Teamleader takes charge in battle against time

After last week’s news that Teamleader has secured a € 10M investment, it’s clear that things are going terrific for the Belgian Saas-startup. This milestone in funding almost overshadowed another newsworthy Teamleader story. The company recently held a ‘Tijdstrijd’ event in Utrecht, aimed at helping entrepreneurs fight the seeming unwinnable battle against time. Teamleader recently committed research company iVOX to investigate how entrepreneurs manage their time and the results were alarming.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

There’s nothing wrong with working hard. But with more than 50 % of Dutch entrepreneurs stating they feel their whole life is centred around their work, something is going wrong. The above statistic is not just a random fact, it is actually part of the outcome of a research conducted by iVOX. Commissioned by Belgian startup Teamleader, iVOX researched how Dutch entrepreneurs feel about their jobs, their time management and work pressure. They interviewed over 420 respondents and the outcome shows there is a lot needs to be improved. Entrepreneurs should have more time for innovation and passion,  instead of spending hours on time-consuming, not-so-inspiring tasks. This may reduce the length of their working weeks, which currently amount  to 54,5 hours on average.

Work never stops

The most important finding in this research is that when you are an entrepreneur, work never seems to end . 56% indicated they struggle with not thinking about work at night, while 52% indicated they feel their life is only about work. 38% of respondents feel that this causes tension within families. Running a company can be just like raising a baby, a lot of time and love need to be invested. But the rush of running your own company can easily disappear when you no longer have enough time to help with raising your baby. The 9 to 5 mentality may be a thing from the past. But with one in five respondents stating they missed an important private event last year, something needs to change. Missing your own marriage anniversary, or a relative’s funeral … not cool.

Teamleader to the rescue

According to the research, the most time consuming tasks are also the ones that give the least satisfaction. A lot of entrepreneurs find themselves getting bogged down in running their own admin. Most of them say they would rather invest this time in personal growth and innovation in the company. According to the numbers, 47% prefer to follow more work-related courses and gain knowledge. 44% of the people would like to have more time to come up with long-term strategies. Teamleader reckons their CRM software program can make life easier for entrepreneurs to make the workflow more efficient trough automation. The startup describes its product as an easy, intuitive and understandable software program with a personal touch.

Let the battle against time begin

Following up on the results of the research, Teamleader organized an event called ‘The ‘Tijdstrijd’ (battle against time), in Utrecht on Thursday the 3rd of November. The aim was to inspire and challenge entrepreneurs to balance out their personal and working life. ‘What would you do with an extra hour per week?’ Was the motivational question asked online to invite entrepreneurs to think about their personal time related struggles. At the event we spoke to Sjoerd Göddeke, the Dutch Country manager of Teamleader.

Made by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs

Göddeke explains that one of the key assets of Teamleader’s product is that it is developed from the mindset of an entrepreneur: “When our founder Jeroen de Wit was running a startup in web design, he and his companions experienced some problems themselves. Problems like keeping up the administration, planning and meetings. To organize their workflow they developed a sort of platform that later grew out to become Teamleader”.

Technology can take care of the dirty work

Göddeke reckons that by using Teamleader’s software entrepreneurs will have time to use their personal business talents again, as they can let technology and processes of automation save them valuable time: ‘If I have to give startups one tip in general, I would say: use smart tools. For example apps that give you insight in the efficiency of how you do your work.‘Of course I would recommend Teamleader, but there are also other apps can be of great help. The essential thing is to work smart’.

Follow the leader

The 3000 businesses that use Teamleader already, and the offices spread across Europe in Gent (main office), Berlin, Madrid and Amsterdam, show that the Teamleader concept has become a big success already. But expansion is on its way. New offices are soon to open up in Milan and Paris: “We aim for European leadership. That is also a reason we organized this event, to show our position in the market and our knowledge about the needs of entrepreneurs’.