Battle Report: September 2022

We are sharing with you our key financial numbers and business objectives in the September 2022 edition of the Manfred Battle Report, as well as any big learnings and key advice we have collected along the way. We hope all this will prove useful in providing important lessons for others who are in similar situations to ours or can benefit from them being openly published online. Building in the public eye is not always easy, but we intend to do our very best. 

The summer came to a close and "Fredtember" kicked off 😎. It's back-to-school time, and also a time when tech companies and professionals are actively recruiting and job hunting. While the summer holidays have been hard on us as a business, we are proud to report that we have responded phenomenally to overcome the blow within expectations, despite the extremely heavy workload we were faced with. Let September serve as a momentum builder for the rest of the year! ⚡ 

Gross Sales (excl. tax): It's back to business! In terms of sales, we knew it was going to be a busy month after the summer downtime, since both employers and employees are looking for new opportunities. As a team, we have far gone over our expectations.

Gross Billings (excl. tax): It was inevitable that this figure would rise as well. Due to the increase in sales, there is no longer such a difference between what we sell and what we invoice. Despite the increase over the previous month, we will continue working hard to improve that important number. 

Current: We thought our calculator was wrong, but our increase has been HUGE. More positive signs of an amazing month for all of us.

MONTH	SALES	BILLING	CURRENT VARIATION
AUGUST	120.280€	119.881€	-4.083 €
VARIATION	139%	130%	3.251%
SEPTEMBER	288.280€	275.750€	128.674€

Gross Sales (exclu. tax) refers to consulting services, Manfred Daily offers, or commissions coming from selection processes.

Gross Billings (excl. tax) refers to invoices sent out. This tends to match Gross Revenue, but we still have a certain time gap and, in addition, the billings take into account any possible corrective invoices that have to be made retrospectively. 

Current refers to the company's total assets and economic rights (cash, assets, outstanding receivables, and dividends).

GOALS

We have certainly taken a big step forward in recent weeks, which was much needed. After a bigger than expected blow in the previous month, our team has done a fantastic job responding to the crisis that then allowed us to build some good momentum to hopefully finish the year on a high note. 

Our September goals have been reached and beyond, with a particular focus on the Synchronization with LinkedIn and the new portal that we can't wait to show you. 

Also, the marketing department has done some incredible work in the events we've attended and in which we aren't shy to blow our own whistle and say we shined bright like diamonds 💠. Moreover, we will be announcing a new Fredder soon... STAY TUNED, ANTÚNEZ.

SEPTEMBER GOALS

Sales

• To sell and invoice at least €250K (😊): Have we already told you how much we have enjoyed Fredtember In terms of sales, it was important to bounce back, and we did it with style. It's time to recognize the hard work and celebrate our accomplishments, but we also want to keep growing, so let’s keep breaking through new ceilings.

Product & Development

• Synchronization with LinkedIn (😊): That is now 100% complete. As we continue iterating this synchronization, we will be able to read more and more LinkedIn fields, which are currently limited, and integrate them into the onboarding process.
• New portal (😊): As we expected, we were able to finish this key development with great success ✅. Keep an eye out for it, coming soon!

Marketing

• Participating and sponsoring miduConf & SOSZ22 (😊): Not only were we present at both major events, but we nailed them both. Kudos to Leo Poza, who was amazing in Zaragoza and at miduConf. It is an honour for us to represent Manfred on all the stages.

• "Developer Career Report" campaign launch (😊): It’s finally out! There was an extremely positive response from the tech community. There is a lot of work behind it, and we are very happy that it has proven so useful to have this key industry information published and made public to everyone.
• Launch of the new portal’s campaign (😔): We weren't able to begin working on the launch campaign for the new Portal this month as planned. Our time was taken up by the Manfred Developer Career Report and other tasks such as the industry events mentioned above. Our goal is to have it ready as soon as possible.
• Case studies from our clients(😔): We have unfortunately not been able to dedicate the time this deserves and haven’t been able to launch anything as of yet.

Happiness

• Creating and designing the offboarding process (😊): The onboarding process of a new teammate is just as important as the offboarding process when someone leaves the Fredder family, which is why we have developed a protocol that includes a series of actions to be performed from an operational perspective, as well as important processes to be carried out and the transfer of responsibilities when someone voluntarily leaves the company. Unfortunately, this also sadly went hand in hand with the departure of Sven Peters, who we wish the best of luck in his next professional adventure. You will always be a part of Manfred! 💙

• Bringing back our weekly Brown Bags (😊): Learning from each other is one of our favourite things at Manfred. That's why we've resumed our weekly Brown Bag meetings every Wednesday. As of right now, we have several colleagues.
• Start the search for a new Fredder (😊): We are happy to report that our search has not only begun, but has been completed as well. We will introduce you to our newest member in the coming weeks, who will also have a new role that we haven’t had so far in the team. Exciting for everyone!

OCTOBER GOALS

Sales

• To sell and invoice at least €257K: We don't want to stop now that we are on a roll, we want to keep growing and complete another successful month!

Product & Development

• UX improvements in the New Portal: The improvements will be focused in the languages and technologies fields in the Portal, and also includes a new version of the Portal dashboard to help Manfredites complete their Profile even more efficiently.
• New Onboarding!: The aim is to complete a first version of our onboarding process which will be designed to assist new Manfredites that register on our platform.

Marketing

• Sponsorship and stand in Morcillaconf and Tarugoconf: Getting to these events in the most prepared way possible required hard prep work last month. Now it's time to rock-and-roll! If you are going, keep an eye out for people wearing red jackets, monkey masks, and carrying a Manfred Jam basket because, well, that's just us!
• Launch of the New Portal’s campaign: The New Portal is about to launch, and we are preparing everything at lightning speed to ensure that it is presented to you in the best possible way. Friends, it's soon time for the new Manfred era…

Happiness

• Welcome & Onboarding of a new Fredder: We will ensure that all necessary preparations are made with the operations team for the arrival of Luis Lissen as our new SDR.

BizDev

• Exceeding the number of 50 leads: As you can see, we are starting to write about a brand new department, and we are off to a great start. In the previous month, we reached an important number of leads, but we want to surpass it. We're going all out for the remainder of 2022!
• Meeting new people on the other side of the Atlantic: As we launch our first job offer in Mexico, we hope to meet many new friends across the pond. Manfred wants to expand much more in this area and become more international. Manfred to take over the world. 🌎 Now that would be a long Battle Report!