Crescat's Quest to Transform Event Management

Jakob

Hey guys and welcome to another episode of Sound Connections. Today I have a very interesting guest. It is Joanne Aydin. Is that how you pronounce it? From KESCAD. Thank you for being here. Joanne, I met you at a conference six months ago and you guys are working with a really interesting platform that's called KESCAD, which is a, you can probably describe better than me, but event management production platform. That's really interesting because it's, it is one of the best systems I've seen. I was very lucky to see a demo.

Jørgen Iden

I don't... Yep.

Jakob

And now I have you here on my podcast as part of the Founder Series. So today we're going to talk about your journey as a founder and how that led to Kleskata. But Johan, where are you?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, great. First of all, thanks for having me. I'm located in Bergen, Norway. The rainy part of the west coast here in Norway. Yeah.

Jakob

And have you grown up there? What was your story? You've always been in Bergen?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, born and raised in Bergen. I've been here my entire life, except for two brief stays in the US. Other than that, I've stayed here my entire life. Studied, worked, worked out of Bergen. Now running Crescat out of Bergen.

Jakob

Cool. And we'll maybe touch briefly about it in the episode. You know, Bergen is maybe a pretty good place to be when it comes to technology and music in Norway, if you were to be anywhere. But we can sort of briefly return to that. But, Johan, you are right now the CEO of Reiskjætt and also the co-founder. And obviously you've had a journey to there. So if it's OK, could you just walk me through what has been your professional career until this point?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, actually maybe I should actually start a bit before my professional career because I kind of always worked with music. We're playing music as a kid growing up. We're playing in bands and doing a lot of music. Started music high school and then I suddenly ended up...

Jakob

Okay?

Jørgen Iden

studying classical guitar actually on the University of Heringberg called Grig Akademie. So I studied classical guitar for two years. I actually didn't plan to study guitar, it was kind of just happened and when I was accepted into the school it was like an opportunity I could not take. So I jumped on it and...

Jakob

Mm.

Jørgen Iden

went there for a few years. Then I completely changed course, started studying economics at NHH, Norwegian School of Economics instead. So that was quite a hard turn. But when I was both studying guitar and also before that as well, I was always the one ending up doing sound. So I was doing recordings and the live sound for bands and my friends and everything. And while I was studying, touring with bands and artists and working for rental companies and venues and stuff. So kind of just, yeah, things kind of just happened. And suddenly when I finished NHH, I ended up touring for a few years.

Jakob

Hmm.

Jørgen Iden

While we also were kind of, yeah, the Crest Cat journey also was born in that period as well. So yeah, I mean it's a lot of coincidence. Some may say it's been planned a bit, but it's also like, yeah, you could say planned coincidences that have kind of led me to where we are now with Crest Cat and everything.

Jakob

Hmm.

Jakob

Yeah. So was it a frustration, a problem you met on tour that led you to have the idea? What was the process of thinking about Kleskert?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, very much so. So both actually when I was studying we had a lot of student festivals going on that I was very much a part of organizing. Also on tour and working on venues. I thought when I was studying that this problem only has to fit for the student unions I was a part of. But then I came out of the real music world and started touring Europe and discovered that it's pretty much the same out there. Working for the big venues saw that they struggled with the same thing. And that thing is the lack of distributing information out to everyone that's going to work on that particular event.

Jørgen Iden

Often when you arrive to a festival it's like the joke that you have the old technical rider which is basically the tech spec for the requirements from the band basically. And it's like a standing joke when you arrive at a festival that you haven't kind of gotten the right rider. So that's very much the problem the industry faces or has been facing. It takes so many people to create an event, right? You need the sound and lightning company, then you have the venue, the promoter, you might have some security people, and it takes a lot of different companies and teams and people and individuals to make an event. And it's so much information that needs to be distributed out to all those people. And... And more often than not, it's, yeah, people get might be one version of the production plan, which is sent to them like a few months in advance, but then it gets iterated as the events progresses, the planning of the event progresses. And then you when you end up doing the event, it's like you have the old day sheet, you have the old running order, all timings, like everything is just off from what you expected. So you

Jakob

Mm.

