Workleap is an ecosystem of powerfully simple employee and digital experience software that helps modern workplaces have a greater impact at a fast pace. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Workleap president and general manager Martin Gourdeau to learn more.
Martin Gourdeau’s Background
Gourdeau’s background is a mix of technology, operations, and business strategy. And Gourdeau said:
“I studied computer science but was lucky to be exposed to a wide range of industries and markets early in my career from scientific research to movie production, video games, consulting and in-flight entertainment. Witnessing how many industries and business models work early on helped me quickly narrow down my passion for technology and products.”
“At a high level, my role at Workleap revolves around driving strategy, corporate development and ultimately our growth in the employee experience market. I report to our board and am also accountable for our consolidated P&L / financial performance.”
“How I usually sum it up is: I operate the business at the intersection of ambition and sustainable growth.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Gourdeau’s favorite memory working for Workleap so far? Gourdeau reflected:
“I would probably say our first gathering after the COVID lockdowns. Having onboarded remotely, I was very excited to see everyone in person, and it didn’t disappoint.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has Gourdeau faced in building Workleap? Gourdeau acknowledged:
“When I joined Workleap in 2020, the world faced immense uncertainty amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. One of my core beliefs is that people are the most important part of any business. During that unprecedented time, the value of our people was even more apparent. Returning to product development after many years in a consulting and advisory role reminded me that building excellent products is difficult. While best practices exist, there’s no perfect formula or checklist.”
“Product is a very complex thing — and it only becomes more complicated as you scale. At Workleap, we take a balanced approach, leveraging incremental, data-driven improvements and pure innovation to envision solutions customers want but don’t yet know they need. With newer products from our Innovation Lab, we aim for about 80% innovation and 20% data-driven changes. But for more established products like ShareGate that have been around for over a decade, we still push hard on innovation but lean more on abundant user data for insights into future needs.”
Core Products
What are Workleap’s core products and features? Gourdeau explained:
“Workleap is a growing ecosystem of simple, essential employee experience tools — from onboarding to engagement to digital experience to talent development. Our core products include:
Workleap Officevibe – the simplest engagement, recognition and performance management tools.
Workleap Onboarding – a better way to structure and automate new hires’ journey.
Workleap Skills – the next gen career development tool to map skills and accelerate teams’ growth.
Workleap LMS – the most efficient way to create and organize in-house employee training.
ShareGate by Workleap – a leading M365 management solution, from migration to management of day-to-day operations.
NEW: Pingboard – leading org chart and employee directory capabilities.”
Evolution Of Workleap’s Technology
How has Workleap’s technology evolved since launching? Gourdeau noted:
“The company started 17 years ago solely as a services company before leadership realized that building our own products was the best path forward. ShareGate, our first product, debuted to help companies migrate to the cloud. A few years later, Officevibe launched.”
“Then, in 2017, we dropped services to focus solely on product development and improvement. We’ve recently expanded into new products through our internal innovation lab and strategic acquisitions. We built Workleap Onboarding (formerly known as Softstart) for onboarding from scratch in our innovation lab. Workleap LMS (formerly known as Didacte) for learning management came through an acquisition.”
“Our technology has evolved significantly from custom client services solutions to a best-in-class ecosystem of EX tools. We’ve come a long way technologically from our early days. Now, we’re focused on bringing together all the employee and digital experience solutions we’ve built to offer companies a comprehensive platform.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of Workleap’s most significant milestones? Gourdeau cited:
“Workleap is on a growth journey. Some of our significant milestones include:
– All of our product launches — ShareGate in 2009, Officevibe in 2013 to the most recent with Workleap Onboarding (formerly known as Softstart) and Workleap Skills (formerly known asTalentscope).
– Transitioning fully from services to product-only in 2017. – Acquiring Workleap LMS (formerly known as Didacte) in 2022 to expand our product portfolio and reach new customers.
– Securing our first outside funding of CA$125 million in 2023 with plans to use this funding to help us accelerate our growth.
– Rebranding to Workleap in 2023 to reflect our focus on the employee experience and bring together our existing family of products and future products. The Workleap rebrand marks an essential new chapter for our company as we strengthen our commitment to combining people and technology to drive business excellence. Each milestone builds on the last as we strive to make Workleap a leader in employee experience software.
– Our recent acquisition of Pingboard in 2023
Elevating Business Performance
Could you discuss how your solution elevates business performance within the complexities of today’s landscape? Gourdeau replied:
“It’s almost a cliche by now, but it’s safe to say the workplace is never going back to what it used to be only a few years ago. The workplace is now defined as the people you work with and the tools you use to collaborate. Everything else matters a lot less than it used to. Our products help make this new “workplace” simple, effective and foster the importance of people in the business. Whether it’s onboarding, skills and learning management and optimisation, engagement, performance management or optimizing productivity and collaboration through MS 365, we live these core tenets through our products.”
Funding/Revenue
After asking Gourdeau about funding and revenue information, he revealed:
“Since its founding, our company has been bootstrapped and profitable. Running a sustainable model based on strong fundamentals has always been a core belief. In terms of revenue metrics, we are a private company so most of this data is confidential but I can share that we recently surpassed the $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) run rate milestone, which is quite significant. We accepted the first external funding in our 17-year history — a CA$125 million investment from global investment group CDPQ — just ahead of our rebranding to Workleap. This funding came at the perfect time, enabling us to move forward on our plans to broaden product offerings, in part through strategic acquisitions. We have everything we need to accelerate our growth and amplify our presence and market share.”
M&A Ambitions
When asking Gourdeau to discuss the company’s M&A ambitions and the potential impact on your market presence, Gourdeau replied:
“Having completed our first acquisition about six months ago has marked a new chapter for the business. This was a significant milestone for the business as it represented a few firsts for the organization and ultimately proved that we could go through the process effectively.”
“Taking a step back, the bootstrapped organic growth generated until that point has created a unique foundation, not only financially but from a product strategy perspective as well. We are in a position to enable our ambitions via a three-pronged approach:
1.) Innovation and growth via our existing products.
2.) New products coming from our Innovation lab.
3.) Future acquisitions. We plan on becoming a major player in the EX space in our target market, and although our future growth will undoubtedly come from a mix of those three verticals, it’s safe to say M&A has been underleveraged up to now. Our recent funding announcement only reinforces how seriously we are taking this opportunity, and the recent macroeconomic developments are favoring businesses like Workleap with strong fundamentals and proven sustainable growth, so timing is on our side.
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Workleap from its competition? Gourdeau affirmed:
Resiliency. For most of our 17-year history, our unique bootstrapped business model set us apart — we had no external investors or debt until our recent funding. We’ve been flexible and stable through disruptive market changes, allowing us to build a robust team of 400 and serve thousands of customers in over 100 countries. Our products stand out for their simplicity, focusing on fixing core business issues versus complex enterprise tools. We specifically target making work easier for SMBs. And our suite of products bridges the gap between IT, HR and employees — improving EX through purpose-built tools. We bring together technology, people, and processes to help organizations succeed.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of Workleap’s future company goals? Gourdeau concluded:
“We aim to build the absolute best end-to-end employee experience platform, help SMB customers generate exceptional value and succeed, empower people to do their best work, and make work really work for organizations. We have all the ingredients in place today — an amazing team, stellar culture, proven products with happy customers, ample resources, and a winning strategy. All we need is strong execution, and I’m confident we have that, too.”
This interview was conducted in September of 2023.
