March 11, 2025 • 44 mins
Are you ready to explore the dynamics of running a successful consultancy in today’s fast-evolving tech landscape? Join us as we sit down with Szymon Boniecki, co-founder of Monterail, a pioneering Ruby on Rails agency. In this engaging episode, we dive into Monterail's remarkable journey over the past 14 years, sharing lessons on growth, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI), and the delicate balance between client expectations and service quality.
The conversation highlights the importance of adaptability in the face of changing industry demands—from discovering the right marketing strategies to understanding the nuances of maintaining client relationships. Szymon sheds light on how embracing a primarily inbound marketing approach has bolstered Monterail's reputation and client acquisition over the years.
We tackle pressing questions such as: How do you remain competitive in an era where AI promises more efficiency at lower costs? How do you manage your operational scale while still delivering exceptional value to your clients? The episode offers insightful answers along with practical strategies that any aspiring consultant or established agency leader can implement.
With heartfelt anecdotes from both Szymon and host Alex, listeners will find themselves not just inspired, but also equipped with actionable takeaways to elevate their own business strategies. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights from industry leaders! Make sure to subscribe, share, and leave us your thoughts—how do you approach growth and adaptation in your consultancy?
🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody and welcome to Life on Mars.
I'm Alex, ceo and founder ofMars Days, and in today's
episode, we bring you SzymonBoniecki, co-founder of
Monterail, also co-CEO of thecompany that was founded almost
15 years ago.
Monterail it used to be a Rubyon Rails agency.
It started off as such, as wedid, in 2014.
(00:20):
They started a little bitearlier than that, but that was
one of the companies we look upto and we in fact, work together
in a project or two in ourearly beginnings of Mars Days,
and with Simon, we actually havea very, very insightful
conversation that goes two ways.
We keep asking each other aboutthe future of the company, the
(00:40):
future of the industry, how dowe perceive AI, how is this
going to optimize the kind ofwork that we're doing, if that
will help you to reduce the costof the projects or increase the
development pace and whatnot.
So this is a two-sidedconversation, with two people
running companies that arebootstrapped, that are on the
boutique side of things, buthave pretty different
(01:01):
philosophies about how to expandthe business.
So this conference is pretty,pretty interesting for people
who want to start a consultancy,a studio, an agency whatever
you want to call it.
So, without further ado, let'sjump right into the episode.
I'm excited and we're live.
(01:24):
Welcome to the show.
It's funny.
We connected at the verybeginning of the creation of
Mars Space.
We reached out to the companiesthat we wanted to be like.
Monterey was one of them.
We said how many companies outthere are doing Ruby?
It was not surprising that notmany big companies were doing
(01:44):
Ruby.
And it was not surprising thatnot many big companies were
doing Ruby.
Perhaps it was Rakuten, it wasGitHub, airbnb and the like but
no corporate agencies like thebig force weren't doing Ruby.
So it's mostly boutiqueagencies and you were one of
them.
You were one of the very fewthat actually answered back, so
thank you for that.
It's great that we stay intouch.
(02:04):
We actually worked together ina project in 2014 or 15, in the
very beginning.
I don't know if you rememberthat but uh and um and after
that we haven't kept in touch,but I have been following your
newsletter blog and 14 yearsthat's a hell of a run.
Congratulations for for that.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Thanks, Alex.
I've been following podcastsand everything you do as well.
I really liked.
I remember that you'vementioned.
Oh, we just started, we want tobe like you.
And I was like, wow, someonewants to be like us.
We just started, anyway, as awindow, let's see what it has to
say.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
It's funny because now we're getting these kind of
emails ourselves where somebodyis like oh, we're creating an
agency, we want to be like you.
I had two meetings last week inMadrid and they're like we want
to be like Mars Race, we followyour podcast and whatnot.
So in a way, it's a way ofpaying back right to the
ecosystem.
So I think there can be so manylessons learned.
On the other hand, I think,well, we're not that big of a
(03:06):
company.
So, yeah, I can tell you thedo's and don'ts and mostly, if
you don't experience yourselfthe fuck-ups, you will not learn
from them, Like we don't learn,we have never learned from
fuck-ups from other people.
I don't know if that's the casewith you guys, who were your
inspiration when you startedThoughtBot, ThoughtBot yeah, and
then on the way a couple more.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
At some point I wanted to be like ThoughtWorks.
We're not quite there yet, butI think ThoughtBot is still a
pretty good benchmark, honestly.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It's funny because ThoughtBot was the other company
that answered back.
I think I think it was only youand Thoughtbot of the entire
world.
We sent out an email to like 60agencies, maybe Plataformatech
in Brazil, I think those guysanswered too.
I remember talking to someBrazilian dudes back in the day,
thoughtbot funnily enough, wemade a really good friendship
(04:05):
with one of the managingdirectors, who quit the company
shortly afterwards and startedworking with us, and I think
that that was particularlyhelpful.
But I don't know what is thething about Thoughtworks that
you like, because I think morelike into the consulting more
than developing.
Right, they're both of areference.
(04:25):
They're a reference in bothworlds, but I'm not I'm not
following thought works thatmuch.
I'm not that familiar with whatdo you like about them?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
and they also begin with thought all right yeah,
exactly, they're misleading,yeah we should change our name
to thought something um, thoughtrails and thought based.
Yeah, yeah, exactly so.
It's always been our aspiration, um, and I think the last year
(04:55):
and a half has shown the thehuge power and in adaptability,
organizational adaptability andthat's why I think the benchmark
there's no benchmark for meright now, it's just to be
adaptable and do your own thing.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So marketing was like in the center of your
beginnings, right?
So content marketing, like, forinstance, we've so.
Content marketing Like, forinstance, we've never done paid
marketing.
We don't do outbound because wedon't like it.
I think it goes against ourprinciples.
It's for other companies, justnot for us.
But we focus 100% on inboundand it's work wonders.
(05:39):
However, 90% of the deals Ibring into the company is
because of my network.
It's because I just move around, go to conferences and talk in
podcasts and meet people.
I meet three different peopleevery day, right, and so I
generate this kind of deal flow,and then 10% the other 10% of
the deal flow comes through thewebsite or maybe like 1%
residual, something else.
