The following interview is a conversation we had with Ville Herva, CEO of BOLT.works, on our podcast Category Visionaries. You can view the full episode here: Ville Herva, CEO of BOLT.works: $7 Million Raised to Build the Future of Staffing
Brett
Yeah, it’s a very unconventional path. And what was it like making that transition for you, going from a CTO to a CEO role?
Ville Herva
Well, I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t feel uncomfortable when given responsibility. So during those few years I spent as the CTO, I kind of had my hands on everything that happened inside the company. And then it was kind of natural to move up to become the CEO in 2018. So I don’t know, it happened kind of. Of course, the transition is from sympathy all to CEO, but it was a mute, like, long path that I took. So it didn’t feel like much back then, but of course, it was a big step. Feedback. Got it.
Brett
Makes sense. And a couple of questions now just so we can better understand what makes you tick as a leader, what CEO do you follow the most and look up to the most?
Ville Herva
Well, of course, it is really tough question. I could name like ten different CEOs or founders, but I don’t have to mention Il Capone and Micko Coresa from the Finnish startup Supercell who produced Mobakes like a day and class of class and Boo Beats and Class royale. You might not have heard about the company, but those Mobakes might sound familiar to you. The thing that Ilaka Miko have nailed, they’ve been, after the first few years, trying out different ideas. After they succeeded with their first big hit, they’ve been very profitable. And you see, like, numerous unicorns that still struggle with profitability the supercells is really different in that regard that it has been very profitable for several years already.
Brett
Nice. I’ve not heard of those founders, so I’ll definitely check them out. And then what about books? What book would you say has had the greatest impact on you as a leader?
Ville Herva
Again, I read so many business books and my lean style is probably a mix of so many influences that it’s impossible to pick just one. But as for books, I would want to mention Book of Fatfulness from Hans Rosling and that talks about the state of the world, no less. The point of the book is that we get so many negative news from all the sources that all the positive things never get the time. And the point also in the book is that the science and entrepreneurs usually are able to solve those problems. In 80s there was lots of talk about acid rain and in 90s there was also a layer and those have largely been solved. Also Vaccinations help with pure people temporarily have been in steady decline. Lots of positive things have been happening slowly and entrepreneurs, of course, science also have been the ones that have let this progress.
Ville Herva
So that’s kind of a positive, fact based book that I would recommend to everybody.
Brett
Nice. I’m checking out the reviews right now and they have an endorsement from Bill Gates that says the world would better if literally millions of people read this book. I give it my highest recommendation. That’s a pretty strong voice to support the book. So between you and Bill Gates, we have to check it out.
Ville Herva
Sure, I recommend it also.
Brett
Amazing.
Ville Herva
Cool.
Brett
Well, that’s super helpful in understanding a bit more about what makes you tick as a leader. Now let’s talk about bulk. So could you share the origin story about the company and then dive into what you guys do?
Ville Herva
Sure. So we operate in staffing and that’s not like technology programmers or whatever. It’s kind of blue collar people. It goes traction. Also manufacturing in the factory floor, logistics, those kind of things. And in 2060 when we started, we had the problem that all of this stuff it was done in very traditional way pens and papers and phone calls and whatnot. And there were legacy like ERP and CRM systems in use. And also the payrolling was really ancient, none of it was really up to date. So we wanted to reinvent the business. We started off from the mobile application for the employee and employer, but we sort of learned that we need to do everything in between, from this CRM to ERP and the payrolling and invoicing we first tried integrating different things, but that didn’t really work out. So we ended up building the whole platform by ourselves.
Ville Herva
It’s kind of a mix. We still have people working with the employees, we still have people working with the customers but everything that’s possible to automate we’ve been able to automate. And also there are massive learning things that we can do with the data now that we are scaling up. So it has been a really positive journey for us.
Brett
Very cool. And what markets are you located in right now geographically? Are you just in Finland or does it extend outside of Finland?
Ville Herva
Yeah, we are just extending to Central Europe in Netherlands to be exact. We pretty much compared Finland. We are number three staffing company in Finland right now and we are number one in construction, where we started from. So it has been quite successful in Finland and now want to duplicate that success in market number two or three or four.
Brett
Nice. And do you anticipate it’s going to be challenging to replicate that success as you move into different countries with maybe different cultures, different languages? What are your thoughts there?
Ville Herva
Yeah, of course it’s going to be challenging, but I think it’s going to be possible. The technology we have is really generic in its core and we’ve been able to scale from industry to another, from cost structure to manufacture logistics without too much of a problem. And there have been really different requirements that we’ve been able to maneuver. But of course the business environment in any different country is going to be different. That there are going to be things like legislation when we are operating in staffing business culture in many ways is going to pose challenges that we can’t foresee. But I think we are up to the task and the work we’ve done so far makes us feel really positive about the chances in market number two, three, and four.
Brett
Nice. Very cool. And you mentioned there that you’re number three in staffing in Finland at the moment. Could you just talk me through what the staffing market landscape looks like? Are the number one and two players? Are they old established companies that aren’t really using technology or what does that look like?
