In conversation with 2021’s Main Accelerator Award winner Tigris
An interview with Maikel Neelen, CTO & co-founder of Tigris, about their company's growth and participation in the Main Software 50 awards.
During the Main Software 50 2021, Tigris, developer of software for the flex industry, won the Main Accelerator Award. This award is meant for the best performing company with a revenue under 1 million euro and not older than 5 years, looking at revenue, recurring revenue and profit. By doubling their revenue in 2021, Tigris is no longer in the race for the Main Accelerator award, but for a spot in the top 50. A retrospective with Maikel Neelen, CTO & co-founder of Tigris.
In which market does Tigris operate and what developments do you see?
”Tigris is positioning itself as an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) and staffing software player. With an ATS application, flex organizations can manage the entire recruitment and selection process. We are creating a complete solution that goes beyond just a SaaS solution. We are transforming into a platform in which three parties know how to find each other: the temporary employment agency, the client and the candidates.
The candidate can apply on our platform tigris.works, where an application comes directly into our app. In this way, a candidate can get in touch with and apply for positions from all the employment agencies that use the Tigris platform. The first step towards a ‘job board’ has been made, where the ultimate goal is to set up a total platform for the candidate, where the best recruiters are active to guide these candidates to a job.
We focus on staffing and secondment agencies, and developments there are moving fairly quickly. For example, some players offer a matching platform for temporary employment agencies and candidates in the market and do not present this as a software solution, while under the hood it is actually a software company. In addition, you see software providers (platforms) increasingly making solutions for the employer directly. Where you first saw that platforms only delivered job applications, they now offer more features such as dashboards and ATS functionalities, making the management and contacting of candidates easier. It is increasingly becoming a total solution instead of separate software products.”
”We are now with 15 colleagues. At the moment we have enough people. The software is scalable, so we said from the beginning: if we get a large team that is busy with manual work, then we have done something wrong in the software. In addition to scalability, we value efficiency.”
”It was completely new for us to participate in a competition. We have a certain vision and have been building internally for the past few years. Of course we received positive feedback from customers, but we are not busy comparing ourselves to others.
Other providers of software for the flex industry have often been around for a while. They have built up a good market position, but on the other hand we have a refreshing, new vision and are developing a completely new, innovative software platform. We are more often winning it over competitors.
By participating in the Main 50, and winning the Accelerator Award, we received external confirmation. Not only are our customers happy, we are winning more and more new assignments and are therefore apparently among the best Dutch software start-ups. Besides winning the award, the event was fun to participate in: we talked to acquaintances from the software industry and met new people.
Winning the award is a boost internally. Every day we work very hard on our product and on providing the best customer service. Winning the award feels like a reward and has a positive effect on the team spirit.”
”Yes definitely, we got to speak with several partners and we also built a different network. There will be more visibility: some effects cannot be directly attributed, but winning the award definitely contributes to extra growth. Other types of companies also became interested in Tigris, such as possible financiers.
We use the award logo on our website and banners. Customers often ask about it at exhibitions. This gives a certain body to the award and organization. Even if you are a smaller team you can make it big.”
”It was an interesting, informative session. During the workshop we learned how Main’s team looks at certain developments in the market and what structures you use to guide a company in their further growth. The way the team at Main looks at opportunities in the software market for the flex industry is strongly related to our own product strategy. So for us, the workshop confirmed that we are well on our way. This year we will therefore try to score high in the Top-50 ranking.”
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