Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1406534
70 SMT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2021 through setting the priorities and hiring more engineers, to build even more awesome fea- tures. Matties: When you looked at the BOM process or the quoting process, one thing that moti- vates a tool like this is you recognize that there was a lot of wasted resources there. Schaal: When we started, we said, "Let's talk to everyone involved from idea to market-ready product about all the struggles, all the issues." We had some knowledge from our personal ex- perience as electrical engineers, but we didn't know the market perfectly. In the beginning, we must have had at least 250 conversations, and with our checklist of good opportunities for us to tap into this value chain, we saw the most common pattern where everyone said, "Why is this still like this? How is this possi- ble? Why do we still have to waste so much time? Why does it even take a dedicated job description for essentially just work prepara- tion, which is cleaning BOMs?" Matties: e other issue that we bumped into, and we hear about frequently, is that an OEM, an EMS, or a PCB fabricator will clean up all the data, prepare a quote, and then they don't get the job. ey have invested 10 to 20 hours into cleaning data for an OEM, they're mad as hell, and they don't get it. Schaal: If you're a startup, you're tapping into the established processes. You're not going to be the only soware used. ere's always go- ing to be at least an ERP. How can you make sure that what you are doing is not colliding, but rather enriching the current tooling land- scape? For us, that was exactly where we saw these different people, some that said, "We have a high enough hit rate, maybe 30%. So, it's okay if we put everything in the ERP sys- tem and have some unused data entries lying around." Others said, "No, it's not fast enough. We need an Excel sheet." So, we said, "We can be that speedboat that is agile that can work with this messiness and can also shield your ERP from all the quotes that you won't get." You use the ERP for what it was originally de- signed for, the resource planning, and not for the "I hope I get that quote" planning. Matties: Where do you see your work in terms of market share, selling, and getting your story out? What stage are you in? Schaal: Now we are getting out of our closed beta phase. We had this first phase of exclu- sively co-development partners, people who are already paying us but are not getting any- thing yet because it's not developed. We will still have those kinds of partners when look- ing at new features. But now, we can also start at the bottom of the market, because now our solutions are rich enough for them. Including development partners and first customers, we had about 15 customers on our platform in the closed beta. Now, we are mature enough to open to more customers. In Q3, I expect for us to push a bit more in terms of sales. At the end of the year, we can then put more resources on our OEM value propositions. Matties: is has been great. We really appreci- ate it, Sebastian. Schaal: ank you. It's my pleasure. SMT007