'Apply because you crave impact': Tines CEO Eoin Hinchy on running Ireland's Top Startup

Eoin Hinchy never had any ambitions to run a company.?

But his drive to solve a problem, while heading up cybersecurity for Docusign, eventually led to the creation of Tines , a workplace automation company and, now, LinkedIn Top Startup for Ireland.?

At the time, Hinchy struggled to find a software provider which would allow his team to automate some of their repeat tasks without needing to know how to code.?

So he decided to create it himself.?

“It could be something as simple as thinking there’s a better way to wash cars in south County Dublin,” says Hinchy. “If you really believe in that change and you want to see that change unfold, then start a company. But don't start a company for any other reason.”

We felt that if we had a bunch of early customers who were passionate and cared about the product and really wanted us to be successful, that would make everything else easier.

Initially, Tines focused on automating workflows for cybersecurity teams, but it has since branched out to other specialities.

And while making a change in the world, and seeing the impact of your work are part of the startup experience, founders and job applicants should expect to work hard, says Hinchy.

“This is the best job I've ever had. I love it deeply, but it's really hard work,” he says. “You shouldn't be applying to a startup to coast. You should be applying because you crave to make an impact.”

The path to Tines

Even though Hinchy didn’t set out to be a CEO, Tines was not his first attempt at starting something himself. Before Tines, he worked on a “side project” called Plain Sight – an open-source piece of security and forensic software that he wrote in his early 20s which is still in use across 180 countries.

Plain Sight paved the way for Tines, and taught Hinchy that, if you make a great product, people will use it, whether or not you have loads of funding and regardless of where you are based, he says. This belief was evident at Tines from the beginning, when Hinchy and co-founder Thomas Kinsella ploughed hours of work into securing and keeping their first customers, and not on filing grant applications or working with investors.??

“We weren’t philosophically opposed to those types of things, but all we cared about in those early days was making our early customers successful,” he says. “So applying for grants, incubators, those early VC [venture capital] conversations, we just didn't do it because it was time spent away from talking to customers and working on the product. We felt that if we had a bunch of early customers who were passionate and cared about the product and really wanted us to be successful, that would make everything else easier.”?

Tines has since secured $146.2m (€132m) in funding through investors and is expected to be a unicorn company – that is, a startup worth more than $1bn – in the near-term.

If we're thinking about a big project and there's a launch date, we're almost conditioned as an employee group to ask what could we do faster ... it's a muscle that we have to reuse or else it'll atrophy

The company has grown its headcount from five before the pandemic to 250 now, and is expected to rise to 300 by year-end. The team is spread across Ireland and the US, with offices in Dublin, Boston and San Francisco. But much of Tines’s staff work remotely, something which the company has been doing since before Covid.

“To me, it really just boils down to trust. If you hire great people who believe in the mission and are aligned, they will be productive and have an impact regardless of where their bum is, right?” says Hinchy. “The idea of having people in an office, it just has never been something we honestly care that much about. We love to give people the option of being wherever they feel they can be the most productive and trusting them.

“As the CEO and leader of the company, I just can't relate to the whole 'mandatory work-from-the office thing'. It's just something that really doesn't resonate with me.”

Culture and values

But remote working does resonate with the company’s culture and values, which are speed, simplicity and soundness. Staff members have autonomy in where they work and many like the lack of red tape which they encountered at larger firms. Teams are encouraged to move quickly and course-correct as necessary, says Hinchy, and this is an approach which he is keen to preserve as the company grows.

“If we're thinking about a big project and there's a launch date, we're almost conditioned as an employee group to ask what could we do faster: ‘If we move that date forward two weeks, what would that look like? What would we have to cut? What would we have to do, scope, etc., etc.?’ So it's just a muscle that we have to reuse over and over again or else it'll begin to atrophy.”

The last value, “soundness” has two meanings in Ireland. The first, like the rest of the world, is the idea of something being sound – watertight, secure, trustworthy. But the second meaning relates to how people behave towards others. If someone is “sound”, they’re reasonable, empathetic, considerate. The team felt both meanings were key to their business and the way they wanted to operate.?

A smaller team of high performers is far more valuable than a large group with unclear roles

But it’s not always possible to be speedy, simple and sound in equal measure, so it’s about striking a balance and making calls on where to give, explains Hinchy. As CEO of a growing company, he can no longer be in every meeting or weigh in on every decision, especially with teams spanning multiple time zones. To combat this, workers are encouraged to make decisions themselves and are advised to be guided by the values. If they get stuck, they can turn to senior staff for support, but they are not bound by hierarchy.?

“We like people to be creative and I think applying these kinds of rigid, almost bureaucratic, military-esque frameworks or a chain of command – that's not the kind of company that we want to build.”

For now, the team at Tines wants to continue focusing on growing, with plans to expand the self-service options and accelerate the company’s artificial intelligence offerings. Doing this will require more staff, but, Hinchy says, they prefer to go for quality over quantity when it comes to numbers.?

“I've learned a smaller team of high performers – A players – is far more valuable than a large group with unclear roles and random job titles. As a company, we prioritise maintaining a compact, highly efficient team."?

The new hires will be across all teams though, including customer service, IT partnerships, marketing and engineering.?