Posting date:
17/02/2023
Digital health wearables start-up, European commercial build out
Case study
The overview
We partnered with a European digital health start-up, specialising in wearable technology, to support their international growth in Europe after successfully completing their funding at seed round. The company approached us because they needed a strong marketing, sales, and digital product management team to position their product for commercialisation in Europe.
The challenge
Our partner was relatively new to the European market and the talent pool was small, given that not many companies were investing in developing similar digital health products. A further challenge was that they wanted to hire in Germany but did not have an entity set up there. Due to the changing market conditions and regulations within the digital health space, we also needed to make a change in strategy halfway through the process and had to adjust our search to accommodate a different skill set.
The solution
We took the time to fully understand our partner’s needs and assigned a project leader and a seasoned recruiter with experience in the rare disease space in France to focus on this project.
We worked consultatively with their stakeholders to listen to their requirements, advise on the market, and develop an employer value proposition that articulated their vision and the growth opportunity for candidates.
We began to search simultaneously for a Head of Sales, a Content Marketing Manager, a Senior Product Manager, and a Business Development Manager. Through utilising our teams across Germany and the UK, we were able to identify candidates coming from competitor digital health companies and present shortlists for all roles within 2 weeks. As we were still mid-pandemic, a lot of candidates were nervous about making the move to a start-up company, which meant that we needed to define a compelling value proposition to engage them in the process.
It was also determined halfway through the project that the focus of the Head of Sales would change to a more consumer focused approach, meaning we had to start over and find a different skill set for the same role.
To enable them to build their team in Germany, we introduced the HR team to our external payroll partners, who helped them set up a temporary entity and employ the German candidates.
The outcome
• We helped our partner place 6 candidates within Marketing, Product Design/Management and Sales functions across Europe
• We established an ongoing partnership to support them with further hiring in both Europe and the US
• The company are going from strength to strength and are a strong example of how changing your strategy early on can be the difference between hiring the right people and not
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