Karsten Madsen

Karsten Madsen started his first company at 18 or 19, co-founding Morningtrain — a digital agency he grew to 25 employees out of Odense, Denmark. After seven years deep in client SEO work, he co-founded Morningscore in 2018 with a single conviction: SEO tools were built for specialists, and small businesses were left behind. The answer wasn't a simpler dashboard — it was a completely different frame. Morningscore turns SEO into a city-builder: XP points, missions, levels. The gamification isn't cosmetic; it's the product.

Morningscore now sits at $1.5M ARR with ~4,000 customers and hit its first profitability milestone in July 2026 after eight years of investor-backed growth. A $700K funding round in 2025 and the acquisition of competitor Tiny Ranker the same year signal a deliberate consolidation phase. Alongside the core self-serve SaaS, Karsten is piloting 'Journey' — a guided mentoring layer pairing the tool with hands-on coaching for 200+ customers — testing whether high-touch beats pure self-serve at this stage.

He's based in Amsterdam (relocated 2022) while the Odense HQ remains. On the technical side, Karsten wrote Morningscore's first tool in Ruby — a 300-line spam filter still running in production — and is now prototyping AI agents using the Mastra framework, candid that the current results 'suck.' He posts as SPACEMAN on LinkedIn, hosts Reddit AMAs, and speaks across Europe at SearchDay, SEOday, and eComm Day. Strong opinions on UX craft, AI slop, and marketing ethics.