Dec 23, 2019
HiBob Response
6yAppreciate your input here, and I'm sorry you feel this way. However, I do appreciate some of your comments and objectively disagree on others. My response is long, but addresses a lot of the points you raise.
It’s true that the startup world has its share of challenges and the environment is not right for everyone. Successful startup employees are self-motivated and team players. They adapt to necessary changes and also contribute to change for the better. But most of all they expect to be part of the solution, not wait for it. Not defining this well enough at the start of the year led to some mis alignments in hiring. While it has not been easy, we have learned from this and are now with a strong team and understanding of the right fit as we grow our US team in 2020 and prepare for the next level growth of the business.
You mention some questions that interviewees should ask - and they are very good suggestions. I encourage the same. Being thorough in the interview ensures a deep understanding and good fit for the employee and employer.
You make several claims that I objectively disagree about related to performance, goal achievement and product releases. 2019 was a GREAT year for Hibob - we grew our team by 60%, doubled our revenue and the number of clients we serve, and achieved the revenue targets we published at the start of the year. We launched our US operations, expanded significantly into new parts of EU. We had several major product releases ON TIME including the second generation of our platform. We also raised a significant funding round (A) of $45M (this following extreme diligence by some of the world’s best known tech investors). Our 2 year growth trajectory is putting us on track to achieve “BEST OF” categorization in industry growth benchmarks by Q2 2020. I am proud of the success we have achieved this year - across the globe.
I accept your feedback regarding internal communications and note that this is a priority for me and we will improve here. As a global company, location and time difference should benefit our employees and customers. I will put the appropriate attention here so we can address it.
Regarding your advice to management, I again have to clarify and correct a few mistruths stated here. We do use the Hibob platform - from PTO, to Kudos (on average 1/day in 2019), timesheets, surveys and onboarding. We heavily use the bob/SLACK integration. What we don’t use bob for internally is compensation and performance reviews but its for security reasons. We’d be at risk of disclosing confidential employee information to any developer on the system.
You also state that while we have made employee changes, we haven’t made changes ‘at the top’. It's simply not true. In 2019 we replaced our CFO and VP Customer Success, hired our first CMO and also a VP Sales in the US. I am very proud of the team we have built this year and the changes we have gone through to strengthen our foundation as we enter this next stage of growth.