Case study:
How Jobilla Grew Their Monthly Revenue From 230K to 800K in a year
Jobilla, Finland
Industry: Recruitment services and software
Size: 145 people
Year launched: 2015
Total funding: 10M
Funding stage: Series A
Scaling Jobilla By Improving Transparency
Management of Jobilla started first to assess opportunities on two levels together with Cocoon program. They were looking for the lowest hanging fruits to make scaling as flowing as possible and become aware of the main under the face value challenges they need to face during the journey.
The main discoveries from the assessment phase became the core of Jobilla and Cocoon collaboration. These were:
-
Structural changes
-
First, to move from a personality-based organizational structure to a role-based one, which is more supportive for the fast scaling phase of the company.
-
Grow the management team in size to bring on a broader perspective.
-
Change of roles inside the management team with a clear description of responsibilities. Divide the shareholders' duties from the structural role responsibilities.
-
-
Personal relationships
-
Get comfortable with being vulnerable in the presence of the business partners.
-
Create more transparency in everyday actions to have desired workplace culture
-
Make every founder's personal needs and wants known to other founders and using this knowledge in the decision-making process.
-
Constant individual work from each founder in transmuting their personal shortcomings.
-
If you want to be a professional athlete, you would probably hire a coach?
Cocoon is just that but for a business.
If you take building your business seriously, you should consider Cocoon. I see the largest benefit in Cocoon focus is on personal development and not just business. Business is built by people and this is why this kind of coaching should always start from building yourself.
I highly recommend the Cocoon process for all the companies with multiple founders and want to achieve big goals together. No team ever works perfectly and it really helps to get outside professionals to coach you to work better.
Henri Nordström
Jobilla co-founder & CEO
What did we do?
We started with Cocoon management assessment to get a snapshot of the business and relationships through the management's eyes. The outcomes of this process became the base for Jobilla management to choose the changes they want to put into practice.
Every system, by its nature, works against major changes, which means that the more significant the change, the more effort and persistence it takes from the management team. It is the same for personal inner changes as for cultural and structural changes in the business.
For this, management members chose suitable personal mentors with whom they started to work in 1-on-1 meetings with the occasional shadow mentor. To speed up the self-confidence growing process and raise the level of vulnerability, Jobilla's CEO and CFO participated in Cocoon Training Days.
After that, we started with group mentoring sessions, led by the company mentor Rein Lemberpuu, aiming to align the journeys and share the newest findings of challenges. Group sessions helped to be constantly on the same frequency and hence make new decisions without slowing down the growth.
There were many very beneficial learnings for Jobilla founders. Understanding how to work with fear and ambition. Tools for confronting and being honest with each other. Knowing where to focus on strengths and where weaknesses need to be addressed. Using agreements instead of expectations. Learning to communicate more openly and explicitly. Reducing defensiveness and hence becoming faster learners. Taking into account different personality types, nationalities, cultural backgrounds, and age gaps while addressing leadership challenges.
Rein Lemberpuu
Cocoon mentor
Results
Aligning company culture more to the CEO's vision has tightened the trust between the company leaders which brought more freedom and confidence into everyday decision making. This has brought more joy and satisfaction into the business building experience.
Personal growth has allowed them to raise the inside communication to a whole new level and adapt the company structure to what is needed in the growth phase. The structure has more layers, and the management team has five members.
Jobilla founders have been satisfied with the changes they have experienced and included new management team members to the Cocoon program to keep the same personal growth pace.
The new leaders have supported the scaling across the company, making it possible to meet the demand from the market. Together with growing KPIs, a powerful and solid management team was key to securing A-round investment and setting Jobilla to the accelerated growth trajectory.
What has changed in Jobilla while working with Cocoon Program?
Henri: Our communication has become a lot better. I've become a lot more confident in leading the business. We've grown very rapidly also before the program, but important is that the growth did not break us. Personal development has also been very important not just in business but also in every area of life.
Janne: CEO has developed into a great leader and gained confidence. More structured organization. Right people to the right roles, including my personal change of position. We have grown 3x in revenue and team size. The program has taught me that openness, also related to difficult topics, will lead to improvements and personal well-being. I've kept too many things inside me previously. Everything is bigger and better.
We broke 500K in monthly revenue now in September [2021]. When we first met with Cocoon about 9 months ago, our monthly revenue record was 230K. It has been an excellent year for us and we feel that Cocoon has helped us a lot in our growth story, thank you!
.png)
Janne Rotko
Jobilla co-founder & CFO