Hacking Work
Hacking Work is a Romanian media and publishing platform founded in 2022 that operates a Thursday newsletter, weekly podcast, conferences, and a book club to cover workplace culture, burnout, and labor rights for Romanian employees, employers, and HR professionals.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded-
- HeadquartersBaia Mare, Romania
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2C
- OfferingDigital Commerce or Content
What Hacking Work does
Hacking Work SRL is a Romanian private limited company founded in 2022 and headquartered in Baia Mare (Maramureș), operating a national media and publishing platform focused on the Romanian labor market. The company runs a portfolio of five interconnected products: a free weekly Substack newsletter distributed every Thursday morning, the Hacking Work Radio podcast (available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube, and broadcast on Radio România Cultural and Radio România Cluj), the Conferințele Hacking Work conference series, the Clubul de Carte book club, and the Chestionar Audiență reader survey. Content is editorial-led and centered on workplace culture, burnout, salary transparency, ITM enforcement failures, teacher burnout, and employee rights in Romania, with a stated position of speaking "clearly, courageously, and honestly" about the labor market.
The company's core technology is a standard digital publishing stack (Substack for newsletter delivery, WordPress for the website at hackingwork.ro, public-radio time slots, and Hosterion as hosting provider); there is no proprietary technology product. Underlying business mechanics rely on a community-led go-to-market model in which editorial content, podcast episodes, civic campaigns (notably the #VremLegeaBurnout petition with 15,000+ signatories brought to the European Parliament), and in-person events build an audience of Romanian employees, employers, and HR professionals. Revenue is generated from three streams: voluntary paid Substack subscriptions (freemium), corporate event sponsorship (UniCredit, OLX Locuri de Muncă, MedLife, Edenred, Allianz-Țiriac, with charitable donations routed to Booktruck), and sponsored editorial content (MedLife's "Oameni sănătoși. Organizații sănătoase" project, plus content partnerships with Blankfactor and DevNest). The company is led by founder Doru Șupeală (author of "Employer Branding 100%" and "Experiența face diferența", Executive MBA lecturer, and Managing Director of SPOR), editorial coordinator Ioana Szabo, and content writer Izabella Lukács. No external funding rounds, parent company, or acquisitions are recorded, indicating an independently operated, founder-driven media enterprise.
Hacking Work firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Hacking Work
- Legal name
- Hacking Work SRL
- Website
- https://hackingwork.ro
- Company type
- Private
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Hacking Work is a Romanian media and publishing platform founded in 2022 that operates a Thursday newsletter, weekly podcast, conferences, and a book club to cover workplace culture, burnout, and labor rights for Romanian employees, employers, and HR professionals.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Hacking Work industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Labor market media and publishing
- SIC
- Periodicals: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2721)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Investigative & Nonprofit News Organizations (MPAJADAF)
Keywords
Where Hacking Work is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Baia Mare
- HQ country
- Romania
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
Hacking Work business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2C
- Offering type
- Digital Commerce or Content
- Cost components
- Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D
Revenue model
- Newsletter subscriptions (Substack): Hacking Work operates a Substack newsletter distributed free every Thursday morning. A paid/free subscription model drives reader revenue through voluntary paid subscriptions on Substack.
- Event sponsorship and donations: Conferences and workshops are funded through corporate sponsors (UniCredit, OLX, MedLife, Edenred, Allianz-Țiriac, and others) and encouraged donations to charitable causes (Booktruck). The event page explicitly encourages donations for educational causes.
- Sponsored content / advertising: Articles and podcast episodes are co-produced with brand partners (e.g., MedLife 'Oameni sănătoși. Organizații sănătoase' project, Blankfactor, DevNest). These appear to be sponsored or co-branded content arrangements that generate revenue.
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels6 records
Hacking Work product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Hacking Work is a Romanian social, civic, and educational media platform that publishes editorial articles, a weekly newsletter (Substack), and a podcast (Hacking Work Radio) covering the Romanian labor market, employee rights, workplace culture, burnout, and salary transparency. It also organizes in-person conferences and a community book club, combining investigative journalism with policy advocacy (e.g., the #VremLegeaBurnout petition with 15,000+ signatories taken to the European Parliament).
