Workadoo: Revolutionizing the Staffing Market

Abstract

The case focuses on Workadoo, a digital on-demand staffing platform that offers students temporary jobs in real-time and provides companies with an efficient way to manage their short-term staffing needs. Founded in 2015, the founders Christian Richter, Johannes Schwartz, and Marco Winter realized the lack of flexibility and presence of outdated staffing processes in the job market. The trio’s aim was to revolutionize the future of work using technology and setting new standards for flexibility regarding temporary staffing. Due to the lack of executive experience within the team, the three initial founders decided to hire an additional co-founder. Within the first year of its incorporation, Workadoo had experienced constant growth in terms of revenue and employees. However, by the end of 2016, Workadoo needed additional funding to expand its operations and was about to complete its Series A funding round. Both the legal and technological due diligence were successfully completed. However, a mistake by the newly hired co-founder led to the failure of the financial due diligence. As a result, the potential investor withdrew their money. As Workadoo was facing a financial bottleneck, the funding round had been critical to keeping the company alive. With the pressure of going bankrupt, the three initial founders had to decide whether to ‘let go’ of Workadoo and start a new venture or whether to hold on to it and try to enter a new funding round. In addition, they were facing the dilemma of firing the fourth co-founder or keeping him on board.