Off to the Valley

Toni Hopponen: I listen to customers
and, I try to ask them questions that

reveal things about their process and
if they, for example, tell that I've

got this specific problem, the actual
problem might be something else.

Most companies probably they need to
listen to customers, but If you would just

implement what people are saying, then you
would build the worst product for sure.

Prateek Panda: Hello and welcome
back to Off To the Valley, where we

explore the journeys of entrepreneurs
shaping industries around the globe.

I'm your host Prateek
Panda, and today we are

joined by Toni Hopponen, the founder
of LandingRabbit, a tool designed

to help SaaS teams build high
converting landing pages with ease.

Toni's journey in SaaS
entrepreneurship spans over a decade.

Beginning with his co-foundering
of Flockler, a platform that helped

major brands leverage user generated
content to drive engagement.

And after successfully selling it
in 2023, Toni has now shifted his

focus towards building LandingRabbit.

We are gonna talk a lot about the
acquisition and his new startup,

but from his early days in a digital
agency to his passion for transforming

marketing with real time social data,

Toni's story is one of resilience,
growth, and deep commitment

to solving real problems.

Toni, there's a lot to talk to you
about, and I'm super excited that

you're here on the show with us.

Toni Hopponen: Thank you for having
me, it's an honor to be here.

Prateek Panda: Great.

So let's start with a little
bit about yourself, right?

Tell us a little bit about your
background, your childhood, so

that everybody can know a little
more about Toni as a person.

Toni Hopponen: Yeah, so I grew
up in Finland, in a town called,

Tampere, it's like Manchester in the
UK, if you know anything about UK.

I was like another ordinary kid
in Finland, got the education

for free, as all the others.

And graduated from the university in 2009.

That's when I started my career, first
in a digital agency and then later on,

set up Flockler and now LandingRabbit.

But yeah, like a quite
ordinary kid from Finland.

And then moved to UK after setting
up my first company in 2011.

Prateek Panda: Why did you move to the UK?

Toni Hopponen: When I was building
the company, we were quite clear from

the start that we want to be like born
global or build it internationally.

Back then cloud services
started to become more popular.

So some of the companies out
there were buying cloud services.

It wasn't as great as it is today.

Like today, cloud services are
fantastic, like from developer's

point of view, but it's still made it
possible for anyone basically built

in, for example, in Finland and then
service, customers throughout the world.

And I thought that's a great opportunity
and we can actually build something

that we sell online and globally.

London was sort of like a good
choice for European back then.

Obviously now there's been a Brexit after
but back then, for European, it allowed

me to just pack my backpack and go to
UK, settle here and start my journey.

Also during the same time, there was a big
investment from the government to attract

more startups and talent to the UK.

That probably helped a lot.

So I got introduced to a lot of
other startups here in London.

They had this concept of Silicon
Roundabout to challenge Silicon Valley.

Maybe it was a bit too ambitious
but at least it helped quite a bit.

Prateek Panda: And you've spent
a long time in startups now.

Do you feel the same way about the
ecosystem now in London versus let's say

if you were to do this now in Finland, do
you think something's changed or is London

would've been still your preference?

Toni Hopponen: I'd say that from
European's point of view, there's a

massive change because as a European, I
can't, if I would start now in Finland, I

would kind of dream of moving here then.

I would need to have a permanent
workplace most likely to get that visa.

So, I would need to have either a company
set up by me, I would need funds to do

that or would be employed by someone.

And then it's obviously difficult to
run your own company at the same time.

So yeah, times have changed a bit.

There isn't necessarily the same
sort of like startup wipe that

there was when I joined here.

But at the same time, the
startup scene is very different.

Back then when loads of new startups,
like if we go back to 2010 and 2011 and so

forth, the startup scene was so different.

Like people didn't have
access to big funding.

And most companies were
bootstrapping and trying to get by

with quite a little bit of money.

Yeah, it has changed for better as
well, but from European's perspective,

there's a massive change after Brexit
and it's not that easy to move here.

Prateek Panda: Got it.

