Lessons from building Frends: from local player to European category leader

When I joined HiQ in the early 2010s, I was intrigued by the idea of helping shape not just a services company, but a product with real global potential.  

That product was Frends, then a small but promising Finnish integration platform. It had solid technical roots and had already proven its value in local enterprise use cases, including HiQ’s internal systems. 

The question was: could we build this into a category leader? 

We didn’t rush. For years, Frends grew steadily inside HiQ.  

We listened to customers, evolved the product, and tested our strategy across the Nordics. By 2020, it was clear: Frends had outgrown its validation phase and needed its own space to accelerate. 

That’s why in 2024, we spun off Frends as an independent company.  

This wasn’t just a structural move, it was a strategic one. A standalone Frends could move faster, focus harder, and scale smarter.   

1. Start with a real problem 

The best companies start with a real, painful, recurring problem.  

In our case, it was this: integration was too complex, too expensive, too slow, and too disconnected from business reality.  

Especially in Europe, where hybrid IT environments are the norm, not the exception, companies needed a platform that respected that complexity while simplifying execution. 

That’s what Frends set out to do. And to this day, that clarity of purpose continues to guide our roadmap. 

One of our earliest enterprise projects in Finland involved helping a public organization integrate its ERP with dozens of legacy data sources. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was mission-critical. The results laid the groundwork for future success. 

2. Stay local, act global 

It might sound counterintuitive, but one of our biggest strengths as a European company has been staying close to our roots.  

Being "born compliant" for GDPR and local regulations is not a burden, it’s an advantage. It forced us to build with transparency, predictability and trust in mind. 

That’s what customers in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland expect. And now, increasingly, that’s what global buyers demand, too. 

In our early days expanding into Sweden, I still remember our first customer win there, it wasn’t a tech unicorn or a flashy brand.  

It was a regional municipality dealing with complex systems and data flows — a complexity that had an impact on the lives of thousands of residents. They needed trust, not buzzwords. That experience stuck with me: if we can help the everyday heroes in IT work faster, with more confidence, we’re doing something right. 

It’s a similar story we’ve seen repeated across the Nordics, where our platform helped unify data flows across several businesses, or in the Benelux, where global logistics firms are embracing Frends to streamline cross-border operations. We didn’t sell hype, we sold outcomes. 

We’re not alone in this. Look at companies like Klarna, Wolt, UiPath, or even more recently Lovable — they’re proving that European tech can go big, if we stay focused, patient and strategic.

According to Dealroom, Europe produced over 350 unicorns as of 2024, with venture investment reaching over €90B. The opportunity is real.         

3. Don’t chase hype. Build trust. 

We’ve never been the loudest in the room.  

But we’ve always strived to be the most reliable. I remember a prospect who once told us: “I’ve never seen a vendor this honest about what they can and can’t do.” That moment was a reminder: long-term relationships are built on trust, not theatrics. 

We show our roadmap. We publish our pricing. We train our partners. And most importantly, we listen to customers.  

Over 80% of our product improvements come directly from customer feedback. This has a compound effect: low churn, high satisfaction and a growing community of advocates.         

I recall when a major energy provider in the Nordics adopted Frends to modernize their automation flows. Instead of rolling out features they didn’t ask for, we co-developed solutions that fit their daily needs. That collaboration led to not just a happy customer, but a product improvement for all users. 

Even as AI, RPA and low-code trends evolve around us, our core principle stays the same: make integration easier, clearer and faster for everyone. 

4. Scaling isn’t a linear journey 

Scaling a platform like Frends across Europe hasn’t been without many mistakes and growing pains, like any entrepreneurial journey.  

We’ve made our fair share of mistakes, whether it was hiring too narrowly and missing out on diverse thinking, or trying to replicate our Nordic go-to-market model in markets where it simply didn’t fit. 

Europe isn’t one market. It’s 27, each with its own expectations, compliance frameworks and cultural nuances. What resonates in Finland may not land in France. We had to learn to adapt, not just our message, but our structure, our pricing and sometimes even our features. 

One of the biggest lessons for me personally has been the importance of over-communication. As the team grew and markets multiplied, the need to clearly articulate the vision and keep everyone aligned became critical. 

And of course, growing against well-funded global players brings constant pressure. Especially with the US growth mindset, we know we can’t outspend them. 

But we can out-think, out-listen, and out-execute. That is for me the only way to make a dent in the iPaaS landscape as a small, yet fast growing player. 

I also believe European companies should think more consciously about vendor diversity. Building with local tech when possible not only boosts sovereignty and reduces risk, it also strengthens our shared economy. 

5. Bet on differentiation in product and people 

In my early years as a consultant, I saw many leaders that focused on building the product, but forgot to build a team, too. 

The right people will carry the vision forward faster than any line of code. As we expanded from Finland to Sweden, then Germany, Poland, and even Singapore, the thing that made the difference was leadership on the ground. People who believed in the mission and adapted it to their markets. 

Also: product-market fit is never over. And at times, we need to think differently, particularly if you don’t have the VC-money behind you or an engineering team of hundreds ready to code fast. We need to pick our battles on what to develop to make the biggest (positive) impact in our customers and partners. That’s your differentiation.  

In 2025, we’re launching Agentic AI features that allow users to orchestrate intelligent agents to solve tasks autonomously. Not because it's trendy, but because it solves a real customer pain. 

We saw this firsthand with a large global manufacturer onboarding Frends to automate claims validation. With Agentic AI, they’re about to move from manual checks to autonomous orchestration, saving hundreds of hours annually. 

Ah! One last anecdote: during a recent customer workshop, someone from a public sector team told us: “We chose Frends because it feels like it’s built for how we actually work, not how Silicon Valley thinks we should work.” 

That might be the best compliment we’ve ever received in recent times.  

Now, this isn’t about being against Silicon Valley. In fact, many of us, myself included, have been deeply inspired by the pace, product innovation and boldness coming from the US.  

But it’s time for Europe to prove it can build relevant, regional and global players in its own way. And this needs to happen through deep customer intimacy, regulatory foresight, and a more pragmatic, long-term mindset baked into our DNA.  

Final thoughts 

If we want a thriving European tech scene, we all have a role to play. Building and scaling a European SaaS company isn’t easy.  

But it’s not only possible, it’s needed. Europe has the talent, the regulatory foresight, and the business sophistication to lead in categories like automation, compliance tech, AI and integration. 

So, if you’re building something meaningful, keep going.  

Talk to your customers. Ship value. Build trust.  And never underestimate the power of doing the boring things really well. 

About the Author:

Jukka Rautio is the CEO of Frends, a leading European integration platform. With over two decades in the IT industry, Jukka is passionate about fostering digital resilience and sovereignty across Europe.