FAQ
Questions leaders ask us first
If yours isn't here, email hello@ygora.ai — a founder will answer.
What is Ygora?
A stress test for a plan you have already been given. You say what is changing and what it has to add up to, then answer about two dozen plain questions — does this have one role that decides it, is the handover written down, is there work only one person can do — across four sides of the same business: your people, how the team is organised, how the work moves, and what your systems show you. What comes back is what it takes, in three lists: what is yours to do, what needs somebody else, and what is outside your reach. Then it drafts the documents from your answers — a team charter, a role description, the handover written down, the case to take upward. No numbers, no benchmarks, no score.
Is Ygora an OKR tool?
No, and it doesn't replace one. OKR and goal-tracking software helps you set goals and see whether you're hitting them. Ygora starts the day after that: tracking tells you where you stand, not what you and your team need in order to actually deliver. If you're looking for somewhere to write and track OKRs, Ygora isn't it. If you've set them and delivery is the problem, it is.
Do I need to have OKRs to use it?
No. Goals come in different forms — a company strategy, OKRs, a quarterly commitment, a number you inherited. Ygora starts from whatever you actually have and doesn't ask you to restate it in someone else's format.
Is this HR software or performance management?
Neither. It's a tool for the leader, on your side of the table — not something an HR department runs on managers. It won't rate your people or feed a review cycle. In fact one of its most useful moments is the opposite: checking whether a strong performer could have delivered in the system you gave them, before you conclude the problem is the person.
Isn't this what our HR system already does?
No, and the two barely overlap. An HRIS, a headcount planning tool or a workforce planning module is where a decision goes once it has been made — the approved chart, the requisition, the band, the start date. Its user is HR or finance and its job is to keep the record straight. Ygora is where you work the decision out beforehand, on your own, and its user is you. Different moment, different person, different question: not how many did we approve, but what does this team have to look like to deliver what I have been handed. Once you have settled that, you go and submit the number wherever you submit it now.
Why not just do this in slides or a spreadsheet?
Most leaders do, and a blank document is exactly the problem: it does not ask you anything. You write down what you already know, which is never the part that catches you out — the handover nobody owns, the work only one person can do, the decision you are measured on and do not make. Ygora asks about two dozen questions you can answer in one breath, and the ones you answer not sure to are usually the useful ones. It also writes the document at the end, from your answers, which is the part the spreadsheet was never going to do.
How often would I actually use this?
Whenever something changes that you will be held to. A new target lands. You are asked to take on a product, a market or a team. Somebody decides the same output has to cost less. You are new in the role. Each of those is a stress test, and each takes about ten minutes — you can answer one side and stop. Between them you come back to one to change an answer, or to write a document you now need.
What do I actually get out of it?
One page you can put in an email: what to do, what to ask for, and what you are assuming. Every line leads with an action rather than a diagnosis, because nobody can put a diagnosis in their calendar. Then the documents, drafted from the same answers — a team charter, a role description for a job you are about to open, the handover written down, how decisions get made with another team, and the case for what your team needs from the business. Plus a bench of people you could call before a role opens. The third list is the one nothing else gives you: naming what the plan depends on and you cannot move, at the start of the quarter rather than as an explanation at the end.
Are you going to tell me not to hire?
No. If you're growing you're hiring, and Ygora assumes that. What it does is get the structure right before the offer goes out — because a role whose scope nobody wrote down is the one that takes two quarters to work out. Where a cheaper answer happens to exist it will show you, without arguing: work that has four people on it and nobody deciding, or a decision that turns out to sit in another department. It shows you counts and leaves the call with you.
Do I have to sign up to try it?
You need an account for it to be saved, because the answers and the documents have to be there next time — but signing up is an email and nothing else. No password, no card, no form.
What happens to what I type about my team?
It stays behind your sign-in and it is never reused for another leader, never used to train a model, and never put in an email — our emails say something is waiting and link to it, and the code that sends them cannot accept a plan, a name or a number. A colleague at the same company doesn't see your workspace. The full detail, including who processes what and where, is on the trust page.
Do you need to know which company I work for?
No. The company name is optional and nothing asks twice. What changes the wording is the context: what you lead, roughly how big the company is, who owns it — and all of that is optional too. Identity changes nothing.
Do you have SOC 2 or ISO 27001?
Not yet, and we won't claim a badge we don't have. What we do run is data minimisation by design, a short named list of providers, encryption in transit and at rest, per-leader isolation, and structural limits on what can leave the product in an email. We'll sign a DPA and answer a security questionnaire. If a formal audit is what stands between us and your organisation buying, tell us and we'll be straight about the timeline.
Couldn't I just ask ChatGPT or Claude the same questions?
You would get a decent answer to the question you asked. Three things are different here. The questions are CHOSEN rather than generated — about two dozen, all about what exists and who owns it, picked by people who have run these teams. They include the ones you would not have thought to ask, which are usually the ones that catch you out. Second, nothing about what is wrong with your team is written by a model: the same answers always produce the same read, because it is a lookup and a sort rather than a generation, and there is no score for anybody to argue with. Third, it keeps all of it between sessions — so the charter, the role description and the case for what your team needs are drafted from what you actually answered, not from whatever you could remember to paste in.
What does it cost?
Free while we're in pilot — no card, no commitment. After that it's NOK 500 per leader per month excl. VAT, month to month, or NOK 5 000 for a year, which is two months free. That's the whole product, not an entry tier. And if you join during the pilot, your first two months are free once charging starts. Larger organisations and multiple teams, talk to us.
Can we just talk to you instead?
Yes, and it's free. Thirty minutes with Silje or Gry — bring the goal you're trying to hit and the thing that's in the way, and we'll work on that rather than walk you through screens. If it turns out you'd rather we worked the situation through with you properly, we'll talk about what that looks like then. We'd rather find that out in a conversation than sell it off a page.
Who is behind Ygora?
Silje Sundal and Gry Brandsnes, in Oslo. One came at this from revenue operations, getting go-to-market teams to actually deliver; the other from people and HR. Ygora AS, org. no 935 830 427. You can book 30 minutes with either of us.
Easier to just try it than read about it.
Start a stress test