From a young age, Martin Schrimpff was always looking for entrepreneurial opportunities, whether that was selling chocolate or doing raffles at school. His first official business, though, was founded right after university: a software development company called Sirius.
It was at Sirius that Martin and his partner were asked to build a payment system for a friend's company – "something like PayPal for Colombia," he said. They had never heard the name "PayPal" before, so Martin looked it up, only to find out it had been recently sold to Ebay for 1.5 billion dollars. His first thought? "If they can do it, so can we!"
The mix of ambition and naiveté originated PayU, which became a global business and was eventually acquired by Naspers at a 1 billion dollar valuation. But Martin never stopped founding companies after the exit. Later came other successful startups like Zinobe, Centeo and, most recently, Kocomo: a transparent marketplace that empowers people to co-own their dream vacation homes.
Stick around to learn:
- The two most game-changing moments for PayU
- How his experience bootstrapping compares with starting venture-backed companies
- His thoughts on founder-market fit
- The backstage of Kocomo's recent pre-seed round of $56M
- And his advice on fundraising to early-stage founders
Starting something new?
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