Jørgen Iden

I've turned up to a job two hours early or two hours too late. And often when you go to sleep at night, you might not even know how long your next day is going to work day is going to be. Right. So it's a lack of information, basically, is the problem I faced.

Jakob

Yeah, but there's also a difference between recognizing a problem and actually doing something about it. So has it been anything in your life where you've, you've been entrepreneurial like early in your life or what's your backstory of getting the motivation to do something about it?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, I think I've been entrepreneurial several times in my life before doing this. Maybe the first entrepreneurial endeavor I had was when I was like 10, 12. I had... I don't know what it's called in English, but I think it's called stick animals, in Norwegian we call it pinnedyr, which is basically a small bug that I had. The thing with pinnedyr is that they actually get a lot of kids. I started selling them to all my friends and made my investment back like 10 or 15 times

Jørgen Iden

So that was probably my first venture. Then I've done some things after that as well. When I was studying I bought a lot of guitar equipment in bulk and sold it to all my colleagues and friends as well. And then now Crescat.

Jakob

Yeah, it's still a big leap, but it's very cool to see that they at least have that entrepreneurial spirit. But how practically did it go down? There's this problem you faced. Did you find anyone else that recognized that problem? Did you have any co-founders to start with? What was the actual process of having that problem and then starting pursuing the idea?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, so yeah, I started a company with my co-founder Matteo, which also has a background from the industry. He's been working a lot with volunteer management and also working as a sound engineer for some time as well. So we started it, we actually started thinking about the idea when we were studying and doing these student festivals where we kind of encountered the problem. And then we were thinking about it for some time. Then after we've kind of have gotten our degrees from NHH, we applied for a funding grant that the Norwegian Research Council had. So we were granted one million kroners from the research council in Norway and that kind of kick-started the whole journey for Crescat. So this was back in 2017.

Jakob

Hmm.

Jørgen Iden

But going from 2017 up to the launch in January 2020 was actually quite a long journey. We spent a lot of time the first few years just to talking to people in the industry and really try to understand the problem. We had and coming back to your question earlier, like Bergen is a good place to set up shop if you're working within the entertainment industry or music industry.

Jørgen Iden

has probably been one of the keys to our success as well being in Bergen. We have talked to probably almost the entire industry in Bergen and no one has kind of not wanted to talk to us. Like we have encountered just open doors. Everyone has been very eager to share their experience, share what they think we should make, tell us how they do things, share internal plans and documents and really trusted us with a lot of, I would say to some degree, also sensitive information because they, some of the somewhat the culture here in Bergen, like we and kind of, yeah. So I think that has probably been one of the very crucial things for us, the ability to actually do this from Bergen and how well received it has been in the industry.

Jakob

Because that's a very, I would say, theoretically correct way of doing it is like spending a lot of time of research before you actually develop a product. And not a lot of entrepreneurs really sit on that phase for too long. But that's what you guys decided. We really want to understand this problem at depth before we do anything about it.

Jørgen Iden

Yes, so yeah absolutely. So we, yeah I think we used almost two years just talking to people, making mock-ups, making like beta versions that we tested, iterated, and then we did the launch in January 2020. which for us was like, finally we can start selling this. Then we had a good run for one and a half month before my co-founder Matteo was hit by a car and ended up in the hospital for a month. And then when he was, a few days before he was gonna be let out of the hospital, the pandemic hit and shut down the industry. So we had a flying start to the company.

Jakob

Now I remember you telling me this, that's pretty incredible. But before we go into where you are now, because obviously you have made it out of the other side of a pandemic with a lot of momentum. You said you guys got a million kroners from the research council. That's not something you just awarded. Like, did you see that they were looking for projects and you applied based on your idea? Like, what was the process with getting that money?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, so it was... They had like a scheme which is called for new students, which is their It's a way for the research council to take to give students the opportunity to take their research primarily from their master's degree and kind of utilize that on To make a business basically So I wrote my master's degree on B2B platforms. So I could kind of utilize that into the research project that we presented to the research council and got funding based on that. Yeah, so that's kind of our way into it. And now we have a B2B SaaS platform. So it kind of fits, fitted well.

Jakob

Okay.

Jakob

Cool, that's a very, I would say, non-traditional way of approaching it in the music industry. It's almost like academic PhD kind of style. Oh cool, that's amazing. But I'm so confused because...