Product overview
Hacking Work is a Romanian social, civic, and educational media platform focused on the labor market and employee-employer relations. It operates as a multi-channel content platform offering editorial articles, a weekly podcast, a Thursday newsletter, conferences, and a book club. The portfolio consists of five interconnected offerings: the podcast for audio content distribution, the newsletter for direct reader engagement, conferences for in-person community events, the book club for literary engagement, and the audience survey for reader insight gathering. The company is not a software product company but rather a content and community platform.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Podcast Hacking Work (Hacking Work Radio) Weekly audio podcast on Romanian labor market and workplace issues, distributed via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Radio România Cultural, and Radio România Cluj, for Romanian employees, employers, and HR professionals.
- Newsletter Hacking Work (Substack) Weekly Thursday morning newsletter distributed via Substack, delivering editorial coverage of the Romanian labor market, workplace rights, burnout, salary transparency, and policy advocacy to subscribers.
- Conferințele Hacking Work Annual in-person conference series for Romanian employees, HR professionals, and managers featuring expert speakers on organizational culture, employee values, and workplace improvement, supported by corporate sponsors.
- Clubul de Carte Community book club initiative promoting reading and literary discussion among the Hacking Work audience of Romanian employees and HR professionals.
- Chestionar Audiență Anonymous online audience survey used to gather reader preferences and feedback to improve editorial content relevance for the Romanian labor market audience.
Quantifiable outcome
- 15,000+ Romanians signed the #VremLegeaBurnout petition, which was taken to the European Parliament by Hacking Work's team (Doru Șupeală, Ioana Szabo)
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use Hacking Work
Customer profileNamed customers1 record
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
Hacking Work technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed No
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Hacking Work partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
13 partnerships are on record, tiered minor.
- UniCreditminorUniCredit is listed as an event sponsor for the Conferințele Hacking Work conference. As one of the major banks in Romania, UniCredit supports the event under the theme of integrity, responsibility, and collaboration in communities.
- OLX Locuri de MuncăminorOLX Locuri de Muncă (the largest blue and grey collar recruitment platform in Romania) is listed as an event sponsor, supporting the Hacking Work conference on Romanian employee values.
- MedLifeminorMedLife, Romania's largest private medical services network, is listed as an event sponsor. Hacking Work also co-develops the 'Oameni sănătoși. Organizații sănătoase' (Healthy People. Healthy Organizations) project with MedLife, producing editorial content on workplace health.
- EdenredminorEdenred, a national leader in prepaid service vouchers (meal vouchers, gift cards, virtual cards), is listed as an event sponsor for the Hacking Work conference.
- Allianz-ȚiriacminorAllianz-Țiriac is listed as an event sponsor, supporting the Hacking Work conference on Romanian workplace culture.
- ABC IncubatorminorABC Incubator (a complex support system for early-stage technology enterprises in Cluj-Napoca) hosted the Conferințele Hacking Work event at its premises (Str. Constantin Brâncuși 55-57, Cluj-Napoca).
- AROBSminorAROBS (global provider of IT solutions and custom software) co-hosted the Conferințele Hacking Work event with ABC Incubator.
- Booktruck (Biblioteca Mobilă)minorHacking Work's conference encourages donations to Booktruck – a mobile library that brings reading to isolated villages without libraries in Romania. A €5,000 donation from the community 'adopts' a village for one year of monthly Booktruck visits. This is a charitable partnership aligning with Hacking Work's social mission.
- SPOR – Școala Pentru Oameni ResponsabiliminorSPOR (School for Responsible People) is managed by Doru Șupeală, Hacking Work's founder. The organizations are closely aligned, with Hacking Work events associated with SPOR's community and donation campaigns (e.g., Booktruck adoption through SPOR's Galantom platform).
- HosterionminorHosterion is identified as the web hosting provider for Hacking Work's platforms, with over 18 years of experience in web hosting, dedicated servers, and related services.
- MedLife (content partnership)minorHacking Work co-develops the 'Oameni sănătoși. Organizații sănătoase' project with MedLife. Dr. Mircea Andreica from MedLife contributed expert commentary for the article on sleep deprivation and workplace performance. This is an ongoing editorial content partnership.