And talking about bootstrapping,
you bootstrapped Flockler to

acquisition over 13 years.

I wanna talk to you about two things.

One is, can you recall any key inflection
points where you notice that, okay,

things are now starting to work and I
think I'm building like a real business.

Toni Hopponen: Yeah, I think there
were many phases like that, we felt

that, okay, this is not working.

But, what we were chasing was the sort
of like scalable self-service business.

And that took a long time to build.

So our first, what we built was
more like a tool for media companies

to gather user generated content.

And what we quickly found out that
it's gonna be quite hard to scale this

business and sell it through online.

So the media companies back in
2010, 2011, they needed a lot of

assistance when it came to web
development and mobile development.

So we noticed quite quickly that,
okay, if we want to chase that dream

of self-serve, this is not gonna be it.

And then we pivoted quite a few times,
tried different things that could work.

But when Instagram started growing,
that was some sort of a point in our

time, in our company that we realized
that, actually this platform could

scale beyond the media companies and
we could sell this to brands and get

brands to gather content from Instagram.

So if I give a bit of background, Flockler
is a tool that allows customers to cater,

for example, mentions of the brand or
mentions of a hashtag on social media.

And when I was talking about that
concept before Instagram was growing,

brands were like, oh yeah, we know
Twitter would be one, but we're not

that interested in Twitter content.

Twitter has always been a special
place for certain content.

But then when Instagram started growing,
then all of a sudden travel in e-commerce,

many other industries were saying to
us that, yeah, it really makes sense

to gather some user generic content.

And then, we kind of rebuilt the platform
in certain ways that we created like

a social proof, collection engine for
brands and made self-serve, in the end.

Prateek Panda: So if I'm hearing you
right, there was also this element

of external change that happened with
Instagram coming in, that probably

helped you a lot in riding that wave.

And you've talked about SaaS ideation
also before, and both products that

you've built are quite different.

What is your framework to identify
what is a worthy problem to solve?

Toni Hopponen: That's a great question
and I've been obviously trying quite a

few techniques over the past, almost 15
years that I've been building products.

But the reason, one, how I build it
was, or how I've kind of approached

it is that I first listed ideas, what
I've noticed within my career, what

I've noticed within SaaS marketing
that do not really work that well.

And then after listing them, I kind of
used a framework of my own in a way,

look at each idea and thinking that,
okay, is there a founder fit with this

idea and founder fit, meaning that,
am I, do my sort of like skillset,

does that serve the company better?

So giving you an idea for example,
I'd like to create maybe more

like a self-serve based business
instead of growing sales teams.

So that's like part of the founder fit.

And then also looking at like what are
the sort of technologies that I could use?

What's the sort of domain, who
am I helping with and so forth.

And then I look at each idea and
then selected a couple of those to

go and find people to interview.

And I wasn't interviewing
people about the idea itself.

I was just interviewing, like,
for example, if I'm interested in

AB testing and something related
to that, then I'm gonna interview

the best experts of AB testing.

And for me, ideas are
just like part of the

process you need to understand
the full workflow of someone else

to then get an idea that is this
specific thing worth solving?

Like if, I'll give you an
example of the AB testing.

I was interviewing people that are experts
on that, they were, most of them are

saying that, oh, well, the AB testing,
everything else works fine, but it's

really hard to find insights from data.

So that then tells me that, okay, well,
if I would want to build something,

then maybe my idea is not that great
because everyone is actually looking for

a solution for that data insights bit.

And so I'd say like, yeah,
ideas are just one element.

And then when you actually discuss
with others and experts, then you

find out that, are they worth solving?

Usually you need multiple
rounds of interviews.

And after that pre- stage of validating
the idea, I usually create some sort of

concepts, images, prototypes, and I'll
then do another round of interviews.

Usually 10 to 20 people and I'll show them
the, you know, like, this is the idea what

I'm looking to build, and my only goal is
to find out that this, is this something

that people are willing to pay for?

And it's not always black and
white, you know, because they're

only images and, and prototypes.

So, the user might not, or the person
that I'm interviewing might not

know what the actual product then
will be, but at least, I'll get a

sense of, the willingness to pay.

