Ideally: Building a culture of high performance
Client: Ideally | Industry: Marketing Technology (MarTech) | Size: 44 Employees
“Humankind brought clarity, efficiency, and a genuine partnership to our people journey. They helped us build the roadmap, gave us confidence in our plans, and were always there when things got complex. It’s a dynamic, trusted relationship that’s been instrumental to our growth.”
— Cassie, Chief of Staff, Ideally
The Company
Ideally is a fast-growing MarTech company helping major brands and consumer product businesses innovate with confidence. Their platform delivers overnight consumer feedback on product ideas and marketing messages, enabling clients to make data-driven decisions at speed.
The Challenge
Ideally engaged Humankind at a critical point, just after closing their Seed II funding round and on the cusp of doubling their headcount and expanding internationally. As rapid growth exposed gaps in early people practices, the leadership team recognised the need to build strong foundations to attract, retain, and stretch high-performing talent, and to scale their culture.
Our Approach
Since late 2024, Humankind has worked closely with the leadership team and CEO in partnership. The relationship is defined by trust, flexibility, and a shared ambition to build something exceptional. Together, we focused on three pivotal stages to ensure they could scale without losing what made them unique.
01 - Assessing Culture and Setting the Roadmap
While Ideally’s culture felt positive, there was little evidence to support this perception. By conducting one-on-one interviews and surveys, we established a robust, data-driven baseline for culture. This enabled us to prioritise initiatives that would stretch and harness talent, track progress over time, and ensure their people strategy directly supported their business growth.
02 - Embedding High Performance
As scaling accelerated, building a high-performing team became their north star. Together, we introduced a performance guidebook, impact planning, and regular calibration and compensation reviews, ensuring they hired and retained top talent, addressed underperformance, and kept the right people in the right roles.
03 - Developing the Ideally Employee Value Proposition (EVP)
As Ideally gets ready to hit its next inflection point for headcount growth and international expansion, we are working collaboratively with the team to identify and develop the Employee Value Proposition, as a tool to be used in new talent identification and retention of top performers.
Throughout, Humankind’s partnership was broad and flexible, facilitating leadership away days, company-wide workshops, and providing leadership coaching and specialist ER expertise as needed.
As Ideally continues to grow, our partnership remains dynamic and future-focused. Current priorities include scaling recruitment across new geographies, supporting AI as a people change within the business, refining ways of working for a distributed team, and developing a competency framework for the “Ideally player.” Leadership development, coaching, and building future-ready people systems remain central as we support Ideally through their next stage of growth.
The Outcome
Ideally’s investment in its people has underpinned impressive business performance:
- Team Growth: Headcount more than doubled in 12 months (21 to 44), including establishing a US-based team.
- Leadership Impact: Leadership scored 4.44/5 in the latest pulse survey, with high marks for trust, accountability, and setting high expectations.
- Engagement: eNPS score of 64 (Oct 2024); Experience Index 4.35/5 (mid-2025).
- People Systems: Embedded scalable processes for performance, compensation, and growth—making it easier for leaders to focus on strategy and for employees to self-serve.
- Culture: Ideally is now recognised for hiring high-calibre, values-driven people, with leaders who address underperformance and foster autonomy and flexibility.
- Awards & Recognition: Won major marketing awards in Australia (B&T, Mumbrella 2024); 200+ customers and growing.
Why This Partnership Matters
Working with Ideally is the definition of a true partnership. We’re not just advisors; we’re invested collaborators, trusted to help shape the people side of a high-performing, ambitious business. The openness, ambition, and willingness to co-create at Ideally has allowed us to deliver our best work - building foundations that will support their success for years to come.
