Mikkel Svane

Mikkel Svane is an author and entrepreneur. He wrote a book called "Startupland" and currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Zendesk, which he cofounded in 2007. Svane was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1971.

Mikkel Svane
Born1971[1]
Copenhagen, Denmark
EducationBachelor's in Economics
OccupationEntrepreneur and author
EmployerZendesk
Notable work
Startupland
TitleChief Executive Officer

Early life and education

Svane was born in Copenhagen, Denmark[2] in 1971.[1] He became interested in computer programming when he was 11 years-old.[2] As a child, he created basic computer games.[3]: 29  He served in the Danish military[4] and earned a degree in economics in the early 1990s.[2][3]: 8 

Career

After college, Svane started a business creating stereograms.[3]: 8  He authored a book and created software to help others make stereograms themselves.[3]: 8–9  Svane also created a website for free news and event listings called Forum.dk.[3]: 11  Forum.dk was purchased by a newspaper, but Svane retained ownership of the software that ran it.[3]: 12–13 

The Forum.dk software became the basis of Caput A/S, a startup Svane created in 1996 that sold software to run the websites of media companies.[3]: 12–13 [4] Caput went out of business as a result of the crash following the dot-com bubble.[3]: 15  In 2002, Svane got his first traditional job when he was recruited as General Manager at a German business consulting firm called Meterna.[3]: 17 [4] He left that position in the Summer of 2005 and started doing his own freelance consulting work.[3]: 20 

Svane was in his mid-30s when he founded Zendesk with two of his friends, Alexander Aghassipour and Morten Primdahl.[2][5] Initially, the founders funded the company themselves, while working consulting gigs on the side.[2][5] They developed the software in Svane's apartment in Copenhagen, Denmark.[6]

Svane moved the company to California in 2009.[4] Svane led the company's ongoing expansion[2] and its initial public offering in 2014.[4][7] In 2014, Svane published a book about his life and starting Zendesk called "Startupland: How Three Guys Risked Everything to Turn an Idea into a Global Business."[4][7] The book details Svane's early work creating the company and raising venture capital.[3] As of 2017, Zendesk was a public company with a $2.1 billion market cap.[8]

Further reading

References
  1. Clancy, Heather (June 29, 2016). "Why Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane Obsesses Over Customer Service". Fortune. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  2. Locke, Laura (July 30, 2014). "The tech firm helping a tough area". BBC News. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  3. Svane, Mikkel; Adler, Carlye (2015). Startup Land. Jossey-Bass.
  4. Parker, Garrett (January 17, 2018). "10 Things You Didn't Know about Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane". Money Inc. Retrieved September 1, 2020.
  5. Rao, Leena (November 16, 2013). "From its Beginnings in a Denmark Loft, Zendesk's Steady Rise to the Top of the Helpdesk Heap". TechCrunch. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  6. Kim, Eugene (December 16, 2014). "How This CEO Was Able To Take His Company Public When Everybody Else Was Panicking". Business Insider. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  7. Brown, Kristen V. (December 25, 2014). "Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svane on being an outsider in 'Startupland'". SFGate. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  8. Yakowicz, Will (January 25, 2017). "How Zendesk's Founders Built a $2.1 Billion Business by Ignoring Investors' Advice". Inc.com. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
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