Ep 38: Martin Kõiva & Kair Käsper
from coding the prototype in a shashlik bar to raising $7M, customer service practices you can copy, Pipedrive effect, and the good & bad about VCs
Kair Käsper and Martin Kõiva are co-founders of the Klaus app - a conversation review and QA platform for support teams used by globally known names such as Wolt, SoundCloud, Epic Games. They have known each other for more than 20 years, have run several business ventures together as well as both have the ex-Pipedrive tag on their resumes.
In our first-ever 2-on-2 episode we discuss the challenges startups face in customer service quality assurance, cover best/worst practices as well as talk about the overall value of investments into customer support. We also talk about creating a business from scratch, raising seed funding, and the “Pipedrive effect”
CLICK one of the links below to listen to the episode
The topics covered in this episode (with Timestamps)
🔈 [02:00] INTRO AND THE ORIGINS OF KLAUS
Doing business together for 20 years
The idea of Klaus coming out from Pipedrive customer service experience
Main challenges if customer service that started the company
🔈 [07:00] ON CUSTOMER SERVICE BEST/WORST PRACTICES & MAIN CHALLENGES
How to measure the quality of customer support communication
What should companies pay attention to in CS QA
The benefits of doing CS QA at all
“No bad conversations”
Mistakes companies make in CS
Best quality agents are counterintuitively also the fastest
Types of QA processes companies employ
Peer review as a common form of QA
🔈 [17:40] - FIND OUT WHAT BOTH THE PORN INDUSTRY AND CHURCHES HAVE IN COMMON
Hint - they care about their customer experience
🔈 [20:20] - 40% OF CONTACTS COME FROM TRIAL CUSTOMERS
CS as part of sales to trial customers
Looking at CS as a revenue vs. cost center
Customers don’t care about your org chart, all interactions matter
🔈 [25:30] - ON BUILDING A STARTUP & STILL WORKING IN PARALLEL
Is it possible to build a product/business on the side?
Finding a balance for product readiness and live customers
Scrappy beginnings and getting first paying customer
Switching from side project to main business
🔈 [29:35 - STORY ON ‘ACCIDENTALLY’ GIVING DISCOUNT TO THE FIRST CUSTOMER
🔈 [31:15] - ON RAISING SEED INVESTMENT & GOOD / BAD THINGS ABOUT VCs
Raising while not working full time
Finding a champion-investor
Bad encounters with top tier VCs
🔈 [37:45] - ON THE PIPEDRIVE EFFECT
Effect of Pipedrive experience on fundraising
School of company building
Pipedrive founder support for employee startups
Concrete lessons from the Pipedrive experience
Get good people on board even if not hiring
Hire slowly and test for values
🔈 [43:05] - ON BEING A REMOTE-FIRST COMPANY ‘BEFORE IT WAS COOL’
Main motivation to hire globally
Team diversity
To reach out to Kair and Martin use:
Linkedin Kair: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kair/
Linkedin Martin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinkoiva/
Website: https://www.klausapp.com/
Support for this episode comes from Nexpay > https://paynexpay.com/
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The full interview with Kair and Martin is available NOW on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts
