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Ulf Arnetz talks with Jason Barnard about establishing solutions-driven companies.
Ulf Arnetz is the founder and chairman of Howwe Technologies, a unique solution for executives to bridge the gap between strategy and execution. He is a Swedish entrepreneur who developed a software solution for CEOs.
Jason Barnard and Ulf Arnetz discuss the challenge of maintaining quality and competitive advantage as their companies grow. Ulf also emphasizes that maintaining quality involves keeping the product narrowly focused on solving a specific business problem.
Jason and Ulf also discuss the challenges of delegating problem-solving responsibilities and the necessity of clear communication and alignment within teams. This episode provides founders and executives like you with the key insights you need to handle constant change and build solutions that truly last.
What you’ll learn from Ulf Arnetz
- 00:00 Ulf Arnetz and Jason Barnard
- 01:06 What Did Jason Barnard Highlight in Ulf Arnetz’s Google Knowledge Panel?
- 01:29 What Did Jason Barnard Focus On in Ulf Arnetz’s ChatGPT Results?
- 01:49 What Misidentification Did Jason Barnard Discover in Ulf Arnetz’s Google Learn About Results?
- 02:25 How Should a Leader Feel About AI Shaping Their Digital Presence?
- 02:54 What Problem Does Howwe Technologies Aim to Solve for Businesses?
- 03:28 Who Are the Main Users That Will Use the Software Designed by Ulf Arnetz?
- 06:00 What Motivated Ulf Arnetz to Focus On Improving Execution Within Companies?
- 07:27 How Do Business Leaders Build Sustainable Advantage in Today’s Fast-Moving AI-Driven Market?
- 07:50 Why Do Most Applications Fail to Solve Actual Business Problems for Users?
- 08:17 How Can Your Company Secure Lasting Advantage When Filling Market Gaps?
- 08:55 How Can You Maintain Quality as Your Team and Software Scale with Growth?
- 10:36 What Are the Ways Companies Can Maintain Quality as Their Teams Grow?
- 10:52 What Role Does AI Play in Improving Work Quality in Mid-Size or Large Companies?
- 12:18 How Can You Explain or Present Your Innovative Solution to CEOs Who Don’t Yet Realize They Need It?
- 13:46 How Can You Delegate Problem-Solving Responsibilities to Your Team Without Losing Your Vision?
- 15:11 Why is it Important to Stay Focused on Solving One Problem Instead of Trying to Solve Many?
- 15:16 Why Aren’t Excel and Monday.com Ideal for Solving CEOs’ Execution Challenges?
- 16:39 What Happened When Jason Tried to Release Kalicube Pro as a SaaS Product?
- 17:34 Why Does Ulf Call It Micro Delegation When Guiding the Team to Stay Focused and Involved?
- 18:35 How Can You Build Systems That Keep the Team Aligned While Allowing Freedom and Accountability?
This episode was recorded live on video March 11th 2025
Links to pieces of content relevant to this topic:
https://www.howwe.io/blog/ulf-arnetz-entrepreneur-making-history/
https://www.howwe.io/insights/unfreezing-the-middle-to-accelerate-growth/
Ulf Arnetz
Transcript from Establishing Solutions-Driven Companies – Fastlane Founders with Ulf Arnetz
[00:00:00] Narrator: Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard. Each week, Jason sits down with successful entrepreneurs, CEOs and executives, and get them to share how they mastered the delicate balance between rapid growth and enduring success in the business world. How can we quickly build a profitable business that stands a test of time and becomes our legacy.
A legacy we’re proud of. Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard.
[00:00:31] Jason Barnard: Hi everybody and welcome to another Fastlane Founders and Legacy. I’m Jason Barnard and a quick hello and we’re good to go. Welcome to the show, Ulf Arnetz.
[00:00:40] Ulf Arnetz: Thank you, Jason.
[00:00:45] Jason Barnard: Brilliant, wonderful. Delightful to have you here. We’re gonna be talking about Establishing Solutions-Driven Companies.
I believe Kalicube is a solutions-driven company, but just by reading your bio and the description of the episode, I realize we’re not hitting outta the park like I thought we were and you’re gonna help me . Before we do that, really quickly, I’m gonna show you your, presence in search and AI. That’s your Knowledge Panel.
Looks really good. you look like a superstar.
[00:01:13] Ulf Arnetz: I am.
[00:01:13] Jason Barnard: Your digital footprint is super well organized.
