"We've been going in the wrong direction for three years"

Robin Sudermann has made a pivot with his start-up talentsconnect. In this interview, he explains how it went and why he decided against a fresh start.

Robin Sudermann could have given up around five years ago. Instead, he decided to realign the entire company and is benefiting from this today. At first, the start-up was a job platform, as there probably are many. Today, they offer this service as Software-as-a-Service, meaning companies can integrate the technology into their existing infrastructure. Looking back, he says there were four things that went wrong: a lack of experience, too little guidance, personal failure and an initial lack of planning. The big challenge came afterwards: the new start. Here he tells us what he took away from it.

Mr. Sudermann, you made a pivot. What went wrong and what did you learn from it?

When you are a co-founder and CEO at the same time, the main reason for a pivot is usually your own fault. At the time, I lacked the necessary experience and also a certain amount of expertise. As talentsconnect was my first start-up, I simply didn't have that yet. In addition, there was a lack of guidance and too little critical scrutiny from our investors at the time. If I look back to our beginnings in 2013, the questions in the first financing rounds with business angels were rather superficial and there was a lack of a deeper analytical view that a VC, for example, brings to the table.

In combination, we then went in the wrong direction for three years - that's how I see it today with a few years' distance. When you're in that situation yourself, you don't want to admit it because you're naturally totally motivated to untie the knot and hope that only a few screws need to be turned. Looking back, the positive thing is that this phase was incredibly helpful in developing me personally and talentsconnect to where we are today: With the necessary experience, expertise and focus under our belts. I really enjoy passing on this learning to young founders.

You also had to deal with personal failure. How did that go?

A pivot is always a symbol that you - and in our case, of course, especially me as CEO - were not alert enough to many small mistakes and perhaps didn't dare to take the uncomfortable path of changing direction early on. Biting the bullet is often seen as a positive thing and is sometimes simply necessary - in our case, however, it was not the right choice. In my opinion, the question of "When do I push through and when do I admit to myself that I can't go on like this?" is a very fine line to walk.

An open feedback culture and a constructive approach to mistakes are essential when founding a company, for a pivot and in the context of a strong focus on innovation

Robin Sudermann, CEO talentsconnect

My takeaways: An open feedback culture and a constructive approach to mistakes are essential when founding a company, for a pivot and in the context of a strong focus on innovation. I would even go so far as to say that a pivot is the "big version" of fail forward. Today, I therefore try to identify mistakes as early as possible so that I can correct them quickly. A mistake is not a failure, but essential, especially in a start-up or innovation context, and therefore the basis for developing something.

You have then decided to pivot. Why not just throw off the ballast and start again?

"Why don't you just drive the whole thing to the wall and then start again with your learnings? Why are you doing a pivot and taking all your shareholders and employees with you?" I heard these questions a lot in 2016. What was always important to me: taking responsibility. Because, in fact, we held on to our business model for far too long until the pivot, even though it was clearly no longer working. And even if we had the best of intentions, it was ultimately not responsible. After all, it wasn't just about us founders, but also about investors' money and jobs.

The pivot was definitely the more difficult path, but for me it was the only right one. It allowed the vast majority of employees, investors and business angels to stay on board. The pivot has made me even more aware of the responsibility to build a functioning case - it drives me every day. Looking back, I can say that the pivot has essentially changed me for the better as a founder and entrepreneur; I now make decisions with a full sense of responsibility.

You also mentioned a lack of planning as a challenge. What do you mean by that?

That is actually another aspect that contributed to the pivot! Due to a lack of experience, we hired employees shortly after the company was founded without knowing exactly how we wanted to strategically develop the team as a whole - there was no development plan for the employees or the organization. On the one hand, this cost us a lot of learning and, at the same time, we brought the right key players on board too late, i.e. people with a lot of experience in central areas such as technology, product and sales. The situation was similar with the founders and at C-level. Today, the entire process is strategically well thought out - we have become extremely focused here and are making targeted investments in expertise.

Then the new start: how did that work?

It was definitely not a "phoenix from the ashes" moment. A pivot is a new beginning, yes - but there is a lot of work to be done before the feeling of a new start really sets in. A pivot must be followed by action. Tidying up, rearranging, redoing. The whole process is not very glamorous, but it is an opportunity to draw the right conclusions and regain the trust of everyone involved - the employees who have agreed to continue on this path together and the investors who may even have to provide bridging finance to ensure that the plan for a fresh start works at all.

Thank you very much for the interview.

Personal details: Robin Sudermann is co-founder and CEO of talentsconnect, a Cologne-based HR tech start-up.