Retain—HR professionals passionate about the full life cycle of employees in startups and small to mid-sized companies

In the current economic climate, it’s imperative to streamline your businesses. Implementing strategic HR solutions offers an effective way to save your business time,  money and other valuable resources.

In addition to time and cost savings, Retain can help you navigate the complexities of Human Resources, in a customized and flexible way so that you can focus on your business.  Through their on-demand model, they are uniquely positioned to help startups and small businesses who need access to core Human Resources services. They will help you thoughtfully manage your employees, stay compliant with ever changing local, state, and federal regulations and provide top level HR consulting in the most critical times of need.  

The genesis of Retain, its journey, and its offerings

After advising some early-stage startups and a VC fund, Lisa-Maree Blumenfeld, Founder and CEO of Retain, noticed a real need for part-time HR support in growing businesses. Strictly via word-of-mouth, Retain quickly had more clients than one person could handle. Today, Retain has grown to a powerhouse of 8 expert consultants, all over the US, with a combined experience that spans decades. Retain continues to be 100% bootstrapped and self-run.

Retain specializes in the small-medium business and startup space. The firm provides on-demand core Human Resources services for companies that are not yet in need of full-time HR staff.

Retain offers a wide range of support including tactical support with payroll, onboarding/off-boarding, employee relations, strategic guidance with critical HR situations, and coaching for emerging and existing leaders.

Innovation at Retain, customer satisfaction and challenges overcome

Retain is unique in that they specialize and have extensive experience in the startup and small/medium business space. Because of their partnership with VCs, they understand the challenges of very early-stage startups and help build those companies from the ground up. Growing alongside these businesses then allows Retain to transition the HR function in a way that VCs trust is built in alignment with their specific needs and vision.

Retain meets clients where they are. The firm recognizes and acknowledges when they are going through the unknown. Their extensive expertise gives those clients peace of mind when situations are stressful, “we've seen this before and we have a playbook or a process we can plug in, in other words -  we’re here to figure this out with you”.  Their mantra is, “You focus on your product. Let us focus on your people.” That’s the solution many of Retain’s clients are looking for, someone acknowledging the pain points and willing to create a plan. Having a network of experts allows the company to tap into different areas of expertise and provides a pathway that is grounded in research. So much of what Retain does surrounds sensitive information and goes beyond standard practices of payroll and onboarding.

Retain was initially launched with a recruiting arm alongside its suite of core HR services. Through this experience, they quickly understood there was significant potential for conflict of interest. It proved difficult to provide the level of HR support that Retain’s client base needed when recruiting for multiple companies in the same industry.  To partner with their clients in a way that is aligned with the core values of Retain, they needed to pivot from recruiting and double down on HR. “The upside here is that we have been able to remain and grow as subject matter experts in the field of HR, provide some strategic planning and advice on the recruiting side, and introduce our clients to a few trusted recruiters or recruiting firms to help them build their companies. There are so many incredible recruiters out there and being able to refer them to our clients has been super valuable.” -Lisa

COVID-19 proved to be yet another challenge, an unexpected one. Retain had to immediately learn to accommodate for the challenges posed to clients and the internal team—not only from a compensation/benefits perspective—but keeping the team sane through uncertainty and increased demand. Lisa recognized she needed  Retain to provide substantial support for companies in a constantly changing landscape, but also make tough decisions to ensure her team had the support to be healthy individuals and families.

Future goals and team spirit at Retain

While Retain continues to thrive and grow, Lisa wants the essence of the company’s roots as a boutique HR firm to remain consistent: to do what they do in the best way possible, bring on interesting companies that align with their values, and continue to grow as a team.

Retain was built from a team-first perspective. They are a team of moms, aunts, coaches, and people training for marathons, and other big things that happen outside of work where the entire team roots for each other. The team at Retain gets to do really interesting work and clients aren’t lacking from them because they can build this in a way that allows them to do the important life things first. Retain’s team is super smart, super capable, fun and light, and respectful. Each team member brings different strengths and balances each other out, and in many ways allows Retain to be a great example for clients.

Providing startups with essential and crucial HR solutions

Lisa-Maree Blumenfeld is the Founder and CEO of Retain. Preceding the start of Retain, Lisa-Maree was the VP of People at a San Francisco-based accelerator. There she led a centralized HR and recruiting team that worked on behalf of more than 20 startups. Her career has included working with fast-moving startups (Lyft, NinthDecimal, and Aria Systems) as well as with larger Fortune 500 companies (PG&E, Blue Shield of California).

“You focus on your product. Let us focus on your people.”