(06:00):
You know, sometimes it'sTwitter, sometimes it's a, a
podcast, sometimes it's thisevent or something else, but so
I would say we have a lot of youknow, a lot of like our faces
as ceos or leaders or foundersof these companies.
We, we work throughrecommendation and I think
that's very important.
(06:20):
That's why I'm saying like Idon't know if getting on the
cover of a magazine or somethinglike that, or getting on TV or
the radio would really bringmuch more revenue.
The times we've been on TV waslike something really small and
was really stupid and didn'thave any sort of effect.
But happy clients, they keepbringing projects and I guess
(06:40):
that's the same with you.
You guys have got a lot ofrecurrence right with the happy
clients, I guess.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Do you have any metrics on that?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Do you calculate metrics on client retention or
something like that?
Yeah, we do, oh nice.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
We've been trying to put some methodology into this
but in the end we always fail,you know.
I mean, the numbers are, thevolumes are so small in terms of
, you know, we run around 35projects at a time, you know,
and, and yearly that's maybe 50to 60 unique projects.
(07:18):
So you know, these numbers,these are not high volume
numbers that you can bring some,you, you know you can bring
some knowledge, someexpectations, but not so many, I
think.
But yeah, we measure clientretention, returning clients,
you know, and referrals.
This is the most importantmetric of all.
(07:39):
I think there's been thisarticle in Harvard Business
Review years ago and it's calledthe Only One Number you Need to
Grow, and it's an article aboutNPS Net Promoter Score, that if
people answer, how likely areyou to recommend this company?
(08:02):
8 or 9 or 10 out of, or ten outof ten?
This is your sweet spot,because people will keep,
actually keep recommending you.
Um, and we measure that.
Uh, sometimes, I think, eventoo often people are fed up with
answering these NPAs like everyquarter.
(08:24):
We changed it to, I think, halfa year right now.
Um, but yeah, so we measurethat.
Um, I think sometimes you can't, uh, you just can't.
You can't make everyone happyand you know that's, that's
(08:44):
obvious truth.
But when you run a servicecompany, you try to make
everyone happy, right,especially with the the bigger
you grow, the biggercomplexities there are, the
bigger hiccups there could be,the bigger compromises you make,
etc.
Etc.
Sometimes you know we dooutbound, we do that kind of
(09:06):
stuff you know, like, you know,uh, salesy, all that thing, we
really want to grow Like, welike growing Um, and so in that
sense I I think, uh, you realizeat some point you just can't
(09:27):
make everyone happy Because ifyou do, in service business
you'll drive yourself crazy andsad.
But true, you know, and I'veheard this multiple times from
founders running servicecompanies that they're just,
they had mental problems at somepoint because they tried to
(09:48):
make everyone happy and itwasn't possible.
You know, and you just have to.
You just have to pick up thephone call that someone is not I
mean the figurative phone callthat someone's not happy and
just accept it.
You're doing your best.
You know they're doing whatthey have to make the phone call
because they're not happy andthat's it, end of story.
(10:11):
And you just do your besteffort to make up for that.
And this is what I keep sayingto my team, I mean the team that
manages the projects andmanages the company.
We can't make happy, we aspiredo, we want to um and but and uh
(10:34):
, there is very little space formistakes, especially lately.
Man, you clients are easy toturn.
So if you make mistakes, it's avery good always a very good
opportunity to lose a client.
You know and I think we've beendoing a pretty good job
(10:56):
recently on making everyone sortof happy we're not getting full
.
You know we're not getting thefull NPS from everyone, but you
know we're not getting full.
You know we're not getting thefull mps from everyone, but you
know we're not either giving outdiscounts.
You know, if you're in servicebusiness, you know what I'm
saying.
Like if you fucked up, you haveto make it.
You know, give up the disc,right, um?
So yeah, I think I think youhave a huge responsibility on
(11:22):
yourself, man, that you bring inthe deal flow, and I guess it
depends from person to person.
I don't think I would be ableto myself to live with that
thought.
I'm the deal flow, to be honest.
That would be too hard for me.
(11:43):
I mean, I bring in the DFL, tobe honest.
That would be too hard for me.
I bring in the DFL, but it'sjust part of the DFL.
So I would rather ask thequestion to you how do you
handle this?
What's driving you?
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I suffer from a lot of vertigo.
The first seven hires,something like that by hire
number 10, I was like yeah,whatever.
But I remember I had neverhired the person my two
co-founders they had in previouscompanies.
For me it was first company and, moreover, I am a developer by
(12:20):
trade.
I learned how to do sales byrunning this company, but they
appointed me as the director ofsales or in charge of sales
because I spoke english and Itraveled a lot and they thought
that was a good recipe.
Right, I said like let's seewhat happens.
We have six months if not, weshut down right.
And I remember that you know,things picked up really from the
(12:45):
very beginning and we hired ourfirst employee six months into
the company.
Right, it was like could havegone wrong, but it went really
well.
We hired somebody eight months.
We hired somebody else.
By the first anniversary we hadalready three employees, which
was crazy, but with every one ofthem I remember that suffering
(13:06):
a lot of vertigo was the case,because I was like okay, so now
this man's salary depends on me.
And the other funny thing is oneof my co-founders, jordi,
joined full-time one year afterwe created the company because
he had a really good position atanother company and he had a
child.
And we're like, dude, don'trisk it, you know, just take it
easy, just join when this isvery stable, if it ever becomes
(13:30):
very stable.
And when he joined, you know, Iwas like, wow, because I knew
him.
We've been friends sincechildhood and I know his wife, I
know his, I knew his kid.
I was like, oh my God, this isgoing is going like this, took
it all on me emotionally.
And and then a couple morehires and I got over it.
I saw like, oh, the company'sgrowing steadily.
(13:51):
It's stable and so I got usedto it.
I know it's a hugeresponsibility to be responsible
for 90 of the deal flow, but Ithink I mean, if I die tomorrow,
like we've got a plan B right.
I mean that's based on yourworries.
I think you should die tomorrow,but yeah, still, exactly, I'm
not going to be here.
So fuck if I care.
But no, of course I want thebest for them.