[00:01:16] Ulf Arnetz: What you have put together there makes me very proud.
[00:01:20] Jason Barnard: Yeah. that’s Google putting it together, that’s automatic by Google. More and more people are looking like this, and that’s what we do at Kalicube. We make people look like this.
If they don’t yet look like this, so obviously you don’t need us. Then I look you up and ChatGPT, which now uses search results and we see that it’s using your website as the source of information for a lot of what it’s showing. And this is ChatGPT that used to just site from memory. Now it uses Bing search results.
So mastering Bing and Google is name necessary. And this is the really interesting one for me. This is Google Learn About, which a lot of people haven’t seen. it’s gonna kill ChatGPT or it’s going to be the next stage where it mixes together Google search results. it’s Gemini model and the Knowledge Graph.
And unfortunately here, it’s misunderstood who you are. there’s a professor who dominates here. So I couldn’t get it to tell me about you without being specifically, asking about you and your company of how. So you’re doing a great job. The next stage is gonna be AI. How do you feel about that?
[00:02:25] Ulf Arnetz: Oh, I feel, excited actually. I’m a little bit scared as well, but based on what my software or company’s doing, AI is really . It’s great for us. It helps us, to do more business and it helps us a lot when it comes to the product development. So we’re using AI a lot.
[00:02:50] Jason Barnard: Tell me a little bit about your company then.
[00:02:54] Ulf Arnetz: To tell you about our company, I have to tell you about the, business problem a little bit. And maybe I should start with my background. So I’m a Swedish entrepreneur. I start software companies in Sweden solving a business problem that hasn’t been solved before. So 10 years ago I saw that it was a lot of strategies or plans done.
Either by the company or McKinsey or other consultants. But the execution was really bad because, I wanted to develop a software, solving this business problem. When it comes to execution, it was a software for the CEO. It could be also for the COO or CFO. So when you have a plan, you have decided that we need to do a small shift than you as a CEO.
Needs to get the whole organization aligned and focused on whatever you need to do.
[00:03:49] Jason Barnard: there’s a huge failure rate, I think you said.
[00:03:52] Ulf Arnetz: Sorry.
[00:03:53] Jason Barnard: There’s a huge failure rate of those pivots.
[00:03:55] Ulf Arnetz: Yes, exactly. So, we develop a software which helps the CEO with strategy, execution, and transformation. And it’s absolutely how, to get down to managers and all employees. And what have happened since then is just an explosion especially the last couple of years. So the disruption after COVID and based on, that the world have changed, the business world have changed a lot. So the disruption, the impacts from the market or from competitors or, A lot of, bad things happening in the world right now, that disruption is about, has an impact on companies. It’s about $4 trillion, needed in transformation. So nothing is bigger for the companies right now that this transformation need. And in the same time. AI is coming in a rapid speed with about $3 trillion per year, right?
So if you’re the CEO on the top of this company, and you had the problems, we have solved our customers before when it comes to strategy, execution, or transformation, that was before down maybe every fifth year, every 10th year, right? But now you have an environment where the CEO needs to do a lot of things based on
AI driven business models or, this type of disruption. and our product is very much making sure that the CEO could get those changes done in a constant way. So it’s about constant or continuous transformation in the company. That’s what we are working with.
[00:05:46] Jason Barnard: Because right now transformation is happening and it’s very much an ongoing process.
Whereas before it would be every five or six years. Now it’s ongoing. And so have you lucked in or did you plan this?
[00:06:00] Ulf Arnetz: I planned that. companies must much, must be. Become much, much better in execution. So that was my plan for being honest. And I saw that the CEO was driving the digitalization of the whole company was still using new computer or maybe Excel.
but, I didn’t see that this transformation the AI, was coming so fast. Of course not when I started the company 10 years ago. And, so I saw, the need for the CEO and the CEO needs to change and McKinsey, for example, which are doing a lot for boards and executives. They start to talk about the need for change from, for CEOs, just a year ago. And that helps us a lot, of course.
[00:06:55] Jason Barnard: Okay, brilliant. we’ve actually got quite a lot in common ’cause I started Kalicube exactly 10 years ago and I’ve found a gap in the market and I’ve solved that problem. And AI is helping us because the demand is gonna get bigger and bigger as people realize that their representation on AI is going to be key to their current business, to their career, and to their legacy.
Now, we’ll assume somebody’s found a gap in the market. They built their company, how do we manage to create that sustainable competitive advantage because everyone else is gonna start copying us ?
