The following interview is a conversation we had with Batist Leman, CEO and Co-Founder of Azumuta, on our podcast Category Visionaries. You can view the full episode here: $3 Million Raised to Power the Future of Connected Workers
Batist Leman
Excited to be here, Brett, thank you for the invitation.
Brett
Not a problem. I’m super excited for this conversation. I’d love just begin with a quick summary of who you are and a bit more about your background.
Batist Leman
Yeah, so I’m Batist, the founder and CEO of Azumuta. So a little bit about my background. So I started programming at eleven. I was always super passionate about building things, not only in code, but also like building things with legos, with electronics in the garden, building camps, things like that. So then I went studying for mechanical engineering and automation. So I have an engineering degree. Then I started working at a robotics company. I did that for two years, and then the earth was too big and I started something on my own. So I started as an independent consultant doing software projects, basically industry projects, but also I worked for bank related software items. Reliability and security are important, for example.
Batist Leman
And then I think it was 2015 or something, then came a customer asking, can you create a software tool for making these work instructions here? So it was a manufacturing company and they asked me to generate software for work instructions. I did that and a while later another manufacturing company came to me and said, hey, we have a problem with our work instructions here. Can you create a software tool for it? So then I thought like, yeah, that’s now the second time they are asking me this. Perhaps I can do this as a service and provide them with this software tool online where we manage the service and improve it, and then they use it in their daily work. So that’s where Azumuta got started. And then, yeah, for me that was a dream come true.
Batist Leman
It was really like a combination of my two passions, which were programming and manufacturing. So, yeah, and we are building ever since there.
Brett
What was that day like for you when you made the decision to say, okay, we’re going all in. We’re going to build this into a tool, and then we’re going to sell it to many other customers, just like these two that asked us to build something similar.
Batist Leman
Yeah, well, with every decision like that, a really big decision, like, I know very well that when I was working as an employee, then becoming an independent and having my own business is like a huge step for me, but then afterwards, you are like, okay, that was not a big step at all. That was a very small step, and I don’t know why I was ever afraid of doing that. And it continues to be like that. So then if you are starting your own company and you are, like, really hiring people that work for you instead of just doing things on your own, that’s a huge step as well. So. And afterwards, it’s like, wow, it was not huge at all. It was just one employee. It was a very small step. Actually, I said that continues to be the case.
Brett
What did the first 90 days look like for you? What was that top focus and what were those early days like, the 90.
Batist Leman
Days of building a company? Yes. Well, it was never like the first 90 days. It was always something gradual for me. Like, you’re doing these projects, and then you are building these projects, and in the meanwhile, you’re also thinking about building a product and you’re experimenting with things. So it was never really black and white. It was always iterative process and something gradual.
Brett
When did it feel like things were really working? Did it take, like, five months, six months to take a year? Has it never felt like it’s completely working? Are you always just feeling like you have to keep doing more? When did that start to feel like it was working for you?
Batist Leman
Yeah, that’s a good question. Actually, in the moment, I rarely feel like it’s working. So you’re always super busy. You’re doing deals, you’re doing hires, you’re handling all kinds of things. It’s always like there is a huge amount of work on your plate, and in the meantime, it’s also, you want to do go faster and faster. So in the moment, you never think that. It’s only when you stop and you think like, oh, two years back, and now we grew times ten, for example, and then you realize, okay, it is going fast, but we just don’t realize that you are so focused on doing the work. And it’s. Yeah, that’s always the case.
Brett
Yeah. I think every founder that I’ve talked to, even, like, the most successful founders with multi billion dollar companies, a lot of them have a similar view, that it never really feels like everything’s just running smooth and there’s no problems. Like, there’s always problems. The problems just evolve and change over time.
Batist Leman
Exactly. Exactly. Yep.
Brett
Who is the ICP? Who are you trying to sell to? Or I should say, who are you selling to? Who’s that? Like sweet spot for you?
Batist Leman
For us, it’s like our sweet spot is a discrete manufacturing. So we are providing a software tool. And so discrete manufacturing companies that are building complex products that takes a long time to make. So for example, discrete manufacturing where it takes 60 seconds to do your job, but that’s too short for us. If it’s a bit longer, like 1 hour, 2 hours to do your job, and then products with high degree of complexity, so the job takes 1 hour, but it’s really not doable without any instructions, without any guidelines to know what to do. Exactly. If there is a lot of variation in the products, like for example, options that the customer can order, or variance on the product, things like that, yeah, then it’s a good fit. Also, when it costs a lot, when someone makes a mistake, that’s also a good fit.
Batist Leman
Then because there is a danger for recalls, for example, or customer complaint is expensive, things like that, then it’s a good fit for us. Another good fit is when companies want to act fast to a moving market. So for example, if the demand is high in certain moment and companies want to scale up their production really fast, then we are a good fit for our customers.
