Hi, I'm Erki, a serial entrepreneur from Estonia.
I'm currently busy with:
CEO/co-founder of Popspot
Advisor/co-founder of Zlick
owner of Kontaktikeskus
CEO/co-founder of Popspot
Advisor/co-founder of Zlick
owner of Kontaktikeskus
Popspot.com is the social media where everyone can earn. Creators will have 100% control of their content. Followers will have the possibility to earn money by positive actions like sharing and commenting. We use NFT and web3 to make it happen
Zlick.it is a London based Fintech Company providing payment solutions to multiply online subscriptions and paid content. Zlick is already working with some of the biggest publishers and classifieds groups in Europe.
Kontaktikeskus is the leading CallCentre in Baltic states. More than 50 clients have trusted their Inbound and outbound services to a devoted team of professionals. Over 15 years clients are from many different sectors like: insurance, retail, direct marketing, e-commerce, medical, IT and telco.
My story
What makes every successful company different is not how they end. It’s where they start. I come from small country Estonia, that was occupied by soviet union until 1991. After getting freedom rapid growth started and Estonia managed to build the most digitized economy in the world. This had effect and unicorns like Skype, Wise, Bolt and many others were born. Now Estonia the nr 1 in the Europe in number of unicorns and investments per capita, As the ecosystem is very strong the knowledge how to build game changing worldwide companies is passed on to next generation web3 companies.
I started my working career next to high school assembling computers (Intel 386 microprocessor). After 1000 computers and broken fingers I switched screwdriver to keyboard and upgraded my programming skills from assembly to basic. At first I developed some games for fun and then got my first programming job and created warehouse software.
Next years I supported one of the largest construction companies IT infrastructure. It started with setting up e-mail (downloaded once a week with 56k modem) and ended configuring Microsoft servers. As this was 2000 dot-com bubble and everyone got rich overnight I didn't want to miss the train (I missed it) and started sending out one pagers with different brilliant :) ideas. Luckily there were people who valued more enthusiasm and invited me to join their team.
The first task as technical director of the biggest pager network was to close the network and sell the equipment. Together with the CEO we were left with 35 good telephone agents. After some investigation the decision was to pivot this to CallCenter. The US stock listed company was the owner and for them it was easier to exit, so we did a management buyout. The CEO left to run a much bigger company and I had my opportunity to start my first CEO role at the age of 22. There are not too many mistakes I left undone, but at the same time it was the best school. Several years and struggles later we restructured the company to Kontaktikeskus and I was lucky enough to pass the daily management to a very good team.
I had more time to explore new territories so experiments started:
Time management trainings
Speaking in conferences
Craft Beer brewery
Vitamin subscription business in Poland
E-cigaret subscription business
Online lead generation business
Online broker for small loans
Importing broken Porches from Japan, fixing them and selling them to Germany.
Cryptocurrency
This cocktail led to the birth of Zlick together with Swiss and German founders. This was a very classical startup journey with an accelerator in Zurich, customer validation, failure, pivot, failure, pivot and funding round. We managed to raise 1M EUR funding from institutional and VC investors with MVP. The first month's GMV was 26EUR, revenue around 1EUR. Five years later Zlick is operating in 5 countries and has a very strong market position, monthly GMV is about 1M EUR and growing 70% yoy. There were times when I spent most of my week in airports and I even had a connecting flight in Tallinn airport (not to Saaremaa). Based on the subscription economy experience and customers' demand it was time to move on and start Popspot.com.
Volunteer involvement
Estonian Cryptocurrency Association - Founder
Estonian Direct Marketing Association- Founder, Board member
Investments
Crypto:
About 60% in Bitcoin and ETH, 40% mainly web3 and metaverse. Most of the assets staked.
Startups:
Zlick, Heihoo, Adact, Mentornaut, Sharewell, Siena Secondary, VSight, + about 20 investments in Funderbeam.
Stocks:
US and Baltic markets
Art:
Some NFTs, some real paintings and interesting paintings from www.masterworks.io
Other:
Sneakers
Media
https://www.news24.com/fin24/opinion/opinion-for-creators-the-internet-is-broken-heres-how-we-can-fix-it-20220524
https://www.africa.com/backstage-is-where-the-partys-atunless-its-online/
https://epl.delfi.ee/artikkel/93841265/paeva-teema-erki-koldits-em-bitcoin-em-on-kull-kriisis-kuid-pole-seltskonda-kus-kruptost-ei-raagita
https://digi.geenius.ee/rubriik/uudis/eesti-idufirma-paneb-leheartiklite-lugemise-tasu-mobiiliarvele/
https://www.aripaev.ee/uudised/2014/12/22/miks-peaks-palk-olema-avalik
https://www.aripaev.ee/uudised/2018/02/20/padovani-investeeris-uude-idufirmasse
https://www.aripaev.ee/borsiuudised/2017/11/24/ekspress-paneb-750-000-eurot-maksefirmasse
https://www.aripaev.ee/borsiuudised/2014/11/05/eestis-asutati-kruptotaha-liit
https://www.aripaev.ee/borsiuudised/2014/11/05/ekspert-eestis-ei-tea-poed-kruptoraha-voimalusi
https://www.aripaev.ee/uudised/2019/03/21/fortumo-toukab-amazoni-uutele-turgudele
https://podcast.ee/turundusraadio/telemarketing-erki-koldits/
https://sport.postimees.ee/4487745/video-tipphetkedest-rohelise-porgu-alistanud-viidas-sai-kuulsal-oopaevasoidul-klassivoidu
https://sport.ohtuleht.ee/427438/laupaeval-algavad-laitses-eesti-meistrivoistlused-rallikrossis
Hobbies
In the past skydiving and car racing had kept my blood flowing. Currently my heart belongs to kitesurfing: twintip, surfboard and foil.
Foil
4 x Nürburgring 24 Hours
20+ years without progress
Fun facts/adventures
Configured full smarthome system, amateour DJ, travelled 50+ countries and some things more….
Built a custom track day car that got stolen in Germany before I managed to drive it. German police stopped responding to my daily phone calls. Thanks to the community I got it back a month later from a cannabis farm in the Netherlands.
I supported my friend's trip around the world in an Amphibious car. After some technical difficulties he abandoned the car in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. I managed to find a ship that saved the vessel. (I cannot say in radio communication that there is Land Rover in the ocean).
First motivation
In the early 90’ lightning hit and my monitor was broken. This was the biggest tragedy for 16 year old kid. As we didn’t have money to fix it I went to my friends place (we did not have phone) to call job advertisements. Monitor was repaired two months later.
Contacts
I am trying to provide better expectations for those reaching out.
Investments - I have decided to invest only in crypto projects where I'm involved and Estban syndicates.
Speaking - open to speak to students and in crypto events about web3.
Get in touch at https://www.linkedin.com/in/erkikoldits/ or https://twitter.com/erkik with short description.