And yeah, those are the sort of
like the steps that I, when I'm

starting something new, I take
those steps first, before I start

building anything or coding anything.

Prateek Panda: That's amazing.

Thank you so much for sharing that, Toni.

I want to ask a couple of
follow up questions on that.

One is you talked about talking to
potential customers, 10-20 of them,

getting those ideas validated and so on.

How do you balance listening to customers
versus sustain your own instincts as far

as the product direction is concerned?

Because sometimes there is this theory
that the customer is king and they know

what they want, but at the same time
there has been enough evidence to show

that for a lot of newer technology,
the customer really doesn't know what

they want, unless they see something.

Right.

So how do you create that balance?

Toni Hopponen: Yeah,
that's a great question.

I approach it in a way that I listen
to customers and what they can, I

try to ask them questions that reveal
things about their process and if

they, for example, tell that I've got
this specific problem, it might, the

actual problem might be something else.

So I just keep asking
questions to understand that.

Who are involved when this particular
sort of friction point in your workflow

happens or why is it slow to do something?

People always say that they don't have
time or it's too slow to do a task,

but in reality, the problem might
be something completely different.

And I think one sort of, yes, most
companies probably they need to listen

to customers, but if you would just
implement what people are saying, then you

would build the worst product for sure.

It's more about having that insight that
what I want to solve in the first place,

what is the problem that I want to solve?

And then listening to feedback and
then creating your version of how to

solve that problem and then obviously
the market will decide and you can

interview people that, what do they think
about the solution that you've built?

And as a founder, I think I've
accepted it over the years that even

if I have a great idea, or I think I
have a great idea of how to solve it.

It's just like one of the millions
of ways to solve the same thing.

I've always enjoyed like for example,
Airbnb, which is a great sort of

example of solving something that
wasn't a problem in the first place.

Like nobody had a problem with hotels
in a way and nobody thought that others

wanna sleep in someone else's bed.

You know rent that out.

But, yeah, it still works.

So like, if you would just ask people
that, do you have a problem with

this and what would be your solution?

They, they might not have
suggested Airbnb as their solution.

So yeah, it's a founder's
insight plus listening.

That's the key I think.

Sounds good.

Toni, one thing that you were talking
about founder fit or founder idea, founder

market fit and you mentioned that one
of the things for you was not having

to build or deal with the sales team.

Prateek Panda: And at Flockler,
you did not have a sales team.

Can you tell us a little bit more
about what made you decide that early

on and how did that shape the way
the product was built and designed?

Toni Hopponen: Yeah, that shapes the
whole thing, basically, it shapes

not only the sales and marketing
model, but the whole product as well.

I think the easiest way to kind of
describe it is that when you have a self

serve solution like Flockler is, and was,
when I was running it, the main marketing

channel might be Google Ads, for example.

And when a person sees the Google ad
first, then they arrive on a landing

page next, and then, someday, they
might sign up for the product, but there

might be multiple touch points before
they actually sign up for the product.

And the big challenge for the whole
product and the sales and marketing

model is that the ad, the landing page,
the advert, all the messages that you're

sending out to people before they sign
up, they need to match with the product.

So like when you're trying to get
customers, in Flockler's case,

you're trying to get customers
to use it for Instagram hashtag

campaigns, then everything you do in
marketing needs to really resonate.

And match with the product, because
there won't be someone like me

or anyone from the sales team to
convince the client and kind of

explain why things work in this way.

It needs to feel intuitive.

So yeah, it's more than just the
sales and marketing model, when you're

running a peer self-service play.

But yeah, we started that.

had that dream we saw, I think, if I'll
give one example, 37 signals, Basecamp and

others, they've always been like someone
that I've been looking at and thinking

that I want to build something like that.

People just buy from online,
they don't have any sales team.

They started with three
people all over the world.

We did the same with Flockler that we
had, like remote work from the start.

And I wanted to see if that's
possible, if we can actually do that.

