Granicus: Building Product & Design in a B2B GovTech

 
 

  • Challenge: Build a co-located Product & Design function for a B2B SaaS business. Then scale those teams during and after private equity acquisition.

  • Action: Partner with AU leadership to map role and team requirements, create candidate briefing materials, and plan and execute an extensive and targeted recruitment campaign.

  • Result: Fourteen roles hired during four recruitment sprints: Product Managers, Product Owners, Product Design, and Marketing.

 
 
 

Challenge

Bang the Table is a successful B2B SaaS company founded in Australia. They provided niche 'digital participation' solutions for over a decade to the public sector. In 2020 they decided to relocate product management and design to Melbourne, having previously run both from their offshore technology hub in Bangalore.

Initially, our challenge was to find skilled Product Managers who could build a local capability from scratch in conjunction with the locally-based Head of Product. To do this, we had to raise awareness of their product and create a strong narrative around the business opportunity.

Once we hired the product roles, we followed a similar process to build the design team.

Soon after, Bang the Table (BTT) was purchased by Granicus, a global GovTech vendor in the US. Granicus also acquired OpenCities, another AU GovTech, and immediately merged the local operations of BTT and OpenCities.

We successfully recruited for both OpenCities and BTT during the acquisition and merger process and are delighted to have continued that success under the new Granicus brand and model.

Action

We invested significant time in defining the roles, requirements and opportunity narrative. We then created rich and compelling candidate materials to educate and engage prospective talent before proactively targeting select individuals.

Results

We placed fourteen roles during four recruitment sprints: Product Managers, Product Owners, Product Design, and Marketing. 

  • 92.85% retention rate

  • Average time to hire of 23 days

  • 57% of candidates placed identify as female


”The team at Pony Express have been a great partner, acting with urgency and coming through with strong candidates every time. Good to have you by our side.”


Alex Gelback - Cofounder, OpenCities / GM Platforms - Granicus

 
Partner, Search, CurateMatt Chambers