Confirm is an all-in-one people platform fixing what’s broken with performance reviews. Grounded in the science of Organizational Network Analysis (ONA), Confirm gives leaders a true view of each employee’s influence, impact, and actual contribution. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Confirm co-founder and CEO Josh Merrill and co-founder and president David Murray to learn more about the company.
Background Of The Founders
Josh Merrill is the co-founder and CEO of Confirm. Previously, Josh was Chief Product Officer at Carta, Founder of TapCanvas, and co-founder of MogoTix. And he is also an angel investor in a number of tech startups. He has been building web products since graduating from Carnegie Mellon in 2005.
David Murray is the co-founder and President of Confirm. He is an entrepreneur, computer scientist, product designer, and angel investor. Originally a product manager at Google from 2006-2008, he received the Google Founders Award and EMG Award for his work on Gmail. He joined Doctor.com (acquired by Press Ganey in 2020) through the sale of his company, ReferBright, in 2014. He co-founded Confirm in 2019 with Josh Merrill. He holds a B.S. in CS and HCI from Carnegie Mellon as well as an M.S. in CS (HCI focus) from Stanford.
Formation Of Confirm
How did the idea for the company come together? Merrill and Murray said:
“As executives at various startups, we found it hard to fathom that at every company we were a part of, most of the company’s money was spent on payroll, but the tools and processes to identify top and bottom performers were terrible. We found that awesome employees who didn’t know how to “sell” to their manager were being overlooked. Toxic employees who knew how to manage up somehow kept being promoted, while the quiet contributors and people who were sought for help and advice somehow weren’t. Meanwhile, people would do these cherry-picked 360 peer reviews, picking people who would say good things about them, and none of the executive leadership trusted what came out of the performance review process. And yet, we spend most of our money on talent. We knew something was broken about how talent management decisions were being made.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Merrill and Murray reflected:
“We’re a fully remote team – earlier this year, we flew the entire company out to Panama (because it was the closest/cheapest location where everyone from every country could get together all in one place). In addition to working together, we spent some amazing time at the Panama Canal, shopping, doing a sunset boat cruise, and bonding activities like games. It was amazing to connect in person, and it reminded us how amazing our team is, both from a work perspective and a human perspective.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Merrill and Murray affirmed:
“Confirm is the only performance platform built on the science of Organizational Network Analysis (ONA). This provides a quantitative view of performance based on every employee’s view of one another. ONA allows companies to measure performance in the way it really happens: through networks. Through this method, Confirm gives companies, leaders, and employees insight into high performers and those that need additional support, allowing organizations to confidently and accurately make promotion, PIP, and retention decisions based on clear data –– rather than subjective opinions of managers.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Merrill and Murray explained:
“At Confirm, we often hear about the disappointment and frustration of performance reviews. One thing is clear: traditional performance reviews from the early and mid-1900s weren’t built for this world of work. The more networked our jobs become, the more broken traditional performance reviews will feel. The Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) approach that powers Confirm’s platform solves this by providing a quantifiable viewpoint on performance by taking into account each employee’s perceptions of their coworkers. ONA empowers companies to assess performance by comprehending the intricacies of networks. Through this method, Confirm offers organizations, leaders, and employees valuable insights into high-performing individuals and those in need of additional support.”
“Confirm’s platform focuses on strengthening the processes for performance reviews, engagement surveys, setting career goals, managing talent, and receiving feedback to grow. Confirm leverages GPT-4 to help managers summarize and write performance review feedback, empowering them to finish reviews fast without sacrificing quality. The platform also allows users to unlock deeper insights, such as flight risks, with survey results enriched with ONA data. Users are empowered to streamline progress monitoring and gain real-time visibility into goal achievement, as well as create a consistent way for everyone to track OKRs. With ONA data, the Confirm platform reveals who the organization sees as driving impact or influence to make sure businesses don’t lose quiet contributors. The platform tracks and benchmarks employee progress and development over time with data-driven insights.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any specific bottlenecks in your sector of work recently? Merrill and Murray acknowledged:
“Right now, we’re hearing more and more from our customers about growing revenue while maintaining headcount. The tech industry has seen higher-than-average involuntary turnover rates so far in 2023, and HR teams, in particular, have seen significant reductions. As a result, the remaining HR professionals are being asked to do even more with even less heading into 2024.”
