Success
Stories

After spending their summers programming websites for SMEs, three Belgian students –Jeroen de Wit, Willem Delbare and Mathias de Loore– detected a gap in the market and decided to found Teamleader. Their idea was to develop an all-in-one CRM solution in the Cloud that includes project management and invoicing options to give their customers in the services sector total control over their business.

 

Teamleader came to Spain two years ago after a funding round to raise 10 million euros. It set up in Spain as part of its expansion strategy, with the aim of becoming the leading company in Europe for all-in one management solutions for SMEs in the services sector.

When did the company arrive in Spain and with what objective?

We started by looking directly at the market, and initially focusing clearly on communication and digital agencies and consulting companies where the software is best suited. We then expanded our target to any SMEs in the services sector requiring business management and control over times and projects.

 

What is the customer profile?
Our profile is SMEs with between one and 50 employees, mainly in the services sector. The solution best suits SMEs that need to include the three main pillars of their business in a single tool: business management, operations –managing projects and controlling times and margins– and financial management, plus the control of our clients' collections.

 

What infrastructure do you have in Spain?
At the moment we're working out of the WeWork offices in Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, and that's where all our operations are run from. We currently have inside sales, sales, onboarding, customer support and marketing teams. Although the support is provided in Spanish, the customer support team is in Belgium in order to be closer to the developers and the product.

 

What investment has the company made in Spain and how many jobs has it created?
The main investment has been in building and training the team, and raising awareness of the brand in the market. There has been a major initial investment in this last point, with digital marketing, public relations actions, radio advertisements and the sponsorship of events related to entrepreneurship such as South Summit, or to digital transformation like the E-Show, OMExpo, Bizz Barcelona, and so on. We believe it is essential to have a good and highly-trained team. There are currently 11 of us: two in inside sales, two in sales, two in on-boarding, two in customer support, two in marketing, and myself, and the plan is enlarge the team.

 

How has the company progressed in Spain in these two years?
We've been very well received in the SME market, our target audience. The development of Teamleader in Spain has been exponential throughout this time. We're opening the partner channel with excellent acceptance by the distributors, in addition to working on new options and channels for marketing our solutions. Our tool is ideal for Spanish SMEs. We have great potential in the country, as 98% of the companies in the Spanish business ecosystem are SMEs. Teamleader adapts to their needs and helps them grow their business. We are evolving with our customers and the outlook for growth is good.

 

How important is Spain to the company's strategy?
Spain is one of the key countries for the company. In January 2018, there were 1,284,374 SMEs in Spain with between one and 50 employees, of which 1,135,054 are micro-SMEs with one to nine employees. The success of SMEs depends on the efficiency of their management and the digitization of their businesses. Precisely because of these data, Teamleader is in no doubt that Spain is one of the countries in Europe where it is making its strongest commitment. We are currently focusing on six countries: Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Germany and France.

 

What projects do you currently have underway and what are the upcoming challenges?
Strategically, we want to help SMEs in every last corner of Spain that can benefit from Teamleader. This is why before the summer we will be launching our new partners policy. Fewer than 33% SMEs currently have a CRM tool for managing their business, which represents promising opportunities for the IT channel. What's more, this month we've raised 18.5 million euros in a series C funding round, so this is the time to continue moving forward with more projects. This round will be used mainly to accelerate the product roadmap and to boost international growth even further. This development will come through two channels: on the one hand, from European SMEs –our target audience– who will continue adopting Teamleader software; and on the other, through our marketplace, which is scheduled to grow to as many as 1,000 integrations, with new developments and applications that are very useful to small and medium-sized companies.