And it wasn't easy to get there
because you really need to nail the

product in a way that you need a lot
of marketing content, different touch

points, but then when the user signs
up, they will most likely decide

within, like one minute or so, they will
decide if this app is worth pursuing.

So, you do a lot of work
beforehand for that one minute

or a couple of minutes timeframe.

And if the product then delivers,
the self-service delivers, then

the user might continue with you
and maybe even pay for the product.

But if it doesn't match the expectations,
then they don't usually come back and

there's no founder's charm to attract
them and get them back to your service.

So yeah, it's really different
than more sales led play that

often SaaS companies are.

Prateek Panda: Founder's charm reminds
me of a statement you made that

founder-led sales doesn't necessarily
guarantee future scalability.

Can you unpack that a little bit and share
more on what you mean when you say that.

Toni Hopponen: Yeah, I think there's
a trend right now on LinkedIn that

people are saying that founder-led sales
and founder-led marketing, that's the

solution for all the SaaS companies.

And I completely agree when it comes
to finding those first customers

and even before, when you are like
building it, when you're thinking

about it, you can already find people
that are thinking similarly about

the topics that you're interested in.

You can kind of ask questions
that, what do you think would this

work for other marketers as well?

In my case, when I'm building the new
one, I've been asking a lot of questions

from others, just through the content.

But there's a limit to that, at least
if you're not paying for the reach,

because the algorithms in any social
media channel and especially if you're

targeting a niche audience, then,
it'll limit the reach you will have.

And at the same time, it's
not for many SaaS services.

It's not a credible thing to say
that, well, if I'm gonna do LinkedIn

marketing, then the person will just
like, find me from there, hit to link

to find my solution and buy from there.

Usually SaaS companies that the services
are bought by a committee of people

and the bigger your sort of service
grows, the more the deal size gets

bigger on the way, the more difficult
it is to just sell it through founder

led marketing and very simple call to
actions that you usually need to read.

Far, far beyond a certain channel
and have much broader marketing

or sales motion going on.

So, yeah, I'm not saying that the founder
led sales and marketing wouldn't work.

But I think there's definitely a
ceiling to that, how many people you

can reach and how many customers you
can acquire just by being a founder.

And another thing is like it's hard
to scale inside the team as well as

a founder has a reason to do, for
example, marketing on social media.

But if you hire someone for a specific
role, they might be working for you

like one or two years or if they stay
long, it's a couple of years, but

they might not have the same incentive
to kind of talk about your company.

They might want to progress
their own career instead.

Yeah, there's maybe a
see link to that idea.

Prateek Panda: Thanks for sharing, Toni.

Let's talk a little bit about
LandingRabbit, your most recent company.

What was the ideation process like?

What made you stumble on this
company and get it started?

Toni Hopponen: When I was running
marketing for Flockler, I was doing

a lot of landing pages and SEO so
everything in that company, 'cause it

was a self-serve company, everything
needed some sort of a content piece.

And when I was doing Google
Ads specifically, I always saw

opportunities in the Google Ads data.

So the Google Ads data shows, for example,
that these are the keywords that people

are using when they are clicking your ad.

And then I saw that, well, my
ad and the landing page are

not like a great match at all.

So I saw those new opportunities there,
but I also noticed that, well, this

campaign is not performing at all.

And then I was hesitating, is
it this landing page or what is

it that, that is not working?

And I tried all ways, like
all technical ways to make it

easier to create landing pages.

We had a sort of custom built website,
so it was a bit difficult to build pages

there, but I was building them together
with my team, so I had a designer

and developer helping me with them.

Then I tried, I thought that takes too
much time and the ROI of testing a new

landing page that might be live for
a week is not there when I'm working

with the designer and developers.

So I tested like tools like Lead Pages
and Unbound and others that allow

marketers to create pages on their
own and host them on a sub-domain.

But I wasn't happy with that either
because then they were separate

from our current website and all
things like analytics, cookie

planners, different things were
just like hard to keep them aligned.

Then I was trying another solution,
another CMS for our website,

but nothing to solve that.

I didn't have enough time
to really think about it.

To be honest, I was just like running
the business doing the marketing.

