SaaStock speaker
Hanno Renner
Founder / CEOCo-Founder & CEO, Personio
- Appearances
- 5
- Years
- 2017–2022
- Main stage
- 3
- YouTube views
- 2,990
Hanno Renner, Co-Founder & CEO at Personio has made 5 SaaStock appearances between 2017 and 2022, speaking at SaaStock Europe 2022, SaaStock EMEA 2021, SaaStock Europe 2019, and SaaStock Europe 2017. Talks include "How This Soon-to-Be Decacorn Founder is Scaling Through a Downturn | Hanno Renner, Personio", "From 0 to 1,000 Employees: The Ever-Changing Role of a First-Time Founder | SaaStock EMEA 2021", "The top SaaS trend for 2020: Sustainable growth". This page collects every recorded SaaStock keynote, fireside chat, panel, and podcast appearance by Hanno Renner.
Most-watched talk
What Happens After Series A Raise: How to Spend It, Who to Hire, How Fast to Move
Panel · SaaStock Europe 2017 · Dublin · 1.3K YouTube views
At Personio we did something a bit different. We spent a significant portion of the money on customer success and onboarding infrastructure. We'd realised that our early cohorts had good initial conversion but weaker-than-expected retention. We decided to fix that before we poured more money into acquisition. It comes down to unit economics. If your retention isn't right, then every euro you spend on acquisition is going into a leaky bucket. The LTV-to-CAC ratio doesn't work if churn is too high…
About Hanno Renner
Who is Hanno Renner?
Hanno Renner is the co-founder and CEO of Personio, the HR platform built for small and medium-sized businesses across Europe. He started the company in 2016 with a focus on giving SMEs the kind of people-operations software that had previously been reserved for large enterprises.
Under Renner's leadership, Personio grew from an early-stage startup into one of Europe's most prominent SaaS companies, expanding to seven offices across the continent and digitizing the full employee lifecycle — recruiting, managing, and developing people — for thousands of organizations.
Renner is a recurring voice at SaaStock, where he has spoken since 2017 on the operational realities of fast growth: scaling headcount without breaking the organization, building sustainable unit economics, and steering a high-growth company through a downturn. This page collects every recorded SaaStock keynote, panel, fireside chat, and interview featuring Hanno Renner, with transcripts.
About Personio
Personio is an HR platform for small and medium-sized enterprises — what Renner describes as an HR operating system that digitizes the entire employee lifecycle, from recruiting through managing and developing employees. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Munich, it set out to bring enterprise-grade people operations to companies that had historically been underserved by HR software.
By the time of his 2022 SaaStock interview, Personio was operating seven offices across Europe, having scaled rapidly across multiple markets. The product covers the core people processes SMEs run every day, consolidating fragmented tools and manual work into a single system.
Personio's trajectory — fast headcount growth, expansion across European markets, and a focus on retention-driven economics — maps closely to the themes Renner returns to on the SaaStock stage, making the company a running case study in how to scale a SaaS business sustainably.
Key lessons from Hanno Renner's talks
Fix retention before you scale acquisition. In his 2017 Series A panel, Renner described deliberately spending early funding on customer success and onboarding rather than pure acquisition, because Personio's early cohorts converted well but retained worse than expected. His framing is blunt: if retention isn't right, every euro spent on acquisition goes into a leaky bucket, and the LTV-to-CAC ratio simply doesn't work.
Design the organization before the growth hits. In his 2017 keynote on 10x-ing headcount in twelve months, Renner argued that the pain of very fast hiring is best managed by preparing the organizational structure in advance — putting the design in place before a company heads into a phase of explosive headcount growth rather than scrambling to catch up afterward.
Sustainable growth is the real metric. Speaking on SaaS trends heading into 2020, Renner pointed to a shift in how the market evaluates companies — growth still matters, especially at scale, but it increasingly has to come alongside healthy gross margin and efficient customer acquisition, with profitability and durable unit economics back in focus.
Adapt the founder's role as the company scales. Across his fireside chats, Renner returns to how the job of a first-time founder keeps changing on the path from zero to a thousand-plus employees — and how scaling through a downturn demands different instincts than scaling in a boom, including a sharper focus on efficiency and resilience.
Company
Personio — at a glance
| Company | Personio |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2016 |
| Headquarters | Munich, Germany |
| Category | HR platform / HR operating system for SMEs |
| Footprint | Seven offices across Europe (as of his 2022 SaaStock talk) |
Figures are drawn from Hanno Renner's SaaStock talks and public company information.
Topics covered
What Hanno Renner speaks about
- HR software
- Scaling startups
- Sustainable growth
- Unit economics
- Customer retention
- Organization design
- Headcount growth
- Scaling through a downturn
In their words
Top quotes from Hanno Renner
“We are an HR platform for SMEs — essentially digitizing the entire employee lifecycle from recruiting, managing, and developing employees.”
