Tell us about your venture and how it all started.

After flunking math time and time again I needed to find a way to start learning it on my own. Traditional methods such as books weren’t cutting it. People in the bookstore couldn’t help me, they didn’t even know what types of books I could use. Tutoring seemed like the best option to gain more insight and actually learn mathematics. Later on I started tutoring others. I did that for roughly 15 years, but then the covid-19 pandemic hit. Exams were canceled nationwide and the ability to physically interact with people and students became almost non-existent. The need for something digital, other than meeting platforms arose.

On the 22th of August 2020 I woke up with the idea of creating a digital platform that would help people get through all stages of their 13 year long, academic journey in maths. I called my friend and asked whether he knew something similar already existed. Together we did some research and we couldn’t find anything like what I had in mind.

I founded the company and started to develop a platform that would essentially act as a shopping mall of mathematical knowledge. In order to make it more appealing and easier to learn we implemented gamification, animations, 3D designs and digital interaction. It seemed that was something people were eager to get on board with; after the initial launch it took us about 100 days to get users in almost every country in the world and as of September 2021 we have over 600.000 subscribed users. It’s a dream come true.

Everything these days is math related, thus not knowing math will inevitably create outcasts and gaps in society. Knowledge empowers people and strengthens society, especially during these crazy days. I believe that knowledge, and more specifically mathematics, serves as a universal language that binds us all.

When and how did you know it was the right time to scale up your company?

We didn’t exactly get to choose when to scale up, it just kind of happened. I think it mostly had to do with the pandemic. Once we launched our chat-with-a-mentor option, we hit a vein and it just took off. That’s the organic side of things at least, besides that we also invested quite a bit in marketing. Our goal was to get our CPA (cost per action) down to 16kr, eventually we managed to get it down to only 4kr. Never underestimate the power of marketing, there’s a reason why huge companies pump millions and millions of dollars into their marketing budget. It’s important to grab every chance you can to get yourself out there when an opportunity shows itself, but it should not have a negative impact on the development of your product. Good marketing, both organic and non-organic is essential but it means nothing if you can’t offer a quality product to your audience. I don’t think House of Math was particularly time sensitive when I came to it starting the scale-up process. We are a soft touch company, which means we work with lots of software, so we don’t rely heavily on logistics to get everything we require. That avoids all kinds of waiting time and allows us to focus more on further development.

In general I believe the right time to scale up is when you’ve gathered enough resources, be it cash, motivated colleagues, the right software, etc.

How did you set the course for growth in the early days?

It’s important to surround yourself with competent and motivated people. Everyone is skilled at something, find the right skill set your company needs. Finding the right team is essential. Our growth was accelerated due to unforeseen external factors such as the pandemic and I hadn’t quite gotten my team to where I wanted it to be, so everyone was pitching in wherever they could based on their competencies.

How did you prepare your team for growth?

We didn’t have time to prepare because everything happened so fast. What you need is a team you can count on. People who believe in what they do and share the vision your company is trying to embody. A 9-to-5 mentality isn’t going to cut it during the scale-up process, everyone needs to be willing to work until the work is done. It’s hard, but so incredibly important and rewarding.

To be able to work this much and keep morale up, you need to create a good corporate culture. Yes everyone needs to get their job done, but people are not production units. People have problems, have successes, need support, have to be heard and seen hence as a company you should be able to offer that. Openly discuss your core values, voice them regularly and be open to the opinions of others.

What was the most challenging part of transcending to a scale up?

I’d say that recruiting the right people was definitely the most daunting task. It’s not easy finding people whose vision and work ethic align with yours and on top of that possess the skills you’re looking for. You need people with grit, who are willing to do the job. In an ideal scenario tasks and people would form a 1-on-1 correlation, but that is often not the case when scaling up so you need people who are willing to help out everywhere they can. You need extraordinary people because you end up in extraordinary situations. When something is this new, you find yourself without a framework to base anything on. This allows for creativity but also presents its own challenges. At one point you’re bound to bump into issues you didn’t see coming. We are combining so many fields that haven’t previously been combined. The whole company is essentially an R&D project.

Raising capital is never a simple task, it requires tons of preparation. You want to be able to intrigue your potential investors with your product and simultaneously make them feel comfortable about the amount of risk they could face.

Were there any important decisions you had to make during your transition to a scaleup?

In general I believe you should make a proper analysis of what decisions you should prioritize. Make a plan and stick to it. In order to set up such a plan you need to focus on what you want to build and put your customers needs first, because in the end you’re developing your product for their use. If you are disciplined and follow the sequence you agreed on, that means you’ll inevitably have to postpone or decline certain things that might interfere with that sequence. It’s not easy saying no, but being structured will get you far.

What are the three most critical factors that made your company successful?

Definitely data, without data House of Math would be in the dark and we would be unable to track and plan our development. House of Math is a very data driven company; our marketing is data driven, our development is data driven, etc. Every Monday we sit down at 8:00 and go through our weekly KPI’s, certain things are also measured on a daily basis.

The ability to raise cash, because no cash equals no development.

And finally I would say ambition; building a company isn't done in a day or on a whim. You must be tough enough to voice your ambition and be willing to work hard in order to make that ambition become a reality.

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