News Summary

Simon De Baene, co-founder and CEO of Workleap, shared insights into his company’s approach of continual product destruction and reinvention at TechTO’s Toronto event. Initially starting as GSoft in 2006, the company ventured into product development with ShareGate, a tool to assist cloud migrations. However, after two years of adding excessive features without gaining traction, De Baene decided to completely rebuild the product, focusing on simplicity and direct customer engagement. This strategy led to a successful relaunch and sales surge. Despite past lessons, the company faced similar challenges with the launch of Officevibe in 2013, an HR tool. De Baene emphasized the human resistance to change and the importance of challenging this instinct in product development. Workleap continues to apply this strategy, seeing it as central to their operations.