Welcome to Episode 12 of Tech Leaders’ Intel. This week we’re speaking with Paolo Negri, co-founder of Contentful, a headless content management system. Founded in 2013 in Berlin, and now based in San Francisco, the company has grown rapidly and was valued at US$3bn in 2021.

Paolo and his co-founder Sascha Konietzke met after an entrepreneur speed-dating event. Their early days involved working in the cheapest room of a shared office space, with an engineer sleeping on an old sofa. As you can imagine, growing from their first investment ($0.5m) to their most recent one ($175m) required learning specific skills, and fast!

Paolo talks us through the importance of early investors who can look beyond uneven results and the knowledge value (and reality checks) they bring, before sharing key insights around:

• the challenges of development and consistency when you’re an API-based company,
• the importance of when and when not to make teams agile and independent, and
• the growth of low-code/no-code development.

Finally, Paolo shares some valuable tips, from recommended reading to advice he’d give his younger self. We’ve learnt so much recording this episode – and we’re sure you will by listening to it. If you like what you hear and want to continue the conversation, connect with Paolo on Linkedin.