Jørgen Iden

Yeah.

Jakob

You guys have a platform right now, which is the hype of Norway of the event industry. I'm fairly active myself in the industry. I know a lot of people and everyone's like, well, we changed the rest. God, we're talking about Chris. God. So obviously there hasn't been a proper solution before then. Like were the other softwares that people were using what this wasn't good enough? Like what was the actual problem with the existing software that were, that were, you know, doing this.

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, sure. So there have been quite a few companies trying to solve this problem. But most of them are actually quite old. Like one of our competitors, their first version I think was made in 89 on Commando. And a lot of the technology in their system also kind of reflects that, right?

Jakob

Okay.

Jørgen Iden

So a lot of our competitors are quite starting... I wouldn't talk bad about our competitors, but they are a bit outdated on the technology side. So that kind of opened, gave us an opportunity. And then also what kind of makes us unique and different is that we have... We are creating an ecosystem for the event industry. We are creating a platform where you can invite in everyone you are collaborative on an event with, right? So if you're a promoter, you can invite in the venue and the sound technician and the artist into one system. Like the other systems that are out there, they can...

Jakob

Hmm.

Jørgen Iden

It's basically a silo system, it's for the production manager. And you can create PDFs that you then again can send out. But that doesn't solve the version problem, like having production plans in 15 different versions.

Jakob

That makes a lot of sense. And you mentioned technology. What is it about your technology that's unique compared to the competitor? Is that the into action aspect you just described?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, so the collaborative aspect I would say is like the main differentiator for us.

Jakob

And is it you or Matteo that did the development of the first MVP? So like how did you approach, you know, beta testing as you mentioned?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, so most of our platform to date has been developed by Matteo. Of course, we have gotten other developers on as the year has progressed, but he's built most of our system to date, actually.

Jakob

When you mentioned his background, you didn't really mention programming or full stack development or whatever you called it. Does he have an experience in that or did he just wing it or what was his approach?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, so he's been, he has a master's degree in like statistics, like from an economical side. So he's been doing a lot of programming on that end. And then he's also kind of self taught to some degree as well. So yeah.

Jakob

So fast forward a few years, there's a pandemic that happened. And obviously today you guys are really promising. Can you, in my understanding, close the gap between Mateo's in the hospital, there's a pandemic that hit, and then where you are today?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, that was a... We had, as I said, a good one and a half month with sales before everything shit-sitter-fan. Then we had... I mean, that spring was actually quite a dark spring, I would say. It was like quite... We felt like everything was collapsing. But suddenly, like when we were approaching summer, we actually started to make a lot of sales. We didn't quite understand why. But after a while, we understood that a lot of, especially the venues around in Norway, they weren't allowed to lay off their employees. So they need to keep them. on payroll and needed to kind of just keep... keep them going and have them do something. So that actually gave us access to working very closely with some of the leading industry experts further developing the product and they also started implementing the product into their organization because suddenly they had a lot of time to do that. So it actually gave us access to people we probably never would have had access to without the pandemic happened. So that was actually quite good for us.

Jakob

Mm.

Jørgen Iden

And then, yeah, basically the sale just started picking up and has been, we've been growing quite steadily ever since. Of course, we have... It's been like the pandemic was a bit volatile in regards to sales, but like overall it was quite good actually. And when the pandemic was over, like the sales skyrocketed for us. But like during the entire pandemic also, we've seen like a steady 10% month over month growth in usage in the system also, which also kind of indicates that people are very... Yeah, we've been growing quite steadily, I would say, during the pandemic. So...

Jakob

Mm-hmm.

Jakob

Mm-hmm.

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, it's been good overall.

Jakob

And how has the challenge been for you being a CEO? Because being a sound engineer and understanding problem and then studying a master's doesn't necessarily give you, let's say, the qualifications or the charisma or the capability of being a CEO, there must have been a journey for you as well.

