Co-Founder
As non technical co-founders of an online marketplace, my colleague and I found ways to: - string together off-the-shelf products to test hypotheses - find low cost resources to fill gaps while we focused on sales - prioritize and strip back all non-essentials I'd be happy to share my bootstrapping journey and provide some ideas about ways you can do more with less.
Data, data, data. It's all growth comes down to. Focusing on collecting information from customers and potential customers, and prioritizing BI tools early in your companies trajectory will help you avoid some of the early pitfalls I've encountered!
I've had experience raising four rounds of Venture Capital; three as a Co-Founder and one as Head of Research & Strategy. I'd be happy to share my funding philosophy, why we decided to fundraise after years bootstrapping, and things to look out for as you begin the journey to accelerate your companies growth.
My background is in market research and marketing strategy. This stood me in good stead to take an insights driven approach to finding product market fit. I'm of the strong opinion there's no better way to find product market fit than to speak with customers and potential customers. To get the most out of these conversations, a solid research plan is needed. This is where I can help!
We used LinkedIn to kick start both sides of our marketplace - recruiting research participants to fill study opportunities, and to find early customers willing to give our product a shot.
Picnic is a social messaging app for close friends.
Respondent is a two sided marketplace that connects researchers with research participants. Our customers include companies like IBM, Microsoft, Google, Airbnb and many more.
Spear headed the strategic growth of Hall & Partners qualitative digital research offering in the U.S • Collaborated with developers in the UK to help build H&P's proprietary digital platform into a best in class research tool • Worked as a qualitative researcher across the travel, FMCG, technology and financial industries
Majored in Marketing
Majored in Marketing & Finance
Super helpful. Just someone that I needed 5ontalk with. Had clear answers to my dilemmas and was extremely helpful. Thanks Harri.
Harri is a gifted and patient listener who made me feel at ease right away. He understands the particular challenges that come with bootstrapping. His mentorship on how to validate my idea while also generating revenue was a match for where I am now in my business. I went from stuck to being able to implement a new solution right away after our conversation.
Harri is a great mentor and shared a lot of helpful advice in running a marketplace! His success with Respondent is really valuable for me because I can learn a lot from what he and his team did in terms of customer acquisition and marketing. Would definitely reach out again. Highly recommended.
Thanks again so much Harri for your time and fruitful advice on my mission and precise advice on how to get contact investors ! I'll definitely give you a call back :)
Great session! Harri is very articulate and his advice is very specific. You know it is coming from someone who has been part of the action in the trenches of start-up scaling! Great mentor.
Harri really helped me to get out of the mist, understanding what my various options for investments were and how to prepare a plan, I recommend his assistance for whatever business you are running !
Harri was the perfect startup mentor match for me! Our businesses have very similar business models and he was able to share very relatable experiences from his time at Respondent. He's a great listener, very knowledgeable and I left the session with renewed faith in what I'm building. Thanks for your time, Harri!
once again superb clarity, and useful suggestions on framework for our future development. As before, went above and beyond, to help us get clarity on next steps. He also also came up with additional recommendations unrelated to the specific topic. Fantastic!
This was an incredibly valuable session for me. Harri is open, friendly and hugely knowledgeable but even better than that, he cut through all the noise and got to the crux of our challenge. Harri's ideas/suggestions were like a light going on for me and I literally started working it the second the session finished. Thank you Harri!
I had my second session with Harri to provide updates on the implementation of the advice he gave me the first time. He gave additional helpful information regarding sales as well as product development. Reiterating my enthusiastic recommendation of Harri as a mentor!
My session with Harri was excellent. I would highly recommend him. He has a patient, insightful and focused approach. Having listened to my top line requirements Harri offered very practical advice that included a sensible strategy, specific tactics and relevant tools. Thanks Harri.
Was a great chat, Harri gave great insights on how to talk to our users and understand why they are using our product so we could focus on that in our marketing campaigns.
Harri is a very thoughtful, carrying mentor who is eager to provide value to his mentees. I received some important recommendations that made me reconsider my objectives; also, I felt really supported and listened to through the conversation. I would recommend Harri to anyone who is launching a company and needs some guidance on bootstrapping, product market fit and business model.
