Mariana Dias talks lessons she learned after Gupy acquired its biggest competitor
A little over a year ago, Gupy did what many startups and large companies want: acquire its main competitor. HRTech bought the Kenoby, its great rival in the field of recruitment and selection. The idea was that the Kenoby was incorporated into guppies and in a few months the product ceased to exist with its original name.
However, plans changed halfway through. “Entrepreneurs who are passionate about their business always think their product is better and the competition is bad. When we bought Kenoby, we said that in 6 months we would shut down the platform, fully integrate the solution and roll out guppieswhich was so much better,” says Mariana Dias, co-founder and CEO of guppiesin an interview with startups.
Today he recognizes that the approach was a mistake, but also a great learning experience. “Customers of Kenoby used several interesting tools that they had and we didn’t”, he points out. The solution was to redo the companies’ integration project and keep some of the competitor’s most interesting features, leveraging the experience of the team that already knew the solution to develop the product all ‘inside of guppies.
Mariana says that after the acquisition, guppies lost very few customers that they were loyal to Kenobybut this happened midway and prompted the company to adapt.
“It was a gigantic exercise in intellectual humility to understand what we had to do. Entrepreneurs tend to be very fast, for better or for worse. Sometimes we need to stop and analyze reality. We chose to do the integration in 1 year done well, instead of 6 months as in the initial plan, today everyone is happy because we managed to get the best out of guppies and the best of Kenoby. But it took months to figure that out,” she says.
full box
the acquisition of Kenoby happened weeks later guppies announce a round of R $ 500 million. In January 2022, the startup made history by receiving the largest investment an HRTech has ever raised in Latin America: a BRL 500 million check led by soft bank AND riverwood. A year later, Gupy went shopping again and acquired Pulses, a people management platform in Santa Catarina.
According to Mariana, HRTech still has money left over from the funding. “A lot of what we get, we haven’t spent yet. We don’t want to be the type of company that needs investor money to survive,” she says. She explains that from the very beginning of its trajectory, the company had to be down-to-earth, generate cash on its own and grow sustainably.
“From 2015 to 2019 the guppies almost no investment was raised. We even tried, but I got a ‘no’ from everyone because HRTech wasn’t sexy and there weren’t many things validated about the size of this market,” says the CEO. When he raised the BRL 500 million, the company had already created its own economic consistency guppies enter 2023 with the mentality of beginning, bringing with it the lessons of recent years.
This week, the company inaugurated a new office in the city of São Paulo. Called Gupy Hub, the space has 700 square meters with workstations, living spaces, individual and collective stands for meetings and an auditorium for up to 60 people, as well as an exclusive area for employees of the guppies. “This studio was born 18 months ago. We always do things with great awareness, calculation and a thousand collaborations”, explains Mariana.
assertive look
With more than 700 customers, guppies has become known for its recruitment and selection platform, but positions itself as an ecosystem to grow business through HR. According to Mariana, companies in 2023 will need more than hiring a lot, involving the right people.
“A company spends at least 4 times as much hiring the wrong person because they spend their time scouting, onboarding, developing talent and then walking away. This is not the time to hire just to hire,” he notes. Analyzing the current situation, Mariana clarifies that the waves of layoffs will probably continue throughout the year, but she highlights an interesting trend for the coming months.
“Many are opting for internal mobility right now as they’re reshaping the business. For example, if you’re going to shift focus from sales to service, why not bring people who were in sales into that other area? They’re already in the company, know the culture and have been through on board. It’s almost like internal recruitment, but a much cheaper process. Companies that do this will save money and still come out ahead,” he concludes.
Watch the best moments of the interview with Mariana Dias:
Source: Terra

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