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Sara Green Brodersen: Always ask for help in your network

deemly CEO Sara Green Brodersen: We’re building trust for the world

Please introduce yourself and your startup deemly to our readers!
My name is Sara Green Brodersen and I am the founder and CEO of deemly, a start-up based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Simply put: We’re building trust for the world.
deemly.co is a reputation site which enables users to show their trustworthiness by combining their personal ratings and reviews from multiple sharing economy platforms. By displaying their “deemly score”, users can feel safe and build trust more easily when interacting in the sharing economy. When joining a new platform, users can take their reputation with them and immediately start interacting by using their “deemly score”, instead of building their reputation from scratch whenever they try something new.
On top of that, deemly offers an API for sharing economy platforms to make their users feel safer and interactions easier. Users can then show their deemly score on their platform profiles, which helps them to utilize their online reputation and enhances platform activity. We also offer a rating and review system for platforms that can be easily integrated and customized. We know how important a well-functioning rating system is when building trust between users online, so we can offer this knowledge together with an easy-access technology to help platforms increase their trustworthiness and activity.

How did you get the idea to deemly?
I got the idea for deemly while I was working on my thesis. I analyzed a lot of sharing economy platforms and during my interviews with the founders of these platforms, I soon realized that they all shared a concern, namely how to built trust among their users. And that’s how deemly was born.

Sara Green Brodersen
Sara Green Brodersen

How did the founding team start working together?
Basically, I knew every co-founder through some sort of work relations and connected everybody in the deemly project. For example I used to work with Jens, our CPO and he got on board as soon as I told him about my idea. Our CMO Pernille and I used to co-host networking events for a women’s network of female entrepreneurs in Copenhagen and because I knew how good she is with everything connected to marketing and start-up promotion, we started talking and soon she became part of the founding team.

How fast is deemly growing?
The deemly idea was born about a year ago. In April 2016, we successfully completed our seed investment round and since then, we have managed to launch our beta platform in June and in less than one month we have more than 250 users trying out the first features of our platform. We are now testing and re-testing every aspect of our platform with the beta users so we can launch deemly 1.0 in October. We currently have more than 35 sharing economy platforms in the pipeline that are interested in the API that we offer. We are going to integrate with them in the coming months.

How difficult was the start and what challenges you had to overcome?
Starting your own company is never easy. We were lucky to be part of the Thinkubator Accelerator program, which is a 10 week program for promising start-ups led by Dare2 in Copenhagen. Being part of the program’s competitions and coachings helped us to put our goals into perspective and then act to reach them in time. Of course, there are always challenges along the way such as building a platform and putting a team together. For me personally, quitting my regular job and fully concentrate on building deemly was one of the biggest challenges to overcome – and it turned out to be the best decision I have ever made.

What is the USP of your startup?
deemly is uniquely able to better conditions when interacting and sharing, both for users and for platforms. Trust is a highly valuable currency when interacting online, even more so in an increasingly complex environment. With deemly, users can feel safe and utilize their trustworthiness. Thus, they can interact easier and faster, which increases platform activity – so it’s a win-win both for the users and the platforms.

Who is the target audience?
On the one hand, we reach out to users who are active on sharing economy platforms to sign up for deemly. On the other hand, we target sharing economy platforms that want to integrate with us. Since creating a deemly profile is completely free for private users, our revenue comes from the platforms, who use our API and rating system.

How is deemly doing?
We are constantly growing, expanding our team and our customers. We managed to get some great media coverage and in the Spring, we are looking into raising our A-round investment. Now, we are trying to get even more sharing economy platforms interested in our offer and are already working hard on expanding internationally and on successfully launching deemly 1.0 in October.

A typical workday of you?
I usually get up very early, check my mails, and my plans for the day. Some days there is room for some exercise before going into the office. What usually happens during a fast-paced start-up workday are numerous exciting new developments, meetings and interactions, which makes structuring a workday sometimes hard but also very exciting. So a typical workday can be everything in between sitting in front of my laptop answering mails and writing blog posts about trust and the sharing economy to having three different meetings and an evening event where I take part in a panel debate. I am very lucky to have a dedicated and enormously motivated team so we can work on many different tasks and still remain focused and structured.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
In five years, I see our team working internationally with many exciting sharing economy platforms. Our 1.000-day aspiration is actually to be active on every continent! The opportunities to utilize a user’s entire online reputation are manifold: From crowdfunding, applying for a job to online dating and getting a bank loan – the possibilities are seemingly endless and I want all of them to become reality.

What 3 tips would you give other Start-up founders on the way?
1. Always ask for help in your network. The most important and meaningful help you can get usually comes from other start-up founders. There are many advisors and people who are keen on presenting their opinion but the best insights comes from the people who have experienced similar problems and dealt with them themselves.

2. Think big! It makes a huge difference if you believe in your idea and in what you can achieve – usually it’s a lot more than you think. Also change how you talk about your start-up and what you are doing – we started out with explaining this idea of a platform showing trustworthiness and now we arrived at “We’re building trust for the world”, which changes the entire conversation.

3. As a last tip, I would recommend to build a great team. It’s easier said than done but you need to find people you can trust and who can help you build the company that you want to build – and this requires excellence.

Thank you Sara Green Brodersen for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

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Sabine Elsässer
Sabine Elsässer
Sabine Elsaesser is an experienced entrepreneur and media/startup expert. Since 2016, she has served as the Chief Editor and CEO of StartupValley Media & Publishing. In this role, she is responsible for managing the company and providing strategic direction for its media and publishing activities. Sabine Elsaesser takes great pleasure in assisting individuals and businesses in reaching their full potential. Her expertise in establishing sales organizations and her passion for innovation make her a valuable advocate for startups and entrepreneurs.
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