— SaaStock Europe 2022
Keynotes
Hanno Renner keynotes at SaaStock
10X Headcount in 12 Months - How to Minimise Growth Pains Through Early Organisation Design
SaaStock Europe 2017 · Dublin · Keynote · 654 YouTube views
Co-Founder & CEO, Personio (at the time of the talk)
From the transcript
Hello everyone good afternoon my name is Hanno I'm the co-founder and CEO of Personio and over. The next 20 minutes I'm really gonna talk about phase of very fast headcount growth. What we learned from that face and how you if you are about to head into such a face or can prepare for it. But before I started through the topic I quickly want to introduce yourself with two Personio. So persona is in we're building the HR operating system for small medium enterprises which means that we cover all p…
Fireside chats & panels
Hanno Renner fireside chats and panels
From 0 to 1,000 Employees: The Ever-Changing Role of a First-Time Founder | SaaStock EMEA 2021
SaaStock EMEA 2021 · Online · Fireside Chat · 302 YouTube views
Co-Founder & CEO, Personio (at the time of the talk)
From the transcript
Hi hannah how are you doing doing well great to see you and catch up how are you feeling today it's a it's a big day for you at persona yeah i'm very energized we just realized there's a green screen option in this studio thing so i've i'm literally backstage behind that stage you're seeing behind me right now where we announced people work for automation in our new finding funding round this morning and i think it's a really exciting day for all of us it was really fun morning but also i'm usua…
What Happens After Series A Raise: How to Spend It, Who to Hire, How Fast to Move
SaaStock Europe 2017 · Dublin · Panel · 1.3K YouTube views
Co-founder & CEO, Personio (at the time of the talk)
From the transcript
At Personio we did something a bit different. We spent a significant portion of the money on customer success and onboarding infrastructure. We'd realised that our early cohorts had good initial conversion but weaker-than-expected retention. We decided to fix that before we poured more money into acquisition. It comes down to unit economics. If your retention isn't right, then every euro you spend on acquisition is going into a leaky bucket. The LTV-to-CAC ratio doesn't work if churn is too high…
Interviews & podcast appearances
Hanno Renner interviews and podcast appearances
How This Soon-to-Be Decacorn Founder is Scaling Through a Downturn | Hanno Renner, Personio
SaaStock Europe 2022 · Dublin · Interview · 220 YouTube views
Co-Founder & CEO, Personio (at the time of the talk)
From the transcript
Thanks, Alex. Great to be back on the show and back here at SaaStock. My name is Hanno Renner, co-founder and CEO of Personio. We are an HR platform for SMEs — essentially digitizing the entire employee lifecycle from recruiting, managing, and developing employees. We started the company around the same time you started SaaStock — 2016 — and have grown across Europe, including seven offices across the continent. We're coming from our Dublin office straight to here. The 2022 version of Hanno — as…
The top SaaS trend for 2020: Sustainable growth
SaaStock Europe 2019 · Dublin · Interview · 552 YouTube views
CEO, Personio (at the time of the talk)
From the transcript
Okay I think that the biggest trends we're currently seeing is that every thought with recent IPO is why growth. Remains important especially its scale it also gets more important look at you metrics the main metrics we grow both. From our gross margin but also from a customer acquisition perspective as we recently seen some IPOs event and. We're profitable blow up.
All appearances
Every SaaStock appearance by Hanno Renner
| Year | Conference | Talk | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | SaaStock Europe 2022 · Dublin | How This Soon-to-Be Decacorn Founder is Scaling Through a Downturn | Hanno Renner, Personio | Interview |
| 2021 | SaaStock EMEA 2021 · Online | From 0 to 1,000 Employees: The Ever-Changing Role of a First-Time Founder | SaaStock EMEA 2021 | Fireside Chat |
| 2019 | SaaStock Europe 2019 · Dublin | The top SaaS trend for 2020: Sustainable growth | Interview |
| 2017 | SaaStock Europe 2017 · Dublin | What Happens After Series A Raise: How to Spend It, Who to Hire, How Fast to Move | Panel |
| 2017 | SaaStock Europe 2017 · Dublin | 10X Headcount in 12 Months - How to Minimise Growth Pains Through Early Organisation Design | Keynote |
FAQ
Frequently asked about Hanno Renner
Who is Hanno Renner?
Hanno Renner, Co-Founder & CEO at Personio has made 5 SaaStock appearances between 2017 and 2022, speaking at SaaStock Europe 2022, SaaStock EMEA 2021, SaaStock Europe 2019, and SaaStock Europe 2017. Talks include "How This Soon-to-Be Decacorn Founder is Scaling Through a Downturn | Hanno Renner, Personio", "From 0 to 1,000 Employees: The Ever-Changing Role of a First-Time Founder | SaaStock EMEA 2021", "The top SaaS trend for 2020: Sustainable growth". This page collects every recorded SaaStock keynote, fireside chat, panel, and podcast appearance by Hanno Renner.
How many times has Hanno Renner spoken at SaaStock?
Hanno Renner has spoken at SaaStock 5 times between 2017–2022 — including 1 keynote, 2 fireside chats and panels, and 2 podcast interviews.
What did Hanno Renner speak about at SaaStock?
"How This Soon-to-Be Decacorn Founder is Scaling Through a Downturn | Hanno Renner, Personio" at SaaStock Europe 2022; "From 0 to 1,000 Employees: The Ever-Changing Role of a First-Time Founder | SaaStock EMEA 2021" at SaaStock EMEA 2021; "The top SaaS trend for 2020: Sustainable growth" at SaaStock Europe 2019; "What Happens After Series A Raise: How to Spend It, Who to Hire, How Fast to Move" at SaaStock Europe 2017; "10X Headcount in 12 Months - How to Minimise Growth Pains Through Early Organisation Design" at SaaStock Europe 2017
What is Hanno Renner's most-watched SaaStock talk?
"What Happens After Series A Raise: How to Spend It, Who to Hire, How Fast to Move" delivered at SaaStock Europe 2017 has 1,262 YouTube views.