Introduction
This episode kicks off a special series marking HiJiffy’s 10th anniversary, with team members sharing a behind-the-scenes look at the company. First up is Marta Bello from the People team, who reflects on scaling HiJiffy from 10 to 60 people, the challenges and rewards of building a team from scratch, and which perk the team values most.
Transcript
Tiago Araújo (00:00): Hello, and we’re back for Virtual Coffees again, a new season. And this one is actually a special edition, a special season that we’re doing. We’re celebrating 10 years of HiJiffy this October. We decided to invite people from our team to share their perspective on what it’s like to work at HiJiffy. And no one better to start with than the person who was our first hire on the People team: Marta Bello. Marta, I’ll let you share a little bit about your role and what you do at HiJiffy.
Marta Bello (00:43): Perfect, thank you so much for having me. So, as you said, I’m responsible for the People team here at HiJiffy. I joined almost six years ago. In my team, we’re responsible for the processes and the tools, having them in place to gather feedback and to manage performance across the company. We’re also responsible for everything related to employer branding, hiring, and onboarding new team members. And of course, we have our fair share of admin work too. So behind the scenes: handling payroll, managing travel arrangements, employee records, ad hoc requests from the team, and things like this. That’s what keeps the People team busy here at HiJiffy.
Tiago Araújo (01:31): A lot of things to be done, of course. Thank you so much for being the first one to accept my invite for this special season of Virtual Coffees, celebrating 10 years of HiJiffy.
One quick question I had for you: in your perspective, what makes HiJiffy’s culture what it is today? How do you find it? It’s very difficult to talk about the specific culture of a company. Most companies (everyone shouts out that their culture is different from all the others). In our case, at HiJiffy, I normally say internally that the founders are no longer responsible for that culture. We’re 60 human beings already in the company. So what do you think makes us unique?
Marta Bello (02:30): I completely agree with what you said. I think HiJiffy’s culture evolved right alongside the company’s growth. When I joined, we were a very, very small team, so our culture was shaped by what the three founders wanted it to be. We created this remote-first environment: flexible, friendly, with a horizontal structure where everyone could easily reach out to you or to any other C-level team member.
But as we’ve grown (not to say that it’s no longer what the founders wanted it to be), I really think that individuals have shaped what the culture is today. For example, one key thing about our culture today, for me, is how outgoing and social our team is. We have team events, and they’re a really key aspect of our culture. Across the team, I feel there’s a genuine desire for strong social connection, even though we still fully embrace that flexibility and remote-first aspect that’s still at our core. I think this is a little bit cliché, but I do think that people are the ones who shape the culture here at HiJiffy.
Tiago Araújo (03:50): For sure. And another cliché that a lot of remote companies talk about more and more, and you see tons of LinkedIn posts about it, is that remote-first is great, but people being together is still something that makes a massive difference.
Another question I had for you: you mentioned you’re approaching six years at HiJiffy, so a long time, and you’ve seen the team grow. We recently posted on LinkedIn about seeing the team grow from ten people to close to sixty, at least at the time of this recording. Two questions here. First, what has been one of your biggest challenges? And second, what have been the most rewarding moments of scaling the team to 60 people?
Marta Bello (04:51): I think the answers to both questions are really deeply linked. Before I joined, I didn’t realise that growing a team is not an easy task. That’s definitely the most challenging bit for me. All the way from understanding what we need, the kind of profiles and positions we need to hire, to attracting the right talent, then the hiring itself, all the negotiation, creating a good recruitment process, but then also onboarding and retaining people. So that’s definitely the biggest challenge. And we didn’t get it right the first time. Sometimes we didn’t even get it right the second or third time, and we’re still learning.
But it’s also the answer to what’s most rewarding for me. That video you just mentioned is probably the biggest highlight for me: to see how the team has grown over the years. Especially that bit where we see all the people who joined in 2025, a year when I personally wasn’t at HiJiffy because I was on maternity leave. That really hit me. Seeing that the company grew over the years, but especially last year without that much direct involvement from me, was really, really rewarding.
Tiago Araújo (06:17): That’s a good point. I didn’t think about that part, you being on maternity leave during those times of so many people joining.
Adding to what you were saying: I always mention this over and over again. The first time I was pitching investors, a lot of them said no because the founders had never had a startup before. We weren’t second-time or third-time founders of a successful startup. It always annoyed me, because I always thought it wasn’t that important; we had the drive of being first-timers. And then, on that point you mentioned about it being hard, I understood what it took for us as a company, starting with the founders, to learn how to hire the right fits at the right time for each specific position. Because it’s not only about the hard skills, it’s about the soft skills too, and the cultural fit people have with a company. Sometimes it’s a matter of… and obviously I’m talking here to our investors who put money into the company and we burned cash around this, but we needed that learning. I think we’re way, way better now.
Marta Bello (07:37): Absolutely.
Tiago Araújo (07:37): Another question I had for you: from the feedback you get from the team, what are the most appreciated perks we have in the company?
Marta Bello (07:51): I think the answer to this is quite easy, in my perspective. The Friday afternoons off are the biggest perk, the one that stands out the most. It’s something we implemented in record time, because at the time we felt the team needed it and deserved it. It’s something I feel quite personally proud of, and I still think it’s something quite unique that really differentiates HiJiffy. Across the company (I can’t speak for everyone, but from the feedback I get), I think it’s something that’s quite valuable. But going back to what we were discussing earlier, I think the remote-first and flexible culture are still something the team cherishes quite a lot and wouldn’t be willing to let go of.
Tiago Araújo (08:50): For sure, for sure. I think the Friday afternoon off always has its goods and bads. I feel it’s amazing not to have anything booked on my Friday afternoons, even for myself as a founder. As you know, most of my family is abroad, and June and July are always hectic with things happening. Making sure I can have a lunch without a time limit to rush off to a meeting on a Friday is amazing.
At the same time, there’s a bad part to it: I think it’s very fast-paced from Monday to Friday lunchtime to get everything done. So those are the goods and the bads, but for me, at least personally, the goods win here.
And my last question: what’s your proudest moment at HiJiffy? I’m super curious about your answer to this one. No pressure.
Marta Bello (09:49): Without a doubt (and it’s very easy for me to answer this question), it was almost three years ago, a quarterly we had in Vidigueira. I’d been a one-person People team for quite a long time, since I joined, and we had just recently hired our first team member for the People team. I think she had joined maybe two months earlier. I had holidays booked right before the quarterly meeting in Vidigueira, and coming back, returning to work to that meeting where the team pulled off the biggest onboarding so far and managed all the last-minute details of the quarterly event, made it probably my proudest moment, and definitely the quarterly meeting I enjoyed the most.
Tiago Araújo (10:46): Wow, that’s a big statement. Everyone at HiJiffy has different offsites they enjoy the most. But yeah, I would be proud of that moment for sure. Making sure operations work even when we’re not there, that’s really when you build something scalable.
Marta Bello (11:07): Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me.
Tiago Araújo (11:12): And for whoever is watching, we’re going to have more of this for sure, with other team members of HiJiffy!