Mikkel Svane
| Name | Mikkel Svane |
|---|---|
| Location | San Francisco, CA |
| Website | http://www.zendesk.com/ |
| Bio | CEO of Zendesk |
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How much time should one spend with customers? Is the voice of the customer important in your process or is innovation something that doesn't really involve customers in the beginning?
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How should one build a great team? What qualities and personalities are you looking for?
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We saw your announcement today with LogMeIn and everyone is trying to achieve the clarity of the message that you now have with media. How do you do this? Who does briefings in your organizations and how do you get media excited about the news?
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How do you know when to keep going on a startup idea and when to call it quits? I heard stories of businesses about to close when the next day sales customers started calling...
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What is the newest emerging channel to engage with your customers?
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What kind of places / events / forums (etc) are fruitful places for a founding team to "find each other" ... how did Alex, Morten & yourself come together? Cofounders who are smart, supportive & aligned largely determines whether a startup makes it through the first year. afterwards, the market decides.
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I have a web company that currently does x -- our clients have offered us insight into bettering x, but have also asked that we do y & z -- wondering how we should evaluate all the requests coming in.
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How have things changed at Zendesk since you grew from 3 to 50 employees?
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We’ve grown to having 2 refrigerators in our kitchen, one entirely for soft drinks and beer.
On a more serious note, this kind of growth means that we’ve grown processes and structures. It also means investing time on building a company culture that includes things like our summer soccer picnic (our CTO broke his leg).
That’s culture!
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Customer support is something that is easy to believe in. Have you found that because your business is based on simple idea, it was easier to sell and position?
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What kind of CEO are you? Are you more of a business leader...? a product manager? an engineer?

