SaaS companies have to scale fast in order to secure their place in the market. Dropslab Technologies, Salonkee and Fiveoffices share their hacks on finding and retaining talent.
Dropslab Technologies: “If You Can Remove The Pressure And Go For Real Communication, I Think That’s Great!”
Five years after it was founded in Aachen, Germany, Dropslab Technologies is looking to scale its team. CEO and founder Meysem Menoufekr explains how a startup born out of research is leveraging university talent to grow.
Dropslab Technologies’ live chat AR solution grew out of the PhD thesis of founder and CEO Meysam Minoufekr. By studying 3D visualisation of the process of how a turbine engine is created, he unlocked the many advantages of AR navigation and remote support: greater efficiency and error reduction. And with use cases for people as diverse as police officers to soldiers and doctors, the potential impact on society was clear.
“That’s one of the ways we recruit people because the topic itself is very intelligent and interesting for them,” says the CEO.
When it came to launching the product in 2022, Dropslab had to scale fast. It reached its current tally of 14 FTEs through a conservative recruitment strategy, combining freelancers and student hires on a fixed term basis. “If you recruit on a freelance basis, you get the advantage that you always get people who are goal oriented, that’s very important,” the CEO says.
Initially, Dropslab posted on university job boards, however, since they were taken over by recruitment agencies, the startup no longer finds them cost effective. The CEO has instead found a workaround–visiting university campuses and handing out flyers to students in fields where specific expertise is sought. “I would say this is one of the assets which is missing in Luxembourg: having a high amount of students,” compared to say Leuven, Aachen or Minoufekr’s native town of Cologne. He is, however, teaching at the University of Luxembourg where new talents are emerging although “the critical mass is still missing,” he says.
“I would say this is one of the assets which is missing in Luxembourg: having a high amount of students”
Dropslab Technologies CEO Meysam Minoufekr
Minoufekr’s engineering background helped him identify strong candidates for developer and support engineer roles. However, he struggled when it came to marketing and sales. “You have this problem that salespeople can sell. They can also sell their value to you and you don’t know what’s true. And that’s a big challenge,” he says.
What has helped are small things like sitting beside someone in an interview rather than opposite them to get to know them better. He said: “I’m not a fan of these kinds of Google recruitment parties when you have the pyjama party and then there’s a psychologist, evaluating every person that’s fake. But if you can remove the pressure and go for real communication, I think that’s great.”
One other technique Dropslab employs is to have the team interview the candidate once they have passed the first interview round. On top of all this, candidates are given assignments. “This way you really find out if this person is a good match,” says the CEO.
Salonkee: “We Made Sure Our Job Postings Were Clear And Concise”
Luxembourg-based online booking platform and management tool for hair, beauty and wellness appointments Salonkee needed to scale rapidly after it secured Series A funding in 2021.
To develop its all-in-one salon management solutions and enable the estimated 800,000 salons in Europe to better manage and grow their businesses, it planned to quadruple its team from 25.
“Finding developers has also been one of our biggest challenges. But we knew we had to keep pushing forward to find the right fit for our team,” said co-founder and CEO Tom Michels.
The phenomenon is not only limited to Europe. According to IDC, a market intelligence firm, the global shortage of full-time developers will reach 4 million by 2025. “With such a high demand for these professionals, we had to get creative to make ourselves stand out in the market,” said Michels, adding: “We made sure our job postings were clear and concise, but also innovative enough to grab the attention of top-tier talent locally as well as abroad. Additionally, we fostered relationships with relevant communities and schools to connect with the best candidates, and offered competitive salaries and benefits to seal the deal.”
Michels reckons that more could be done in Luxembourg to mitigate against this shortage. Greater investment in STEM education and programmes that support the growth and development of tech talent is essential to develop a local talent pool. To attract top-tier talent from abroad, he wants to see more collaboration between companies, schools, and organisations to create an attractive ecosystem.
“With such a high demand for these professionals, we had to get creative to make ourselves stand out in the market”
Salonkee co-founder and CEO Tom Michels
“One way to do this could be by further establishing partnerships with universities and vocational schools to offer internships, apprenticeships, and mentorship programmes that expose students to real-world work experiences and equip them with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in the field,” Michels said, adding that initiatives that encourage diversity and inclusion in tech remain critical. “Ultimately, building a strong tech talent pool requires a long-term commitment to investing in people and building a supportive and inclusive culture that encourages local growth and development.”
With half of its workforce composed of sales representatives, Salonkee also faced challenges in finding the right candidates for on-field sales. According to Michel, its talent acquisition team is constantly searching and testing applicants for the “right level of drive, determination, and organisational skills, as well as ensuring that candidates can work effectively within our team.”
Finally, the trend for remote working and flexible schedules has also disrupted the market thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic. Salonkee has tried to leverage the opportunities that these demands create, by offering flexible schedules and prioritising team building to foster community and connectedness.
While the journey has been challenging, Salonkee’s efforts have paid off. It currently has 106 staff in five different countries.
Fiveoffices: “There Is No Easy Profile To Hire”
Over the space of a single year, the team of flexible office rent and optimisation solution Fiveoffices mushroomed from 2 to 25 in Luxembourg and France. Efforts to develop the business in Paris started well before the official September 2022 launch. But, with massive competition from the booming Paris tech ecosystem, Fiveoffices had its work cut out. “There is no easy profile to hire,” said Fiveoffices CEO Carolyn Prestat, before adding: “Perhaps interns.”
The company’s first reflex has been to tap the networks of their staff and contacts for talent. For more competitive profiles like sales and IT, the startup has used recruitment agencies.
Most challenging roles
Prestat said that the hardest role to fill has been that of growth hacker, or business development officer. “It was impossible to find someone in Luxembourg. So we found someone in France, who works for the whole group,” the CEO explained.
Despite its size, there is currently no dedicated HR team working on talent acquisition and retention at Fiveoffices. “Today, the HR is me. And the management team are all a bit HR,” said Prestat. Instead, the firm leverages the value proposition of its flexible office solution to connect with candidates who have shared values. At the same time, it works closely on building a positive working environment that is attractive to talent and communicating about this through its marketing efforts.
The CEO explained: “My head of marketing is also closely involved in HR discussions: how to motivate the team and how to find talent. She’s very involved because you attract talent the same way that you attract prospects and clients.”
“I guess that is a key thing to retain them and have them on board fully from day 1”
Fiveoffices CEO Carolyn Prestat
The key to retention
Ensuring her staff are ‘happy’ in the workplace is core for Prestat. “We need to have people focused, we need to have people who work a lot. But I want the people still to find the balance that will make them happy. I guess that is a key thing to retain them and have them on board fully from day 1,” she said.
As it continues its recruitment drive in 2023, Fiveoffices’ has a major carrot for potential candidates: its expansion into London and beyond.
“We want to be international and then it’s very attractive because people know that one day, we will be in other countries, starting with London,” said the CEO.
This article was first published in the Silicon Luxembourg magazine. Get your copy.
