From Berlin Consulting to €100M ARR: Camunda Founder Jakob Freund on 15 Years of Enterprise Software Sales

About this episode

Did you know that if Camunda stops working, you can't order anything from Zalando or make a bank transfer? This Berlin software scale-up now generates over €100 million in revenue with their process orchestration software for large enterprise clients – making it one of Germany's most underestimated software startups.

In this Sales Bakery interview, Jakob Freund, Co-Founder and CEO of Camunda, shares his experiences from over 15 years of entrepreneurship. From a small Berlin consulting firm to an international market leader in process automation with over 500 employees worldwide.

From Technical Passion to Scalable SaaS Platform

Jakob and his co-founder Bernd Hücker founded Camunda out of technical passion. The transition from consulting to a scalable SaaS business model was anything but straightforward. "We had to learn how to transform a consulting business into a product company," Jakob explains.

The key was maintaining technical excellence while simultaneously developing a reproducible business model. Camunda managed to transition from bootstrapped to venture capital while retaining control over their own vision.

Predictability in Enterprise Sales: Planning Without Losing Flexibility

One of Jakob's biggest learnings: How to set sales targets and plan long-term without losing flexibility. "Pipeline management and long-term forecasts are crucial for sustainable scaling," emphasizes the Camunda CEO.

In the enterprise space, sales cycles are long and complex. Camunda has learned to predict these cycles while remaining agile. The challenge: large customers have complex decision-making processes that can often take months or years.

Technical Fit as the Key to Success

Camunda's success is largely based on their focus on developers and architects. "Technical fit is crucial," Jakob explains. "If our product doesn't convince technically, there's no deal."

This bottom-up strategy has proven to be spot-on. Developers become product champions and drive adoption within their organizations. However, business stakeholders must also be convinced – a balancing act that Camunda has perfected over the years.

Trust as Currency in Enterprise Business

When Camunda doesn't work, entire business processes come to a halt. That's why trust is the most important currency in Camunda's sales approach. "We need an enormous amount of trust from our customers," Jakob emphasizes.

This trust doesn't just come from technical excellence, but also from trustworthy relationships. Camunda has learned to serve not just the technological level but also the interpersonal dimension. Long-term customer relationships are the key to success.

Expansion Through Vertical and Horizontal Strategies

Camunda develops existing customers through vertical and horizontal expansion. This means: more use cases within the same company (vertical) and expansion into other business areas (horizontal).

"Our best customers are often those who start with a small project and then gradually convert other areas of their company to Camunda," Jakob explains. This strategy leads to sustainable, long-term customer relationships with high customer lifetime values.

Leadership Through Different Growth Phases

One of the biggest challenges for Jakob was leading his team and organization through different growth phases. "Each phase requires different skills and different structures," he reflects.

Ambition and continuous learning have become core values at Camunda. The cultural transformation from a small consulting company to an international software company required conscious decisions and clear communication.

Learnings for Other Founders

Jakob's key insights for other enterprise software founders:

• –Technical Excellence First: Without technical superiority, there's no sustainable success in the enterprise space
• –Developer Relations Matter: Bottom-up adoption through developers is often more effective than top-down sales
• –Think Long-term: Enterprise customers don't just buy a product, they buy a long-term partnership
• –Build Trust: In mission-critical areas, trust is more important than features
• –Scaling Needs Structure: What works in the startup phase needs to be rethought in the scale-up phase

Camunda demonstrates that German software companies absolutely have the potential to become global market leaders – when they find the right balance between technical excellence and business understanding.