December 21 (SeeNews) - Sofia-based startup Gtmhub, a software developer of a goal management and employee experience platform, grew its revenue in double digits in the past months and plans to sustain this growth pace next year, a company official said.
Tapping on rising interest in Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) - a framework for defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes on which Gtmhub's software is based - the company also plans to double its staff next year, Alex Galin, head of growth at the company, told SeeNews earlier this month on the sidelines of a press event in Berlin, Germany organised by tech company SAP.
In 2017, Gtmhub joined SAP.io Foundry powered by Techstars Accelerator, a programme helping innovators inside and outside of SAP build products and find customers.
"We are in a chaotic period of hyper growth. Awareness of OKRs grows," Galin said, adding that the market is estimated to reach 2 billion dollars in five years.
Gtmhub, founded in 2015, has some 25 people working in the headquarters in Sofia and in its offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco. It has two data centres.
Since officially launching, Gtmhub has experienced triple-digit customer growth and has been generating revenue for the last three years, the company said in July, upon the closing of its seed round led by Bulgarian venture fund LAUNCHub Ventures with support from investors at Google, Angelist, Telerik, and Notion Capital. The company raised 1.2 million dollars in the seed round.
Another Bulgarian venture capital fund, Eleven Ventures, said last month it has invested between 100,000 and 300,000 euro in each of eight local startup companies, including Gtmhub, through its second investment fund, Eleven 2.0.
The reason OKRs are special is that they are all about alignment, i.e. how what people are doing is aligned to the organisation’s goal; transparency and breaking away from the work in silos mentality; autonomy and innovation, Galin said. She quoted the results of a survey among the company's customers, according to which for 97% alignment is a challenge.
"With OKRs you agree what you want to achieve and then the individual comes up with his own measurable key results," she explained, adding that the objective is very ambitious by design. "With OKRs, if you get 70% of your objectives, that is called success. OKRs are a way to embed innovation."
OKRs can help companies attract and retain talent, Galin stressed.
"Customer experience has been big recently but people are beginning to understand that employee experience is what matters because there is a war for talent, you have a new generation of millennials who want to feel they have a purpose at work, people are much more mobile between companies. We think the answer can be OKRs."
According to a survey by research and advisory company Gartner, 78% of employees leave their companies because they feel they do not have a purpose and do not feel appreciated.
Some of the biggest names in technology such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Spotify, DropBox, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP are using OKRs but the technology has still not made it into the wider world.
However, according to Galin, OKRs are slowly leaving the technology companies and moving to other industries, as is evidenced by Gtmhub's client list. The startups platform is used by tech companies SAP, Atlassian, Techstars, home rental services providers Zillow and Rently, cosmetics company Oriflame and Scandinavian media company Schibsted, among others.The company's biggest markets are the U.S. and the UK, but it also has clients in India and Australia.
"We have moved into enterprise very, very seriously," Galin said. "For us, enterprise is where the game is because in terms of the challenges of alignment, autonomy, and flexibility and transparency, the larger corporations are far more interesting than small companies."
Gtmhub's key competitive advantage is that its platform has 150 native data connectors, allowing for automatic update of key results and the fact that it is the only company in the market that provides on-premise deployment.
"We think that the Gtmhub in time – that is where we are aiming – will become the platform of choice for companies when they need to align strategy with execution at scale; dramatically improving performance, but also employee experience and retention of top talent," she concluded.