how software startup usetiful scaled to a multi-million acquisition with e-⁠Residency

Jae Jensen-Ginter • Nov 18, 2025 • 6 min read

A small team spread across three countries used Estonia’s digital ecosystem to turn an internal workaround into a global product with a multi-million-dollar exit

Czech entrepreneur and e-resident Ondrej Dobias didn’t plan for an acquisition when he and his cofounders started Usetiful. They just wanted a practical way to build a company across three countries. Seven years later, their digital adoption platform has joined US firm Fullstory in a multi-million-dollar deal, marking a new chapter for the team.

How a cross-border idea became a company

Ondrej became an e-⁠resident in 2017 while he and his cofounders were spread across Germany, Slovakia and Czechia. No single jurisdiction made joint incorporation easy.

“It wasn’t practically possible to correctly incorporate across three countries,” he says. “Estonian e-Residency was the best option to move fast and stay compliant.”

— Ondrej Dobias, Usetiful CEO

In 2018, they registered their Estonian company online using their e‑Residency digital IDs and a local service provider. The process surprised him.“It felt almost too easy,” he says. “Coming from Central Europe, where bureaucracy is king and you need a stamp for everything, Estonia’s system was a revelation.”

For six years, they ran Usetiful fully online without visiting Estonia. That digital foundation let them start building immediately.

Portrait of Ondrej Dobias, CEO and cofounder of Usetiful — Ondrej Dobias, Usetiful CEO and cofounder

Solving a universal problem in digital products

Usetiful didn’t begin as the product they wanted to sell. The team was working on a different idea when they faced a common challenge: users were struggling to navigate software not built for them.

“When you build a product, you build it for a persona – but real users rarely fit into narrow brackets,” Ondrej says. “Usetiful helps to bridge that gap.”

Existing digital adoption tools were too expensive. “Some cost €50,000 to €100,000 per year at minimum,” he says. “So we built our own. And that ended up selling better than our original product.”

Usetiful evolved into a platform that:

Adds in‑app training guides
Adjusts interfaces for clarity
Improves accessibility by reducing motion and boosting contrast
Offers real‑time help based on user behaviour

Their mission was simple: bridge the gap between humans and digital products.

From SaaS to consulting, read more e‑resident success stories from different industries on our blog.

E-resident stories - Digital Nation blog

Find out about Estonia’s e-resident population, how Estonia has become their digital home and how they are shaping the world.

Growing a global team from Estonia

As Usetiful grew, so did their team, including staff from Australia, Malaysia and Armenia. Usetiful qualified for Estonia’s Startup Visa, a programme that helps growth-oriented companies to hire and relocate talent from non-EU countries. This allowed them to easily relocate some of their employees to Estonia, a place Ondrej enjoys doing business.

While e-⁠Residency lets him run Usetiful as a remote-first company from Czechia, he believes relocating to Estonia is a worthwhile option for many people. “Estonia is extremely stable,” Ondrej says. “In some places, you have beautiful weather and nature, but if you want to build a stable life and wealth, Estonia provides that foundation.”

In 2025, Ondrej visited Tallinn for the first time himself, attending the Latitude59 startup conference and meeting fellow e-⁠residents.

Learn more about the e-⁠resident community of over 130,000 members.

Active community of entrepreneurs | e-Residency

Connect to the community of over 130,000 entrepreneurs with a passion for business, innovation, and solving the world’s problems.

Joining US-based firm Fullstory

The team’s home‑grown tool gained traction with B2B clients, including Zalando, DHL and Audi. As their customer base grew, so did external interest. In late 2025, US‑based firm Fullstory acquired Usetiful in a multi-million-dollar deal.

Fullstory focuses on behavioural insights. Usetiful specialises in guiding users in real-time. Together, they create a stronger, more complete user experience. Usetiful now operates within Fullstory’s global structure, helping Fullstory expand into the European market.

Falling in love with Estonia’s way of doing business

Before becoming an e‑resident, Ondrej admired Estonia for its cybersecurity and e-governance achievements. But running a company through e‑Residency made him fall even more in love with Estonia for its straightforward way of doing business.

“With e-Residency, I don’t have to do the stuff I hate,” Ondrej says. “I can do more of the stuff I love.”

He adds that although basing his company in Czechia might allow him to optimise taxation, the ease of doing business in Estonia is more valuable. “I didn’t start a business to save on taxes; I started it to make money.”

If he starts another venture, he says that it will also be through Estonia and e-Residency. “It gives us better access to funding than other places”. Find out how e-Residency grants business owners access to Estonian and European Union grants, funding and accelerators.

Eero Liivandi, Kristen Kannik, and Mart Toots of Enterprise Estonia

8 tips on applying for Estonian and EU startup company grants

Get tips on applying for startup company grants from three grant experts. Learn how e-Residency helps you access Estonian and EU funding.

What founders can learn from Usetiful

Usetiful shows how a distributed team can grow globally when the administrative layer is simple. With e‑Residency, founders can:

Register an EU company fully online
Operate a company from anywhere
Hire across borders
Focus on building instead of bureaucracy

Ready to streamline your business and scale? Start your application today.

Apply for e-⁠Residency

Apply Now

Share this article:

Facebook

X (ex-Twitter)

Swiss researcher discovers creative use cases for e-Residency

how software startup usetiful scaled to a multi-million acquisition with e-⁠Residency

How a cross-border idea became a company

Solving a universal problem in digital products

Growing a global team from Estonia

Joining US-based firm Fullstory

Falling in love with Estonia’s way of doing business

What founders can learn from Usetiful

Apply for e-⁠Residency

More from e-Residency

Read next

Swiss researcher discovers creative use cases for e-Residency

Fuckup Nights’ founder Pepe Villatoro: e-Residency democratizes entrepreneurship

Artist duo Alternative Systems finds creative freedom with e-Residency

e-resident Hugo Pais named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2025

How NATPAT wellness stickers reached 10,000 stores globally

The very first e-resident Edward Lucas: Europe must learn to listen to Estonia

Solving a universal problem in digital products

Falling in love with Estonia’s way of doing business

Apply for e-⁠Residency

How a cross-border idea became a company

Solving a universal problem in digital products

Growing a global team from Estonia

Joining US-based firm Fullstory

Falling in love with Estonia’s way of doing business

What founders can learn from Usetiful

Apply for e-⁠Residency

More from e-Residency

Share this article:

Read next

Swiss researcher discovers creative use cases for e-Residency

Fuckup Nights’ founder Pepe Villatoro: e-Residency democratizes entrepreneurship

Artist duo Alternative Systems finds creative freedom with e-Residency

e-resident Hugo Pais named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2025

How NATPAT wellness stickers reached 10,000 stores globally

The very first e-resident Edward Lucas: Europe must learn to listen to Estonia

Get the e-Residency newsletter

Solving a universal problem in digital products

Falling in love with Estonia’s way of doing business

Apply for e-⁠Residency