Small Improvements
This article has been nominated for deletion. You are welcome to participate in the deletion discussion, which will decide whether to keep it. This discussion may also result in the article being merged, redirected, or draftified. |
 | The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines for companies and organizations. (February 2026) |
 Small Improvements current logo | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | March 2011 |
| Founder | Per Fragemann |
| Headquarters | Berlin , Germany |
| Products | Performance management software |
Number of employees | 25 |
| Website | small-improvements.com |
Small Improvements is a performance management software company based in Berlin, Germany.[1] The company provides tools for performance reviews, 360-degree feedback, one-on-one meetings, pulse surveys, and goal tracking.[2] Its platform is primarily used by small and mid-sized organizations. Small Improvements was founded in 2011 by Per Fragemann, a former product manager at Atlassian.[3]
History
[edit]The idea for Small Improvements originated in 2009, when Fragemann was working at Atlassian in Sydney.[3] While the company had adopted a variety of modern internal tools, performance reviews remained cumbersome and outdated. Fragemann identified this as a gap in the market and decided to pursue a new solution focused on flexibility and ease of use. In 2010, he returned to Germany and began developing the product with €50,000 in personal savings.[4] Initially working alone, he later hired student developers and a friend to support early development efforts.[3]
Small Improvements was officially incorporated in March 2011. In the same year, Atlassian selected the platform as its internal performance management tool after running a public challenge to find a better alternative to traditional reviews.[5] Early features included performance reviews and peer recognition.[6] Despite limited revenue and nearing insolvency in late 2011, the company gained momentum in 2012.[3]
By early 2014, Small Improvements had 230 customers, including Atlassian, Pinterest, Quiksilver, and Opera Software.[6] The company reported approximately $1 million in annual revenue at the time.[3] It operated profitably and remained fully bootstrapped, with Fragemann retaining 100% ownership.[4] Fragemann stated that the company had declined multiple offers from investors in order to retain full control over its direction.[3]
As of 2015, Small Improvements employed 12 people, including remote team members in Sydney, New York, and San Francisco.[3] Development remained centered in Berlin, while efforts to serve U.S. customers led to the opening of a satellite office on the West Coast.[3]
Between 2016 and 2025, the product expanded to include recurring one-on-one meeting support (2016),[7] pulse surveys and reporting features (2020), workflow automation (2021), an AI writing assistant (2024),[8] and cascading objectives (2025).[9] The front-end stack transitioned from Apache Wicket to AngularJS, and later to React[10] and TypeScript, while the backend remained Java-based.[11]
As of 2025, Small Improvements is used by over 1,000 teams globally.[12] Clients include Duolingo, SoundCloud, and Zapier.[8][13]
References
[edit]- ↑ "Contact – Small Improvements". Small Improvements. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ↑ "Top 10 Performance Management Software In 2025". Engagedly. 2025-06-11. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Das kleine Berliner Startup, das zum Hit im Silicon Valley wird". Gründerszene (in German). 2014-02-13. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- 1 2 "How Small Improvements Bootstrapped Its Way to Success". Bonusly. 2015-03-13. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ↑ "Crowdsourcing brings improvements". Financial Times. 2012-12-06. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ↑ "Small Improvements 5 Year Anniversary!". Vimeo. 2016-03-24. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- 1 2 "Best Performance Management Software for 2025". SelectSoftware Reviews. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ↑ "SI Origins". Vimeo. 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ↑ "Our journey migrating 100k lines of code from AngularJS to React (Chapter 1)". Small Improvements Tech Blog. 2017-01-25. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ↑ "Running our App Engine Application in the Flexible Environment (Java 8)". Small Improvements Tech Blog. 2016-09-12. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ↑ "12 Best Performance Management Software of 2025". ThriveSparrow. 2025-07-07. Retrieved 2025-07-08.
- ↑ "Enabling performance feedback in a 100% remote team". Small Improvements. Retrieved 2025-07-08.