1) What is it exactly that you do, and what is your start-up about?
Glickon is a Talent Intelligence Platform for HR professional and C-level leaders to increase enterprise value and drive profitability. Glickon collects information both actively and passively (surveys, email traffic, calendar schedules, etc.) to give leaders a complete view of employer attractiveness, employee engagement, organizational model and productivity.
2) What is the problem that your start-up is trying to resolve?
Let’s take a look at how much time people spend doing stuff in their lifetime. An average person spends 90.000 hours working, 26 years sleeping, 11 years glued to their screens, 4 years eating and 3 years on holiday. That’s 1/3 of our total waking hours. Glickon aspires to help people work and live better.
3) What inspired you to start this particular business?
Glickon’s journey began when we asked ourselves a simple question: How can we improve the job search experience for everyone involved? We truly believe there’s a bit of gold within all of us, unique to each one of us. It may be small, hidden, or even unrecognizable, but it’s there. So we got to work and found a way to unearth that bit of gold.
4) When was your start-up founded? What stage is your startup currently at?
Glickon was founded in 2014. Currently, Glickon is a scale-up. We raised in 2022 a Series A Founding Round from Synergo Capital, and we acquired in April 2023 Teamsight, a startup among the most innovative in Italy, thanks to a People Analytics tool available to HR and business leaders.
5) Are you the sole founder? If not, how did your team meet? Who does what on your team?
Actually, we have four founders and currently have 26 employees. The founding and leadership team have experience at Microsoft, EY and other blue chip companies.
6) What is your start-up business model, and how does it work?
Our business model is SaaS (software as a service). We have a licensing and renewal business, with prices varying based on the number of survey respondents, employees, or candidates.
7) What exactly differentiates you from your competitor in the marketplace? Can you name a few?
Glickon is the only solution that enables the collection and analysis of the employee voice from all feedback types: direct (a proactive request for feedback), indirect (gathering and analyzing sentiment expressed in other platforms such as internal collaboration tools), inferred (observing employee usage of communication systems to analyze behavior and communication patterns). Some of our competitors are Glint, Peakon, Culture Amp and Qualtrics. We are recognized by Gartner as a ‘Voice of the Employees’ solutions vendor and included in RedThread’s report ‘People Analytics Global Technology 2023’.
8) At what stage is your start-up currently at? (Early-stage, Growth stage, Established)
Established
9) Can you discuss any significant milestones that your start-up achieved so far?
We started in 2014 as a candidate experience platform, then evolved into an employee experience and people analytics platform, and today Glickon’s journey is taking shape in a new era, that of Talent Intelligence. We have achieved several innovative milestones that make us proud since our born. Among the latest ones, the notable ones include the successful fundraising in 2022 through a Series A round with Synergo Capital and the recent acquisition in April 2023 of Teamsight, one of the most innovative startups in Italy in the HR Analytics sector. Our latest revenue is 1.2 million, and within the next 18 months, we plan to double the revenues.
10) Can you provide some information about your target market and its size?
We sell to C-Level, chro, hr managers, and line of business leaders. The market is massive and growing (€250B).
11) How do you acquire customers or users, and what is your customer acquisition strategy?
Glickon’s sales team concentrates on outbound activities and prospecting. Glickon’s marketing team is investing in online advertising, dedicated events, product marketing initiatives.
12) Have you received any funding or investment for your start-up? If yes, can you share the details?
We received funding in over 5 rounds. Our latest funding was raised on May 30, 2022, from a Series A round.
13) How do you plan to scale your business in the future?
We have started scaling our operations following the entry of the investment fund Synergo Capital and the acquisition of start-up Teamsight, which enabled us to launch our new Talent Intelligence’s product. It is one of the few solutions in the market that enables the collection and analysis of the candidate and employee voice from all types of feedback: Direct, Indirect and inferred. We will invest in Sales & Marketing to penetrate existing customers and expand in Emea. Also, we will bolster our product and R&D Team as we continue to scale, improve and transform.
14) What are the biggest challenges you have faced so far, and how did you overcome them?
Like the entire global economy, the pandemic has been a major challenge for us.
This crisis has had a significant impact on our growth journey, but it has not undermined its foundations. From the outset, we sought to listen to our customers’ needs and built new solutions to help make more informed and faster decisions in people and business management. Now, for example, thanks to the use of Sentiment and Organizational Network Analysis, we have more capabilities than ever to explore the relationship between skills, sentiments, people’s relationships with their outcomes, and the company’s performance.
15) How will you measure success for your start-up or the achievements that your startup has reached?
There are several ways in which we can evaluate the success of our start-up. Certainly, revenue, ROI, and profitability, but also customer satisfaction, innovation and development and the growth of our team. All of this while ensuring that the company’s growth is sustainable and aligned with our long-term vision: Work Better, Live Better. At a time when work can be undervalued, exploited, and taken for granted, Glickon hopes to place people and talent at the forefront of the job market. If we work better, we live better, and are able to help others work better too.
16) What is your marketing and branding strategy?
Glickon’s marketing team is investing in online advertising, dedicated events and product marketing initiatives. Our marketing and branding activities also include an advocacy plan, commercial webinars, participation in events, and a referral program. Our team also consistently conducts market research to identify unique brand positioning. Furthermore, we set key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor the effectiveness of the strategy and make any necessary improvements along the way.