(14:14):
But I know that if I left thecompany for whatever reason,
because I wanted to do somethingelse, I could still be the face
of the company, which are oflike an un-executive chairman or
something like that beassociated to the brand, direct
or deal for to the company.
So I know that these mostlikely the um, you know, the
likely outcome uh would be this.
(14:35):
Uh, I'm not, you know otherthings of the company could do
somebody else.
What I think I am irreplaceablefor is bringing so much revenue
into the company.
All the rest you know the blog,the marketing, the sales
somebody else could do it.
Maybe leadership we are a co-CEO, the three of us, so I'm not
really that necessary, so tospeak.
(14:58):
So I don't know if that answersyour question.
So you're three co-CEOs, sortof Outwards.
I'm the only CEO.
Then we've got a CTO and COO,but internally we adopted the
titles only to appeal to otherpeople, to talk to clients,
because initially I was CMO.
(15:20):
Actually we kind of like itwasn't comfortable the first
years, the first three, fouryears, because nobody wanted to
be the CEO.
But I think everybody, like thethree of us, wanted to be the
CEO, but we were like we don'twant to be above each other
because we're best friends,right?
So we're like let's keep it atthe same level.
No CEO, we're like threedifferent profiles.
But then I realized that peopledidn't want to talk to the CMO
(15:43):
for projects.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
They wanted to talk to the CEO, and that's why I
said look, I made the case.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
It's like, hey, outwards I will be the CEO.
Internally I'm not really theCEO Like we operate internally.
I'm not really the CEO like we.
We operate internally like thethree of us are CEOs internally.
But it's weird, it's always theelephant in the room and the
old hires because they we have avery low employee attrition.
So most of our employees havebeen since the beginning of the
(16:10):
company and they have seen me asCMO, right, but the three, four
new people we've had in thelast years they assume I've
always been the CEO and theydon't know the full story.
So that's why explaining it ina podcast it's really great.
How's it play out for you guys?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
We're two co-CEOs and that works well for us.
I don't think it would workeverywhere.
You probably know it byyourself.
I mean, it works, it just works, but I wouldn't write the
business article.
Hey, this is your number onebusiness strategy to do
co-CEOing.
(16:49):
I think it just depends reallyon the company dynamics and your
dynamics between you two orthree in your case.
But I think it right now itworks really well between me,
between me and my partner.
We're two co-founders, twoco-ceos, two partners to own the
co-owners.
Everything's 50 50.
(17:10):
Um, it's just like a marriageman.
I've known this guy longer thanmy wife.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
It is like marriage, and I see what you're saying.
There was a CEO in thebeginning, but then there was no
CEO and it always created somekind of friction.
We just called ourselvesco-founder I mean, everyone was
really comfortable talking to aco-founder, but they didn't have
(17:42):
the executive sort you knowwhat co-founder, but what right?
So then we made the choice withco-CEO, because you know we
could go with CIO, chairmen ofthis world, whatever.
But it showed off that there issome kind of a friction,
because, hey, co, doingsomething is friction, you know,
(18:04):
by just pure logic.
And we just went hey, you know,if we do co-CEO, someone might
just remember us hey, this isthe co-CEO, guys, that sort of
thing.
But did you find that?
Hey, this is the co-CEO guys.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
That's really it, but did you find that, talking to
corporates, the titles have muchmore?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
importance or not really.
Sort of yes, sort of yes.
And from what we've learnedagain, monterail is the biggest
company I've ever worked in, soI have no prior experience but
from what I've learned is ithelps to have all these ladders
(18:49):
of roles even made up so youhave the matching role on the
other side.
You know everyone's, you knowthis is in business books and it
actually is actually sadly true.
Well, not really sadly.
And let me give you an example.
One of our clients, one of ourmajor clients, is Prada.
Yeah, and it's a reallydifficult project.
(19:14):
When you actually go, you knowit's a lot of work and it's
impactful.
And the person that runs thisproject right now is our COO and
she is just, she is the best atit.
She keeps the lights on.
(19:35):
She's been doing for like overa year.
No one could keep up with herto keep the client happy.
She's so experienced and theylike her so much.
But at the same time she's theCOO so she can just make calls
as she goes, as in this decision, that decision, she has all the
(19:56):
business context.
She goes, you know, as in youknow, this decision, that
decision, she has all thebusiness context she wants.
She has a very broaddecision-making scope, so that
helps.
But on the other hand, it's kindof limited because when Prada
wants to escalate, they justescalate to her because you know
, there isn't much else, thereisn't anyone else above her,
(20:20):
there is me and my partner.
But they wouldn't do thatbecause they just want to talk
to her, because she's in theproject and she's been in the
project and they just go to herand there is no one else.
So obviously we need to have aproper structure there, etc.
So when things really hit thefan, they should go to her.
(20:41):
So yeah, in that sense I thinkthere should be the appropriate
structure.
When you're doing big projects,I think Big projects, but you
work with corporates as well,right, yeah, since I mean since
early on.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
But you, you work with corporates as well, right,
yeah, since I mean since earlyon.
But I think, like by year threewe got the first one.
Then by year five we mostlyturned to corporates, for
whatever reason.
Normally the reason I gatheredit's because, um, at least in
Spain, they have like a certainthreshold under which they're
not able to hire you.
Like, if you don't make, if you, if you're not older than five
(21:19):
years old as a company, theirprocurement process will just
like not accept you, or under amillion in revenue, so stuff
like that.
And so we, we were, you know,immediately disqualified from
the get-go.
After year five that was not thecase anymore, and so we started
getting I don't know.
Hp and a couple of our clientswere acquired Now, like Spin got
(21:39):
acquired by Ford, for instance,we got into Ford.
Valuation metrics are acquiredby Citadel Securities in the US.
So we got into a couple ofcorporates because of that and
then some others.
I just did the sale myself, butyeah, for me it was not so much
they want to talk to the CEOhere, but I think me was not so
much the they want to talk tothe ceo here.
But uh, I think they appreciatehaving, like, for instance, I
(22:00):
still I'm the only project I'veever managed in the company or,
since year one is our biggestclient right now, which is
citadel.
