When Bastian Karweg and Jannis Breitwieser founded Echobot ten years ago, they intended to support companies getting a quick and automated overview of the whole online media world, including social media platforms. The idea started while working at PresseBox – a successful German platform for press releases Karweg co-founded before. Due to the change in media, demand was high, making Echobot grow and even profitable after a few years. The Software as a Service (SaaS) provider soon noticed that their “business search engine” was a true information treasure. A pivot was the logical consequence since the true key to success remained in the evaluation of the business-relevant data from online sources. Echobot wanted to provide the information for marketing and sales.
Born was the sales intelligence approach, and after another financing, the startup from Karlsruhe released its product “Echobot Sales” (today: TARGET & CONNECT). Echobot Sales was able to merge different online sources intelligently and recognize current events from companies.
“The well-known categories “sales intelligence” and “marketing intelligence” did not exist yet. We tried to sell our product as “Smart Data,” but that lead to many misunderstandings. All in all, our pioneer work paid off because we established ourselves as the market leader in the German-speaking areas”, explains Bastian Karweg CEO
But the road was not always easy: Already at the beginning, the founders had to deal with legal issues concerning copyright and data protection.
“We paid our dues in terms of copyright – especially when it comes to GDPR, we are now experts. It’s a learning that made us stronger and with which we can now offer our customers high standard data protection-compliant solutions made in Germany”, continues Karweg
In comparison to other startups that fail in their early years, Echobot beat the odds. With over 80 employees, Echobot already manages over 1,000 corporate customers, among them many middle-sized companies as well as big players such as Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, DB Cargo, Michelin and Truphone.
The next challenge is the company’s expansion. Echobot’s goal: Spread its excellent reputation and become the European market leader. But this year it’s time to celebrate – there is a lot planned for the 10th anniversary! Customers and those interested in the cloud solution will be happy: Echobot offers exclusive anniversary discounts. You can find more information here: www.echobot.io/10-years
Born was the sales intelligence approach, and after another financing, the startup from Karlsruhe released its product “Echobot Sales” (today: TARGET & CONNECT). Echobot Sales was able to merge different online sources intelligently and recognize current events from companies.
“The well-known categories “sales intelligence” and “marketing intelligence” did not exist yet. We tried to sell our product as “Smart Data,” but that lead to many misunderstandings. All in all, our pioneer work paid off because we established ourselves as the market leader in the German-speaking areas”, explains Bastian Karweg CEO
But the road was not always easy: Already at the beginning, the founders had to deal with legal issues concerning copyright and data protection.
“We paid our dues in terms of copyright – especially when it comes to GDPR, we are now experts. It’s a learning that made us stronger and with which we can now offer our customers high standard data protection-compliant solutions made in Germany”, continues Karweg
In comparison to other startups that fail in their early years, Echobot beat the odds. With over 80 employees, Echobot already manages over 1,000 corporate customers, among them many middle-sized companies as well as big players such as Siemens, Deutsche Telekom, DB Cargo, Michelin and Truphone.
The next challenge is the company’s expansion. Echobot’s goal: Spread its excellent reputation and become the European market leader. But this year it’s time to celebrate – there is a lot planned for the 10th anniversary! Customers and those interested in the cloud solution will be happy: Echobot offers exclusive anniversary discounts. You can find more information here: www.echobot.io/10-years
