“The bigger the customer is, the bigger the need is, the more room you have to dictate terms”
This quote is from Dima Gutzeit, CEO of LeapXpert.
He started LeapXpert in Hong Kong in 2017, after defining the big idea behind his company (presented by his banker friends who spent a lot of time on WhatsApp while having dinner with him). When he took the idea to Gartner in 2019, they laughed him out of the door. His first large customer took a three- year sales cycle to close. Today that cycle runs three to six months, and he’s the one setting the terms with some of the largest financial institutions in the world.
Here are the first principles he uses to guide his business:
Decide who you’re not for before the market decides for you
Every growing company gets pulled sideways by people who want to buy. That pull feels like validation, and it always shows up when you need the revenue most.
Dima experienced the same, from people seeing value in his platform, wanting to use it as a marketing application, CPaaS, or as the contact centre for their business. And sure, all of them would use it for messaging – but Dima realized their kind of messaging wasn’t what his platform was for. So he said no to each one and kept the company pointed at financial services.
His line on it: “ If you start diluting your own focus or your message, then you’re not in control. Somebody else is in control.”
Upfront investment in your product foundation pays dividends later
Product used to be the moat. Now anyone can build one, so what protects you is how fast you ship the next thing.
Dima says the product he built between 2017 and 2019 is eroding right now. Logical, as it’s an established category, with big money attached to it, and more competitors showing up. Yet, he isn’t defending it.
What those years bought him is the foundation underneath. That’s what lets the company build things competitors are still only thinking about – at a velocity they cannot mirror.
Financial health belongs on the same list as product
In 2023 he came close to not making payroll. 150 people. The round took longer than he projected, the burn ran faster, and he carried it alone because telling the senior team would have started a panic.
He calls it the hardest period of his life. The rule that came out of it: mistakes are allowed; the same mistake twice is not. He now puts financial health next to technology and product as one of the three things a company has to get right.
Click here to listen to the full interview with Dima
Question for you to reflect upon:
Where in your business are you accepting someone else’s terms because the revenue is too good to refuse?
The Remarkable Effect is when the buyer needs you most.
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