Facts
Started in February 2011, Workboard provides software for companies to keep track of their goals, and keep data accurate so that they can know if they hit (or miss!) key results, and thus meet or fail at working towards objectives.
To date they have raised $66M dollars in funding and closed a Series C round in January 2020 for $30M
They currently employee about 107 employees
Why I like:
We decided to add Workboard to the Rocketship Jobs newsletter for many reasons but below are the main five reasons:
Revenue Growth
Workboard has been spectacular at growing their revenue as a company. They 3.5x their ARR in 2018 and and tripled again in 2019. One Tech Crunch reporter did some mental math and assumed they are probably over $20M ARR today which if they can double this year puts them in line for a 2022 IPO.
Source: The Top Podcast by Nathan Latka
Workboard is also said to have a very efficient sale which is not typical for start up companies today. Most startups spend an arm and a leg to acquire a customer which is why companies like Uber and Lyft are struggling now. Workboard on the other hand generates two dollars for every one dollar they spend on sales and marketing. Their sales cycle is “under 60 days”, are “several hundred thousand dollars in average deal size” and they have more than doubled their average deal size since the beginning of 2019.
They have also had a 77% growth and a 106% growth in their app and web usage, respectively. These are both leading indicators that they will very likely continue to grow at a good rate over months to come.
Go to Market
OKR software like Workboard tend to be viewed from applications like Microsoft teams and Slack since so much time is spent talking to colleagues on those platforms. Workboard’s relationship with Microsfots is a big advantage here over a lot of their competitors because of Microsoft's domination in the enterprise space. They “noted co-selling with Microsoft and some co-marketing “lift.” I believe this is going to be an even bigger deal now that they are at the scale to focus on Fortune 500 and above companies.
In September 2019, Workboard launched The OKR podcast. Although I don’t think marketing is a strong point of theirs, I think this is a good step. Although, I would like to see more online marketing.
Lastly, they make a great product. Workboard is a leader on many product review sites like Capterra and G2. This has led to 45% of their revenue coming from their install base and 25% of their revenue coming from word of mouth in 2018.
Timing
OKR is hot
OKRs were invented in 1954 by Peter Drucker but it wasn’t until 1999 when Google adopted them that they started to grow in popularity. Start ups live on OKRs today but over the last 5-10 years OKR’s have also begun to break into the Fortune 500 companies. This is great for Workboard as one of the leaders in the space they get to ride the rising tide.
Source: Explodingtopics.com
Recession Proof
Another reason I like Workboard is because I believe it is also going to do well even if there is a recession. Actually, it may do even better. If a recession was to happen people are going to look at ways to be even more efficient with their businesses, OKR’s help people do just that and being a leader in the OKR software space will be great for Workboard.
Size
Currently, Workboard has only 107 employees. That is prime time to join a startup. The first 150 employees get the bulk of the equity. Also, this is a great time because there are still going to be a lot of growing pains that if you are a good employee will give you a lot of opportunity to move up quickly.
They just hired a CFO
Typically when a startup hires a CFO it is to begin preparing their finances for an IPO. Different start ups do this at different times in their growth but based on the revenue stats I wrote about earlier, I would assume that means they will try to go for an IPO in the next two to four years. This is perfect timing because if you did join today it would give you a significant amount of time to vest all of your stock options.
Leadership
Workboard’s CEO Diedre Paknad is a great leader. Her last time running a company she joined as a turn around CEO. The company had no money left after raising $60M but still she was able to grow the company enough to return all of the investors their money. The experience Diedre has is what makes her so good at being efficient with the money Workboard has raised. I imagine this great leadership will continue as the business continues to grow!
Investments
To date Workboard has raised $66M in funding. For a Series C company this does not stand out but what does stand out is that Diedre has stated they haven’t spent their entire Series B funding and they raised the Series C because of the great Enterprise opportunity in front of them (See above for Microsoft Partnership info).
The Investors
Microsoft - As mentioned above it really helps their go to market being so tightly aligned with a company like Microsoft. I predict as Microsoft continues to do better in the cloud and cloud app space this will only help Workboard.
Andreessen Horowitz - You may have seen this company listed on other company profiles. Andreesen is one of the top venture capitalist in Silicon Valley being backed by them speaks volumes to how great of a company Workboard is and has the potential to become.
GGV - Is another high profile VC in Silicon Valley, they’ve had great exits with companies like Square Alibaba and Slack. Also, they are currently invested in some interesting startups such as Hashicorp, StockX and Bytedance that are all potentially on their way to great exits in the future!
What I don’t:
No Brand
Workboard is a great company in a great space but they’re not the only one and honestly they may not be the market leader. Betterwork is another great company in the OKR space that is doing very well. It is hard to tell which is doing better because they are both private but a lot of what is said above can also be said about Betterworks. This again goes back to why I believe Workboard needs to double down on marketing, without a brand neither company is a clear choice for clients. In terms of brand, Workboard is making a good step in beginning to build their podcast and online presence but Betterworks is backed by one of the modern day fathers of OKR so that also helps them. This battle will definitely be an interesting one to watch.
Open Jobs at Workboard
I am also a big fan of reaching out to people directly at companies. Below is the contact information for a few of the prominent leaders at Workboard.
Megan Kolkman - VP of Customer Success
Mike Hipp - VP of Sales
Email - mike.hipp@workboard.com
Karim Damji - CFO
Email - karim@workboard.com (not 100% sure this is accurate)
Daryoush Paknad - Co-Founder and CTO
Deidre Paknad - Co-Founder and CEO