One of Claus’ favorite quotes comes from the famous Steve Jobs Stanford commencement speech, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
Claus’s 20-year career as an entrepreneur, CEO and startup founder (dealing with everything from cleaning services to solar energy) has revolved around trusting your gut and being bold enough to move against the grain. In the end, for Claus, it’s about being wise enough to understand that within all the chaos a master plan exists, just have faith and let karma do its thing.
On April 4th, at the fantastic Dance House venue in old town Limassol, Claus Rosenberg Gotthard took an audience of entrepreneurs and startup founders on a journey fit for the cinema. What can only be described as an honest and open discussion on the ups and downs that come with running a start up, Claus highlighted his failures as much as his successes in all of the companies he has and continues to run.
Starting with his trading company in Denmark and moving onwards to Russia in 1994, to start a cleaning services business at a time when the new Russia was in its early days of capitalism; Claus expressed his view that in times of change, opportunity exists for those willing to take bold risks.
In Russia, Claus grew his business to over 100 employees only to lose it all in August 17, 1998 (a date he remembers well), when the Russian government devalued the ruble and defaulted on its debt. Holding strong to his commitment to his investors, team and customers, he refused to exit the country, as most of his competition did, and worked through tremendous obstacles to eventually double revenue, land more big corporate accounts, and exit years later with a sale to a larger European multinational.
After taking a two-year break, Claus’ next start up was in the energy and technology space in Cyprus. Nova Energy seemed to have the right product- market fit in a Europe that was eager to move towards green/solar energy. Nova had the best people and innovative technology to capitalize on the green energy trend. What was not factored in was the immense difficulties inherit in running a start up dependant on government support and cooperation. Government regulation, bureaucracy and corruption was a daunting hurdle to overcome.
The lessons learned through Nova Energy, and the people who formed the core team, led Claus to his current startup and product application in the SaaS space; leveraging social media distribution to provide CRM services to small business/shop owners.
Claus is living proof that with every door that closes another door opens; you just need to have the courage and vision to walk through. As entrepreneurs and startup founders we all need to have a little faith that the dots will connect in the end.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Etb_abfX_Lk&w;=500&h;=281]