Jørgen Iden

Absolutely. I mean, I think being a CEO is probably hard. Being a CEO and a startup is probably even harder. And I think about a bit like running startup, like assembling an airplane while flying is like It's like a crazy you have to kind of just figure out thing as you go and then also it's very important to have good people around you that you can kind of talk to learn from and bounce different questions off of just to kind of learn so I think to kind of Yeah, have good people around you is key also

Jakob

Yeah. And the way that you lead the company, is that closely together with Mateo? Or is it like, how does the leadership structure work in your organization?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, so we're now a team of 11. So kind of the responsibility-wise, we have, I'm obviously the CEO's and have the overall responsibility. Then Matteo basically handles all the development. He's the CTO. So he oversees the developers and the designer and product manager. And I basically oversee the rest of the commercial team, so the marketing, sales people, customer success and support.

Jakob

Yeah, okay. Interesting. And where are you guys heading? Like what is the goal with KSKD?

Jørgen Iden

Basically, our goal, our big vision is to be the number one leading production software in the world.

Jørgen Iden

To elaborate a bit on that, we believe that the key to making exceptional events is that everyone has correct information. To do that, we need to make a system that makes sure that even though you're a production manager or you're a freelancer, you should have access to the correct updated and relevant information at all times. That's our main goal.

Jakob

Mm.

Jørgen Iden

the live event industry has a profile on CrashKet. So that's our big vision. So where we're headed right now is that we have currently been selling in Norway. We are now expanding. We just started sales in Denmark and UK. hired a salesperson for the UK market and we recently also signed a deal with Dansk Live, Danish Live, which is an organization for concert promoters and venues in Denmark. So we're now moving into new territories.

Jørgen Iden

And yeah, within a few years we hope to have a very, or we are going to have a strong presence both in the Nordics and in the US.

Jakob

Yeah. So with such ambition and you guys scaling, obviously, it's hard to do that bootstrapped without investors. What's been your strategy with onboarding capital in the company?

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, so we have done like a... both bootstrapping, but we also have done a few rounds of soft funding. So we have had some funding from Innovation Norway, among others. And then we have taken on been very selective, but taking on some business angels and now also strategic investors. So we just do just on three funding rounds, small funding rounds, equity rounds with angel investors and a strategic investor. But we try to be very

Jakob

Mm. Eh.

Jørgen Iden

with the investors we take on, right? Because we want to have very good control over the company within the next few years. It's quite crucial to kind of set our vision out to life.

Jakob

Hmm.

Jakob

That makes sense. When you say you've been selective with investors, what is it in particular you guys have been looking for?

Jørgen Iden

We want smart money, right? We don't want just silent capital in the company or some investors that want to kind of make crescat their internal system and then kind of forces us to do development in a certain direction that we don't want to do. Because coming back to it, we want to have a system that makes life easier for everyone working in the live event industry, right? But if we end up being an internal system for the production manager in one certain company or for one certain venue, then we would end up not achieving that goal.

Jakob

That makes sense. You know, you guys are a country in Norway, and you have expressed global ambitions. Have you already now experienced some limitations by being in a Norway country or other places where you could have been?

Jørgen Iden

Yes and no, I would say. I think Norway is probably one of the best countries in the world to make an MVP and make like, use as a playground to test.

Jakob

Mm.

Jørgen Iden

iterate. If you go to the US and talk to US investors, they kind of see you having launched successfully in the Nordics as being an MVP. They don't see you launching in the Nordic as you have kind of figured things out. I think having that approach is also very useful for us because

Jakob

Mm.

Jørgen Iden

Like everything we do as a company is basically just setting up theories and hypotheses and just testing them out, right? We try to do that as long as possible and I kind of forgot the question now.

Jakob

No, it was just if there was the benefits of being in Norway or other places, but I definitely think you answered that question.

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, now I think just want to add one more thing and that's probably like one of the downsides of being in Norway is the access to capital and then I'm like capital that really understands this industry.

Jakob

Hmm.

Jørgen Iden

Like if you go to London or you go to the US, it's like you find VC funds that only invest within media and entertainment for example, but in Norway like the investors just invest in fish, oil and fish and oil right? They're so trained to kind of do investments in that, in these categories and they don't understand the business and the potential in the music industry to a certain degree. So I think that's probably

Jakob

Hmm.

Jørgen Iden

probably one of the downsides of being Norway, like access to capital.