I'm a founder, and I reached out to Harri for advice on fundraising versus continuing to bootstrap. Harri gave excellent advice based on his own experience. He provided clear, concrete examples and responded to all of my questions. I would highly recommend him as a mentor.
I had an excellent call with Harri. He was encouraging yet also gave me the reality check I needed, and gave me some really useful insight into his experiences that gave me some ideas for how I can move forward. Thank you Harri! I feel much clearer now and have some direction, which is a lot to say for a 30-minute call :)
Harri was incredibly helpful, and friendly. He zeroed in on the key problems we are trying to solve, and came with excellent guidance for clear next steps for us on understanding our best users. Brilliant. and I am rescheduling a follow up call as we speak.
Super chatting with Harri. He helped better formulate questions to conduct user research and better identify our target audience. Thanks!
Harri was able to share his experience of building Respondent and the challenges he went through at the same stage I was at. It was helpful to understand the differences in approach and where I could improve.
EXTREMELY awesome conversation :) Harri helped give me more clarity on priorities and was diligent in learning more about the company prior to our conversation. Looking forward to having more conversations with him in the future and highly recommend founders and executives to chat with him!
Harri is amazing, and has concrete experience/examples/details on the chicken-or-egg problem is customer acquisition when it comes to starting a marketplace etc. Very generous with information - thank you so much Harri and I look forward to updating you after applying what I learned from this conversation.
Harri is incredibly helpful and generous with sharing his knowledge and experience. He was well prepared for our meeting, made great comments and suggestions, and showed great passion in what he is doing. He has invaluable experience & insights as a founder, and I would highly recommend anyone who wants to have a better grasp on user research and outreach techniques to reach out to Harri. A big thank you to Harri!
Thomas brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in growing startups. He's genuine, kind, and very professional. It's inspiring to hear about his journey and he makes great effort in listening and making sure the conversation is productive.
Harri was fantastic! Friendly and open, It was great hearing from a seasoned growth expert and breaking into a real impactful conversation.
I reached out to Harri after reading his blog: https://www.growthmentor.com/advice/startups/how-to-start-online-business/ We're at that scrappy early growth stage of the business looking to go from 4-10-40 customers in the next 6 months and the pointers Harri was able to share around focusing in on customer persona's and their JTBD were invaluable.
Harri's guidance was extremely helpful! He honed in on a key problem I was having and shared insight on how to reframe it to be able to scale and be laser-focused on my customer. I highly recommend a session with him. Thank you!
Harri was absolutely amazing! Was very friendly from the beginning and even before the call started, he had already taken a look at what I needed help with and put together a document for me to take a look at and go more in-depth during the call. Fantastic mentor!
Harri provided some excellent real world advice and feedback. Thanks a bunch for your help!
Harri was easy to talk to and it was great hearing his experiences, which helped me consider our approach to bootstrapping vs VC.
Harri was more than helpful in providing feedback for our pitch and giving us extremely valuable advice as we grow our business at this very early stage. Looking forward to scheduling further session with Harri.
Harri was great! His deep knowledge in the space really shone through with his crystal clear suggestions for next steps. Looking forward to connecting with him again in the future!
Harri was very helpful and willing to help us decide how to move forward. I highly recommend him, his experience is great.
Harri was great. He drew on his experience as a startup founder to provide actionable steps we can take to increase leads and grow our business. He was also honest about his likes and dislikes of our model and our marketing, giving us insights that can be tough to get from others. Overall, we really enjoyed talking to Harri and would definitely recommend him to others.
Consulted with Harri on a new product I'm taking to market. Felt he was really genuinely taking time to understand where my business is at & gave me invaluable insights into how I approach Left the initial call thinking about the project in a different, more savvy & cost-effective way. Personable/friendly, very knowledgeable insights which I will implement & great value. & hope to keep in touch as the project develops
Harri is very Kind and answered all the questions regarding various aspects on scaling a startup. Learnt a lot of different approaches on how we can scale a bootstrapped company.
