What they don’t tell you about the software business.

— Intro

People choose to start companies for different reasons.

Some entrepreneurs want to solve the hardest business problems.
Some want to change the world.

(And yes, a lot of them just want to make money.)

The question is: Why do it with a software company?

The allure of scale: X Y²

The default answer goes something like this:

"Because software companies are easy to scale."

When you grow a company, the theory says that X amount of additional input generates a Y increase in revenue or profit or [insert super-awesome ROI metric].

When you scale a company, adding X input gives you Y² returns.

That’s why everyone loves the idea of scaling: the same input, exponential output.

So when entrepreneurs hear “Software companies are easy to scale” , it’s no surprise they get excited.

The problem is…

that statement’s a lie.

It’s one of the biggest lies ever told in the tech world. At best it’s reductive. At worst, it’s misleading – and a dangerous trap for unsuspecting entrepreneurs.

Here’s what they don’t tell you about the software business:

— The myth

Scaling a software company is easy.

— The reality

Software’s easy to scale.
Software companies are not.

The myth leads entrepreneurs to think money alone can unlock scale. That exponential gains are just an investment round away.

If that were true, software would be a very different business.

Capital would be king. Billion-dollar success stories would be so common we’d need a new name for unicorns.

And Monterro wouldn’t exist…

Why companies fail
to scale

At Monterro, we know exactly how hard it is to scale software companies.

We’ve experienced just about everything there is to experience in the software business.

We’ve founded, grown and sold companies. We’ve driven change within organizations and the software industry at large.

We’ve had plenty of successes

and our fair share of failures.

But here’s the thing – the failures were just as valuable. Because they all had one thing in common:

they taught us that scaling a successful software business takes a lot more than funding.

So if X investment generates Y² (where Y² = the returns of a scaling software company, not just software), then what is X?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. But there are some common challenges that every software business has to overcome to scale.

Whatever X is, it has to help these companies solve much bigger, much harder things than simply raising finance. It has to help them with both strategic and operational initiatives, such as expanding abroad, improving product management, acquiring and retaining customers, recruitment, acquisitions and more.

Combine these ingredients in the right way at the right time, and you can create a

market-leading software company.

Get it wrong, and even the best product and all the money in the world won’t be enough to get you to Y².

A different kind
of investment

Take a look at the Nordic tech scene today and it won’t take you long to spot software companies with world-class potential.

(The Nordics is kind of our turf. It’s where we cut our teeth in the software business, and it’s where we’ve built a world-class network of companies and individuals.)

There’s also plenty of capital flowing through the Nordic software market.

So why does it need another investor?

We’re glad you asked.

Because VCs and PEs have fallen for the same old myth that says software companies are easy to scale.

(Nope.)

That capital is a sufficient investment.

(Wrong again.)

That’s why Monterro exists:

To help Nordic software companies take on the world. To help them unlock that all-important Y² of scale by giving them an input X that’s made up of more than just money.

We’re a hands-on growth investor – we invest

our time, experience, know-how, network, blood, sweat and tears

into software businesses.

(And our own money.)

We know how to scale software companies.

We’ve done it for ourselves.

We work harder than any other investor.

We have skin in the game.

And we work closely with every company we invest in.

We know that to scale a successful software company you need more than funding.

You need a partnership.

We’ve done it for companies like , and