Just because of a personalrelationship I have and in terms
of discussing certain things ofimportance and of value with
them, they appreciate that theCEO is involved in the project,
but I think it's more like theexception than the rule here.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I mean, it's still good to be involved, right?
Sometimes?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Hopefully it's fun for you.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
I like it because otherwise I would.
There were five years in whichI didn't manage any project, and
so I lost the sense of how wework internally how we invoice,
how we talk to the clients andwhatnot, and so this way I mean
I'm not super involved but I doreporting talking to the client
(22:56):
and whatnot, and I see I havethe conversations going and I
know not to the nitty grittydetails of every task, but I
know the project and the phasesand whatnot.
But yeah, I think that it's goodto have.
That was going to be my nextquestion.
One of the struggles we'vealways found is scaling
(23:17):
ourselves Like redundant I don'tknow if that's even a word
Creating redundancy for thefounders so that somebody else
can take over and you scaleyourself up, you upgrade
yourself without losing touchwith reality.
But at the same time you knowthat if you're managing projects
, you're coding, you cannotscale a company.
How time you know that ifyou're managing projects, you're
(23:38):
coding, you cannot scale acompany.
How do you manage that yourself?
Because you had to do it.
We haven't had to do it yet andI don't know if I want to do it
.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
But I mean, I'm very lucky to have such a great team
working with us.
Seriously, it's just a gut son,you know, and you know our
C-team, cgo, chief deliveryofficer, coo it's a, you know.
(24:09):
These are very experiencedpeople that I just like working
with and they have very goodgrasp on the industry and our
company and very good gutfeelings where our company is
going, so I feel supercomfortable having them.
Then there is the heads team,or so-called.
(24:31):
Usually we would call themdirectors, but we call them head
of technology, them head offront end sorry, head of
technology, head of finance,whatever and these people are
very good at their very specificfields as well and, again,
that's very comforting.
And these are what I've learned.
(24:58):
I mean, they were instrumentalto scale before 2022, let's say
right, let's say 2022.
I think we can both agree.
2022 was the breaking point andwhere the service industry sort
of collapsed I mean sort ofcollapsed right, um.
(25:21):
So they were instrumental.
The management team wasinstrumental to scale because
they were doing all you know.
They were making sure weactually hire the right people.
We hire as fast as we can andthe processes are in place, or
if there are processes, theytake care of that, and we all
(25:42):
had to align all the time, likewe've done.
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
skating up framework yeah, so the rockefeller happens
to point out, it turned veryhernish type of thing.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So we did that in 2021.
Uh, we, we went through thewhole scaling up course, uh,
with daniel marcos, who is theco-founder of uh, uh, of uh,
gazelle's it's called and we'vebeen doing a lot of aligning you
(26:22):
know, hey, what's going on here, what's going on there and that
was instrumental for the scale.
And then now these people areinstrumental to keep delivering
the value because they have theexperience and they're the ones
(26:49):
most experienced working withclients.
They know how to deliver valueto clients and, again, that's
comforting in the end.
Totally different realities, alittle bit different
expectations towards the role,but eventually instrumental to
(27:09):
what we're doing, and we've beenlucky and happy to be able to
create a man-in-a-team 100%.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Look, I could be talking to you all day about the
14 years of Montreal, but Idon't want to ramp up without
asking you about AI.
Not because AI is trendy, it'sbecause you post a really good
question on email, and that'sactually the challenge that
we're working on right now,which is, you know, prices are
going down, salaries are alsoreceding and our kind of
(27:47):
companies find ourselves in thesituation, or the difficulty,
that people want to pay less forour projects just because
there's AI out there, right, andthey think, like, how can you
become more efficient?
We're working on this.
We still don't have an answer.
We tried, you know, templatingprojects.
We tried working with componentlibraries so that we don't have
(28:10):
to do a design from scratch inevery project, and we're trying
AI, but we're still not at thepoint where we see a significant
increase in productivity, likemaybe you're oh yeah, unit tests
, okay, we can do this, but Idon't know.
Have you guys found any answeras to how AI is going to?
(28:30):
Obviously, it's not going toreplace us, not in the short or
mid term but how can we use itto our advantage to become more
efficient and cheaper?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I think that's the paradigm shift we've all been
waiting for, you know, for thelast 15 years, Because we've
been building apps the same waysince 2025, 26 or something
right, when Redis started offpicking off, and then all the
frameworks, et cetera, et cetera, and everyone was waiting, hey,
(29:05):
what's going to change in tech,what's going to be the thing?
And then Web3 came in in 2021,I think big time and everyone
was like, okay, this is theparadigm shift, the blockchain.
But everyone was like, okay,this is the paradigm shift, the
blockchain.
But it was all.
It was a bit, you know, shakybecause of all the crypto part
(29:26):
to it, et cetera, et cetera.
And it finally turned out notto be the paradigm shift we all
waited for, because blockchainis still.
You know, there are stillamazing blockchain projects.
I keep following amazingblockchain companies, but you
know it's not the paradigm shift.
But the AI was the paradigmshift and we just live.
(29:47):
We're just living through this.
You know and one of our, one ofour gurus and past clients and
said this recently to me in tech, everything is in shambles
right now because, no, you know,no one really knows.
(30:09):
You know where it's getting,where it's heading, you know,
with ai and and the recession,etc.
Etc.
And for at some point there wasa very strong narrative the
there is the recession in tech,so everyone will going to be
saving money using AI and thisis the solution to everything.
But it all failed, at least fornow.
(30:36):
So we believe strongly that AIcan automate a lot of stuff, and
we've been automating stuff,but I think not as much as we
still like to.
I think first, it has to dowith how things have, how things
(31:03):
have been done for the lastdozen years.
We built scalable, complex,stable software for months.
You know, these are kind ofprojects that we're all you know
, you and I, our companies,companies are used to build and
(31:29):
this is how our teams have doneit so far.
So the mindset is this has towork.
There are no shortcuts, eventhough every time we have me and
my partner, we have a meetingwith new joiners, we keep
(32:01):
telling them hey, one of ourcore values is actually figuring
out shortcut and how to makethings more effective.
But I think the way we workright now and the type of
projects we have, it's stilldifficult to adapt everything as
it's adapt, as in, okay,benchmark being what we're
seeing on X Twitter.