Ville Herva
Yeah, the total market in Finland is €2.5 billion. The number one takes about one fifth of that market and the number two takes more than one 10th. And we are following them and trying to catch up with them. Okay. Many of the companies are still using the legacy systems, maybe, and most of them have some kind of technology development going on. But the thing is, even if you would have the perfect system, it would be really hard to transform your company culture if you have been like doing business the traditional way for 20 years. All the people inside your organizations are going to be stupid and are going to not want to use anything new because it’s a risk for them. And of course, ultimately we want to get rid of excess people also, so there’s clearer motivation for traditional organizations to renew themselves. So that’s where we have the edge.
Ville Herva
We started from technology and not from traditional business. There was a bit of traditional business in the mix. We needed some customers, we needed some employees to try our ideas on. But that was really small in 2016 and all of the people we’ve hired have been hired after having established the technology. And that’s something the traditional companies can’t really do. They have hundreds or thousands of people and then they can’t just chase everyone.
Brett
Got it, that makes sense. And then how long is someone that you’re bringing to these companies typically employed.
Ville Herva
By them for anywhere from if you are talking about the rental workforce, anywhere from one day to several years. And it could be one or several clients. But for example, to give you an example, we are paying salary for more than 10,000 people this year and at any given time there are more than 3000 people working for us. So it’s not huge change from month, but it’s still like it’s temporary. So yeah, to do this the traditional way, it’s a huge work. So the automation really helps here.
Brett
Got it, that makes sense. And then what’s the profile of the typical worker that you’re bringing onto the platform here?
Ville Herva
It could be a construction worker, maybe it could be a manufacturing employee, for example in a meal or something. It could be a logistics worker, could be a truck driver. We also have some restaurant hotels customers and also some white collar. We started just recently trying our technology in white collar work also, but it’s mainly work of dual color and there are like hundreds of different professors among them. So it’s kind of impossible to paint the typical profile.
Brett
Got it. But do they have some level of training or is it oftentimes very entry level work?
Ville Herva
Both large mass is entry level work, but there are professionals, but we don’t do that much training ourselves. There are some training initiatives, but most of the work comes from people who have already gotten their education and who are ready to work. And it’s rare that we supply education for them, but in some cases we do. Got it?
Brett
Okay, that makes a lot of sense. And I know you’ve mentioned some numbers there, but are there any numbers you can share in terms of traction that demonstrate the growth that you’re seeing?
Ville Herva
Sure. We just exceeded €100 million last twelve months, so that was a bit of a goal for us. And the next goal is going to be adding one digit to that number. 3400 employees at peak this summer. The summer is peak time for us now. We are at around 3000. It’s going to be more next year. Of course, we started from pretty much from scratch, so that’s a huge growth.
Brett
Wow, very cool. That’s impressive. And what year did you launch?
Ville Herva
In 2016 we started off with the technology development in April 2017. We were ready to launch the platform and our brand as well.
Brett
Wow, very cool. And switching gears here a little bit as you know, bringing technology to market is never easy. What’s the biggest challenge that you faced and how did you overcome that challenge?
Ville Herva
It’s of course trying to transform the people. I mean, it’s hard enough to come up with the technology that tackles the problem, but it’s even bigger challenge to get the people to use it. The rental workers have been the easiest audience. Actually, our own salespeople and recruiters have been more stopwatch, to be frank. And the hardest part are the customers that are sticking to their traditional practices and not taking the advantage out of the platform because there’s a definite advantage to using this platform also for the customers. But it’s slow, you have to be patient. It comes and you don’t get anything in one year or two years. You have to be patient. But it’s coming and this industry has so many others will be revolutionized and we want to be part of that transition.
Brett
And is there anything specific that you say or do that really helps your customers have that AHA moment to say, okay, I’m open to this new technology or I’m open to this new platform?
Ville Herva
I would say it’s different aspects for different customers and we have so many different features in the customer application, but I think the eye opener is for them to see how easy it actually is and how much less hassle there is when you let the technology do the work. So it’s just a matter of persuaded them to try it out and then the technology will then take care of the rest. Got it?
Brett
Perfect. Okay, that all makes sense. And last question here for you. Zooming out into the future. What’s the five year vision for boatworks?
Ville Herva
I think, well, I said we just exceeded the 100 million euro barrier. We want to be one digit more by then and we want to be present in Europe. And as I said, the market is going to be revolutionized in Europe during that time. There are going to be competition. I think our technology platform is unique, but there are other startups that have something similar, not exactly similar. It’s going to be a huge competition. The European market is hundreds of billions of euros, so it’s going to be shared. Again, the traditional staffing operators are going to lose. There are going to be technology platforms that take over. We want to be part of that. Maybe the leading movement.
Brett
Nice. Amazing. Well, unfortunately, that’s all we’re going to have time to cover for today before we wrap. If people want to follow along with your journey, where’s the best place for them to go?
Ville Herva
Well, I have to be honest, I’m really bad at Tweeting or Vlogging, I’m so busy with the business. But you can always follow the grantspace article on both websites and see how our progress goes and I hope to be able to tweet more and maybe write a blog post or something.
Brett
Perfect. And then for anyone listening, if you want to visit the website, it’s bolt works, correct?
Ville Herva
Yeah, exactly. All right.
Brett
Amazing. Well, thanks so much for your time here. Really appreciate it. Really honored to have my first guest from Finland. So appreciate it and look forward to seeing you execute on this vision.
Ville Herva
Thank you so much. Fred, good luck.
Brett
All right. Best of luck.
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