Charma acquired by The Predictive Index: A waypoint for our mission

When navigating long distances, sailors plot their journeys along a series of waypoints to arrive at their ultimate destination. Today, I’m excited to share that the Charma mission of giving managers superpowers has achieved such a waypoint — we’ve been acquired by The Predictive Index.

Over the course of 65+ years, The Predictive Index (or PI for short) has pioneered the category of talent optimization by developing personalized HR software for hiring, developing, and retaining top talent, and currently serves over 10,000 organizations.

PI has a simply articulated vision that resonates strongly with the Charma team, “Better Work, Better World.” We’re thrilled with how this combination will drive towards that vision and benefit customers immensely.

Before I share more about why we think this is a great outcome for all stakeholders, I’d like to share a few important points for our customers:

1. The Charma product you know (and hopefully love) will live on within the PI platform. We’re already hard at work on the integration and will bring it to market in Q1 2024.
2. No action is currently required for existing Charma customers, your accounts and the data you’ve put into Charma are all safe, secure, and will be preserved going forward.  
3. All paying customers will retain the pricing in their existing agreements.
4. The Charma team is joining PI, so you’ll be able to continue working with the folks you already know and who are familiar with your needs.
5. After the integration, the product experience will remain very similar to the Charma you're used to, just with new branding and a few new bells and whistles (more on that below).

With those immediate questions hopefully addressed, I thought it would be useful to share more insight into why we think this is great for customers, and why it was the right decision for the business.

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Why this is great for customers

When a smaller startup like Charma is acquired by a larger company like PI, there’s always the benefit of additional resources to accelerate product development. But this combination goes beyond just additional resources.

The thing that got me most excited about this deal was how PI’s science-backed approach to talent optimization aligned with our own vision, and how that science would supercharge our product.

Our goal has always been to provide guidance to managers that will help them be great leaders of high performing teams. With PI’s behavioral insights, we’ll be able to deliver that guidance in much more personalized and scientifically validated ways.

Existing Charma customers will get all the functionality they’re used to, and will also get access to PI’s behavioral assessments and have that data integrated into the product experience. 

Existing PI customers will now have access to a robust, post-hire performance management product that brings the PI insights they rely on, into their day-to-day workflows. 

There are countless ideas for how to deepen this integration over time, but we hope to have some quick wins when we launch in Q1 2024. 

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Why this was the right decision for Charma

The goal for nearly every startup founder is to build a large standalone business, so an acquisition is the ultimate irreversible decision you’ll make in the entrepreneurial journey. 

However, when evaluating whether to continue on our path as a standalone company, or to join PI, the decision was pretty clear. The opportunity at PI had everything you’d want as a startup founder: a large install base of target customers, a differentiated distribution channel, a strategic fit for the existing product, and a good home for the team.

The challenge of every startup is to simultaneously build a differentiated product, and to figure out how to distribute it. Candidly, we were much further along on the differentiated product dimension than we were on distribution, and PI solves this problem immediately.

PI has a network of 690+ certified partners that have deep relationships with companies around the world in helping them implement talent optimization solutions. Companies that work with PI certified partners think strategically about their most valuable asset, their people, and are exactly the right audience for Charma’s product.

There is also a push in the market to consolidate tool sets. The Predictive Index is already the G2 leader in Pre-Employment Performance Assessment software, and with the addition of Charma, PI customers will be able to carry that expertise through the entire employment lifecycle.

Weaving PI’s proprietary behavioral science into the Charma product will also lead to a highly differentiated performance management solution. We’ll now be able to deliver personalized experiences for 1:1s, feedback, employee recognition, goal setting, and 360 reviews all guided by the psychometrics of the people involved. This will result in a far more effective solution than the generic workflows other performance management solutions provide today.

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The journey continues

While in some ways, an acquisition is an end of a journey, this one still definitely carries on. As I mentioned, the Charma team has moved over to PI, and I’ll be staying on as Chief Strategy Officer of PI.

I’m extremely proud of the team and the product we’ve built, and I’m thankful for the hundreds of companies that have put their faith in us to help them guide their workplace relationships. We look forward to continuing to serve you in new and exciting ways, and advancing the vision of Better Work, Better World.