E73 – Part 2 of a 4-part mini-series with Jonathan Anguelov, co-founder and COO of Aircall.
In this episode Jonathan talks about growing up in Paris with an inspiring Mum who immigrated from Bulgaria and became a business person, giving Jonathan a front row seat into the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur. It didn’t put him off because he started his career as an entrepreneur while still in university, aged 20.
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TRANSCRIPT EPISODE 72 of 14 Minutes of SaaS – part 2 of 4 Aircall
Jonathan Anguelov
I don’t feel I work. I just feel I do things. I try to move forward in my life. And you know I recently … My mother always told me ‘take time for yourself’ and I never listened to her .. because I always thought ‘lets continue, let’s continue’. And recently I lost my Mum. And it always resonates in my head ‘I’ll try to make her proud from where she is. I won’t listen to what she said, but I’ll try to make her proud. She was a very strong woman and she left her country when she was 18. She escaped during the communist so it was very tough.
Stephen Cummins
Welcome to 14 minutes of SaaS, the show where you can listen to the stories and opinions of founders of the world’s most remarkable SaaS ScaleUps.
Episode 73 of 14 Minutes of SaaS. This is Part 2 of a 4-part mini-series with Jonathan Anguelov, co-founder and COO of Aircall. In this episode Jonathan talks about growing up in Paris with an inspiring Mum who immigrated from Bulgaria and became a business person, giving Jonathan a front row seat into the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur. It didn’t put him off because he started his career as an entrepreneur while still in university, aged 20.
Stephen Cummins
You advise and partner with Thunderstone – it’s a phygital distribution channel for brands. And just for the listeners ‘phygital’ is P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L. I’ve got to ask you Jonathan … did you invent the word ‘phygital’.
Jonathan Anguelov
No. So actually that company was built by a friend of mine and he used to be the founder of of a company called Viscount, which was a French Ralph Lauren. Basically very famous during 10 years, was making over 20M in revenue, et cetera. It was sold a few years back. And, he started this business into the phygital – so I’ll explain what it is after. And, as I have expertise in business and, and, he knows I’m good. Like I know how to handle SaaS businesses he wanted me to be an adviser. So he gave me some equity and so on. They raised already a few million. So why this business? Phygital is always a mix of physical and digital. Arthur, that is the CEO and founder, he’s coming from selling brands, selling clothes. And he realized that there’s a huge problem because with a shop, the brand needs to tell the shop how much it needs to buy as a minimum order. And so, the shop when it buys .. I don’t know .. let’s say a collection from Ralph Lauren or whatever for 50K, the brand imposes limits – it tells the shop it needs to buy at least least 5 Medium and 10 XL – or whatever et cetera. And so, the shop gets that – a regular shop that takes care of multiple brands. So when a guy comes into shop and says ‘Hey, I want this shirt. But I wanted in blue, do you have it in blue?’ And the shop says ‘Huh. I didn’t order it in Blue.’ So you gotta go on the website to buy or the shop calls another branch to see if they have it.
And so what Arthur imagined here is this big screen that you put in the shop that is directly connected to the stock of the brands. And so the brand will get an order live and directly from the person from this these big screens. So the shop doesn’t lose the deal and the brand doesn’t lose the customer. So the big challenge is to be able to be connected live to all the brands in stock. And be able to deliver it always very quickly – always in the shop because when the guy will come back, he’s maybe gonna buy something else. So it’s really changing the way people are buying in shops because, you know, it’s tough for shops today. You can easily buy on the internet. So you bring the internet into the shop basically with this solution.
The idea is more to say we don’t wanna kill the shops because when you buy clothe, you want to try it on. We will make sure it’s the right thing et cetera… et cetera. And then I really believe that an Amazon is succeeding in selling online etcetera. But I also believe there is a lot of waste in selling online. What does it mean? You buy and you don’t care? You buy. You get it. So there is transport, et cetera… et cetera involved. And then you see you don’t like it. And you send it back anyway. It’s free to send it back. And so, you know, it’s a huge waste for the environment. We’re killing the shops. And I believe in the fact that shops should exist. And that it should continue that people come in, they tried it, they discuss it with someone. And that’s also the biggest strategy behind this – to say online won’t kill the shops. We are bringing online into the shop.
Stephen Cummins
You are bringing digital into those physical bricks and mortar businesses. Which is great. The other problem I think is… is an Amazon dominated world, it leads to a monopoly or an oligopoly. You don’t get these cool shops making high streets interesting anymore.
Jonathan Anguelov
And the waste for an environment is huge! Just all that transport all the time, you know, it’s not what I believe in. I’m super proud to say I have never bought clothes online.
Stephen Cummins
I haven’t either actually. Just the thought of it – because the odds that it fits you even is improbable. I mean you’re in great shape and all that, but like, you know, yourself.
Jonathan Anguelov
No. You say great shape but, you know, I’m skinny and tall – nothing fits me. But, you know, buying something online actually is impossible for me. And I have one foot bigger than the other. So I never know which size options I need. So, you know, anyway long live shops!
Stephen Cummins
What’s a typical day in your life? You’re back and forth to New York quite a bit. Do you manage to keep a routine?
Jonathan Anguelov
Oh, I’m a person that has a huge routine actually. But I don’t know if its the same word in English, but in French a day in my life is like during the week five days a week, I work 100 percent for a Aircall, like I kill myself for Aircall. I’m dedicated like hell to Aircall. And during the weekend I follow my passion … and that is real estate. And, I recently acquired a Hotel in Paris. Well we are refurbishing it.
