Dutch startups and entrepreneurs visited twago office in November 2012. Gunnar Berning, Founder and CEO of Europe's largest marketplace for online work, gave insights about lessons learnt, growth of the twago startup, his vision and how twago is changing the world of working.

1. twago – Teamwork Across Global Offices
Berlin, November 2012
Dutch entrepreneurs @twago
www.twago.com
07. Juli 2009 © 2009 twago 0

2. Very
warm
Welcome
© 2012 twago 1

3. 30 out of 100 working people
will work online as freelancer.
They need jobs!
© 2012 twago 2

4. © 2012 twago 3

5. twago = biggest pan-European marketplace for Online work
 165.000+ experts, freelancers, agencies
 1000+ jobs every month
 Growth of 20-35% every month
You will find
 Programmers and Webdesigners
 Designer and Creatives
 Marketing / Online-Marketing experts
 Translators, etc.
Pillar 1: Pillar 2:
Premium Yellow Pages for Freelancer Marketplace for Online Work
 Local – Find the best local experts in  Post a job – wait for offers
your region  Find the best – intelligent matching
 Global – Find the best per country,  Manage – jobs and freelancers
unique in world wide  safePay – guaranteed money,
 Reputation – previous work history guaranteed work, unique in Europe
 Independent – Manage the hiring  Easy – saves time and money
process yourself
© 2012 twago 4

6. Our loyal fan base
Users from 177 countries
European coverage with
6 local versions in 4 languages
Asia
9%
GER, AUT,
Europe SWI
DACH
 80% of twago users come from
others 37%
9% DACH, Italy, Spain other European
ESP
15%
countries
ITAITA
ESP 19%
© 2012 twago 5

7. twago is the Wirtschaftswunder for freelancers worldwide
 More jobs
 More income
 Growth
 Safety
 Less admin hassle
It is time to pay attention to Germany’s
new Wirtschaftswunder.
about the German economy
© 2012 twago 6

8. For customers: Get results easier and faster for half of the costs -
The twago way saves time and money
Before Today
Time savings: about -50%
Cost savings: up to -70%
© 2012 twago 7

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12. How we started...
© 2012 twago 11

13. How we started...
• Understand your customers: Master thesis
• Be fast with a good version
• Learn from your customer as early
as possible: Observe and ask
• Trial and error
• Start with SEO yesterday
• Create reference cases (e.g. big brands)
• Communication / PR: Easy wins with data mining, adapting to news
• Build your network immediately
• Focus:
• Become #1 in a niche, then expand
• Remember your key levers: optimizing your SEM-CTR from 0.75%
to 1,5% lower your customer acquisition cost by 50%
© 2012 twago 12

14. Building the product –
We eat our own food
twago made use of outsourcing and offshoring:
 Product specification: (Internally) Which experts to choose
 Spec. Homepage-Design: Germany depends on
 Coding: Russia
 Translations:
 your requirements
Switzerland
 Branding/Name: USA expertise
 Design of Webseite: Canada
Savings roughly 60%
 Design of Company Logo: Philipines
twago successfully showed the „proof of concept“ –
Huge chance for all startups
© 2012 twago 13

15. © 2012 twago 14

16. Scaling is a mind game
• Manual work kills scale
1
Posted Projects / Month
• Invest in automation and
2
processes (I know, I know)
• Working with templates (SEM
3
landigpages, etc.)
• If you wonna go global, have
4
the option to quickly add
different languages
• Avoid local adaptions
5
and ...
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31
Never lean back
© 2012 twago 15

17. Stay flexible and ...
... adapt to customer
needs and learnings
© 2012 twago 16

18. We changed major topics
From... To...
Offshoring Outsourcing
Marketplace only Combined Marketplace
and Memberships
All countries immediately Focus on core countries
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21. Teambuilding
Hire only team members which make you better, not bigger
Start Now
• Hire only team members which make you better rather than
bigger
• Use the methods of headhunters: LinkedIN and Xing
• Create entrepreneurs – make them responsible
• Enable them to take decisions!
• Keep your risk under control: Use interns and trainees
• Min. duration = 6 months
• Really good people = high salaries, compensate with equity,
• Make a cut if it doesn’t work
• Invest your time: Coaching, coaching, coaching
• Celebrate!
© 2012 twago 20

22. Create a unique company culture
Your team must love to work with you and for you
© 2012 twago 21

23. Have fun
© 2012 twago 22

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25. Friday lunch all together
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28. Measure
Think
Analyze
© 2012 twago 27

29. Analyze, analyze, analyze:
Measure – think – change!
Traffic and customer behaviour
Key drivers Conversion tests (A/B)
© 2012 twago 28

30. Landing Page Test optimized conversion rates and reduces
user acquisition costs significantly
Landing Page A/B Test
Old Design Improvements New Design
 Few words: Focus
 „Clean“
 Build trust:
Verisign Logo,
Phone number,
green bulltes
 Reduce exit-options
3%* 20%*
Quelle: twago
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32. Raising Capital – Welcome to lemming country
• The right target group – VCs, Angels, Family
offices, Strategic investors
• How much? Not 1.0 Mio.!
• If you have one, you have many
• Expect stupid VCs
• Contact them en-block – everybody at the same
time, not sequentially
• Don‘t use „businessplan@earlybird.com“
• The market is setting your price, not the VC
valuation method
• Create and show your BATNA (best alternative to
negotiated agreement)
• You can be peer to everybody
• Everything takes longer, expect 6-9 months
• Don’t over optimize the percentages
• It’s over when it’s over
© 2012 twago 31

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34. Expect the unexpected
© 2012 twago 33

35. Thanks and feel free to follow us...
www.facebook.com/twago.com
www.twitter.com/gunnarberning
www.twitter.com/twago_inside
or email me: Gunnar.Berning@twago.com
.com
we change the world of working
© 2012 twago 34

36. We change the world of working!
© 2012 twago 35