But when I then sold the business, I
had more time to focus on other ideas

and think what I do when I'm a grownup.

Then I started investigating first
the idea of optimizing an AB testing.

And people that I interviewed, they
said that, yeah, AB testing is great,

but I don't have the landing pages.

And then I was like, say what?

That you don't have the landing pages.

And I'm like, that I've been struggling
with that all my SaaS career and the next

thing, I started interviewing others that,
Hey, have you also struggled with this?

And I tried to understand that why
people are struggling with landing pages.

And sooner or later I understood that
for the CMS, like WordPress, Webflow, or

any other that has nothing to do with it.

It's the workflow and the process
that in many companies, is so kind

of like async or somehow fragmented

that first someone creates content

then another one creates design, and
then the third one develops the page or

if the marketer can do it themselves,
not often because not everyone is a

multi talent, but if someone can do
it themselves, they still have like a

lot of friction in the process because
they need to discuss with others.

They have the stakeholder feedback
and yeah, it's not easy to pull

that off, the whole process.

So I started thinking that, can I do
something to help the actual process of

building the page, not necessarily hosting
pages like the CMS would already do.

So yeah, that's how I
landed with landing page.

Prateek Panda: Yeah, as a marketer
myself, I can totally relate to that pain.

So you've got a lot of landing pages.

You've built a lot of landing pages.

Can you share like maybe three high
impact elements on landing pages that

can improve conversions like, or maybe
people don't pay a lot of attention to it.

Toni Hopponen: I'd say that the
number one thing that many people

kind of miss because they are so
busy working on those landing pages

that you really need to think about
the customer in that specific case.

Like, where is the customer coming from
and what is the search intent like,

why are they arriving on this page.

It's very different to search something
on Google and search for a tool

versus search for like what is this.

And let alone like being on LinkedIn and
then clicking a link and arriving on a

page like the expectation from customer's
point of view is very different, but I

think often we, marketers are so busy that
we just like copy a template and then we

just change the kind of ad hoc changes on
the page and the page might not resonate

in the best possible way for that use case
or that audience or that traffic source.

And another, a couple of things are that
obviously hero element is super crucial.

Like if you don't have that, very
clear, why, what, and like a credible

explanation that you can actually,
you know, solve that problem,

then the person is gonna just like click
back button and find your competitor.

And then the second one that I think
people don't necessarily test when

they look at their landing pages is
that an easy way to find out if my

landing page is gonna resonate is to
read only the titles, like headlines.

So the H one and H twos and H three is
like the titles and maybe look at some

of the images and then try to think that
if I only read these main bullets, in

a way, is this gonna describe to the
person that, what does this service do?

Why it matters?

And is it really gonna, how
it's gonna perform the service?

If that's not clear from just, you know,
skimming through the page, then you're

gonna lose the customer for 100% because
like we often think that if we just

place the information on our website,
then the person will find out, or they

will be clever enough to find out.

But then when you think about
your own journey, when you're

buying any service, whether that's
for yourself or for a company.

You don't really wanna waste any time.

You're just like, you're very impatient.

You just open the page and if it
doesn't match your expectation, you're

gonna find 10 other competitors out
there that are doing better jobs.

So, yeah, I think those three,
like really thinking the user where

that user is coming from, what's
the expectation hero section, and

then the key titles, headlines.

Do they communicate the sort of like
the one key message or the main message.

Prateek Panda: Thank you so much Toni.

Toni, you've been a single founder, solo
founder, right, for both of your startups.

Toni Hopponen: Right now I've
got an previous one as well.

I have two co-founders and now
I have two co-founders as well.

Prateek Panda: Okay.

Toni Hopponen: I've always built the, I
think part of the great startup is sort

of like having a combination of skills,
not too many people, but combination of

skills so that, if things are not going
that great for one reason or another,

then there will be someone in the
team who can fix that specific issue.

So I think that's the sort of key to
me in when I'm building a company.

Prateek Panda: Yes, absolutely.

I think, even as I go back into
my experiences as a founder,

I've done one startup, solo and
then the others with co-founders.

