My guest for Ep145 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Co-founder & CEO of Deputy, Ashik Ahmed.

Ashik launched Deputy in 2008, initially as the co-founder and CTO of the business. 

He transitioned to the CEO role after Deputy raised there Series A funding round in 2017.

Deputy has since gone on to being used by 250,000 businesses across more than 100 countries and the company has raised a total of AUD$144M ($101M USD) including Australia’s largest ever Series B funding round of AUD$111M ($81M USD).

However, it hasn’t been all plain sailing with the company suffering significantly through COVID last year having to stand down 30% of it’s staff.

In this interview we covered a wide range of topics including:
- How Deputy and Ashik managed the challenges of COVID
- Why founders need to retain their customer obsession and love customers who complain
- Ashik’s journey from software developer to the CEO role
- Ashik’s approach to fundraising and building relationships with VCs and investors
- Why more companies die from indigestion rather than starvation
- & much more!

Full show notes available at startupplaybook.co

Startup Playbook Podcast - Connecting you to the best entrepreneurs, investors and experts to help you grow your startup/ online business

Ep145 - Ashik Ahmed (Co-founder & CEO - Deputy) on COVID, conviction and customer obsession

▼Follow JPB▼
➞ Instagram: http://instagram.com/jpbofficial  
➞ Website: http://jpbofficial.com 
➞ Spotify: http://bit.ly/JPB_Spotify 
➞ SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/jpb 
➞ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jpbmusic 
➞ Twitter: https://twitter.com/jpbofficial_

My Debut Release on NCS!
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv6WImqSuxA
NCS: https://soundcloud.com/nocopyrightsounds/jpb-high-ncs-release