message the shape and form that he is in. Like, you know, how lethal and deadly is he on a scale of 1 to 10, and he's always a 7, 8, and so on. But sometimes I can see from the text messages, like, ooh, we all just need to stay away from Thomas World today. He's on fire. Give him the ball and let him run with it.

[A]

Yeah, but that's what's the beauty of life. The thing is that to build a company together with a great company together with a great team is actually an adventure. And life is about an adventure. It's not that the guy or girl who has the most money when they die win because they will die anyway. It's all about what adventure have you in life. And you create your own adventure and you do that together with your teammates. And that is what's so exciting. Building things together.

[B]

Yep.

[C]

And I mean, continuing on this path. If you look into the future nowadays, it's really hard to look long in the future. Some only want to talk about the next six to 12 months. But if you see in the future how far you then want to see, what do you see for C2?

[A]

First of all, I don't think it makes any sense to have an objective to become number 17 or 14 or 22 in the world. If you're doing whatever you do, you have to have the objective to become number one in what you do. That's my profile.

[C]

Where are you right now?

[A]

I think we're on there. We are on there. We are one of the top 10. You know, I believe that, you know, if you look at Gartner and other reports that are. They are usually naming 10 different vendors and we are one of those. So I actually believe that we are in the top league right now, but we have far to go to become the number one because it's not only about tech, it's also about market share, you know, and.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And for me it's. The great stuff with Nordic is that the Nordic people are very tech savvy. So that means that you can actually, if you are successful in Nordics, then you have a good opportunity to actually make your business global. And so what we are doing that, we are having a strategy that is quite easy. We are securing the Nordics, meaning we should maintain being the champion of the Nordics. Then we are conquering uk. So we have a team in UK working really hard to be the number one in uk and I think we are doing a really good job. And then after that we would like to take a bit shed in US and the reason why we would like to do us is because if you are a tech company, that's the toughest thing you can do.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And you only live once and you have only one adventure, so why not go for it? So that's, that's our ambition. So it's like it's quite easy. Secure the Nordics, come to uk, take a beach at the us. That's our plan.

[C]

Sounds exactly like the Viking TV show that we've just wondered. They ended up in the US in the last two episodes, but they actually got beaten in the uk. But that's. But now we can take revenge.

[A]

Now we have got a lot of punches in uk, but you know, we have changed guards a couple of times and now we have a really skilled team in place and we are doing great progress. So I think if you're not able to take punches as a Viking, then you don't be an entrepreneur because it will never work. You need to have every day, you need to wake up and forget about all the punches you got yesterday.

[B]

Exactly.

[C]

But if you have the opportunity now to hire a Viking for your adventure here, what kind of person would you like to hire? Any specific position that you're looking for?

[A]

I believe actually that this is a team sport, so it's not one person, but you need to build a team with different skills and the skills that they should have different skills based on different things that you need to have in place to be able to be successful. But then all the people in that team should understand a couple of things. One, we are doing this as a team. We are in a team sport. They need to understand that we are mutually responsible for this. It's not like the salespeople didn't do that or the product team didn't do that, or the tech team didn't do that. We are one team, only one cito. That means that together, if anything happen, it's our mutual responsibility to sort it out. So for me, that is important. So I want to have this really, really good team and I'm always trying to find new people. We actually recruiting like crazy right now and we are also doing a lot of AI initiatives. So I believe on both. I don't believe in the world that the AI will replace all great people in the world. What I really believe is that AI is amazing and we are getting a lot of support from AI. And as an example is that right now we have implemented an AI agent for our support tickets, as an example. And before we had only telephone support and email support and chat support. Now we have an AI agent. And right now the AI agent is handling 65% of all support tickets in 10,000 stores in 40 languages.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

But still you need another 35%. You have another 35% that needs people to sort out. So I really believe that what you should do is that you should use AI as much as you can and you should go fast into this transformation, but not too fast. And I never ever believed in this black and white people that are preaching this black and white world. I don't believe in that. The world usually end up in gray.

[C]

Yeah. So thank you for this, Jens. I mean, it's great hearing your passion and also about your company journey and you know, the whole very focused play to conquer the world. Is there anyone that inspires you? Anyone that you think we should try to get on the show here too to hear about their passion?

[A]

There are so many people that inspire me. I meet new people every day that inspire me. But if you look at this, I think, if I look internally, I think one which was a big game changer for me was when we brought in a guy. Peter lander is our CFO. He's a really, really skilled SaaS CFO. He changed the way that we were measuring everything in the company in a SaaS metric perspective. And I met a lot of CFLs out there, but he's one of the most skilled SaaS CEOs that I've ever met. That's one internal person that I think an external person. There are so many. But then you should look into our ecosystem and you know, we work with a lot of great companies. We have payment providers at Adyen, which we have a very good partnership with. You have a guy who has built up Adyen, the Nordics. I think he's a skilled person. Have you met him?

[B]

No, I have not bumped into him personally. I don't think I have.

[A]

No, no, I will give you that so you can, you can get him to be us and, and then, then you, you should also meet. There are so many great people out there. I can give you a list.

[C]

Yeah, we'll take the list.

[B]

We'll take the list. I see, I see there's a big email incoming, so.