Brett
I saw on the website that you have 125,000 operators that are using the product today. Can you talk to us about the acquisition of all those users and all of those customers? How do you acquire so many customers and users?
Batist Leman
Well, it’s like really gradual. And then some customers are using our tool in their whole factory. And so immediately, if you’re onboard one customer, it’s often that all the operators are using our tool. Yeah, that’s why it often goes really fast.
Brett
What do you attribute to the success and growth that you’ve seen?
Batist Leman
I think we really have a culture of doing things iteratively. We also listen very well to our customers. So we really started with Azumuta based on questions that we got from the market. So that’s really embedded in our company culture, listening to their customers, engaging with them, thinking with them, and building our product together with them.
Brett
From a marketing perspective, how would you define or describe your marketing philosophy and approach?
Batist Leman
Well, for us, most of our sales are actually inbound, so marketing is really important. For us, we do a lot of SEO, so we write informative articles. We are doing broader and broader. So articles with also like interesting content downloads to capture their information. We also starting with the videos. Yeah. So we are aiming to have a broad suite of marketing usage and, yeah, tools to get inbound.
Brett
What does the marketing team look like? How big is that team and what did you learn from building the marketing team? A lot of the founders I speak with, that’s a big challenge. Was that a challenge for you or is it easy?
Batist Leman
It wasn’t easy at all. No, it’s a big challenge. So in the beginning we hired. And so, yeah, were bootstrapped for a really long time. We hired not the most expensive people. And so that was a mistake. There were junior people, just graduated, didn’t have a lot of experience. And so it was really hard. Like the market wasn’t going that great. And then we shifted. We had some great hires from HubSpot. So we are based in Ghent, Belgium, in Europe, and HubSpot has a headquarter there or has an office there. And so those people are coming from HubSpot, a lot of experience in marketing, and that really changed the game completely. Since then you can clearly see it in our metrics. Like when did they join Azumuta? From that point on, you really see like a dent in our graphs.
Batist Leman
And since then it’s going up and up. Yeah. So it was hard. It was not easy. But yeah, now we are on a good track here.
Brett
This show is brought to you by Front Lines Media podcast production studio that helps B2B founders launch, manage and grow their own podcast. Now, if you’re a founder, you may be thinking, I don’t have time to host a podcast. I’ve got a company to build.
Brett
Well, that’s exactly what we built our service to do.
Brett
You show up and host and we handle literally everything else. To set up a call to discuss launching your own podcast, visit Frontlines.io podcast. Now back today’s episode.
Brett
What about your market category? Is the category connected worker or what is the actual market category?
Batist Leman
That’s a good question because that’s sometimes difficult. So it’s connected. Factory worker is one of the terms. Shop floor platform is one of the terms. Sometimes you see like digital work instruction, but that’s a bit too narrow actually, for what we are doing. So, yeah, it’s not always that clear what terms that are most interesting to.
Brett
Use makes a lot of sense. What about from a messaging and positioning perspective? Have there been any big shifts in messaging and positioning that have really made a big impact.
Batist Leman
Yeah, absolutely. So we are quite technical team. I’m an engineer myself and then the first people that joined were developers. So we are quite technical team and so we like to talk about features. That’s a classic, it’s not necessarily a mistake, but that’s a classic property of a startup. You like to talk about features and you’re not selling solution, but you are selling like the product has a bunch of features, actually. So we are moving that a bit to reach the sea level types, because if you talk about features, then you can reach like your key users, your team leaders, operators, engineers. Perhaps you can get to the operation manager in factories. Yeah, it’s less relevant for the sea level types. And of course, if you grow as a company, you want to sell more enterprise deals, you have to reach that sea level.
Batist Leman
So now we are shifting our messaging from those features, more like about the bigger picture items, for example, how do you get your quality under control, the quality of your workforce? How can you defend against an aging workforce? How do you manage to capture all the tacit knowledge that’s available in your operators? The world is more volatile than ever, so there are demand spikes and so is your company and your factory ready to scale up if the demand spikes? Or will your competitor move faster than you and will take the market? Basically all these kinds of messages, there’s a clear shift away from features and also covering our solution and the problems that come with it, or the problems that it solves rather.
Brett
What would you say to date has been the most important go to market decision that you’ve made?
Batist Leman
That’s a good question. I think building the team, I’m not a marketing specialist myself, so if that’s the case, then you have to hire a great team that knows what they are doing and that will take over and will take it from there. For me, that’s the most important thing.
Brett
As I mentioned there in the intro, you’ve raised about 3 million today. What have you learned about fundraising throughout this journey?
