Leapsome is an all-in-one intelligent people enablement platform. CEOs and HR teams at over 1,400 forward-thinking companies (including Spotify, monday.com, and Unity) utilize Leapsome’s intelligent people enablement platform to drive employee development, productivity, and engagement. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Leapsome co-CEO Jenny von Podewils co-CEO to learn more about the company.
Jenny von Podewils’ Background
Von Podewils’ background is in sales and business development. And Von Podewils said:
“Prior to Leapsome, I led teams in business development, corporate development, and digital transformation roles in media and tech companies. I studied at the Universities of St. Gallen and Oxford.”
Formation Of Leapsome
How did the idea for Leapsome come together? Von Podewils shared:
“Both my co-founder, Kajetan, and I witnessed a lack of feedback processes and structures in previous workplaces.”
“These experiences made us realize that the absence of an effective feedback system leads to a breakdown in communication. That puts a strain on working relationships and damages the business. We set out to build a company that we would have personally thrived in as employees, with a work culture we felt was missing in the corporate and tech worlds at the time.”
“This is why we built feedback into the Leapsome DNA. It remains a hugely important and decisive part of our company culture today.”
“We actually just launched new research based on a global survey of 2500 working professionals conducted by YouGov. One of the standout findings was that 3 in 4 employees want more regular feedback (both constructive and recognition) from their managers. Not only that, but 8 in 10 employees said receiving constructive feedback makes them more productive.”
“This backs up our belief that a good feedback culture is a strong predictor of organizational success.”
Core Products
What are Leapsome’s core products and features? Von Podewils explained:
“The Leapsome platform offers an integrated suite of tools for people enablement. These include modules for Goal Setting & OKRs, Performance Reviews and 360s, Competency Frameworks, Learning & Onboarding, Engagement Surveys, Feedback & Praise, Compensation & Promotions, and Meeting Management.”
Evolution Of Leapsome’s Technology
How has Leapsome’s technology evolved since launching? Von Podewils noted:
“Our first feature was instant feedback; our interface wasn’t the prettiest.”
“Since then, we’ve developed several modules and features that make the Leapsome platform a complete solution for employee engagement, feedback, performance, learning, and compensation management. We’re constantly researching people management and enablement processes and methodologies, as well as optimizing our user interface — which is now frequently praised as user-friendly and easy to use. We’re very proud of that.”
“Most recently, we have (of course!) implemented several generative AI-backed enhancements to help users automate and streamline certain tasks so they can spend more time on the things that matter. This includes a generative AI-backed enhancement in our Feedback module offers leaders an easy way to transform their thoughts into constructive comments enriched with ideas on improvement initiatives, giving their team members more impactful takeaways.”
“We know that employees and HR leaders are embracing using AI at work. In fact, one in four of us uses AI on a daily basis, and 73% of workers use AI at least once a week. 90% of workers find that AI is improving their productivity. We have many more AI-backed feature enhancements in the pipeline.”
“One important thing I’d like to highlight about our modules is: While we have several modules, what makes the platform strong is that these modules communicate with each other. The connections between the modules provide more value than any individual module provides on its own. Every feature or module works well as a standalone, but the real magic happens when using them together because of the way that they are interconnected.”
“Some examples of how the platform modules are interconnected include:
— Segmenting survey results by performance quantile
— Connecting learning paths to development goals
— Accessing past feedback and goals from meetings
— Viewing feedback context during calibration context”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Von Podewils cited:
“Two spring to mind – both in 2022. After successfully bootstrapping to 10 million ARR, we raised a Series A of US$60 million in March 2022, led by Insight Partners. Later the same year, in September, we launched our US presence with an NYC office and on-the-ground team.”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Von Podewils about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“We’re proud to help HR leaders and CEOs at more than 1,500 forward-thinking companies drive employee engagement, productivity, and development. We have always been deeply focused on customer feedback. In the early days, we first built relationships with target customers and sought their feedback to inform our product’s early versions.”
“One recent customer success story is the leading enterprise automation platform, Workato, which employs 800 people. Initially, the team at Workato was looking for a survey tool to support them during a rapid growth phase. They needed something that allowed employees to share their opinions anonymously and give valuable, honest feedback to the people team and leadership to help inform initiatives. They chose Leapsome because they realized it could offer them the customization they needed. On top of that, Leapsome offered an all-in-one approach to people enablement and would allow them to eventually expand survey results into further action by including other modules such as goals and reviews. This is exactly what I referred to above – the value of the all-in-one interconnected platform.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Von Podewils concluded:
“We aim to make work more fulfilling for everyone, everywhere. Our goal as the must-have platform for great people enablement processes is to impact the work-life of 1.5 million employees by 2025.”