When days are good, it doesn't matter.

But when you're not having a good
time, which is a lot of times in

the start of journey, you definitely
need at least one or two more

people to share those days with.

So, yeah, definitely
understand that value.

Toni, as we come towards the end of
the interview, I wanna ask you a few

sort of rapid fire questions just
to keep this light as we wrap it up.

What's one SaaS tool you can't
live without besides your own?

Toni Hopponen: I think Linear is
part of the tools that we use.

I use that Flockler as well, and
I'm using right now with my team.

Another one at Flockler that I really
loved using was, Intercom, in the support.

Live support was big part
of, sort of like success.

We had a really quick
response rate and the good

thing about Intercom, even before
this all AI hype, was that they

were already able to answer a lot of
questions, back then, automatically.

So I would probably pick those
two, for this podcast at least.

Prateek Panda: Okay.

If you go back to the first year
of building Flockler, what's

one piece of advice you would
give to your younger self?

Toni Hopponen: That's, that's a great one.

Prateek Panda: I.

Toni Hopponen: I think the first advice
and that's related to the move, like

when I moved here in UK, I wasn't sure
if I'm gonna make it, meaning that if

I can just like confidently walk into
a meeting, do the sales and marketing

like any other, you know, expert here.

We, in Finland, we have a great
education system and we learn English.

But I still hesitated, like from
cultural point of view that finland and

the Finnish culture is very different
to UK, let alone like globally.

And, I hesitated a lot.

So I think that would be the first one
that I would say to that young Toni

that yes, you can just like, go on and
maybe be a bit more self-confident and

brave, when discussing with others.

But I was lucky that I found,
opportunities here and those gave me

confidence that I can definitely do it.

So, yeah, that's for
every founder I think.

Something that I'll share that
just, you know, go and do things

and everything's gonna be fine.

Prateek Panda: Yeah, that's a great
answer, Toni, last one, what's one

non-obvious sort of founder superpower
that you've developed over time?

Toni Hopponen: I think non-obvious
is, I don't know, it's probably

related to the mindset difference.

And I don't know if it's a
superpower in terms of like

that no one else would have it.

But for me, it's been a big
change from starting my company.

I was always like creating scenarios
that, what can go wrong and like,

what are the risks and, and so forth.

And these days I only think about the,
you know, the positive side of things.

Like what, how can I, you
know, succeed with this one?

And it is different in
like, in every decision

that you make within the, that can be
a product related decision, marketing

related decision, anything really.

When you think about it more
from the, okay, if we do this,

what is the sort of like the best
possible outcome that we can have?

You can still acknowledge the fact
that it might not work, but you don't

always need to kind of build all those.

What if something goes wrong, scenarios
because, just changing the mindset

towards the positive, frees up so much
energy to then, you know, push towards

that goal and worry a bit, bit less.

You've learned through the startup
journey that there's so many

unexpected things happening around you.

You can't control things.

You can only control, you know, your own
attitude, your own mindset, your everyday

work and really much everything else is
something that you just have to accept on

the way that either you get those clients,
either you find the right product,

you get investment, whatever you're
chasing, but it's not all in your hands.

So, yeah, just the positive
mindset you can control.

Prateek Panda: Yeah.

That's amazing.

And I've always told myself also
that every cloud has a silver lining.

I keep reminding myself that,
especially when you are going

through a lot of clouds, don't
forget to notice the silver lining.

Toni Hopponen: Yep.

Prateek Panda: And I think on
that positive note, I think it's

a good time to call it a wrap.

Thank you so much, Toni.

You've shared so much actionable insight.

It's very, very helpful.

Thank you so much for taking out time.

Toni Hopponen: Thank you
so much for having me.

And yeah, I'm gonna follow
your next episodes for sure.

Prateek Panda: Thank you so much, Toni.

And that wraps up today's episode.

Before we sign off, I would like
to thank you for your support

and thanks for tuning in.

If you loved today's episode, then
don't forget to subscribe to this

podcast and never miss an episode.

Be kind, be happy, challenge the norm.

I'll see you folks again for the next one.