[00:07:27] Ulf Arnetz: Yes. I think that it’s very, if you look in the mirror, when a new technology have arrived to the market, the last 30 years, you and I have been around almost the same time, I think the technology have not really been used.
it’s a lot of technology. It’s, a brand within something, but. That becomes very well known and so on, but it hasn’t been used for, from a business or an end-user perspective. So you have a lot of, today, you have a lot of applications. a mid-size or large company have too many applications of the same thought.
Several OKR system. Several, several type of, workflow systems and so on. And still they haven’t solved the business problem. So I think the winner is someone who has a structure, have a thinking about, what are we trying to solve? And then you’re using AI in a more structured and usable way.
that’s, I think those will be the winners in the market.
[00:08:36] Jason Barnard: And now assuming we’re both right and this, there’s a huge demand for services, your SaaS solution and our services solution. How can we maintain quality as we grow if we get more and more clients? How do I manage to maintain the quality of both my software and my team?
[00:08:55] Ulf Arnetz: we have already thought about that from the beginning because we have been targeting mid-size and large companies. The CEO’s organization is about. Five times larger than the head of sales. And in sales you have, for example, Salesforce for the Head of Sales, but the CEO’s organization is larger.
So we have been thinking about this, from the beginning. So we have the structure we have in our product, it’s already done in order to serve mid-size and large companies, many employees. When the number of levels between the CEO and the employee, is growing, so you have 10, maybe 12 layers. It’s much, much more complex.
And AI is a great help and enabler for our product to take care of this type of challenges. So we have already thought about it. Almost by accident from the beginning, but for the last six years we have been focusing on AI and how to use it, in order to make it even better and more scalable for mid-size and large organizations.
[00:10:03] Jason Barnard: So you are focusing on implementing AI to help you to maintain the quality of your SaaS product in your service. What about the people involved?
[00:10:13] Ulf Arnetz: Could you explain that question a little bit more?
[00:10:19] Jason Barnard: As the team is gonna have to grow, whether it grows now because AI doesn’t need to grow as much, but it still needs to grow.
You still need people behind the software. What, ways are there to maintain the quality as you grow? In terms of the number of actual people working on this?
[00:10:36] Ulf Arnetz: I think first of all is the traditional if you’re doing something that is very simple and so on then of course those type of people needs to move on, which I think is great, if you look in the mirror that have been the case all the time.
But if you look, if you have a, if you’re doing something in this mid-size or large organization, regardless if it’s. In finance or IT, or sales and so on, which our product is taken care of. AI is actually helping you. It’s, like you still need your innovation. You still need to do a good job. You still need to have, high quality, make sure that you have a high quality, and now how, but you could do your work easier and most important, you could do it.
In the same directions. You could be more aligned with the rest of the organization according to what the CEO, would like to change or make happen. but I think, and I think that’s the same for you. we also, using Google AI, I think it’s the same for you that already today you could actually do better work, and, easier with AI.
It’s not You don’t know what you should do in one year from now. It’s, just you could do better and better. It’s like when we got, other type of communications 10 or 20 years ago, it just helps us to be, become even more efficient.
[00:12:06] Jason Barnard: Yep. Brilliant. Now you’ve got your in innovative solution, but the CEOs don’t know they need this solution.
How do you pitch it to them?
[00:12:18] Ulf Arnetz: We are working via management consulting companies. McKinsey has, a business unit called Growth and Transformation using a product called Wave. Our product is more sophisticated, but we are working via management consulting companies like Frost and Sullivan Deloitte, and other that don’t have this type of application.
So that’s one way. The other way is tricky, but it’s very much via network and also in one way or another, getting in touch with CEOs or COO and CFOs,
[00:13:01] Jason Barnard: Right? So within the CEO community. Being in a network where you can actually talk to them is hugely important. And with AI, do you not end up with a situation where people are going to need that human contact more and more to be reassured that you’re actually offering something valuable?
[00:13:18] Ulf Arnetz: Yes.
[00:13:20] Jason Barnard: Brilliant. Wonderful. Now onto, managing your team and delegating problems, sorry. Delegating problem solving responsibilities. What I’m finding is I’ve always come up with the solutions, but now my team is starting to do it. We’re solving many problems within the major problem, which is representation on Google and AI.
How can I delegate that safely without losing my vision and my approach?