“This will make next year the ‘year of efficiency’ –– but fairness and equality must also be the top priority. Top performers, for example, should be recognized and rewarded for their efforts, especially if they’ll be saddled with more work. And on the flip side, companies need to better identify and help poor performers to truly boost efficiency. We see a lot of bottlenecks as a result of this: managers and leaders running leaner teams, doing more with less, and performance management –– and equity in employee development, recognition, reward and promotions –– suffering as a result.”
Evolution Of Confirm’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Merrill and Murray pointed out:
“Our recently raised Series A funds will be used to fuel product development and boost investment in sales and marketing. In addition to our ONA-powered reviews, Confirm’s platform offers several ChatGPT-4 enabled features, which the new capital will also help further develop, including auto-drafted employee reviews using input from peers and managers, auto-generated employee engagement survey insights, and auto-calibrated manager ratings for employees to minimize bias in calibration sessions.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Merrill and Murray cited:
“In August 2023, we were just named as one of the “Top HR Products of 2023” in the Talent Management category by Human Resource Executive. In May, we were honored with a Fast Company 2023 World Changing Ideas Award in the workplace category and recognized with an HR Tech Award from Lighthouse Research & Advisory for Best Talent Intelligence Solution. In March, SHRMLabs selected Confirm as one of five companies from a pool of more than 200 to participate in its 2023 WorkplaceTech Accelerator program, which helps scale and grow startups focused on workplace and future of work technologies.”
“In addition, our Series A funding round, announced in August 2023, will power Confirm’s next stage of growth. We’re proud of our team for creating a world where employees are recognized and rewarded for their hard work and positive impact, not their ability to play office politics. Most recently, we won the UNLEASH Digital Startup Competition.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Merrill and Murray about customer success stories, they cited:
“As mass resignations spread in 2021, the executive team at Thoropass (a complete compliance solution) began to have concerns about their workforce. As a growing business, losing mission-critical employees would spell disaster for its growth efforts and culture. They needed to implement a strategy to retain the company’s mission-critical employees. The first step was to identify these critical employees by leveraging performance reviews; however, today’s performance review technology doesn’t give HR leaders instant visibility into who’s truly making the most impact in a company. In addition, manager reviews, and 360 feedback both do a poor job of capturing the full picture of an employee’s contribution.”
“In just one performance cycle with Confirm, Thoropass knew precisely who their most influential employees were based on the feedback of the whole team, not just managers or a select group of leaders – a stark contrast to performance review tools today. During a period when most companies were losing 30-40% of their workforce, Thoropass had less than 10% turnover. In addition, they retained 100% of their list of top performers. With the help of Confirm’s ONA data, Thoropass saved millions of dollars by retaining its top performers – all while the U.S. saw a historical number of resignations.”
Funding
After asking Merrill and Murray about the company’s funding, they revealed:
“In August 2023, Confirm raised $6.2 million in Series A funding, bringing our total investment to $11.4 million. The round was led by Spero Ventures with participation from SHRMLabs, Elefund, Gaingels, Black Angel Group, and several of our existing customers.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Merrill and Murray concluded:
“Confirm is actively pursuing several ambitious objectives in the years ahead. We are committed to establishing a global standard for impartial performance evaluations, with the main goal of combating workplace discrimination and advocating for DEI. Our vision is the cultivation of merit-based work environments where contributions are genuinely appreciated, resulting in improved efficiency and innovation. Our dedication to prioritizing employee well-being is shown through our plans to revamp traditional performance assessment processes.”
“We aim to provide greater clarity and transparency, ultimately elevating job satisfaction and reducing staff turnover rates. We embrace a reevaluation of the role of HR and increase the emphasis on talent development to strengthen workplace culture. Most importantly, our commitment to ensuring equal opportunities for individuals of all backgrounds through our data-driven system is at the top of our list. By 2033, we anticipate that Confirm’s innovative methods will become the industry norm, ushering in a new era characterized by equitable, efficient, and inclusive workplaces worldwide.”
