Munich Startup: When we last spoke, you were particularly proud of one key statistic: zero employees or customers had turned their backs on you up to that point. Were you able to maintain this level of satisfaction?
William Barkawi, ClearOps: Almost! Although things are naturally a bit chaotic in other areas, as in any startup, things are going pretty well in the two areas of employee and customer satisfaction. This is also due to the fact that customer centricity and people first are simply two of our three core company values.
Our customers and employees appreciate the family atmosphere, the we as a company live, instead of the typical growth-at-any-cost approach. This is probably mainly possible because we are still bootstrapped and thus independent of institutional expectations. In fact, we have not lost a single employee at our core locations in Germany, the USA, Portugal, and Costa Rica. At the same time, it is important to mention that we originally built our Technology Hub in St. Petersburg. Due to the political situation in Russia, we were forced to relocate this location to Portugal. We then helped some of our Russian employees move to Germany or other countries. Due to personal circumstances, not everyone was happy with this, which is why we had to accept layoffs. Unfortunately, we had to record churn at the customer level, but all the others, including new ones, are still on board with long-standing business relationships.
Why long hiring processes are worthwhile for ClearOps
Munich Startup: What obstacles did you encounter?
William Barkawi: We're pretty selective about who we hire and who we don't. This leads to rather long hiring stages. The positive side is that this is reflected in the employees' tenure and long-term enthusiasm. The negative side, however, is that we simply have to devote enormous resources to finding a good hire. What's challenging as a founder with such rapid growth is, on the one hand, to always be equally approachable to everyone, and on the other hand, to always work together as a team in the same direction. The correct use of the OKR framework has helped here, but we still need to become more efficient.
Finally, we strive to motivate every employee to engage with the product in a truly creative and constructive way. Far too often, in a wide variety of companies, we see that employees who aren't directly involved with the product don't feel responsible for it. Remaining innovative and demanding it is a challenge, especially as you grow. For example, we try to encourage and challenge each individual's creativity through hackathons, idea sprints, a fairly proactive product management approach, and other measures.
“From a software to a platform to a data company”
Munich Startup: How has your solution evolved?
William Barkawi: Everything remains focused on our vision: "We keep the world of machinery moving." Last year, we launched a rather exciting three-year company journey. From a software (2023) to a platform (2024) to a data company (2025) is the strategy. Unfortunately, we cannot publicly reveal the details behind it. Our goal is to establish ClearOps as a global ecosystem for connected aftersales supply chains. We will not rest until every machine, every dealer, and every producer becomes part of the ClearOps ecosystem for a world that never stops. This enables digitalized and automated demand planning as well as the global availability of spare parts and services – in other words, full networking from the production line through dealers and technicians to the machine in use.
We're currently expanding quite rapidly from our original focus on industrial machinery to automotive, trucking, and much more. Things are really getting exciting with data-driven business models, meaning everything related to predictive analytics, customer lifetime value analytics & exploitation, and so on. We want to grow aggressively, invest in research, and above all, we want to transform, no matter how complex the underlying supply chain may be.
Search for investors after a long bootstrapping phase
Munich Startup: And how are things going financially for you?
William Barkawi: We've decided against investors in recent years for various reasons. Despite continually doubling our size each year, we've always operated extremely capital-efficiently. This isn't an emotional decision; investors certainly have many advantages for us, but also disadvantages. So far, we've done well without them, which of course also brought with it many challenges and concerns. However, in order to take ourselves, the product, and our global presence to the next level, we're currently exploring the financial opportunities out there. Based on previous discussions with investors, the market currently appears to be quite lucrative, at least for a company like ours. However, this requires that we truly feel comfortable with each other. We wouldn't seek funding just for the money; instead, we're focusing on truly strategic added value together.
Munich Startup: What learnings have you as a founding team learned so far?
William Barkawi: I'm actually the only one, but I have to admit that the employees at ClearOps are all as committed as if they were co-founders, which is truly amazing. I think the most important lessons from 2023 are the following:
Growth does not automatically mean scaling: The biggest challenge is actually not confusing growth with scaling. We're growing rapidly, but scaling requires an absolutely standard product, replicable processes, and a globally integrated team. We're on a great path here, but it's also fraught with hurdles. Sometimes the product grows faster than sales, sometimes our salespeople sell more than we can deliver, and sometimes our HR lags behind. For us, 2024 is all about global scalability and will therefore be all the more exciting than the years before. We shouldn't view the growth of the past few years as a sign of a perfectly running company, but rather as an incentive to become more efficient in the right areas.
Three important lessons from 2023
Sales is a numbers game: Going from founder-led sales purely through networking and direct contact to a globally scalable sales apparatus in Europe, America, and Asia was and still is quite exhausting. Sales and marketing involve far more than I initially thought. Processes, technical infrastructure, and automation form the foundation upon which an expert team of marketers, SDRs, AEs, and the like can build. Building a scalable demand generation, lead nurturing, and closing machine is incredibly exciting, but should never be underestimated. It's hard to believe how many thousands of lead touchpoints are actually needed to close ten customers. You can't build that in a sustainably scalable way without the right infrastructure, a top team, and the necessary blend of analytics and pragmatism.
focus: The biggest challenge, in my opinion, is finding true focus. Being opportunistic as a startup is in the nature of the business, especially if you're self-funded. Nevertheless, you should be careful not to stray too far from your ICP and core product. I've always considered occupying a niche to be too small at first, while a niche actually has nothing to do with size. It's about focus: focusing on a specific target customer with a specific pain point. Hypergrowth doesn't result from relentless opportunism and selling many different products in numerous markets. Rather, it comes from focusing on one area where you can quickly acquire and successfully serve customers, build a reputation with tangible results, and grow from there. Examples of successful focus include companies like Amazon, which started out selling only books, and Netflix, which started with DVD rentals.
A niche is therefore not necessarily small, but rather defined by similar demand and replicable supply. While we as a company always do many different things simultaneously and will continue to do so in the future, it's important to focus on our sweet spot. While this can still be a multi-billion dollar market, it's sometimes not as obviously accessible as other areas.
ClearOps wants to quickly become the next unicorn
Munich Startup: What role has the Munich ecosystem played in your journey so far?
William Barkawi: Unfortunately, it's been a pretty small one so far. While I have many friends who have founded their own companies, we have very little to do with all the well-known organizations like CDTM, UnternehmerTUM, and others. We'd like to change that this year, but it hasn't received enough attention yet.
Nonetheless, Munich is a fantastic location. Many of our employees come from startups and are therefore very familiar with the industry; the labor market is simply perfect for us. We'll be moving into a much larger office this year and would like to use it to reposition ourselves in terms of PR and employer branding. So far, we've operated in stealth mode, focusing primarily on our target industry. This year, however, we want to place a much greater emphasis on outward-facing employer and investor branding. And as a founder, I'd also like to help support other startup enthusiasts.
Munich Startup: What milestones are you working towards next?
William Barkawi: Most founders would certainly say that, but I am more than convinced that ClearOps has the right team, the right product, and the right market to become a unicorn relatively quickly. That is the major milestone the entire team is working towards. We want to continue growing at least 100 percent annually, not just to touch the American and Asian markets, but to really tap into them efficiently. On the product side, we are investing heavily in research into purely data-driven business models; there is truly gigantic and exciting potential in a platform that unites all machines, dealers, and producers. We would also like to get the entire global team back together and organize a joint team offsite in the mountains.
