The Munich-based HR startup Personio has recently a $40 million Financing round completed. After that, the startup moved, as the number of employees was growing even faster than before. An interview with Hanno Renner, CEO of the prosperous startup, about the challenges of growth, how to keep employees happy and what's next for Personio.
Hanno, how has the spirit in the company changed in the last few months? And how have you reorganized Personio?
Of course, a company changes when it grows from 100 to 260 employees in a year—but the spirit and fundamental culture haven't changed. It's important to us to maintain the highly personal startup character, which contributes to an open and creative work environment, despite the growing number of employees.
Bringing the right people on board is crucial. To achieve this, we implemented a comprehensive recruiting process early on, including a value interview. This ensures that new employees share our corporate values. But of course, rapid growth requires restructuring, especially for large teams.
Hanno's advice: "Don't mistake a large financing round for success"
What advice would you give to other founders who have just completed a large financing round?
It's important not to confuse a large financing round with success. It's an important milestone and allows you to work toward a grand vision while continuing to grow rapidly. However, it also naturally creates new expectations that must be met. Therefore, you should continue to be disciplined about spending and invest in things that directly contribute to your strategy.
You acquired a Spanish startup in April 2019. What has changed for you as a result, apart from the fact that you now have an office in Madrid with 25 employees?
First and foremost, the acquisition enabled us to expand our product range into payroll and bring innovation to this area. Since this was an important new area, we naturally had to adapt our organization accordingly.
Additionally, working in remote teams naturally brings challenges. We need to ensure that we see ourselves as one team and share the same values despite the distance. This is especially important given that we will be significantly expanding our Madrid office in the medium term.
You wanted to invest part of your funding in European expansion. What's going on there? How are you positioned internationally, and what are your future plans for internationalization?
The majority of our customers are located in the DACH region, but Personio is already used in 35 countries. To expand our international business, we are currently building teams for Spain, the UK, Scandinavia, and Benelux. We recently hired our first colleague in London, who will drive Personio's expansion as Head of International. Once these four markets have been successfully launched, we will expand into additional European countries.
Munich's quality of life makes Personio interesting for applicants
At our last conversation 2016 you were — except for the closing times — quite happy with Munich as a startup location. Is that still the case? In your opinion, has this changed? improved or worsened in recent years?
Munich has proven itself as a location for us. We find an incredible number of qualified employees here. The high quality of life makes the city, and thus Personio as an employer, attractive even to applicants from other parts of the world. However, Munich's rents are a real challenge for most newcomers.
You are one of the Munich startups that according to Kununu with the highest employee satisfaction in the region What's your insider tip?
We take our time to find the right people. This may mean leaving a vacant position unfilled for several months if the right candidate hasn't come along yet. A culture of open feedback is also very important to us in our collaboration.
What is the most challenging issue at Personio right now?
Finding the right employees, especially in engineering, to continuously develop our product, but also colleagues for senior management roles, as there aren't many people in Germany who have already gone through similar growth phases.
How does Personio keep employees happy?
What do you think is the decisive factor for a sustainable Business development?
The right recruiting and development of employees to ensure their satisfaction. This is also achieved through special projects such as hackathons and task forces that allow our employees to contribute beyond their role description.
Where do you want to be in five years? And where in ten?
In five years, we want to be the leading HR platform for small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe. We already have plans for the time after that, but for now, we're focusing on our goal of European market leadership in our segment.
What is currently at the top of your desk?
To ensure continued rapid growth, my current focus is on recruiting new employees and building an international team.
We founders continue to be heavily involved in the recruiting process. Every candidate has an interview with at least one of the founders as part of their application process. This topic, of course, isn't on my desk; it's stored in Personio.
