The world where chocolate flowers grow is guarded by a monster. Big and hairy as it is, it stands in front of the entrance in the fourth floor of the former industrial building. However, the monster is not meant to scare visitors away. Quite the contrary—the social game developer Wooga wants to hire 250 new employees this year. Mac Fur, the grinning monster, is the greeting committee.
Wooga was founded in 2009 by Jens Begemann and Philipp Moeser. They started off with one intern and one room. By the end of 2010, Wooga had 50 employees. A year later, 100. Now, in the beginning of 2013, they are 270 people. The third floor of Backfabrik on Saarbrücker Straße, a place that buzzes with start-ups, is just being renovated for new entrances. Wooga's growth is breathtaking – but not atypical for the industry.
45 Percent of Berlin‘s start-ups have less than five employees
The topic of being an employee at a start-up is a new one for Berlin. So far, 45 percent of Berlin’s start-ups have less than five employees. Among these, 18 percent have no employees at all, according to the numbers of a survey, published by the Verein Berliner Kaufleute und Industrieller (VBKI). But this will change. In 2013 a great number want to start hiring.
Erica Ancobia, a business student of the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft in Berlin, did a study on how potential employees viewed the new opportunities that start-ups offered. She herself had worked in a hotel and then changed to a tech start-up. “It was a completely different world”, she said. “If you work in a start-up, you always have this feeling that something big is happening and you are part of it.” What people liked about the new industry was that they had a greater chance to bring in their own ideas. You are heard more easily in a smaller and younger company. Your colleagues are supposedly more motivated, and you can take responsibilities early on. The downside to these new enterprises is, the bigger they get, the less happy the staff is.
Wooga is one of the biggest social games companies
So how did Wooga manage? Today the company is one of the biggest social games companies in the world. It’s seen as a role model for the industry when it comes to balancing sustainability and the kind of gold rush attitude that has typified other startups.
This is immediately evident upon arrival. Gitta Blatt, Wooga’s Head of Human Resources, leads us through the various game studios, passing cardboard monster cut-outs and fairytale placards on our way. Wooga appears to be one big playground; as if someone took your typical office building and injected the kind of colour and life you would normally associate with an animated Hollywood film. On the walls you find all manner of strange items, from a magic wand made of felt, to a wedding picture of two princesses and a dog taking a nap under an office table. ‘Couchicles’, as they are so called, are hidden away in the nooks and crannies of office corridors and allow employees privacy when making phone calls or working away on a particularly pertinent task.
In an old-fashioned company you can deduct the level of hierarchy from the way people are seated: open offices with cubicles or desks for the main workforce and large elegant rooms for upper management. Wooga sets these architectural distinctions aside. “We’re really trying to avoid the typical corporate office culture“, says Blatt. This is the reason why each team have a budget to decorate their workspace themselves. “Employees should feel like they’re at home here, which means we should take care of our equipment as if it were our own.”
The kitchen is right at the heart of the company
Right at the heart of the company is where the kitchen lies. Infamous for being the best place to go at a house party, the same rings true for Wooga’s office kitchen. It’s where employees meet to exchange ideas and for an evening drink. Families and friends are also invited. “Communication is king at Wooga“, says Blatt. The walls are covered with pictures of all the employees and their names so that no face is ever an unknown and the family atmosphere is retained. “We limit ourselves to employee growth of 100% per year to keep our culture intact”, says Gitta Blatt. Wait a minute: Limit growth? Blatt laughs. “Yes, we could hire more talent than we do, but there are dangers with that approach.“
So far Wooga has six games on the market. 70 per cent of the audience playing these games are female, which is why Blatt tries to find as many female employees as possible. Next to the Espresso machine with soy milk two German employees talk to each other in English, done so that the majority of staff, who are outside Germany, should not feel excluded. At the moment Wooga employs people from 35 different nations. Only companies who recruit on an international level have success on a global scale, goes the credo.
New starters from Venezuela or from the US are picked up from the airport and get their keys to their new flats. New starters have eight weeks in a Wooga flat to get oriented and find their own apartment with the help of Wooga’s integration team. This desire for internationality means that the “on-boarding“ process gets more complex, and expensive. Blatt and her team have to take care of residence permits and visa, since over half of all employees move to Berlin for Wooga.
„You do not make money with gold, but with shovels“
But where do you find qualified staff for a brand new industry? In the Mohrenstraße 60 in Berlin Mitte, is the office of i-potenial. Again, like in Backfabrik, the whole building is packed with start-ups. I-potential has specialized in recruiting people for start-ups. “During the gold rush, you do not make money with gold, but with shovels”, Anna Ott laughingly describes her job.
Recruiting for a startup has its own challenges. “There is no faculty for it at the Universities, you can not study online marketing or product management”, Ott explains. On top of that the quick chance in the industry creates constantly changing demands for the job profile. “Today everbody wants a growth hacker, tomorrow the are all out hunting for product evangelists”, Ott explains.
Candidates are usually in their early thirties. “But age is not important”, Ott says. “What is vital is your attitude. You have to find out whether you fit in the start up scene or rather not.” Because as Erica Ancobia had also underlined, there is also a downside to working in such a young industry. Your job is usually insecure, your day unstructured, you might as well forget you ever knew a weekend and most of the people who are now your boss are untrained. Some of them never even had a job themselves before becoming an entrepreneur.
For 2013 Ott wishes the start up scene will grow up a bit. “This Berlin trend, to just launch a company for the heck of it and not really focus on your goals, is decreasing”, she says. At the moment, every meeting starts with the question, “Hey, how many people are you now?” But she can see that changing already. „People are starting to take responsibilities for their staff. Luckily.“
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