Cobrainer’s COVID Pivot: Turning Market Crisis into 252% YoY Growth
Perfect timing in startups is rare. More often, success comes from adapting to circumstances that initially seem catastrophic. In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Hanns Aderhold revealed how Cobrainer turned what seemed like terrible timing into extraordinary growth.
The Pre-COVID Decision
In March 2019, Cobrainer made a bold decision. After six years as a consultancy, they would pivot to a SaaS model. “The decision to kind of make that transition from consultancy to software as a service was 2019,” Hanns explains. They identified a clear opportunity: internal career transparency for employees.
Their first product launched in October 2019, showing promising signs. “Within 30 days of, like, that customer, which had 60,000 employees in total, 20,000 employees were on our platform,” Hanns recalls. This early success led to an even bolder move – discontinuing their consulting contracts to focus entirely on the new product.
When Crisis Hits
Then COVID struck. “That kind of felt very dumb. We just discontinued lots of contracts and then, like COVID hit, the economy tanked,” Hanns shares. Most founders would see this as a disaster – dropping stable revenue just before a global crisis.
But sometimes market disruptions create unexpected opportunities. “COVID actually turned out to be an accelerant for us because with COVID lots of people had a hiring freeze… and actually that made them turn to more their internal talent management, which was exactly our platform,” Hanns explains.
Capitalizing on the Shift
The pandemic fundamentally changed how companies thought about talent. With external hiring frozen, they needed better ways to utilize existing employees. Cobrainer’s platform, which helps companies understand and deploy internal talent, suddenly became essential rather than optional.
Their product addressed several critical pandemic-era needs:
- Understanding existing employee skills when external hiring wasn’t possible
- Enabling internal mobility when traditional career paths were disrupted
- Facilitating remote team formation and project staffing
- Supporting reskilling and upskilling initiatives
The Partnership Advantage
Rather than trying to tackle this opportunity alone, Cobrainer leveraged partnerships. “Working with these big HR players and actually working with their sales organization, pushing us, pushing our solution really helped us a lot,” Hanns notes. These partnerships, particularly with SAP and Workday, helped them scale efficiently during the crisis.
The partners also helped them identify the most promising opportunities. Hanns explains: “They helped us in like, navigating who to talk to with these large enterprise players. And they also kind of helped us in saying like, hey guys, we heard you’re talking to this and this company. Just stop talking to them. They have other priorities right now.”
The Results
This combination of market timing, product fit, and strategic partnerships led to extraordinary growth. Hanns reveals they’re “growing ARR on an average of 252% year over year” and “basically closing in on like 10 million euros currently with this product.”
Lessons for Founders
Cobrainer’s COVID pivot offers several key insights:
- Market disruptions create new needs – sometimes aligned perfectly with your solution
- What seems like bad timing can become an advantage if you adapt quickly
- Strong partnerships can help you navigate and capitalize on market changes
Looking Ahead
The company continues to evolve. They’ve completely rebuilt their product and are exploring expansion into the SMB market. But the COVID pivot remains a crucial moment in their story – demonstrating how sometimes the best opportunities come disguised as crises.
For founders facing their own market disruptions, Cobrainer’s story offers hope and a framework: understand how the disruption changes customer needs, adapt your solution accordingly, and leverage partnerships to scale efficiently. Sometimes what looks like the worst possible timing turns out to be perfect after all.