Harri helped set the call up for success by asking for questions and sharing resources ahead of time. On the call he drove the conversation to a key area of focus that will help me take the the right next step to maximize my time value vs. effort – a very, very helpful call. I feel like I've taken a quantum leap forward. Thanks Harri!
Harri's a great dude with a lot of experience, and understanding of our background. He listened carefully to what we were trying to do, and came up with some great new ways at looking at things, and was encouraging with his feedback. Definitely feel inspired to implement some of his suggestions and would easily jump on another session in the future. Cheers mate!
It was a pleasure to talk to Harri about how to calculate market sizes and to get to know some of his own background concerning bootstrapping. Left the call with a clear understanding of how to proceed with my current task and will definatly book a call again when it comes to funding and pitch deck review. Thanks a lot!
It was great o speak to Harri! Harri was open and honest, giving us some useful tips to consider. We enjoyed picking Harri's brain!
Harri's experience with customer research really came through in this session. He also asked some thought-provoking questions about our new service which was very helpful. Harry followed up with a detailed email and outline of a plan for us to follow, going above and beyond. Thanks Harri!
Harri is a great mentor. His experience with bootstrapping his business makes him a valuable mentor with a different perspective. Thanks for the advice :)
Harri is extremely knowledgable. I highly recommend scheduling a session with him!
Harri really knows his onions when it comes to market research and testing the market. I would highly recommend chatting to him about the practicalities of early-stage product/market fit testing beyond your own opinions and assumptions!
Great call with Harri. We had a great conversation about the product backlog of growthmentor and prioritization thereof. He's a great listener and can quickly piece together what you're trying to do at a high level.
Really enjoyed my chat with Harri. He gave me some really good advice about go-to market and honing my value proposition. He also introduced me to some very valuable frameworks that I can apply.
Insightful as always!
Harri was awesome to chat to! Got lots of value out of our chat and very nice guy too! Highly recommend and will be having more calls with him into the future :)
Harri is a scrappy entrepreneur who started from literally nothing and no money and built a terrific startup with his team. And I feel like I got a front-row seat with regards to some of the high-level analysis and the pivots and the thought processes that went into the company's origin and its strong growth. He is specific with his insights and he is very encouraging to the entrepreneur and our focus on preserving capital and saving time while executing on our mission to bring valued services to paying customers. He truly knows his stuff and he loves building businesses and helping others who are doing the same.
Solid!!!!
Henri is an awesome person and mentor - super super spot on and available. Unfortunately the business I was running did not go as planned, so we ended up stopping the conversation, but I so much appreciated his support!
Got a lot of value out of my session with Hari - really insightful! Great to hear from a fellow founder further along on the journey with tips on managing growth & maximising opportunities.
Harri gave me some sound advice. He quickly understood our business and was able to ask some great questions to get to the heart of the issue, which helped uncover some great solutions.
If you want straight, practical, and spot-on guidance from someone who's been there and done that.. then Harri is definitely your guy. Talking with him is like getting 10 years of startup wisdom in a concentrated 30-minute dose. Come ready to take notes because you're going to want to capture everything he tells you.
Harri was very kind. During our call, he gave me several ideas on how to solve the challenges I had with my business and went further to send me a lengthy email with detailed advice. Looking forward to speaking with him again!
Harri did a great job of questioning my assumptions so I can get maximum value from the software products I create.
My session with Harri was excellent. He took the time to learn about my business model and market before giving any advice. He offered recommendations based on his experience but also an objective analysis of where he thinks we should adjust our thinking. The biggest takeaway, was that he helped me reign in our roadmap and realign our milestones based on the metrics that should matter, like getting active users and our first dollar of revenue in the door. Our call was only 30 min, but was packed with so many insights. If I were to read or scour Youtube for the same advice it may have taken hours. 5/5 experience overall. Highly recommended.
Harri is friendly, professional, knowledgable with real insights into how he grew his own business, that might also apply to yours. Highly recommend him, and look forward to continue our dialogues moving forward.