- BlankfactorminorBlankfactor (US company with engineering offices in Bucharest, Cluj, and Brașov) sponsored the 'Fenomenul BoredOut' article as a content partner. The company is building a software engineering team in Romania.
- DevNestminorDevNest (Romanian software company passionate about people, ideas, and digital know-how) sponsored the 'Inteligența Emoțională în Era AI' article as a content partner.
Scale indicators3 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Hacking Work competitors and assessment
Company assessmentOthers
- Substack: Newsletter publishing platform that hosts Hacking Work's newsletter and powers its paid-subscription functionality. Comparable as the enabling infrastructure on which Hacking Work's core newsletter product is built.
Broad incumbents
- LinkedIn: Global professional networking platform with extensive labor-market content, salary insights, and editorial coverage. Comparable as the dominant scaled platform addressing employer branding, workplace culture, and career content — directly competing for the same Romanian employer audience.
- ProPublica: Largest US nonprofit investigative newsroom. Comparable as a scaled nonprofit investigative journalism organization demonstrating the donor/sponsor-supported investigative-media business model Hacking Work aspires to.
Regional players
- Mindspace (mindspace.ro): Romanian HR and workplace-wellbeing content/media brand. Comparable as a Romania-focused media platform covering workplace culture, employee wellbeing, and HR topics — partially overlapping with Hacking Work's editorial territory.
Direct peers
- Biziday: Romanian independent newsletter media brand distributing free daily/weekly email newsletters. Comparable as a Romanian direct-to-audience newsletter media company with a similar free-to-reader, sponsorship-supported model.
- Glassdoor: Global workplace review and salary-transparency platform. Comparable to Hacking Work because both center their value proposition on employee voice, salary transparency, and employer accountability — though at vastly different scale and geographies.
- Recorder: Romanian nonprofit investigative journalism outlet focused on accountability reporting. Comparable for its confrontational investigative stance, civic mission, and donor/sponsor-supported business model in the Romanian market.
- SpotMedia.ro: Romanian independent online news outlet with investigative reporting. Comparable as a Romanian independent digital media brand mixing investigative journalism, sponsored content, and community engagement.
- Decât o Revistă (DoR): Romanian independent, reader-funded long-form journalism publication. Closely comparable as a Romanian nonprofit/independent media brand with similar community-led GTM, sponsored editorial, and civic-mission framing.
- The Intercept: US-based nonprofit investigative news outlet funded by readers and philanthropy. Comparable for the nonprofit-newsroom model, civic-mission editorial stance, and reader-funded monetization approach.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Hacking Work social profiles
Digital presenceHacking Work financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Hacking Work leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
Hacking Work funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Hacking Work M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Hacking Work
What does Hacking Work do?
Hacking Work is a Romanian social, civic, and educational media platform that publishes editorial articles, a weekly newsletter (Substack), and a podcast (Hacking Work Radio) covering the Romanian labor market, employee rights, workplace culture, burnout, and salary transparency. It also organizes in-person conferences and a community book club, combining investigative journalism with policy advocacy (e.g., the #VremLegeaBurnout petition with 15,000+ signatories taken to the European Parliament).
Is Hacking Work a public or private company?
Hacking Work is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Hacking Work founded?
Hacking Work was founded in -1. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Hacking Work based?
Hacking Work is headquartered in Baia Mare, Romania, in the Europe region.
How does Hacking Work make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Newsletter subscriptions (Substack) is the primary driver. The others are event sponsorship and donations and sponsored content / advertising.
Who are Hacking Work's main competitors?
Substack is listed as an others. Broad incumbents are LinkedIn and ProPublica. Mindspace (mindspace.ro) is listed as a regional player. Direct peers are Biziday, Glassdoor, Recorder, SpotMedia.ro, Decât o Revistă (DoR) and The Intercept.
Does Hacking Work have an API?
No public API is recorded for Hacking Work.
What industry is Hacking Work in?
Hacking Work's product category is Labor market media and publishing. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAJADAF, Investigative & Nonprofit News Organizations. Its SIC code is 2721.