Skeeled’s co-founder Mike Reiffers shares how a people-first approach shaped his team’s international journey to Porto.
Startup Luxembourg
When Mike Reiffers and his co-founder Nicolas Speeckaert formed their recruitment software company Skeeled straight out of university, they knew they would need strong technical talent to bring their vision of a platform helping companies digitalise recruitment to life. That talent came from Portugal.
“We are not IT guys, but we always wanted to create a software,” recalls Mr Reiffers. Their first engineers were Portuguese, and after working together in Luxembourg, the idea of opening a second office took shape.
Porto was not chosen for market expansion, it was chosen for people. “We wanted to go to Barcelona,” he recalls, “but our Portuguese team said: why not Porto? There are great universities, great IT talent and we know the ecosystem.”
A local startup hub helped Skeeled navigate the legal and administrative hurdles of setting up a subsidiary. From there, the Porto office grew organically, shaped by trust, proximity and shared ambition.
One of Mr Reiffers’ most vivid memories is signing Skeeled’s first client after returning from Porto. “We landed back in Luxembourg, I turned on my phone and saw the signature. It’s a memory that will last forever.” That client is still with them nearly ten years later.
Setting up in Portugal came with its share of administrative hurdles – from creating a subsidiary to navigating different employment laws – but the benefits outweighed the challenges.
In the early days, the two offices stayed connected through a live video link, daily chats and regular visits. “It was like having one big office in two countries,” says Mr Reiffers. This closeness fostered loyalty: many engineers have stayed with Skeeled for over five years, well above industry averages.
The Porto team’s energy and commitment also influenced the founders. “It was inspiring to see how much people wanted to give it their all,” he notes. That spirit helped Skeeled weather difficult moments, including the pandemic, and continues to shape its culture today.
The software’s architecture mirrors the company’s philosophy. “It is built like a village,” explains Mr Reiffers. “With a lot of people who are working in different corners. But the fewer people you have to work on it, the more complex it is to move on.”
For Mr Reiffers, the “village” metaphor applies not only to the software but to the company itself: a community that must be nurtured as technology and markets evolve.
You have to keep the village alive and be ready to modernise how it works when the time comes." Mike Reiffers, Skeeled
While the Porto move strengthened Skeeled, it also brought unexpected considerations. For example, having core technical staff abroad meant the company did not qualify for certain national support schemes. Mr Reiffers frames this as a learning point for others: “If you plan to set up teams in different countries, understand in advance how it might affect your access to local funding.”
His advice to founders is to be intentional about networking. In Luxembourg, he says, “networking is amazing… you can meet literally everyone within a week.” But he cautions against overcommitting to events at the expense of focus.
Today, Skeeled serves 80% of its client base in Luxembourg, with a growing footprint in Belgium and Switzerland. Alongside its core recruitment platform, the company has launched alleyesonme.jobs, a job board showcasing workplaces through video and images – a concept designed to appeal to a new generation of talent.
The company is also preparing for a new phase of international growth, based on a reseller strategy rather than direct expansion. At the same time, Mr Reiffers is closely watching the impact of AI on recruitment and team dynamics. “AI can change how development is done, how marketing is done,” he says. “But implementing it means changing habits and that’s hard when your team is already at full capacity.”
