Built out of the countryside in Belgium:

• $650m ARR
• Over 5,000 employees
• 50,000 companies as customers

They never want to IPO. They never want to sell. They DON’T believe in titles.

Everything you thought you knew about management, is wrong.

My 6 key takeaways Fabien Pinckaers👇

1. Why Odoo Will Never Sell

• We never want to sell the company.
• We are always buying shares, every funding round.
• That is why we don’t mind if the share price is low.

2. Why There Will Never Be an Odoo IPO

• I don’t want the constraints & complexity of being public.
• Public companies tend to refocus on the short term.
• We always want to build for the long term.

3. Why It Is Easier to Scale With Young People

• It is easier to scale when you don’t need to get the top people.
• We recruit a lot of young people, train them & make them evolve.
• It is much easier than spending too much time  looking for the best VP of a category.

4. Hire Talent from Tier 2 Cities

• The key to scaling a business is talent retention.
• There will be high turnover rates when you are next to Google or Apple.
• We do not have that issue in Buffalo.

5. The Danger When You Have Managers of Managers

• They all have ideas & want to do something.
• This will push everyone to complexify the company.
• You have to fight back against that if you want to keep your company simple.

6. This Company Allows Everyone to Have Their Own Titles

• Some people choose to be directors, other people pick funny titles.
• We do not care.
• I want to push the idea that it’s about what you do & not the title you have. 

Links:

​ Spotify 

​Youtube

Credit: Harry Stebbings