Jakob

Hmm. Yeah, it makes sense. That's one of the things that we're working a lot with in Coupil Entertainment is exactly, you know, explaining to investors what music companies are worth. And we're getting capital on behalf of multiple of the companies. We have ownership stakes in and it's difficult, but it's definitely. If you're patient, it's possible. But you said you have some selective investors. Did you guys proactively reach out to investors or to approach them? What was the approach of you guys recognizing, OK, we need investors or we need something and then to landing those investors. What are the process for you guys?

Jørgen Iden

I mean, we did it, have done it quite traditionally, like going out there and talking to people, talking to people a lot, having a lot of meetings. And then basically figuring out if it's a fit, and if it's a fit, then you start exploring like, okay, how much are we willing to go in with valuation and all those questions. But I think chemistry is probably the most important thing.

Jakob

Hmm. That's great. It's not all companies that go for the smart money, especially music industry when you do it, it just, it's so hard to get ahold of. So that, you know, that's really nice that you did that. So when you bring in investors that of course also need to have made some thoughts about where's this going from an investment opportunity. Do you guys have an excellent goal in mind or what's the thought there?

Jørgen Iden

Of course we have an exit goal, but we don't have a super set exit goal. We want to see how far we can take the company. I think that's also what we communicate. We want to take this as far as possible and see how big we can grow this company. And then we of course always know different routes to exits. But I think just...

Jakob

Mm.

Jørgen Iden

having the go-to, we're going to grow this as big as possible. It's very important just to focus on that.

Jakob

Mm. How do you feel about the general direction of technology and music technology? Because obviously you're a board member of BUS and BUS is an investment fund in Bergen, from Bergen Kommune, that invests in music related projects and music technology. So you must have a lot of thoughts of what's happening right now. If you were to talk about the music industry as an investable entity, how do you believe they're doing right now? And what are the opportunities?

Jørgen Iden

I think it's a... The opportunities are huge. If you look at the industry as a whole, for example with event management software, which we kind of identify as, the market is growing 15% year over year now, so it's quite good growth. I think you see similar numbers within the music industry as a whole as well. It's growing very rapidly and much faster than a lot of other comparable industries. It's a lot of opportunities and my biggest fear is that Norway is going to lag behind because we don't have access to enough capital in Norway. So we end up, so too many companies end up getting financing from outside of Norway and selling their companies outside to other countries basically. I think that's kind of the biggest fear I have but I think... like how the ecosystem is progressing now. It's a lot of really good and exciting companies that are growing out of Norway now and I think, yeah, I'm very positive.

Jakob

Hmm. Do you envision yourself as a founder the rest of your life? Like, is this something that you've, is it Kreskett that's sort of your calling for now? Or like, do you, have you, you know, this is the founder's journey I'm going to pursue.

Jørgen Iden

That's a good question. I think for now it's Crescat I'm going to pursue and what's going to happen after the Crescat? I have no idea. I haven't planned that far ahead yet. I mean things kind of just happens. So just yeah, we'll see.

Jakob

Well, I really hope you guys get some more traction in Demo in the UK. It's definitely, you know, a product that I hear a lot of people talking really well about. This it's sort of been a super precise interview that I really, really like. I don't have any more like big questions to ask you because I think the same way that your platform is just super to the bone and full of information, the same with you. Like I think it's sort of a reflection of who you are as well. Is that how you feel about it?

Jørgen Iden

Like me as a person? Yeah.

Jakob

Yeah, because when I talk with you, it's like precise answers, it's thought through. It's the same way that I have the experience on the Crestcat platform.

Jørgen Iden

Maybe. I actually haven't done the reflection yet, but maybe I should. I'll reflect a bit after this podcast.

Jakob

Yeah. Well, thank you, John. This was a really good episode. I hope it gets some more insight for the listeners of what Crescat is. And again, the purpose is to understand different founders and their journeys and different industry experts of how we can be better at entrepreneurship. I think it's also really important. topic we just talked briefly about investment and investment opportunities. I'm also very passionate about having more focus on investment in the music industry because I do believe it's key for entrepreneurship. I do believe it's key of holding worth in the country and it just not disappearing out elsewhere. But thank you for your time, Jan, and we'll speak soon.

Jørgen Iden

Absolutely.

Jørgen Iden

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Thank you.

Jakob

Cool, I'll stop right there.