Let's say, right these days,right, what people are creating
(32:23):
with things like Boltnew orSoftgen Cursor.
This stuff is just amazing,right, and this is the benchmark
in everyone's populist minds.
This is how fast softwareshould be done.
But when I look inside mycompany, it's not, and obviously
(32:44):
I know why not, but I thinkit's, you know.
When I look inside my company,it's not, and obviously I know
why not.
But I think it requiresspecific mindset that it still
has to change a little bit inour minds.
Software can be done a littlebit differently.
It takes curiosity in, you know, in developers' minds, in our
(33:05):
minds too, because it's so hardto keep up with those tools, man
.
I mean, every month there'ssomething new.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
I know, I know that's one of the things I struggle
the most with is I'm livinghalf-baked projects every week
Side projects, not companyprojects but it's like, oh, I
want to try these.
Um, versals v0 okay, perfect.
Then boldnew okay, I'm gonnatry.
Then, you know, I don't end updoing anything substantial
because, oh, there's somethingthat is slightly better.
(33:38):
I'm chasing the new shiny thing.
Maybe that's why I'm the ceo,right.
But at the same time, thatcreates a lot of frustration
because I keep accumulating alot of corpses right in the
background and I'm like, okay, Igot to finish some of these and
my feeling is that I don'tactually complete anything.
(33:58):
I don't get anything substantialin AI precisely because of that
, because it's wow, it's flashy,it goes well for the demo, but
most of these tools they are nothelping us because probably
they're engineered forproduct-based companies but not
for service-based companies.
The only thing that they reallywork for like, for instance,
one use case we found with VersoVerso's V0, is it's great for
(34:23):
prototyping, something to showto the client even before it
starts.
Right, the client comes up withan idea look, I want this.
We did it for a company like acompany from andora.
They wanted to have amarketplace for second-hand cars
and we're like, okay, we'rejust going to protect prototype
like this so that in the, thesales process, look, it can look
like this.
(34:43):
And they're like, oh, wow, it'sgot our, you got our, you know
our branding and everything it'sthere Outside of that.
Well, if we refine it further,maybe we can skip one phase of
the UX UI project, but not muchmore right?
Not more than say, like whatBootstrap brought us in 2014.
(35:06):
Or you know, componentlibraries two years ago or
something like that.
I don't know.
You know it's yet not verysubstantial.
That's why I was asking to seeif you guys had something more
substantial.
But seems like we're on thesame boat in this and this we
still got to figure out.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, we're figuring it out.
Uh, we have, uh, we have personentirely in the company that
has a dedicated time to actually, you know, uh, implement this
across the company.
Um, and yeah, the results oftenwe saw, we, we see, hey, what's
possible, is like, wow, how canwe implement this?
(35:46):
And uh, but uh, yeah, likeyou're saying, it depends on the
type of a project.
We do a lot we do get, we dosee a lot of uh, potentially in
the sale, sales process, likeyou're saying, um, representing
the prototypes.
(36:12):
I think for developer one-on-onewith code.
You can also use models.
You know, hey, I'm trying to dothis.
How do I should do around that,especially with remote work and
everything that people are notin the same office, not much
(36:33):
around serendipity around.
You're not jumping, you knowyou're not.
You're not bumping into peopleand asking, hey, how should I
solve this?
You know you're not.
You're not wasting people'stime on slack, how I should.
You're just asking the modelhey, what should I do?
And that's one way to do it.
And obviously this is happeningand we just set ourselves a
(36:57):
goal into measuring what are thepotential productivity gains.
But again, keep up with all thetools and what's the the, you
know the end goal it's this, isthis difficult I think, um, so,
like you're saying, servicecompanies, many different
(37:19):
projects, many differentcontexts.
So you know there is a differentsolution.
I think there is a differentframe.
I think there is a differentframework.
You know, sort of framework,workaround solution for each
kind of client project, right?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
so that's why it's so difficult to scale it across
service companies 100% and towrap it up, we always like to
have the signature question ofthe podcast and people are like,
why didn't you tell me thisbefore I needed to prepare?
Like no, we don't want peopleto prepare for this.
But uh, everybody fucks up.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Right, we want you to share what's been your most
expensive fuck up as a companyowner back in 2015 or 14, we
were struggling with scale, sowe were still 30 small company,
(38:14):
I think, 20 ish, 30s um, and wewere running full steam um right
now I know it's called.
We had the product market fitlike there was demand for
messaging.
You know what that was outthere Ruby and Rails experts
from Poland that was the claimat the time, and we've developed
(38:40):
our CTO and a few people fromthe team have developed a huge
Rails open source thing and wewent with it to London for a
(39:01):
Ruby event and this is where ourCTO did the presentation.
Hey, we're releasing this andeveryone was in awe nice.
So we were, you know, ridinghigh, you know really making
(39:21):
ourselves a name back then andback there and we get approached
at the same event by a guy frompenguin books, yeah, and he's
like hey guys I have thisproject that penguin books has
been thinking about for sometime, to digitize everything
(39:42):
that we do.
And this is the project we wantto do and we thought it should
be in Rails and maybe you shoulddo it.
And I was like nice, this isthe great opportunity of the
time.
Bankman Books, big Railsproject, nice brand we just got
it by doing open source.
And what else we could dobetter?
(40:02):
Right, so we came back to.
Poland and we started analyzinghow can we, you know, fit the
project into our current scale?
And looking, you know, left,right, you know, trying to
squeeze everything in and out,we were like, no, we can't take
any more projects.
And we told Penguin Books no,we can't do it.
(40:25):
And I think I should have donemore to actually fit because it
would be, you lost it.
No, we told them we can't do it, oh well, thank you for the
opportunity, but we don't wantto take it.
Did they come back?
No no no, Afterwards, you knowwhen we were ready in like a
(40:47):
year, he was like well, I'malready working on it.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, normally.
I mean, this is one recurringproblem we've always had, we've
never solved.
You know, a big company comesknocking on our door.
We say have no capacity.
That happens once, it's okay.
Usually they come back.
But if that happens twice, theydon't come for the third time.
Right, we lost.
