Kaarel Kotkas, Founder & CEO of Veriff on Their Journey from Estonia to YCombinator to United States
My guest today is Kaarel Kotkas, Founder & CEO of Veriff. Kaarel is a 25-year-old Estonian entrepreneur, whose online identity verification start-up Veriff is set to be the next tech ‘unicorn’ or billion-dollar company coming out of Estonia. Today’s
On Veriff
- [01:20] Could you tell a little about how and why you started Veriff?
- [03:53] What shortcoming did you notice in the current solution that made you think you could do something different and better than what existed?
- [6:42] How are fintech companies with their legacy systems able to use your new advanced verification system?
Growing your business
- [8:20]How did you go to your first ten to hundred customers? What did you prioritize in those initial stages?
- [12:38] How did you do employer branding to attract good talent from all over the world?
- [14:10] So far what are you most proud of doing in how you’ve built Veriff?
- [15:30] How do you hire at Veriff?
- [17:16] In hindsight, what would you do differently?
- [19:00] What helped you secure funding from people like the founder of TransferWise to tier 1 investors like Accel, beyond the basics?
- [23:11] What motivates you? Did you always have an entrepreneurial streak or did you fall into this?
Links:
Books:
Listen On
New to The European Startup Show?
Introducing The European Startup Show
This is a show about startups in Europe. It is for startups in Europe or those looking to expand into Europe.
Sujata Bhatia, COO of Monzo Bank on - Navigating the Pandemic; How Sh…
This is the last in my March Women’s Series and I am delighted to finish the series with Sujata Bhatia, Chief Operating Officer of neobank, Monzo. Few people need an introduction to Monzo, which was an early market leader in …
Anthony Deighton, Chief Product Officer at Tamr on: Leadership and Ho…
Anthony Deighton is a poster child for what it means to be a leader. He became a leader of the ERM product line at Siebel early on in his career and then at Qlik he took on various leadership roles …
Jeetu Mahtani, SVP Sales and Managing Director, International for Hub…
All startups have to expand beyond their native country at some point. In this episode, I sat down to talk to an expert on this topic. Jeetu grew Hubspot’s operation to 7 countries which contributes to 40% of overall company …