[00:13:46] Ulf Arnetz: Oh, I think I am very privileged. The team I have around me and the management team and the developers and so on, they have with been with me almost from the start of the company. They’re very eager. We believe very much in this
type of application and our future. so it, it’s many years since I’m not driving, you know exactly what should be included in the application and so on. We have a great team and it’s the same people as well. So even if we become more and more people, within development, we have a base from at least going back eight years now.
We, what we have been focused on, or my job in this was from the beginning, that my previous company become number two in the world within portal software. So I, really wanted to become number one this time. So I’ve been very focused, on keeping the application very narrowed, just solving this business problem.
but after that, it’s other people that really helps me to do a great product.
[00:14:57] Jason Barnard: And that, that’s a key point is keeping yourself narrow. And it’s very tempting to think, I can solve all of these other problems and actually saying, I’m gonna stick to this one problem. you’re nodding because you’ve gone through this.
[00:15:11] Ulf Arnetz: Yes, I already done the mistake, in my previous company, so I know about it. And if you look into our markets, a lot of people that you know have tried to solve this with Excel or monday.com or OKRS type of software workflows, strategy, execution type of applications, those type of applications used, you could be used for a lot of different type of purposes.
They’re not done for solving this. The CEO’s business problem and what the CEO’s is measured on. And as well as you would never exchange your financial application if you’re a CFO to, be built on those type of tools, because they have a wrong thinking for from the beginning. Or I would say they have a great thinking from the beginning, but not to solve a business critical
problem. And, that’s what we have a totally different type of idea. And that is starting from the business problems, starting from the CEO’s business challenge, starting from, internal, organizational resistance and, make sure that not only the CEO but also the managers and especially the employees, get something outta this.
What’s in it for me? it needs to be. Something positive and helping me regardless of what role you have in this, mid-size or large company.
[00:16:38] Jason Barnard: Yeah. We made the mistake of, releasing our internal software, Kalicube Pro as a SaaS product, and we realized that we couldn’t get agencies to integrate it into their process or replace what they’re currently using, which seems similar to the CFO already having the software trying to replace that is a lost gain.
[00:16:58] Ulf Arnetz: Yeah. So it comes back to, it comes back to the other type of applications. they either just aggregate data, you don’t have a way to drive, but it’s so much I have to think about if you start from the business need instead of starting from the technology need.
And, that’s why I’ve been so key on keeping that product narrow, just solving this business problem, not being used for a lot of other purposes.
[00:17:28] Jason Barnard: Can we come back again to the team? I am I right in thinking you talk about micro delegation rather than micromanagement.
[00:17:34] Ulf Arnetz: It’s really, if someone wants in the beginning and say, oh, this is micro delegation.
for me it’s my, it’s micro, it’s micro delegation. in a very positive way. So you decide very much, okay, what’s, the focus? And then you must find a way to, to help people to actually keep that focus. But within whatever they are in charge of that, it’s bottom up, that you could impact, that you could contribute, and you feel that you have a freedom of how to do it, but still that you get progress according to what we have decided.
[00:18:16] Jason Barnard: Which, and which brings me to a problem that I’m struggling with, is how can I build systems where we’re all going in the same direction for the same single problem that we’re trying to solve? Give accountability systems that help people move forwards on my team without restricting them.
[00:18:35] Ulf Arnetz: Yeah, it is. very difficult to do that. And I need another hour with you in order to explain how it’s done, but it’s, must You have two minutes must. It’s a must demand. It’s a must demand. But I think that once again, I think that if you could drive, talk down, what do we really need to do?
What’s the focus? What are our prioritizations. But then also drive it bottom up that I don’t tell people what they should do, but they know where we are aiming in a very narrow way that works,
[00:19:13] Jason Barnard: Right? So having a really narrow, fixed idea of where you’re going, who you’re serving, which specific problem you solve, and communicating that from top to bottom.
Ends up with bottom, up and top down. Everyone going the same direction, figuring out the solution to this specific problem. That’s a great way to end this because it’s perfect advice for me and my team. Thank you so much Ulf. That was absolutely delightful.
[00:19:36] Ulf Arnetz: And thank you. I had a couple of your other guests you have had. It’s very interesting. Thank you.
[00:19:43] Jason Barnard: Yeah, I love this podcast. I’m learning a lot from all of the guests we’ve had. It’s been absolutely delightful. You were wonderful. Thank you so much. A quick goodbye to end the show. Thank you Ulf.
[00:19:54] Narrator: Your corporate and personal brands are what Google and AI say they are. We can give you back control. Kalicube.
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