I mean, we were providers forrakuten in the early beginning
(41:12):
on mars based, and for after twoyears project stopped because
it finished and we took on otherclients and they came after a
year like, hey, you guys got anycapacity?
No, sorry, done.
They came back after six months.
You guys got capacity?
No, we don't.
They didn't come for the thirdtime.
And it happened with a coupleof other big firms.
Usually, and usually you knowthey, they find somebody else
(41:34):
and, um, and that's it, theydon't need your services anymore
.
So that's why that reallyresonates with me.
So sorry to hear about that andthank you for sharing.
Um, it's great that you share.
That's why I always share lotsof my fuck-ups too, because I
think that the newcomers to theindustry, they, they, they can
be learning from us.
And it's not all shiny, it'snot like all golden when you're
(41:58):
running a company.
Your size or our size it's.
You know, we got particularfires and fuck-ups every week,
so I could, I could, I could befilling a house with all of them
.
Look, there's one minute left.
Zimon, you've been extremelygenerous with your time.
Thank you for sharing all thelearnings and experiences and
whatnot.
I'm rolling out the carpet foryou.
You've got one minute to sayhow can we help you, how can the
(42:19):
community of Life on Mars, marsSpace, help Monterey or you
personally?
Let us know what is going onand what can we expect from you
in the future.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
We're looking for people who are super passionate
about low-code and how can AIcan speed up development.
The people I've been talking to, the, the youngsters, have been
(42:49):
really inspired and and that'ssomething really exciting.
Right now that's happening andthis is where, uh, we want to go
back to our beginnings really.
I haven't mentioned that, butyou know, we started a company
because we thought webdevelopment or software
development was broken at thetime.
(43:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Like then man, yeah, and the software was ugly.
So what we wanted to do is tomake beautiful software quickly,
and you know, most of the timethis is what we do.
But these days, you know,making that kind of software
takes a lot of time andhopefully it's still beautiful.
So what we want to do again isto jump on the fast and
(43:36):
effective developing softwareagain, and we're looking for
people who are passionate aboutit.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Nice, thank you very much.
Thank you very much and best ofthe luck in your continued
success to Montreal for manymore years.
Thanks, alex, and that's it fortoday's video.
Feel free to hit the likebutton and subscribe to the
channel if you haven't already,because that will help us to
grow the channel, the Life onMars podcast and I'm recording
this outro because we hired amarketer new director of the
(44:10):
podcast that is David, ournewest member in the Martian
spaceship, and he told me thatthis is going to help us to grow
the channel.
So, if you're interested in ourinterviews, in our long
ramblings that I recordoccasionally, or if you have new
ideas you have new people thatyou want us to interview.
You got new ideas forperformance.
(44:31):
You have some questions for us?
Feel free to share them with usin the comments down below and
I'll see you in the next episode.
Bye.
Hello everybody and welcome to Life on Mars.
I'm Alex, ceo and founder ofMars Days, and in today's
episode, we bring you SzymonBoniecki, co-founder of
Monterail, also co-CEO of thecompany that was founded almost
15 years ago.
Monterail it used to be a Rubyon Rails agency.
It started off as such, as wedid, in 2014.
(00:20):
They started a little bitearlier than that, but that was
one of the companies we look upto and we in fact, work together
in a project or two in ourearly beginnings of Mars Days,
and with Simon, we actually havea very, very insightful
conversation that goes two ways.
We keep asking each other aboutthe future of the company, the
(00:40):
future of the industry, how dowe perceive AI, how is this
going to optimize the kind ofwork that we're doing, if that
will help you to reduce the costof the projects or increase the
development pace and whatnot.
So this is a two-sidedconversation, with two people
running companies that arebootstrapped, that are on the
boutique side of things, buthave pretty different
(01:01):
philosophies about how to expandthe business.
So this conference is pretty,pretty interesting for people
who want to start a consultancy,a studio, an agency whatever
you want to call it.
So, without further ado, let'sjump right into the episode.
I'm excited and we're live.
(01:24):
Welcome to the show.
It's funny.
We connected at the verybeginning of the creation of
Mars Space.
We reached out to the companiesthat we wanted to be like.
Monterey was one of them.
We said how many companies outthere are doing Ruby?
It was not surprising that notmany big companies were doing
(01:44):
Ruby.
And it was not surprising thatnot many big companies were
doing Ruby.
Perhaps it was Rakuten, it wasGitHub, airbnb and the like but
no corporate agencies like thebig force weren't doing Ruby.
So it's mostly boutiqueagencies and you were one of
them.
You were one of the very fewthat actually answered back, so
thank you for that.
It's great that we stay intouch.
(02:04):
We actually worked together ina project in 2014 or 15, in the
very beginning.
I don't know if you rememberthat but uh and um and after
that we haven't kept in touch,but I have been following your
newsletter blog and 14 yearsthat's a hell of a run.
Congratulations for for that.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Thanks, Alex.
I've been following podcastsand everything you do as well.
I really liked.
I remember that you'vementioned.
Oh, we just started, we want tobe like you.
And I was like, wow, someonewants to be like us.
We just started, anyway, as awindow, let's see what it has to
say.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
It's funny because now we're getting these kind of
emails ourselves where somebodyis like oh, we're creating an
agency, we want to be like you.
I had two meetings last week inMadrid and they're like we want
to be like Mars Race, we followyour podcast and whatnot.
So in a way, it's a way ofpaying back right to the
ecosystem.
So I think there can be so manylessons learned.
On the other hand, I think,well, we're not that big of a
(03:06):
company.
So, yeah, I can tell you thedo's and don'ts and mostly, if
you don't experience yourselfthe fuck-ups, you will not learn
from them, Like we don't learn,we have never learned from
fuck-ups from other people.
I don't know if that's the casewith you guys, who were your
inspiration when you startedThoughtBot, ThoughtBot yeah, and
then on the way a couple more.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
At some point I wanted to be like ThoughtWorks.
We're not quite there yet, butI think ThoughtBot is still a
pretty good benchmark, honestly.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It's funny because ThoughtBot was the other company
that answered back.
I think I think it was only youand Thoughtbot of the entire
world.
We sent out an email to like 60agencies, maybe Plataformatech
in Brazil, I think those guysanswered too.
