“The library said ‘this is really cool, but it’s not ready to be commercial, but we would love to help you guys out and give you feedback’, so we started a project with the university and the library there took us under its wing. We really worked hard with them to understand the need of the library and how we could make something that they want. The assumption was that university libraries across the world probably have the same challenges, so if it works for one it’s probably going to work for others. “Then we got investments from mostly angel investors but also some bigger ones.”
Frode said the way the contract worked minimised risks for all par- ties, adding: “We had to get all three onboard, the universities with Innova- tion Norway (a national development bank) with the investors. They didn’t have to do anything until everyone was aligned, which reduced the risk.”
Library opportunities
“I think the reason they invested is because what we were doing clicked for them. They could see themselves wanting to use Keenious, or that they would have needed it when they were students. And I think that’s the invest- ment side, that if you’re going into Ed Tech there are a lot of people that can relate to the problem that we are trying to solve.”
Frode said that because Keenious is selling into academia, it makes sense to use academic methods to develop it and sell it.
“We have been taking the academic approach and doing research (https://
keenious.com/research). We have a ded- icated User Researcher on the team, and we speak at conferences about what we find out. Selling Ed Tech to
Keenious co-founder Anders Rapp with Frode.
Higher Education, taking an academic approach shows our seriousness. We have a lot of customers doing independent stud- ies on Keenious and its effects. We want people to test it out, write about it, and
publish papers on it, that’s good for us.” He said that Keenious still depends heavily on finding supporters in univer- sities, often in their libraries. He said this was particularly true when start-ups move into new jurisdictions. “Figuring out all the purchasing pro- cesses and rules in different countries is just something you have to painfully get through. The first customer in each country is super difficult. Many times it is the first time that they’re buying a Nor- wegian product – so the first customer is a big hurdle and they’ve got to really want to buy the product, they’ve got to be absolutely convinced to go through this uncertain process.
“For the first one you really have to find a champion, someone who really believes in the product and is willing to sell it internally, because they really want it and they have decision makers they need to convince. That’s relationship-building and just being honest about it and as a start-up we need that help since we are not a big company with thousands of sales people.” BG
Keenious stand in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. l
www.keenious.com 9
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