Skilfully navigating the changing services landscape, StarOfService has adopted a lean business model, prioritizing agility and productivity without sacrificing the quality of its working environment.
But behind the scenes, what's life like at StarOfService? What motivates its teams to excel every day? How do they manage to maintain high levels of employee engagement and satisfaction, while ensuring they remain competitive in their industry? And most importantly, how do they attract, recruit and retain talent in a fiercely competitive world?
This is Toni PaignantCo-Founder, who took part in our traditional interview.
Enjoy!
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Hello Toni! Can you tell us how StarofService came about?
Hello ! StarOfServiceis the adventure we began in 2012 with two partners, Lucas Lambertini and myself. Maël Leclerc, our third co-founder, joined us six months later. We needed to develop our website, and neither Lucas nor I had the necessary development skills. Maël, an old childhood friend who had always been interested in programming, was the perfect candidate for the role.
Our initial goal with StarOfService was to become the Amazon of services, i.e. to cover every possible type of service. We even wanted to include food delivery! However, after a few months, we had to change course in the face of a competitor who had launched a service very similar to ours. We decided to concentrate on services for professionals.
To attract professionals to our platform, we hired a team of sales trainees. In two months, we made over 16,560 phone calls and managed to sign up over 2,500 professionals. However, we were having trouble attracting customers looking for services. To solve this problem, we turned to SEO. We invested all our savings in training with an SEO expert, and I started writing articles and working on the SEO of our site.
In 2014, our work began to pay off. We went from 2 or 3 service requests a day to over 100, enabling us to grow by 10% a week. Buoyed by this success, we decided to raise funds. We managed to raise 400,000 euros, which enabled us to delegate certain tasks and outsource our customer service. They've been working with us for 10 years now!
And those famous trainees from the beginning, did they stay?
No, the trainees from our early days didn't stay, unfortunately. That would have been impressive, given that they weren't the best candidates in the first place. However, we kept in touch with them!
Thanks to this first team, we were able to accelerate our growth and raise 1.1 million euros in 2015. We sought out French investors for this fundraising as we were aiming for international expansion. However, many thought we'd spend those 1.1 million euros in just a few months. They didn't know our track record; we'd survived for two years on just 10,000 euros in our bank account. We knew what it meant to search for every euro. In the end, it was Point Nine Capital who put their trust in us and enabled us to go international.
As for internationalization, we started in 80 countries at the same time. We didn't hesitate, we really went all out. At the time, we were still based in our offices in Courbevoie.
In 2016, we managed to raise $10 million, which has enabled us to further consolidate our presence in the French market and internationally, and try to develop each country as much as possible.
However, this period was also marked by human resources complications. After raising the 10 million euros, we recruited quickly and hired some very bright and expensive people. Unfortunately, I think they came in a little too early in our venture and their execution was not up to our expectations. We lost a lot of time as a result. That's our story!
Thank you! And now, how many of you are there?
Today, we number around fifty. Our team remains atypical, with many people working internationally, in Ukraine, Russia, India and Madagascar. We have numerous technical teams based in these countries. In France, since Covid, we have opted for a 100% telecommuting model . We no longer have physical offices.
In terms of our business model, we connect companies or independent individuals offering a service with potential customers who need that service. Both parties can obtain a quote and choose their service provider. For the time being, we don't take any commission on the amount of the transaction. Instead, we operate on a subscription model for professionals. Depending on the type of subscription, they have access to a certain number of leads.
In terms of business areas, we're open to anything, but it's true that certain sectors stand out. Event management, for example, is still very successful. Work, home and garden services are also in high demand.
What is StarOfService's priority today?
Right now, our priority is to invest in improving our product to optimize the user experience. Financially speaking, we can achieve profitability quite easily, so we're not worried about that.
Our main objective is to further improve our platform to better meet the needs of both sides of the demand equation - customers looking for services and the professionals offering them. In the long term, we also plan to move towards a transactional model, where users could pay directly for their services on our site. At present, they receive a quote and pay the professional directly. We think this evolution could further simplify the process for our users.
What if you had to define your corporate culture in a few words?
One of our core values is the principle of doing a lot with a little. This idea has been present from the very beginning of the company and persists to this day. It's reflected not only in our operational approach, but also in the way we work with our employees, mainly via Slack.
We value an extremely lean approach, starting all projects, even the smallest ones, with MVPs completed as quickly as possible. We always aim to use as few resources as possible, which enables us to remain agile and efficient. In a market as fast-moving as ours, this speed and adaptability are essential.
This philosophy also applies to our team. We expect our employees to be able to do a lot with a little.
In terms of our corporate culture more generally, we've always valued an environment that encourages determination and passion. In our first office, for example, we had a "war room" where the team could gather to discuss ongoing projects. Even after we moved to remote working, we maintained this tradition on Slack. In our second office, we had set up a gym where the team could let off steam during breaks. It became something of a legend within the company, the idea that the co-founders would do a few pull-ups between each project.
What does a "Made in StarOfService" recruitment process look like?
We usually have a pre-qualification phase during which we filter candidates according to certain key skills. For example, if we're recruiting for a CRM-related position and we need someone with experience of sending large numbers of e-mails, we'll ask specific questions to determine whether the candidate has this experience. If the answer is no, then he's probably not right for the job and we won't proceed with the interview.
Once this pre-qualification phase has been completed, the candidate generally undergoes two to three interviews, depending on the position he or she is applying for. These interviews can be conducted by different members of our team, but the last interview is usually conducted by me or my co-founder, Lucas.
What about onboarding?
Our onboarding process is entirely remote and is designed to familiarize new recruits with our team, tools and processes. We have a comprehensive onboarding document that gives a general overview of our company, as well as introductory videos for some of our tools and procedures.
At the start of their onboarding period, each new recruit has meetings with the managers and team members with whom they will be working directly. This gives the new recruit the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the team and understand how we work together.
We also introduce the new recruit to our various channels on Slack, where we have group conversations and team-specific discussions. Our aim is to make every new recruit feel comfortable and welcome, and ready to contribute effectively as soon as possible.
Do you have a ritual or best practice to share with us, in terms of employee commitment?
Autonomy and trust are essential. It's important to give employees the space and resources they need to grow and evolve in their respective roles. This can mean encouraging them to take initiative, learn new skills and apply them in their work.
The Peter syndrome, which postulates that employees are promoted up to their level of incompetence, is a common pitfall in many organizations. One way to avoid this is to ensure that promotions or role changes are based not only on current performance, but also on the individual's ability and desire to learn and grow in their new role.
And it's important to remember that career development isn't always vertical. Sometimes, employees can find greater satisfaction and success by developing cross-functional skills or moving into new areas of interest within their current role. Ultimately, the aim should be to create a working environment where every employee feels valued, committed and empowered to make their unique contribution to the organization.
Last question: why NOT join StarOfService?
We're looking for dedicated people who can give their best and are willing to work hard to contribute to the company's development and growth. It's not the easiest environment, but it's an exciting adventure for those seeking challenge, innovation and career advancement.
Those looking for a quiet position or who aren't ready to push themselves may find our environment difficult. We are still in a startup phase, working hard to define our business model and structure, and that requires a lot of effort, resilience and adaptability from everyone.
So, if you're someone who's ready to give your best, learn and grow with us, then we'd love to have you. If you prefer a more stable and predictable working environment, then we may not be the best choice for you.
Thanks for your time and valuable insights, Toni!
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