[A]

No, no, but there is a list of great people. But I think there are so many great people out there that you should think about listening to. But. But the world is changing. I'm totally aware of that. But still, never forget about one thing. We are herd animals. No AI in the world can replace the fact that we are herd animals. That means we have a big need of meeting other people and that is

[B]

the sole reason why we exist over here at Sassiest. Our business is. Well, let's put it this way, we are in the people business. Like you said, a little bit like the best way to learn is to surround yourself with people. That have either done the work or are doing the work or trying to figure it out, but get inspired by a lot of people. And on that happy note, Jens, this was very inspiring. We certainly learned a lot and I personally took some inspiration here. About 22 years as an entrepreneur is a lot longer than 5 years as an entrepreneur. We have a long distance to walk here, Thomas. Many more lessons to be learned. Many more battles to be one not just fought, but also won. And we're looking forward to it. I'm excited for the next 17 years of this business.

[C]

Oh, yeah, 17 more years of love sounds great.

[A]

But, you know, you have to feel one thing every single day. You have to feel that this is the first day of the journey. I try to remind myself that I'm saying to myself, every morning I ask myself two questions. One question is, Jens, now we get going. This is the first day of the rest of this adventure. Let's go. That's one thing. And the other thing I'm asking myself is what do you don't know that you have to know? And it's a crazy question to ask yourself, but it's a good question because then that makes you like this. You are on it and I think that's the key, actually.

[C]

Yeah, I think that sounds great. As my question to myself in the morning is more, what am I going to eat today? And that's a problem. So I think your questions to yourself were much better.

[B]

I'll tell myself, a man's gotta eat. Don't be too hard on yourself.

[C]

But this has been great. Jens, I hope that we will see you in person soon as well. And good luck with everything. We are very excited to follow Situ's journey to conquer the world and we are sharing on here from the sidelines.

[A]

Thank you for having me. And I love what you do, guys, because what you do is that you actually give a lot of people like myself a lot of knowledge and inspiration and I think that keep us all going. So what you are providing the community with, which is very, very important, is the fuel to always be, you know, focusing and get inspired. Because that. That's. You give love. That's what you do, actually, so.

[B]

So it means a lot to us.

[C]

Yeah, that's a great note to end on.

[A]

Yeah. So thank you very much, guys and. And yeah, see you soon.

[C]

Appreciate it.

[B]

Thank you. Take care now.

[A]

Bye.

[B]

All right, Thomas, you had the Viking analogy down to a T there. It's almost like you knew that would happen. What else are you taking away from this conversation?

[C]

I think it's the love I'll take away from this conversation. It was very evident when we talked to Jan. In order to do this, to do this for a long time, in order to put in the extra effort, you need to love what you do, but you also need to love the people that you work with. And that is something that resonates a lot with me, both what we do here internally at sasius, but also with the community. That, that, that is what, what gives you that extra strength.

[B]

The love is in the air.

[C]

It is. What do you say?

[B]

I mean, persistence. Like, you, like, he's been at it for 22 years. I think sometimes people tend to forget that not every story that you see, maybe on LinkedIn, but not every story in real life is an overnight success.

[C]

To be so passionate after 22 years, that's impressive.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know, like it sounds impressive. 20 million euros in ARR. 135 people, customers in whatever he said, you know, 20, 30, 40 countries, like, it's all great. But none of that happened overnight. They've been grinding.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

They have been fighting for every inch, every day. And that's always inspiring to hear that, you know, there are no such things as overnight successes like, like and, and here's a 22 years success in the making and may their next 22 years be even better, even greater. So I, I find that very inspiring. And then I think it's also, there's many things here that I, I take away, but one thing it's that he said fairly early on was that like, if you want to be, there's a difference on, on how narrow and focused you are, depending on if you want to be, you know, the best guy in Sweden here, the best company in Sweden, versus if you want to be a global player. So like you said, if you want to be the global number one, you got to be super ultra niched and focused and everybody should just think of you when they think of, in this case, point of sales. That is the, the one thing we do that is the only thing we do and not much more, not much less. And then I guess, you know, when you're a salesforce or a HubSpot or when you're that big, you can be many more things to people. But for the most of us in this scaling phase, we need to be one thing and we need to be best at one thing. I take that with me.

[C]

If you want to grow and if you want to spar with others in a similar situation, like, like yourself, there's a lot of opportunities within the CESIUS community. If you're a CEO and represents a European B2B SaaS company above 2 million euros in ARR, you're welcome to apply to the CEO Network. You find it at CEO.sasius.com and if you're an executive, if you have a VP role or higher within any area at the B2B SaaS group, we have a cohort for you. It's at executive SaaS and we're open for applications. So join us. And again, I hope you have the opportunity to stop by in Malmo, Sweden May 5th and 6th for the Sases 2026 big event.

[B]

Where do they secure their tickets if they haven't already? If somebody feels like holy, I forgot about it.

[C]

Yeah, you just go to sassius2026.com there you have everything you need. And also if you want to get in touch with us in any sense, you can email us directly danielassius.com or if you prefer to email me at thomas with th cecius.com that works well as well and we are easily found on LinkedIn and very responsive. I hope so. With that, thank you for listening and see you next week.

[B]

See you around.