The upside of naivety when you have a big idea

Christian Lanng, Tradeshift

When I interviewed the founder of Tradeshift ten years ago, he had a very simple idea: Facebook for businesses. I don’t think even he could have imagined the complex problems he would encounter along the way. Things like global tax compliance, cloud security and enterprise integrations.

But he figured it out and today Tradeshift is a unicorn with some very wide moats protecting it. I’ll ask him about all of it in this interview.

Christian Lanng is the founder of Tradeshift, a network and platform for supply chain payments, marketplaces, and apps.

Christian Lanng

Tradeshift

Christian Lanng is the founder of Tradeshift, a network and platform for supply chain payments, marketplaces, and apps.

Andrew: Hey, they’re freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy, where I interview entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses. And joining me is a guest that I had on over a decade ago, back in 2011. And I remember what the world was like back then.

And I remember what I was fascinated by back then, Christian Lange had this idea. For a social network, essentially for business, it was like Facebook for businesses. Shouldn’t business. People get to talk to each other a little bit more like in the, in the work together spirit than LinkedIn ended up being LinkedIn is more like where you find people who are doing the kind of work you’re looking for.

His idea for Tradeshift, I think was. How do we get people who are working together to talk to each other and to see who else they could be working with. And they’re connected with, he’s kind of smiling as I’m saying this, because does it feel a...

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