11:31 - How taking a break helps you have new ideas
21:20 - AI’s role in Ren
27:38 - From Switzerland to the US
34:18 - Iterative product-market fit
41:31 - Acquiring Fortune 500 companies as customers
Canay Deniz is the co-founder and CEO at Ren, the intelligence tool that alerts you of actionable news about clients, prospects, and key contacts and helps you reach out in a timely and meaningful way. Canay holds a M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering & Business from ETH, and previously worked at the data intelligence company Teralytics before starting Ren in 2019.
His startup, Ren, which aims to systematize serendipity, was itself born out of a lucky coincidence: a friend of Canay introduced him to his now co-founder, Lionel Hertig, and this encounter led him to take the entrepreneurial plunge.
What is serendipity, you may ask? Generally, it’s defined as a happy coincidence, but for Ren’s purposes the concept (at least when applied to the business world) can be broken down into 3 main elements:
Ren’s goal is to give sales a human face and make it pertinent and beneficial for all parties involved. And it’s not just useful for sales people: the fundamental act of selling is a skill required for many aspects of a company’s operations, like hiring and fundraising. Currently Ren is focused on the English-speaking market, which they feel is big enough (at least for now), and their target customer is a relationship-based senior professional handling big deals in their day to day.
“A random email from a buddy led me to becoming CEO of Ren.”
“Perfect is the enemy of done.”
“We need to be very careful not to confuse traction with being pulled in 5 different directions.”
If you would like to listen to more episodes on sales, check out our latest conversation with Lars Mangelsdorf.
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