This document provides advice from Christian Lanng, CEO and cofounder of Tradeshift, on how founders can take control of their destiny when building a company. Some key points: - Tradeshift has grown from its founding in Denmark to becoming a unicorn company in just 8 years by simplifying complex supply chains and being the "anti-SAP" of supply chain software. - Founders can maintain control by never outsourcing fundraising to control the narrative, owning 40% of the company even after raising a Series F, and viewing their successful SaaS business as its own "best bank" due to long-term recurring revenue. - Networks and marketplaces are powerful drivers of value for Tradeshift

1. How Founders Can Take
Control of Their Destiny
Christian Lanng
CEO and Cofounder
Tradeshift
@twitter

2. From Denmark to Unicorn
in 8 years

3. Supply-chains are huge,
complex, expensive
and make the
world economy go round

4. We wanted to simplify
them and
be the anti-SAP of
supply-chains

5. LinkedIn + Salesforce + Supply Chain =
Tradeshift

6. Business software designed for people

7. 3 Enterprise Products,
All Cloud, All SaaS
Buy Pay Apps
Tradeshift™ Buy
Own your supply chain
marketplace.
With private marketplaces
that you own, stock, and
manage, you can make
procurement more like
buying.
Tradeshift™ Pay
Connect your supply
chain payments.
Discover payments 2.0.
Manage invoices, working
capital, payments and all
points in between. All in one
place.
Tradeshift™ Apps
Accelerate your supply
chain digitization.
Extend, customize, or build
any part of your supply chain
solution with a fully stocked
app store and a flexible,
open platform.

8. We always knew
we would be big…

9. World Domination
Selling!

10. Denmark in January!

11. “Boston is as far away from
Silicon Valley as Copenhagen…
(and their winters suck too)”
-Mikkel Svane, Zendesk, Dane…

12. Only build a company
in Silicon Valley
if you think you can
be no 1 in your category
(In SaaS it’s ok to be no 3,
Peter Thiel is wrong)

13. Things that worked for Tradeshift as a business
• Complexity is awesome!
• Low Churn (less than 1%),
• High ACV ($500k+) and even better LTV
• Huge moats for competitors
• But complexity is costly and requires fundraising skills
• $400m raised, high burn
• Initially high CAC (2x)
• Alliances is everything in enterprise SaaS
• Faster deal cycle, lower CAC
• Takes 3 years to be efficient
• High Conversion Rate (28%+ on qualified)

14. Things that worked really well!
Network + SaaS is magic and the future of SaaS

15. • In Q3’19 the net new GMV
transacted on the network was
$77 billion, up by $2B from
Q2’18
• Growth primarily fueled by strong
progress in EMEA
• At current pace + 122% growth
year over year
Gross Merchandise Valueof Tradeshift Network
15

16. The Power of the Tradeshift Flywheel
Executing on network growth and user
creation is the biggest value creation for
Tradeshift and the area we are
increasingly focusing on
Network & Marketplace
Apps are how we realize
value with partners like
Citibank and Visa. They are
a huge driver for winning
new deals
Apps & Ecosystem
The customer and revenue
engine fuels everything we do in
Tradeshift and is the primary
input source for all value
creation
Enterprise Business
16

17. THE POWEROF NETWORKS
Everydealwe doreinforcesthenextoneas ourcustomers supply-chains overlap
DHL picked Tradeshift since 30% of their
suppliers were already being
on-boarded by Kuehne+Nagel
UPS approached us because between DHL and
Kuehne+Nagel we connected more suppliers than
anyone else in the logistics industry

18. The flywheel
150 Fortune 500
Customers
and 2.5m Sellers on the
platform today

19. So how do founders
maintain control
of their destiny?

20. We just raised our series F
and founders + early investor
owns 40%

21. Never outsource fundraising,
control the narrative…

22. Time is your friend
Salesforce took 10 years to
become a unicorn
and another 10 years to become
an $80bn company
(When would you have sold?)

23. And then the big secret…

24. “Subscriptions = bonds”
(compounding return, low churn, long LTV)

25. If you own a successful SaaS
business you own the best bank
in the world,
don’t let the middlemen
soak up the value
(VCs are overrated late stage,
just make your own fund)

26. THANK YOU