Batist Leman
I expected it to go faster, as I was perhaps a bit too optimistic. Okay, we should do this in three months. I will start now and then three months can close this. And took a bit longer. It took like seven months, I think so, yeah, a bit longer than expected. And it was also, it consumes more energy than expected in the sense that. So were quite small team, like 20 people, and so I was helping the sales. But then during the fundraising, I spent a lot of time and energy in raising and less in doing the sales. And so, yeah, it was not optimal, but yes, that’s. I underestimated the amount of work that.
Brett
It takes in Silicon Valley, in New York, and really in the US, we see companies just raise absurd amounts of money. Do you view that as an advantage that you’re not in these markets where there’s companies that are going out and raising like 20 million or 50 million or 100 million? Do you like to keep the team lean and keep the team focused?
Batist Leman
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think the gross is not always greener on the other side. So if from our perspective in Europe, it’s like, oh, in the US, they are raising huge amounts. But it also comes with the downsides. I mean, you have to be able to spend it in a good way, not like throw everything out of the windows. And so it comes with its own challenges, of course. Also, like, valuation is really high, and then if the market comes down, then you have a problem, because then what will you do with the next round? So that brings a whole set of problems with it. Of course, in Europe, if you are raising lower amounts, it’s also not ideal because you can always use more money to grow faster and faster.
Batist Leman
But I think with the amount we raised, we have a good middle ground. We have also, of course, fantastic paying customers. And so a lot of revenue is coming in from our customers. I think it’s, how did they call it? The double edged sword, basically.
Brett
And we’re somehow already two months into 2024. In terms of the 2024 plan, what would you say are the top priorities and what’s keeping you up at night, as you think through the plans for 2024?
Batist Leman
Yeah, top priorities are building an excellent team. That’s basically it from my perspective. And then the teams are having their own objectives, which is, of course, building a fantastic product, doing amazing sales. But from my perspective, it’s like building a very good, reliable and robust team. Keeps me up at night. What keeps me up at night? Podcast late at night. Yeah, yeah. 10:00 p.m.. Here. So, yeah, no, what keeps me up at night? No, no, I’m good sleeper, actually. Nothing keeps me up at night. I think you have to be realistic, and we have a robust product and we are growing at a really good pace. So, yeah, no, I’m good sleeper.
Brett
Let’s imagine that I come to you and I say, hey, I want to build a tech company. I want to sell to a similar market. It’s not a competitor, but I want to sell to a similar ICP based on everything that you’ve learned so far, what would be the number one piece of advice that you’d give me before I begin that journey into market?
Batist Leman
Well, first of all, it’s an amazingly cool audience. I mean, like, manufacturing people are the most amazing people that are there. They are, like, really grounded. They’re not with their heads in the cloud. Yeah, they’re very pleasant to work with, can have good conversations with them, interesting people. So, first of all, that’s also important, your market. Do you like to work with the people in your market? If you don’t, then it will be very difficult to sell to them. And so, yeah, that will be, you will be having a hard time. So that’s the first thing I would look at. And then another thing that I would say is like, yeah, try to make sure that there is a budget for what you are doing, because, like, in the manufacturing, for everything, there is a budget. So it’s also very competitive.
Batist Leman
And some manufacturing companies, they are like really, like building commodities, and there, every penny counts. And so look at is there a budget for the things that you are doing?
Brett
Final question for you. Let’s zoom out three to five years into the future. What’s the big picture vision here?
Batist Leman
The bigger picture is really, like, making the manufacturing industry fundamentally more productive by using azamuta. That’s really the goal. And so our vision is supporting the human component in there. So we have the manufacturing industry. Course you have robots, industry 4.0, sensors, all these kind of things, but we are really facilitating the human component in there. We think that there will always be humans in manufacturing. Even if there are lots of robots, there will always be humans doing the oversight, helping the robots. And so they also need to be supported. They can’t be forgotten, end up in misery. If your knowledge is in the people’s heads and they leave your company, then all the knowledge gets lost and you have to start over, basically. So you need good systems to support those workers.
Brett
If there’s any founders that are listening in that want to follow along with your journey, where should they go?
Batist Leman
Yeah, they can follow me on Twitter or on LinkedIn, and they can also subscribe to our newsletter on azumuta.com
Brett
Amazing. I love it. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. It’s been a lot of fun.
Batist Leman
It was a pleasure to be here. Yeah, thank you for the invitation.
Brett
No problem. Keep in touch.
Batist Leman
See you. Bye bye.
Brett
This episode of Category Visionaries is brought to you by Front Lines Media. Silicon Valley’s leading podcast, production studio. If you’re a B2B founder looking for help launching and growing your own podcast, visit Frontlines.io podcast. And for the latest episode, search for category visioners on your podcast platform of choice. Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you on the next episode.
Twitter
facebook
linkedin