I remember talking to someBrazilian dudes back in the day,
thoughtbot funnily enough, wemade a really good friendship
(04:05):
with one of the managingdirectors, who quit the company
shortly afterwards and startedworking with us, and I think
that that was particularlyhelpful.
But I don't know what is thething about Thoughtworks that
you like, because I think morelike into the consulting more
than developing.
Right, they're both of areference.
(04:25):
They're a reference in bothworlds, but I'm not I'm not
following thought works thatmuch.
I'm not that familiar with whatdo you like about them?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
and they also begin with thought all right yeah,
exactly, they're misleading,yeah we should change our name
to thought something um, thoughtrails and thought based.
Yeah, yeah, exactly so.
It's always been our aspiration, um, and I think the last year
(04:55):
and a half has shown the thehuge power and in adaptability,
organizational adaptability andthat's why I think the benchmark
there's no benchmark for meright now, it's just to be
adaptable and do your own thing.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So marketing was like in the center of your
beginnings, right?
So content marketing, like, forinstance, we've so.
Content marketing Like, forinstance, we've never done paid
marketing.
We don't do outbound because wedon't like it.
I think it goes against ourprinciples.
It's for other companies, justnot for us.
But we focus 100% on inboundand it's work wonders.
(05:39):
However, 90% of the deals Ibring into the company is
because of my network.
It's because I just move around, go to conferences and talk in
podcasts and meet people.
I meet three different peopleevery day, right, and so I
generate this kind of deal flow,and then 10% the other 10% of
the deal flow comes through thewebsite or maybe like 1%
residual, something else.
(06:00):
You know, sometimes it'sTwitter, sometimes it's a, a
podcast, sometimes it's thisevent or something else, but so
I would say we have a lot of youknow, a lot of like our faces
as ceos or leaders or foundersof these companies.
We, we work throughrecommendation and I think
that's very important.
(06:20):
That's why I'm saying like Idon't know if getting on the
cover of a magazine or somethinglike that, or getting on TV or
the radio would really bringmuch more revenue.
The times we've been on TV waslike something really small and
was really stupid and didn'thave any sort of effect.
But happy clients, they keepbringing projects and I guess
(06:40):
that's the same with you.
You guys have got a lot ofrecurrence right with the happy
clients, I guess.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Do you have any metrics on that?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Do you calculate metrics on client retention or
something like that?
Yeah, we do, oh nice.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
We've been trying to put some methodology into this
but in the end we always fail,you know.
I mean, the numbers are, thevolumes are so small in terms of
, you know, we run around 35projects at a time, you know,
and, and yearly that's maybe 50to 60 unique projects.
(07:18):
So you know, these numbers,these are not high volume
numbers that you can bring some,you, you know you can bring
some knowledge, someexpectations, but not so many, I
think.
But yeah, we measure clientretention, returning clients,
you know, and referrals.
This is the most importantmetric of all.
(07:39):
I think there's been thisarticle in Harvard Business
Review years ago and it's calledthe Only One Number you Need to
Grow, and it's an article aboutNPS Net Promoter Score, that if
people answer, how likely areyou to recommend this company?
(08:02):
8 or 9 or 10 out of, or ten outof ten?
This is your sweet spot,because people will keep,
actually keep recommending you.
Um, and we measure that.
Uh, sometimes, I think, eventoo often people are fed up with
answering these NPAs like everyquarter.
(08:24):
We changed it to, I think, halfa year right now.
Um, but yeah, so we measurethat.
Um, I think sometimes you can't, uh, you just can't.
You can't make everyone happyand you know that's, that's
(08:44):
obvious truth.
But when you run a servicecompany, you try to make
everyone happy, right,especially with the the bigger
you grow, the biggercomplexities there are, the
bigger hiccups there could be,the bigger compromises you make,
etc.
Etc.
Sometimes you know we dooutbound, we do that kind of
(09:06):
stuff you know, like, you know,uh, salesy, all that thing, we
really want to grow Like, welike growing Um, and so in that
sense I I think, uh, you realizeat some point you just can't
(09:27):
make everyone happy Because ifyou do, in service business
you'll drive yourself crazy andsad.
But true, you know, and I'veheard this multiple times from
founders running servicecompanies that they're just,
they had mental problems at somepoint because they tried to
(09:48):
make everyone happy and itwasn't possible.
You know, and you just have to.
You just have to pick up thephone call that someone is not I
mean the figurative phone callthat someone's not happy and
just accept it.
You're doing your best.
You know they're doing whatthey have to make the phone call
because they're not happy andthat's it, end of story.
(10:11):
And you just do your besteffort to make up for that.
And this is what I keep sayingto my team, I mean the team that
manages the projects andmanages the company.
We can't make happy, we aspiredo, we want to um and but and uh
(10:34):
, there is very little space formistakes, especially lately.
Man, you clients are easy toturn.
So if you make mistakes, it's avery good always a very good
opportunity to lose a client.
You know and I think we've beendoing a pretty good job
(10:56):
recently on making everyone sortof happy we're not getting full
.
You know we're not getting thefull NPS from everyone, but you
know we're not getting full.
You know we're not getting thefull mps from everyone, but you
know we're not either giving outdiscounts.
You know, if you're in servicebusiness, you know what I'm
saying.
Like if you fucked up, you haveto make it.
You know, give up the disc,right, um?
So yeah, I think I think youhave a huge responsibility on
(11:22):
yourself, man, that you bring inthe deal flow, and I guess it
depends from person to person.
I don't think I would be ableto myself to live with that
thought.
I'm the deal flow, to be honest.
That would be too hard for me.
(11:43):
I mean, I bring in the DFL, tobe honest.
That would be too hard for me.
I bring in the DFL, but it'sjust part of the DFL.
So I would rather ask thequestion to you how do you
handle this?
What's driving you?
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I suffer from a lot of vertigo.
The first seven hires,something like that by hire
number 10, I was like yeah,whatever.
But I remember I had neverhired the person my two
co-founders they had in previouscompanies.
For me it was first company and, moreover, I am a developer by
(12:20):
trade.
I learned how to do sales byrunning this company, but they
appointed me as the director ofsales or in charge of sales
because I spoke english and Itraveled a lot and they thought
that was a good recipe.
