Martin Andersen studied MSc Real Estate Investment 2011, moved to Spain and now runs his own business, Easyoffer, which he founded with his brother. We caught up over the phone.
Tell me about your time at Cass!
It was an intense year! It was extremely full of learning and I met lots of good people. The networking side of Cass was fantastic and I’m still in contact with a ton of guys.
Study-wise it was extremely good too. I did it my MSc directly after a four-year Bachelor’s degree and in the one year at Cass I learned more than in those four years combined! There is a high level of teaching and learning at Cass; it’s a really amazing institution in my opinion.
I wouldn’t change my time at Cass for anything!
What is your favourite memory from Cass?
Um, there are many… I don’t know where to start! Five years down the line my favourite memory is probably the cohesiveness of the students. They are so multicultural and international. Most people didn’t come to study at Cass as part of a ready-made group, most people came alone, and they were so open and willing to make friends. Within the first couple of days you had already made friends.
What did you do next?
When I graduated from Cass I moved to Madrid in Spain, and started to look for roles in Real Estate and Finance. This was in 2011 at the heart of the crisis, and I didn’t even know Spanish but it was never a problem to find a job then, and that success says it all really. Cass is fantastic thing to have on your CV.
I started working at Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) with a six-month internship in the Capital Markets division as a Junior Analyst. When this ended I moved to Catella Corporate Finance in their Real Estate Finance division for a year and a half as a Senior Analyst. I left because I was headhunted back to the division at JLL in a Senior Analyst position. Then I decided it was the right time to leave and to found my own company in March 2015.
So tell me about founding your company!
I have long had the idea and ambition with my brother to start something together. First though, we believed it was important to get some professional work experience post-graduation. Then we came up with the idea for our own business.
What is Easyoffer?
It’s an online marketplace for lawyers and accountants who can be matched to clients’ needs. The clients are provided with three free quotes. For example, if you need a divorce lawyer, within 24 hours you will have three quotes from three different lawyers, and you are free to choose which one you will take forward. It’s a pretty well-known model which we took and focussed on the two verticals of legal and accounting. We started just my brother and I in March 2015 and now we have 20 employees. We are growing rapidly and our goal in the next 12 months is to double the workforce to 40 people and hopefully the revenue follows!
What’s next for you?
We are thinking about opening internationally in other countries in 2017 – there are a lot of things to learn with your own business and being your own boss. You can’t study for it, it’s an intense journey. We are taking it one day at a time.
What’s been the biggest challenge?
I would probably say the biggest challenge has been working out how to manage people and learning where the soft spot between motivating and cracking the whip is. It’s difficult to find equilibrium between being harsh and not getting anything done.
The Danish work environment in general is much more liberal and free, which works well in Denmark, but in Spain it’s very different. You need to be stringent and much more controlling about everything. Freedom and responsibility don’t work the same here and the biggest part has been learning when to be tough and how to be a motivator.
I hadn’t thought about these differences before! I’m learning day by day because when you see that the way you manage or the lack of it can cost you thousands of Euros, that need to change pushes you to learn and do things differently. Before at JLL problems were solved by themselves but now there is nobody to do that for you. I’ve had to grow a lot.
What advice would you give to someone looking to follow in your footsteps?
Post-graduation we are all super ambitious and can’t wait to climb the ladder. Studying at University and working in the corporate world are two different things! It’s so difficult that most people get a reality check. The best advice for this phase of your life is to be patient and be ready for a handful of years where you work really hard with low pay. Then it gets easier; we are not in the heyday any more, the financial industries are back to normal.
In terms of starting out in business on your own I’d say don’t worry about the idea, it’s more the execution of the idea that matters. Also, don’t overthink it, just do it. If you have an idea and a business model that works in one place, the chances are it will work elsewhere too.
It’s very easy to focus on the negative side and end up not doing anything. Have the balls and throw yourself in. My brother and I founded our company and we are basically a lead generation company with attached telemarketing department, in essence sales and marketing. We had no idea about online marketing and sales – we just had an idea that worked in other countries, and then we went for it!
Finally, it’s the quick fire question round!
Favourite place in London: Marylebone, I loved my time there. I always lived there even before Cass because I went to Regents University as well.
Favourite holiday destination: I would probably have given a different, more exotic answer a few years back, like Mauritius or the Seychelles. Now since it’s 11 years since I moved away from Denmark I love going home!
Must-check every day website: I’m a sports fanatic so I read pretty much all the big sports papers online every day. I also check Techcruch every day.
Dream travel destination: Canada
Cheese or chocolate: Cheese!