Raimonds Simanovskis started eazyBI in 2016 after 15 years of experience in the IT services business. By mid-2016, eazyBI had over 1,000 business customers and was a top 10 add-on for Atlassian JIRA. The small team of 10 people had good profitability without any venture capital or office space. Simanovskis focused on controlled growth by focusing on paying customers, providing quality support, and finding beneficial partnerships.

1. A Different
Startup Story
Raimonds Simanovskis
@rsim

2. Early 2011
• 15 years in IT services business
CTO of IT Alise => Tieto Latvia
• 38 years old
• Family with 3 kids
• House (no mortgage)
What to do next?

3. Mid 2016
• More than thousand business customers
• eazyBI in top 10 Atlassian JIRA add-ons
• Small team of 10 people
• No venture capital
• No office
• Good profitability

4. Inspiration

5. What Idea to Pick?
• What you know and do best?
• What you will love to do for a long
time?
• Is there a real need for this?
• Is it a not-too-small and not-too-big
niche business?

6. Easy to use
web based
business intelligence
application

7. Many data sources

8. Create reports with
drag-and-drop

9. Many chart types

10. Powerful calculations

11. Main technical
components
MySQL
Postgre
SQL
Oracle
MS
SQL
JRuby on Rails
Mondrian OLAP

12. Start small
Stay small

14. No Venture Capital
High growth
All or nothing
Controlled growth
Sustainable business
Acquisition Profit
“Venture Capital Is a Time Bomb” — DHH

15. Focus on paying
(business)
customers

17. Be a good
Open Source citizen
Mondrian OLAP

18. Provide the
best
quality support

19. Customers around the globe

20. Remote office

23. Find beneficial
partnerships

25. Visit business
conferences
and meet
customers

27. raimonds.simanovskis@eazybi.com
@rsim