Mikkel Svane
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Mikkel Svane is the co-founder and former CEO of the software company
Zendesk Zendesk, Inc. is an American company that provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) products related to customer support, sales, and other customer communications. The company was founded in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2007 and is headquartered in San Fr ...
. He has written ''Startupland'', documenting his experiences of starting his company.


Early life and education

Svane was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1971. He became interested in computer programming when he was 11 years-old. As a child, he created basic computer games. He served in the Danish military and earned a degree in economics in the early 1990s.


Career

After college, Svane started a business creating
stereograms Stereoscopy, also called stereoscopics or stereo imaging, is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image is ...
. He authored a book and created software to help others make stereograms themselves. Svane also created a website for free news and event listings called Forum.dk. Forum.dk was purchased by a newspaper, but Svane retained ownership of the software that ran it. The Forum.dk software became the basis of Caput A/S, a startup Svane created in 1996 that sold software to run the websites of media companies. Caput went out of business as a result of the crash following the
dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...
. In 2002, Svane got his first traditional job when he was recruited as General Manager at a German business consulting firm called Materna. He left that position in the Summer of 2005 and started doing his own freelance consulting work. Svane was in his mid-30s when he founded
Zendesk Zendesk, Inc. is an American company that provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) products related to customer support, sales, and other customer communications. The company was founded in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2007 and is headquartered in San Fr ...
with two of his friends, Alexander Aghassipour and Morten Primdahl. Initially, the founders funded the company themselves, while working consulting gigs on the side. They developed the software in Svane's apartment in Copenhagen, Denmark. Svane moved the company to California in 2009. Svane led the company's ongoing expansion and its
initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...
in 2014. In 2014, Svane published a book about his life and starting Zendesk called "''Startupland: How Three Guys Risked Everything to Turn an Idea into a Global Business''." The book details Svane's early work creating the company and raising venture capital. In June 2022, Zendesk was acquired by a group of investment firms including
Hellman & Friedman Hellman & Friedman LLC (H&F) is an American private equity firm, founded in 1984 by Warren Hellman and Tully Friedman, that makes investments primarily through leveraged buyouts as well as growth capital investments. H&F has focused its efforts ...
and
Permira Permira Holdings Limited is a British global investment firm specialised in buyouts, growth funds, equity funds, and credit funds. Founded in 1985 as part of Schroders, it became independent in 1996. Operating as Permira since 2001, the company ...
, in a deal that valued Zendesk at $10.2 billion. On November 28, 2022, Svane stepped down as CEO of Zendesk.https://www.zendesk.com/blog/our-north-star/


Further reading


Q&A Interview in Fortune

Video interview in AllThingsD

Svane's Comments in Investor's Business Daily

Q&A interview in the San Francisco Chronicle


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Svane, Mikkel Danish computer programmers 1971 births Living people