We recently launched our #timetotransform campaign which shows that time is the highest valued commodity for startups and small businesses. 

We spoke to Jasper Martens, CMO at PensionBee, about the time-related challenges he’s experienced over the years, and how technology has helped tackle them.

Why did you start your business?

I changed company and had to move my pension as a result. It involved a ton of paperwork and took months to process. When Romi Savova and Jonathan Lister Parsons met me and showed me a simple solution to my pension mess, I knew this was the company I wanted to join so that I could pass on the help to other people like me and develop UK’s most loved pension product.

Has it turned out the way you expected that it would?

We thought we had a clear idea of the problem and the right solution in mind, and therefore all we needed to do was to bring it to market, but we had to figure out what was the right thing for customers. 

What we found is that customers also want to contribute and engage with their pension, and so we looked for ways we could consolidate that demand with our service offering. 

Are you still passionate about it?

Absolutely, despite one or two more grey hairs! What has kept that excitement for us is that its not about how much money we can make, its about making a good service for the UK.

At the beginning we found ourselves wrestling with out-of-date pension companies and we still want to be challenging the status quo with our services, but we’re now able to do it on a public policy level too. 

We’re trying to enact change for everyone, not just our customers. And its that powerful purpose that keeps us going. 

Tell us about a typical day for you

Our aim is to build the most popular and most loved pension product, and my days are always varied but consistently centred around that goal. 

One moment I’m working on a press release to announce our latest award wins, the next I’m organising our office move so we can continue to grow and serve our customers even better.

How many hours do you think you work a week? Do you tend to work at weekends or in the holidays?

Some of our fintech peers hold the belief that people should work seven days a week and increasingly long hours. We’re the opposite – we focus on getting the job done.

But of course, as a small customer-centric business we will do what is necessary to keep our customers happy, and if that’s addressing a customer issue on a Saturday we’ll do it. 

The important thing we’ve found is you have to automate as much of the working day as possible, and make yourself missable.

Automating work flow saves a lot of time giving us more hours to spend on growing the business and improving our products. 

If you were to pick an area of your business that you think wastes time, what would it be?

Admin, for sure. For us it’s about automating reoccurring paths and connecting customer touch points. You need a good CRM to get all the relevant information in the right place, in the right order and accessible to use. 

Do you think SMB owners or employees suffer from burnout more?

Yes possibly, but our size also means we’re well positioned to address those issues.

We're growing three times faster than we anticipated, and with that success comes a need for a lot more thinking about the way we work as a company and especially on how we support our employees. As a small business it is tough because you just need to get the job done, but that mentality can also lead to higher stress levels and presenteeism. We have to pay attention to people, and talk openly about personal and mental health.

Automation is also absolutely key here. We've looked closely at how we can automate as much of the working day as possible. For example, we recently started using signature bots which has saved a lot of processing time.  

Ultimately, the more process time we can free up, the more time we have to focus on new ideas or improving our products.

Smaller businesses are often more time-poor than their larger rivals, which means it’s imperative that time is spent in the right way. Technology can help SMBs focus on what matters, to improve their business performance and working lives. Read more about how technology can save your business valuable time in our #TimetoTransform report.