Acendeo

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of Workava, a company that helps B2B companies generate qualified sales opportunities through managed outbound prospecting and sales development.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Acendeo?

As Workava grew, we wanted to build more of our own internal technology instead of relying on manual processes and disconnected tools. That included customer reporting dashboards, workflow automations, internal operational tools, and integrations across our tech stack. We wanted Acendeo to help us access strong technical talent without having to build an internal recruiting function or spend weeks screening engineers ourselves.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Acendeo supports us with sourcing and vetting technical talent for a set of internal development initiatives. The team helps us identify engineers who can support customer reporting dashboards, workflow automations, API integrations across our sales stack, and internal operational tools.Acendeo handles the front end of the hiring process, including candidate sourcing, technical screening, and fit assessment, so we can focus on evaluating a smaller group of qualified engineers rather than managing the full recruiting process ourselves. The main deliverables are a curated shortlist of technical candidates, completed technical assessments, and candidates who have already gone through Acendeo’s technical and cultural vetting process. Rather than sending us a large volume of resumes, the team narrows the search down to people who match the specific skills and experience we’re looking for.

What is the team composition?

We have hired 2 members of Acendeo team.

How did you come to work with Acendeo?

Acendeo was referred to me. I chose them over other options because their pricing fit our budget, they had a great culture fit, and their company values aligned with ours.

How much have you invested with them?

Less than what it would take to hire full-time engineers on our own with the same or better experience than what we could have found.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Acendeo in April 2025, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Acendeo has helped us shorten our hiring process, reduce the number of candidates we have to screen ourselves, and successfully add full-time technical resources directly to the Workava team. The engagement has also given us a predictable monthly cost structure and saved us significant time compared with managing sourcing, technical vetting, and hiring internally.Acendeo has reduced the process from us having to source and screen dozens of candidates ourselves to reviewing a small shortlist of already-vetted engineers. We’ve been able to get to qualified candidates within roughly a week, which likely saves us 20-30+ hours of sourcing, resume review, initial interviews, and technical screening for technical hires. From there, the person can join Workava full-time without us having to manage the recruiting and employment infrastructure ourselves.

How did Acendeo perform from a project management standpoint?

Acendeo’s project management is straightforward and responsive. The team keeps the process moving, communicates clearly around candidate progress, and handles the sourcing, screening, and coordination without creating extra work for us. Moreover, the candidates are delivered within the timeframe they set, and we never feel like we have to chase them for updates.Our primary forms of communication with Acendeo are virtual meetings and emails or messaging apps.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What stands out most about Acendeo is how hands-on and technically informed their vetting process is. The team doesn’t just send us resumes based on keywords, they take the time to understand the actual skills we need, screen candidates technically and culturally, and only bring us people who are genuinely relevant. That saves us a lot of time and makes the process feel much more like working with a technical partner than a traditional staffing agency.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There isn’t anything significant we would change about Acendeo. The team is responsive, transparent throughout the process, and delivers what they commit to. Their communication is consistent, the candidate quality is strong, and the overall engagement is straightforward to manage.

BACKGROUND

I am the Head, People & Special Operations of UP.Labs

UP.Labs is a first-of-its-kind venture lab unlocking the future of transportation and mobility. We work with global corporate partners to identify the most pressing challenges that they, and broader society, face. Inspired by these complex problems, we launch startups built by proven entrepreneurs, product leaders and technologists that use their agility and talent to develop transformative solutions. After these companies have matured and proven market fit, our corporate partners are able to acquire them, reaping strategic value while enriching their culture and core business. We believe this to be the shortest road to a faster, cleaner, safer, and more accessible future

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

• Prop up multiple portfolio companies after our venture fund approved investment.

SOLUTION

Knew personally

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

6-10 Employees

Acendeo sourced and screened engineering candidates for our portfolio teams and coordinated onboarding once placements were made. Separately, Brad and Nelso advised us on compensation benchmarks and the full cost picture — entity, legal, accounting, tax — for a Mexico City office, and reviewed resourcing, timeline, and vendor pricing on a product we were building internally.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Placements landed and stuck. The market guidance saved us from budgeting a LATAM office on bad assumptions, and their read on our build quote confirmed we weren't missing something material on cost or timeline before we committed.

Direct access to the founders the whole way. Onboarding logistics were handled cleanly with our internal ops and IT.

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

They tell you when the answer is no. On one search they'd interviewed several candidates and came back saying none of them cleared the bar rather than putting a body in the seat. That's rare in staffing and it's the reason I've kept coming back to them for years — including for advice on things they weren't being paid for.

No

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the VP of Engineering of a technology company.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a fast-growing tech company expanding through strategic acquisitions and developing multi-platform software solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Acendeo to accomplish?

• Staff senior-level engineers across multiple technology stacks (C#, Java, React, Data Engineering) following a period of rapid acquisition growth.
• Reduce the time our Engineering Managers were spending on recruiting instead of building.
• Control staffing costs without dropping the quality bar on Developers.

SOLUTION

How did you find Acendeo?

Referral

Why did you select Acendeo over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Acendeo were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We were scaling fast through acquisitions, and every company we brought in had a different tech stack. We needed Senior Developers who could drop into fragmented environments and contribute quickly, across C#, Java, React, and Data Engineering. Acendeo handled the full sourcing and vetting process, delivered candidates matched to our specific stack requirements, and placed them into our existing teams with minimal ramp time. The scope was ongoing staff augmentation across multiple product lines, not a single project with a fixed end date.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We replaced 2 outsourced developers with one Acendeo Engineer and came out ahead on both cost and output. The Developers were productive fast, which meant our Engineering Leads could stay focused on product work. Recruiting overhead dropped. We have continued to scale the engagement up and down based on project demand, which we could not do with traditional hiring.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Their process was faster than anything we had used before. They came back with qualified candidates in 7 days, and those candidates were matched to our actual stack, not just keyword-matched against a job description. When we needed adjustments, they responded fast. No back-and-forth, no delays. Communication was direct, usually through Brad or Nelso, which made it easy to adjust quickly when priorities shifted.

What was your primary form of communication with Acendeo?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Two things. First, the quality of the Developers. These are senior people. They came in knowing the tools, asked the right questions, and got up to speed without being managed through it. In a post-acquisition environment where our internal teams were already stretched, that mattered a lot. Second, the no-upfront-fee structure. We did not pay anything before seeing the Developer work. We evaluated first, then committed. That is a different risk profile than what most staffing firms offer. Time zone alignment was also a factor. Standups happened. Blockers were resolved the same day. It felt like working with a remote US team, not an offshore arrangement.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Acendeo could have done differently?

The initial intake could have gone deeper on some of the stack nuances specific to our post-acquisition setup. Not a major issue, and they adjusted quickly once we gave them more context. If your tech environment is unusually fragmented, go in with specifics.