A flourishing company where you set the amount of your salary yourself and the length of your vacation? It is the bet raised hands down by Tiime. Interview with Amélie Schieber, its co -founder and president.
How was Time born and what is his goal?
The software was born more than ten years ago in a chartered accountant firm called L-expert-Countable.com. It was intended for customers of this firm where I was an employee at the time. I noticed that it was one of its strong growth levers and given the potential of this still little developed market, it was worth doing it a dedicated activity and to address other firms ‘Chartered accountant. This is why in 2015, with three colleagues and two other people, we decided to separate the accounting-accountant activities and the software to create the company Tiime. We started from scratch by inspiring what had been done. The challenge was to simplify the life of entrepreneurs and their chartered accountant.
The company has experienced a good boom for ten years (300 employees, 21 partner schools, 200,000 users, 2,000 firms, several million euros in turnover, etc.). What do you attribute it to?
Until 2019, we mainly developed the product and mainly hired technology professionals (developers, data scientists, data engineers, doctoral students for artificial intelligence, etc.). Then we marketed. What made it worked is the low competition at the time on these solutions with new technologies for entrepreneurs and not just chartered accountants. The software is complete, intuitive, easy to handle, accessible on mobile and computer. It offers an interface for very small businesses, SMEs and one for the accountant who can do the accounting production from A to Z.
You were precursors by launching the first accounting AI in 2017. Innovation is one of the keys to your success?
AI was obvious to us. We had the experience of accounting production, of what was going on in the office. We knew that there were tasks that were easily automatizable and that the more we would put AI the more we would be efficient. When we invest in these sectors, we also benefit from aid, which facilitated our development.
However, you have not raised funds. For what ?
Indeed, however, we are asked every day by funds. But we remain a box on a human and family size. Our goal is to be sustainable. When we raise funds, you lose a little control of the strategy as a founders; We can tend to spend a lot hoping that it works … and if it doesn’t work too bad. We prefer to apply our vision, make rational choices, not at any cost. It can be frustrating because we do not have the same means as our competitors but it is part of our DNA and this is proof of stability for our customers. They know we’re not going to do anything.
Tiime has been labeled Great Place To Work since 2023. Here, the employees are fixing their wages themselves, have unlimited telework, unlimited holidays … Why this choice?
Since 2017, many start-ups in the Fintech sector have raised funds and obtained major means. We had some difficulties in recruiting and retaining our employees. They loved our project and our product but when another tech company offered them an almost similar job with 10 to 20 % additional salary, it was complicated to fight. We inquired about other philosophies and we were inspired by the corporate culture freed from Isaac Getz. We did not apply to the letter his methodology and his vision but we made sure to put the collaborator and his well-being at the heart of the system. It is for this reason that we offer a lot of flexibility in the workplace, schedules, absences, remuneration …
But it only works if the employee does not forget either the company or our customers. Not everyone is made to function in our corporate culture. Set your salary yourself, it can be confusing.
How does it work concretely in a job interview to fix your salary?
It is more or less bordered according to the person’s journey and experience. We do not arrive by telling ourselves that we have such a budget for this position and that we cannot derogate from it. If the person asks 35K € and we had in mind 30K €, if we have a crush on his candidacy, we can accept. People do not generally abuse because it is explained that abuses question our entire system and can have an impact on the sustainability of the company.
And for the holidays?
It is variable depending on the services. The sales teams have few customers present in August, it is not disturbing that employees are absent in number at that time. Some employees prefer to go outside school holidays. Each team agrees to make it consistent.
There is no chef, either …
No. They are rather leaders because of their seniority in the company, their expertise on a subject, their ability to assume responsibilities … but they are approved by the team. And then our employees are trained in a communication methodology based on the Gordon method which makes it possible to express themselves, to listen to, to confront your point of view while finding grounds of understanding. It facilitates discussions.
Has the loyalty rate increased at Time?
It is difficult to measure because we are much more numerous than at the beginning. But we make anonymous surveys of satisfaction with our employees every ten days and we see that these measures lead them to stay with us. It has an ultra positive impact and it is very precious for us.
It makes employees dream but can scare entrepreneurs. What do you answer them?
I understand that it is frightening. Ourselves at first, for the salary part, we were afraid of having unreasonable requests. I think you have to be intimately convinced yourself to get started. I do not force anyone to go in this direction but, in our opinion, it is an integral part of our success. At Tiime, we were convinced when we put it in place as soon as we put the employee and his well-being at the center, it would have a positive impact on our turnover and our performance. We were often told that it was walking because we were few. Indeed, it was walking when we were 30 but it still works now that we are 300.
Finally, the size of the company matters little, you have to be convinced of this philosophy and not be afraid to put a framework, rules for each of these decisions anyway.
Dorothée Blancheton