Stephen Cummins
So you still doing this?
Jonathan Anguelov
And during the weekend. Yeah, I used to do rent and a lot of Airbnb in Paris and so on – and then Airbnb went down in Paris – it became illegal – I thought ok let’s invest in a Hotel and I like real estate in general. I like facilities and so on.
Stephen Cummins
Could you connect that with your interest in Thunderstone I guess – the fact that you actually like physical places.
Jonathan Anguelov
I like… I like people, I like people in general. And a Hotel is about welcoming people. And so that’s why I like shops and… and so yeah, the weekend is dedicated to hotels to help a little bit Arthur with ThunderStone if needed. So, the weekend is for my other work. So yeah, now that I say it, I realize that I work seven days a week.
Stephen Cummins
But its your hobby as well.
Jonathan Anguelov
I don’t feel I work. I just feel I do things. I try to just move forward in my life. And you know I recently … My mother always told me ‘take time for yourself’ and I never listened to her .. because I always thought ‘let’s continue, let’s continue’. And recently I lost my Mum.
Stephen Cummins
I’m sorry to hear that.
Jonathan Anguelov
And it always resonates in my head ‘I’ll try to make her proud from where she is.’ I won’t listen to what she said, but I’ll try to make her proud.
Stephen Cummins
Well I hope we can make a podcast that would make your future grandchildren proud – as well as potential customers. That’s a beautiful thought though. Would your mother have been a big influence on your life?
Jonathan Anguelov
Yes! She was a very strong woman and she left her country when she was 18. She escaped Bulgaria during the communist era, so it was very tough. It was really inspiring to know she did that when she was 18. So it was very tough. And it was really inspiring to see that. Like to do that when you’re 18, coming over to start a business. You know, she was a model then she started up an agency. And, you know, it was sold. Okay. On the other side, she went bankrupt when I was very young. And, you know, she lost everything overnight. That was a deep learning for me also. I thought me to be humble because everything can just change… it thought me to be humble. Everything can just change. I saw it until she passed away. You know, things can stop working in one day. They can stop. And when it stops working, you have to have a backup … and make sure you’re ready for it. So that’s why somehow I have this fear all my life of losing everything. It’s a few drivers it’s… it’s losing everything. So that’s why I tried to do different things to make sure if I lose something, I don’t lose everything.
Stephen Cummins
So I was gonna actually ask you just now what drives you live. And so that’s a big part of it … that fear of something collapsing underneath your fees, because you’ve seen it happening to your Mum at one point in life.
Jonathan Anguelov
Yeah. And what also drives me really is being happy. It makes me so happy to do things. You know, when I… I go out, I love going out Friday and I party – and most of the people after a party, they chill out in front of the TV. That depresses me so much. What I love in the weekend is that I take my car and I go see the Hotel … see the mess. I mean this huge dust, it’s dirty, speaking with the workers and the architects and… and, you know, it drives me. And I love it. And then I come back home at six or seven PM on a Saturday night. Take a shower and we start again. And what drives me is just doing things and trying to move forward all the time.
Stephen Cummins
And do you find that entrepreneurial wiring that you’ve got is difficult to switch off? So, for example, when you were working with equities, I mean all of this, you know, butterfly effect and a brief rumour and the market reacts sometimes. The market can be emotional and sometime you can really see when it’s emotional. So its essentially broken. Or when you’re, you know, working through these problems of refurbishing the Hotel and whatever issues. You may have to deal with the suppliers. And so does your mind start thinking about how you can solve these things digitally? Do you have a hard time switching off from that sometimes?
Jonathan Anguelov
No, I separate. I really separate things. You don’t have always to thing digital … because I think at some point you get inefficient. I never switch off from business I would say. Anything I see I think about business. Because I grew up like that with this idea with this desire to do things, to improve things, to change things – that have been one way in the world and it just drives me. And it makes me happy. I think… I think the most important thing in life is be happy … and there is this famous sentence of I think it was John Lennon – that someone asked him one day, when he was young, ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’ And he answered ‘I want to be happy.’ And the person told him ‘I think you didn’t understand the question.’ And Lennon said ‘I think he didn’t understand life.’ And that’s really something that resonates in my head because I don’t know if there is a perfect job or whatever. But always think of, hey, make what makes you happy. And that’s how I do it. And everything that I do… I do it with the happy behaviour of ‘I just have fun’ … and really I feel I have fun.
Stephen Cummins
Yeah, you don’t have kids : )
Jonathan Anguelov
Yes, lucky, no.
Stephen Cummins
But when you do I think you’d be a good Dad, because I think you’re gonna communicate that to them.
Jonathan Anguelov
Yeah. I’ll have to. I’ll have to find time to do to take care of them.
Stephen Cummins
In the next episode, Part 3 of a 4-part mini-series – Jonathan reveals the true level of his ambition, and delves deeply into his thoughts around how to scale a business optimally.
You’ve been listening to 14 Minutes of SaaS. Thanks to Mike Quill for his creativity and problem solving skills and to Ketsu for the music. This episode was brought to you by me, Stephen Cummins. If you enjoy the podcast, please don’t forget to share it with your network, subscribe to the series and give the show a rating.
Listen to 14 Minutes of SaaS on Spotify / Apple podcasts / Goo