Thomas Goubau's Linkedin Analytics

In 2010, Steve Jobs announced the first iPad, but it was only in 2011 that the camera was added to the iPad. This camera triggered my entrepreneurial journey. Before that, communication on construction projects would happen via phone, email, and face-to-face meetings. The iPad created a significant opportunity to disrupt the construction sector. Through an app, a foreman could quickly drop a pin on a drawing, take a picture showing the issue, and send a pdf report that needed no explanation. In 2012, I founded co-founded Aproplan. We built an app to help contractors, sub-contractors, and architects communicate better in the field. We got early traction, quickly reaching €1m in ARR, raising funds from angel investors and reputable VC firms. We grew the business from a handful of people to 80 before merging with a Danish player to form LetsBuild, a 150 people-strong company in 5 different countries.  I could stop the story here and say that everything was fantastic. But that would only be one side of the story… Like every entrepreneurial journey, it was a bumpy ride. It was very stressful and frustrating at times. Early on, we had to do a management buy-out to solve a significant founders’ issue that almost killed the company. We raised money from a reputable VC firm to grow the business. This brought significant stress to grow faster, especially when you discover that international expansion is super challenging and so dependent on hiring the right people. We merged with a company in the Nordics and almost doubled in size over night. And while the merger made a lot of sense on paper, merging two very different cultures made me realise it was all about people. Along the way, we raised and burned way too much money, hoping that money would solve all our growth problems. Then COVID hit, and I burned out. I had spent 8 years building a company. I was traveling 4 days a week, working weekends, and ignoring my family. In 2021, I met Reggy and Pascal, founders of Q7Leader and discovered the People Model Canvas to me. I saw how powerful it was and all the challenges it would have helped me solve during my journey at Aproplan and LetsBuild. Today, I’m the CEO of Q7Leader and help B2B SaaS executives grow their business from 1m€ to 10m€ in a cash-efficient way so they don’t get diluted and keep control of their company. I write daily posts on LinkedIn where I share my learnings and the playbooks we use to grow Q7Leader in a cash-efficient way.