17) How did customers/users find out about you?
Customers discovered us through inbound marketing campaigns, outbound and account plan activities, event participation and organization, as well as through referrals.
18) What is your target audience?
C- Level (CEO, CFO, CHRO), HR Professionals and business leaders.
19) Regarding your marketing strategy, do you use social media, and if so, is it in-house or outsourced?
Yes, we use social media, and it is managed internally by our marketing team.
20) Have you faced any regulatory challenges?
Glickon solutions are EU GDPR Compliant. We constantly monitor these regulations, also with the support of our partners, and update our solutions to make them compliant with the norms.
21) Can you discuss any partnerships or collaborations you have established?
Since the beginning of our history, we have had active partnerships with consulting firms, channel partners, and content partners.
22) What are the key things about your industry that outsiders don’t understand or misperceive?
That technology and AI are not enemies of humans but allies. Applying technology to people means believing in the value of a new alliance, starting from the concept of freeing up the HR team’s time and focusing on the relational aspect.
23) How do you handle feedback and incorporate it into your product or service development?
Constantly, our Customer Success team collects feedback from our clients, which is then forwarded to our product and R&D teams to continuously improve and innovate our solutions.
24) Are you going to internationalize? If so, how are you planning to expand internationally?
Currently, we are focused on the Italian market, but we operate through our clients in more than 84 different countries worldwide. Our expansion also includes scaling the business in EMEA investing in Sales & Marketing.
25) Can you share any testimonials or success stories from your customers or users?
You can see some of our successful customer stories at this link: https://en.glickon.com/news/customer-stories
26) How do you ensure the security and privacy of users’ data?
We have high security and compliance standards, and all data is handled in compliance with GDPR regulations.
27) How do you stay updated on industry trends and adapt your strategies?
We constantly follow industry trends and adapt our strategies accordingly. Over 50% of our employees are part of the IT and R&D department.
28) Can you discuss your pricing strategy and how you determine your product’s value?
Glickon is a Platform-as-a-Service sold with annual licenses that offer various usage options for our solutions: Talent Attraction, Talent Management, Live Game, and Talent Intelligence.
29) How do you plan to build and maintain customer loyalty?
We accompany our clients through dedicated consulting with our Customer Success team, which supports them in using the tools to their fullest potential.
30) What are your plans for expanding your team in the future?
We are constantly looking for new talents with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and skills, and we plan to onboard new people to the team by the end of the year.
31) How Do you approach customer support and handle any issues or complaints?
We provide dedicated consulting to our customers with our Customer Success and Support team, which assists our clients in maximizing the potential of our tools.
32) What have you learned so far from launching your start-up, and what pointers would you give a person reading this blog who is interested in having a start-up of his own?
In my opinion, when launching a start-up, there are more opportunities outweigh difficulties or obstacles.
Certainly, Italy has a much less developed ecosystem compared to other countries, especially when it comes to the scale-up phase and the ability to compete in the international market.
Certainly, there are some fundamental technical skills, especially thinking about Glickon; nothing of what exists today would have been possible without the extraordinary abilities of our team.
In general, every founder and team member should always aim to improve themselves every day, and there are now endless resources to do so. There is very little today that one cannot access, read about, or study.
33) Six months from now, what will be the biggest problem?
I believe that in the coming months, the most critical macro-needs for our industry will be quitting, a talent shortage, digital nomadism, and slow processes.
Glickon’s solutions are developed to support companies and effectively address these needs.
34) Are you looking to hire new employees for your team? If so, what job openings do you currently have?
We are looking for new talents for different teams, and we plan to onboard new people to the team by the end of the year.
35) Are you looking for start-seed investment or VC funding? If you are looking for funding, where can potential investors contact you?
Yes, we are looking for funding. Potential investors can contact our CFO, Matteo Corte, matteo.corte@glickon.com
36) How did Coved affect your start-up?
The crisis had a strong impact in terms of changes. However, it made us rediscover the startup spirit of “doing more with less.” The most difficult decision was made without hesitation: betting everything on our people without reducing their numbers or working hours. Starting from this certainty, in a highly dynamic context, we have always sought to ensure and promote the stability and strategic sustainability of the company in every choice, without giving up change and growth.
The greatest lesson was the awareness that transformation also requires letting go. This allows us to be more agile, dynamic, and flexible. And ultimately, more resilient. We have allowed people even more freedom to express their potential, even taking risks. Trust has been the winning factor, along with open discussions about clear strategic objectives. This has unleashed positive and engaging energy.
37) How is Artificial Intelligence (AI)) affecting your industry and your company?
Artificial intelligence has had a strong impact on our industry as well. All our solutions utilize artificial intelligence and NLP (Natural Language Processing). We use it, for example, to generate and analyze HR content such as job descriptions and sentiment analysis, leveraging artificial intelligence.
38) Why should we feature you on our blog?
Because Glickon’s combination of sustainability and artificial intelligence helps companies get more done with minimum effort, simplify complex operations, make processes seamless, and obtain effective results.
We’re here to help you find gold that’s already available, just out of sight. With a little help from Glickon, companies can extract and make the most of this gold!
39) How did you hear about our blog?
We met you at Viva Technology Trade in Paris, 2023 Edition.
