Sançar Şahin

Who they are

Sançar Şahin is Co-Founder and CMO of Oliva Health — previously VP of Marketing at Typeform where he helped grow the product from 200k MRR to 1.3M ARR, and has since built readywhen.ai as a side tool.

Person

Sançar studied at The University of Manchester, then cut his teeth in SaaS marketing at GetApp and Hotjar before landing at Typeform — where he climbed from Director of Marketing to VP of Marketing and Head of Growth. His time at Typeform became the public chapter people know him by: he spoke on more than a dozen podcasts and stages (SaaS Breakthrough, OnBrand, BetaKit, K Fund PodKast, LiveChat, Rebrandly) about how the company grew from 200k MRR to 1.3M ARR using what he called the SURF Method, and about brand building, conversational data, and customer feedback. In 2020 he co-founded Oliva Health alongside Javier Suarez, a co-founder of TravelPerk — starting it from scratch at founding stage. He's also built readywhen.ai, a tool that helps teams follow up on agreements made in meetings, Slack threads, and emails. The through-line is marketing that doubles as product thinking: every role involved building the engine, not just running campaigns. He's active on X as @iamsancar and draws on filmmaking analogies for brand storytelling.

Company

Oliva's most recent disclosed funding is a $5.47M Seed round led by Molten Ventures in June 2023, bringing total funding to $14.2M across 4 rounds from 9 investors. In 2023, the company doubled its team, grew its therapist network from 50 to over 250, and posted over 300% year-on-year revenue growth. Plans on the table at that time included an Oliva app, expansion into new markets and languages, and AI-enhanced care models. The platform now operates in over 27 countries and is available in 14 languages, with customers including Marshmallow, Maze, and Leapsome.

Market

Oliva plays in the employer-sponsored digital mental health space — matching employees with therapists online and positioning itself as a workplace benefit. The sector is growing with AI and online care adoption accelerating, but companies face regulatory pressure and a crowded field of emerging platforms. Specific named competitors aren't detailed in available data, though the B2B employee-benefit framing differentiates Oliva from direct-to-consumer therapy apps.

Network

Sançar's closest known collaborator is Javier Suarez, his co-founder at Oliva Health and a co-founder of TravelPerk with prior experience at Booking.com. Beyond that, his public network is largely built through the podcast and conference circuit — connections forged at OnBrand, Startup Grind Barcelona, and a series of SaaS-focused shows rather than through named investors or operators.

Javier Suarez· Co-Founder, Oliva Health (also co-founder of TravelPerk, ex Booking.com)

How they likely show up

Hybrid role-type pattern (CMO + Co-Founder simultaneously) → likely comfortable holding both strategic and executional context at once, not siloed by function.
Extensive podcast and conference circuit at Typeform (12+ appearances on named shows) → comfortable being public-facing and probably uses external audiences to pressure-test ideas, not just to broadcast.
Built readywhen.ai alongside running Oliva → high agency; builds tools when he spots a gap rather than waiting for a product team to solve it.
Went from employee at Typeform to founder at Oliva, starting at pre-seed stage → tolerates ambiguity and early-stage chaos; unlikely to be energised by process-heavy environments.
Content themes span customer feedback, brand building, burnout, and early-stage marketing — all first-hand experiences, not borrowed frameworks → tends to speak from practice, not theory.

Conversation tips

→ Reference the SURF Method by name — it's the framework he built at Typeform and discussed publicly across multiple shows; it signals you've done more than a LinkedIn skim.
→ Ask about the transition from VP of Marketing at a scaled SaaS to founding-stage CMO — the contrast is sharp and he's spoken about it candidly, including on burnout and prioritisation.
→ He draws on filmmaking analogies for brand storytelling — if the conversation touches brand or narrative, that lens will resonate.
→ Don't treat Oliva as a therapy app — he's building a B2B employer benefit, and the distinction between consumer mental health and workplace mental health matters to him.
→ readywhen.ai is a live side project worth mentioning — it shows he still builds, and founders notice when you've spotted the thing they built outside the main job.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the SURF Method — he developed it at Typeform and credited it publicly with taking the product from 200k MRR to 1.3M ARR; it's specific enough to show you've gone beyond the bio.
Bring up readywhen.ai — he built a tool to fix a real coordination problem (following up on agreements from meetings and Slack threads), and it signals that his instinct is still to build when he sees a gap.
Reference the Molten Ventures Seed round and the 2023 growth metrics — 300% YoY revenue growth and a therapist network scaling from 50 to over 250 — as a grounding point for where Oliva is in its arc.

Discovery questions

The SURF Method worked at Typeform's scale — what translates to an early-stage company like Oliva, and what had to be thrown out entirely?
You've grown Oliva's therapist network from 50 to over 250 and expanded to 27 countries — how do you maintain quality of care as a marketing and brand promise when supply scales that fast?
readywhen.ai solves a coordination problem you presumably felt yourself — how are you thinking about when a side tool becomes something more, or when it stays a useful scratch?

Avoid

Don't lead with generic workplace wellness trends or AI-in-mental-health talking points — he operates at the specific intersection of B2B benefits and clinical quality, and broad market framing without operational specificity will read as unprepared.

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