Stravito

Thor Olof Filogen had seen the problem firsthand. As VP of Growth and Chief Revenue Officer at iSettle, he watched the company grow from 50 to 500+ employees and noticed a growing challenge: as they scaled, they kept reinventing the wheel in terms of analysis and research, and it became increasingly difficult to distribute information internally. When he met his three co-founders—two of whom had spent 15 years running a market research agency called Norm (later acquired by Epsos)—they confirmed his suspicion was a massive, systemic problem. These experienced researchers told him how Fortune 500 companies like Unilever, Procter & Gamble, and Coca-Cola faced this challenge at scale. "If we started experiencing this with 500 employees, I can't even imagine how complex it is when you have 50,000 or 100,000 employees," Thor reflected. He saw a massive market opportunity: the market research industry was worth $90 billion globally, far larger than the recorded music market ($25 billion) where Spotify operated.

Drawn from past entrepreneurial experience, Thor and his team knew the power of validation before building. They didn't rush to code. Instead, they spent **five and a half months interviewing prospects** at 10 major companies including Marks & Spencer, Coca-Cola, and Johnson & Johnson. They put product concepts on slides and got feedback before committing engineering resources. "We tried as much as possible to validate elements on a slide level," Thor explained. This extended discovery period was crucial because it revealed that the problem was "omnipresent"—all these organizations faced it.

Once they had confidence, they made a bold move: they signed a **paid proof of concept with a competitor bid**. This was their first customer deal, and it forced them to build a real product under pressure. For **five months they delivered hell**—two-week checkpoint meetings where they had to prove every promise from their slides was real, or risk being thrown out entirely. "We literally did not have a product when we started out and we had to build it and effectively prove it at each checkpoint," Thor said. They shipped the alpha MVP in August 2017, eight months after starting the company. "There's a lot of reason to be ashamed of our product," he admitted, channeling the famous Paul Graham maxim about shipping early.

After winning that first paid POC, Stravito needed to figure out its go-to-market motion. The team realized that **founder-led sales were critical**, especially when selling to risk-averse enterprises. Thor himself became a salesman. He and his co-founders talked to prospects directly, conveyed the vision (since the product couldn't yet live up to it), and stayed close to customer problems to feed insights back into product development. This flywheel proved essential because they could credibly promise improvements they knew were coming.

They also made a strategic focus decision: rather than chase all large enterprises at once, they narrowed their target to **fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG)** companies like Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and eventually McDonald's. This wasn't random—FMCG companies faced the most acute version of the knowledge fragmentation problem and were most willing to take a bet on an innovative startup. By concentrating on this segment, Stravito could build credibility: "When I talk to a telco, we can say we work with Comcast. When I talk to a fast food chain, I say we work with McDonald's. It's much easier to build confidence."

Stravito's breakthrough came from **segment-specific marketing**. Rather than talk about customers in abstract terms ("SMEs," "enterprises"), they created campaigns that spoke to how specific customers saw themselves. A hairdresser doesn't identify as a "small business owner"—they're a salon operator. Similarly, FMCG companies needed to see how other FMCG companies used Stravito, not generic case studies. They built landing pages and content that reflected these realities, using customer words to explain benefits. This precision in messaging dramatically improved conversion.

They also experimented with **referral programs**, and learned that simplifying incentives sometimes worked better than complex reward structures. By removing unnecessary conditions and reducing friction, they saw 5X growth in one case without the moral hazard they'd feared.

However, Thor freely admits mistakes. The team **spent significant money on online ads with poor ROI**—including affiliate programs, event sponsorships, and paid search. "Hope is not a strategy," he said, quoting Snowflake's Frank Slootman. They also **over-reached into new segments too early**. Eager after early FMCG success, they tried to scale into retail, hospitality, and pharmaceuticals before they had product-market fit in those categories. "We spent a lot of time and resources doing things we should have been more patient about," Thor reflected. The lesson: validate deeply in one segment before spreading thin.

By the time of this interview, Stravito had grown significantly. The company **doubled revenues year-over-year** and raised a $14.6 million Series A, allowing them to double their team to nearly 70 people across 25+ nationalities. While Thor declined to disclose exact ARR publicly, he confirmed the company is "doing multiple seven figures in ARR"—putting them in the $1M+ range. Total funding reached $23 million USD. Their customer base expanded to include global brands like Comcast, Electrolux, Calzberg, and McDonald's.

They also achieved operational maturity: ISO certification, a Chief Security Officer, and industry recognition (Forbes coverage). These credentials helped them re-approach prospects who'd said no years earlier, now ready to buy. Most recently, they launched **Atlas, a visual search solution**, staying true to their mission to "simplify knowledge discovery." As Thor put it: "We stayed hungry and foolish and listened to the market and customer needs and went beyond what the market expected to innovate."