{"id":45279,"date":"2023-10-20T15:42:20","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/reffind-takes-wooboard-on-board-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:42:20","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:42:20","slug":"reffind-takes-wooboard-on-board-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/reffind-takes-wooboard-on-board-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Reffind takes WooBoard on board – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
A Sydney-based startup that began as hand-written thank yous on post-it notes has been acquired by ASX-listed human resources tech startup Reffind.<\/p>\n
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WooBoard was borne out of Pollenizer co-founder Mick Liubinskas\u2019s days working at IBM in the 90s, where he gained a reputation for giving out encouraging notes to his colleagues.<\/p>\n
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He would later reinvent this idea at the incubator in 2011 as a way to improve employee recognition.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe aim was to make people love their jobs by making recognition a daily occurrence instead of a yearly one,\u201d Liubinskas tells StartupSmart.<\/i><\/p>\n
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\u201cMost people get an hour of feedback a year at a performance review, and most of it is negative or constructive.\u201d<\/p>\n
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After brainstorming the idea at Pollenizer, the team adopted a lean startup model to test it out.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe tested it without writing any code, so I bought some cue cards and star stickers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
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After a very basic and successful MVP, a software startup emerged.<\/p>\n
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\u201cA fun little game on record cards and sticky notes turned into a software application,\u201d Pollenizer chief startup scientist Phil Morle adds.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s one that is quite dear to our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A strategic acquisition<\/b><\/p>\n
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WooBoard is now a global employee recognition platform, with nearly 50 companies including Uber adopting its peer recognition-based gamified techniques.<\/p>\n
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The startup has now been acquired by Reffind in a strategic deal that will still see the same WooBoard team operating under Reffind\u2019s product offering Embrace and immediately expanding to the US.<\/p>\n
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The acquisition is entirely based on Reffind scrip, with Pollenizer saying this is so the team stays involved and invested in the company.<\/p>\n
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The deal included $1.25 million of Reffind scrip issued six months after the deal, and year-out of between $900,000 and $2.9 million of shares dependent on Reffind hitting some set milestones.<\/p>\n
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Liubinskas says they never wanted to make it a monetary transaction.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a strategic partnership rather than a full exit,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny reward we get is going to be based on both WooBoard and Reffind being successful.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere\u2019s still a lot of work to do on that front. The job\u2019s not over.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A dating process<\/b><\/p>\n
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The most time-consuming part of the deal wasn\u2019t even the money side of things, Morle says, but rather just making sure that the two teams would be a good fit.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s a bit like a dating process,\u201d he says. \u201cYou want to know the people you\u2019re working with are going to be great to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A startup acquiring another startup is a rare sight in Australia, he says, and is something we need to be seeing more for the ecosystem to evolve.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIf we look at markets like the US, we see the momentum that\u2019s inside the ecosystem generating so many companies,\u201d Morle says.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThat comes from this sort of activity \u2013 companies buying other companies \u2013 and we don\u2019t do enough of that in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n
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