Right, I said like let's seewhat happens.
We have six months if not, weshut down right.
And I remember that you know,things picked up really from the
(12:45):
very beginning and we hired ourfirst employee six months into
the company.
Right, it was like could havegone wrong, but it went really
well.
We hired somebody eight months.
We hired somebody else.
By the first anniversary we hadalready three employees, which
was crazy, but with every one ofthem I remember that suffering
(13:06):
a lot of vertigo was the case,because I was like okay, so now
this man's salary depends on me.
And the other funny thing is oneof my co-founders, jordi,
joined full-time one year afterwe created the company because
he had a really good position atanother company and he had a
child.
And we're like, dude, don'trisk it, you know, just take it
easy, just join when this isvery stable, if it ever becomes
(13:30):
very stable.
And when he joined, you know, Iwas like, wow, because I knew
him.
We've been friends sincechildhood and I know his wife, I
know his, I knew his kid.
I was like, oh my God, this isgoing is going like this, took
it all on me emotionally.
And and then a couple morehires and I got over it.
I saw like, oh, the company'sgrowing steadily.
(13:51):
It's stable and so I got usedto it.
I know it's a hugeresponsibility to be responsible
for 90 of the deal flow, but Ithink I mean, if I die tomorrow,
like we've got a plan B right.
I mean that's based on yourworries.
I think you should die tomorrow,but yeah, still, exactly, I'm
not going to be here.
So fuck if I care.
But no, of course I want thebest for them.
(14:14):
But I know that if I left thecompany for whatever reason,
because I wanted to do somethingelse, I could still be the face
of the company, which are oflike an un-executive chairman or
something like that beassociated to the brand, direct
or deal for to the company.
So I know that these mostlikely the um, you know, the
likely outcome uh would be this.
(14:35):
Uh, I'm not, you know otherthings of the company could do
somebody else.
What I think I am irreplaceablefor is bringing so much revenue
into the company.
All the rest you know the blog,the marketing, the sales
somebody else could do it.
Maybe leadership we are a co-CEO, the three of us, so I'm not
really that necessary, so tospeak.
(14:58):
So I don't know if that answersyour question.
So you're three co-CEOs, sortof Outwards.
I'm the only CEO.
Then we've got a CTO and COO,but internally we adopted the
titles only to appeal to otherpeople, to talk to clients,
because initially I was CMO.
(15:20):
Actually we kind of like itwasn't comfortable the first
years, the first three, fouryears, because nobody wanted to
be the CEO.
But I think everybody, like thethree of us, wanted to be the
CEO, but we were like we don'twant to be above each other
because we're best friends,right?
So we're like let's keep it atthe same level.
No CEO, we're like threedifferent profiles.
But then I realized that peopledidn't want to talk to the CMO
(15:43):
for projects.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
They wanted to talk to the CEO, and that's why I
said look, I made the case.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
It's like, hey, outwards I will be the CEO.
Internally I'm not really theCEO Like we operate internally.
I'm not really the CEO like we.
We operate internally like thethree of us are CEOs internally.
But it's weird, it's always theelephant in the room and the
old hires because they we have avery low employee attrition.
So most of our employees havebeen since the beginning of the
(16:10):
company and they have seen me asCMO, right, but the three, four
new people we've had in thelast years they assume I've
always been the CEO and theydon't know the full story.
So that's why explaining it ina podcast it's really great.
How's it play out for you guys?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
We're two co-CEOs and that works well for us.
I don't think it would workeverywhere.
You probably know it byyourself.
I mean, it works, it just works, but I wouldn't write the
business article.
Hey, this is your number onebusiness strategy to do
co-CEOing.
(16:49):
I think it just depends reallyon the company dynamics and your
dynamics between you two orthree in your case.
But I think it right now itworks really well between me,
between me and my partner.
We're two co-founders, twoco-ceos, two partners to own the
co-owners.
Everything's 50 50.
(17:10):
Um, it's just like a marriageman.
I've known this guy longer thanmy wife.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
It is like marriage, and I see what you're saying.
There was a CEO in thebeginning, but then there was no
CEO and it always created somekind of friction.
We just called ourselvesco-founder I mean, everyone was
really comfortable talking to aco-founder, but they didn't have
(17:42):
the executive sort you knowwhat co-founder, but what right?
So then we made the choice withco-CEO, because you know we
could go with CIO, chairmen ofthis world, whatever.
But it showed off that there issome kind of a friction,
because, hey, co, doingsomething is friction, you know,
(18:04):
by just pure logic.
And we just went hey, you know,if we do co-CEO, someone might
just remember us hey, this isthe co-CEO, guys, that sort of
thing.
But did you find that?
Hey, this is the co-CEO guys.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
That's really it, but did you find that, talking to
corporates, the titles have muchmore?
Speaker 2 (18:26):
importance or not really.
Sort of yes, sort of yes.
And from what we've learnedagain, monterail is the biggest
company I've ever worked in, soI have no prior experience but
from what I've learned is ithelps to have all these ladders
(18:49):
of roles even made up so youhave the matching role on the
other side.
You know everyone's, you knowthis is in business books and it
actually is actually sadly true.
Well, not really sadly.
And let me give you an example.
One of our clients, one of ourmajor clients, is Prada.
Yeah, and it's a reallydifficult project.
(19:14):
When you actually go, you knowit's a lot of work and it's
impactful.
And the person that runs thisproject right now is our COO and
she is just, she is the best atit.
She keeps the lights on.
(19:35):
She's been doing for like overa year.
No one could keep up with herto keep the client happy.
She's so experienced and theylike her so much.
But at the same time she's theCOO so she can just make calls
as she goes, as in this decision, that decision, she has all the
(19:56):
business context.
She goes, you know, as in youknow, this decision, that
decision, she has all thebusiness context she wants.
She has a very broaddecision-making scope, so that
helps.
But on the other hand, it's kindof limited because when Prada
wants to escalate, they justescalate to her because you know
, there isn't much else, thereisn't anyone else above her,
(20:20):
there is me and my partner.
But they wouldn't do thatbecause they just want to talk
to her, because she's in theproject and she's been in the
project and they just go to herand there is no one else.
So obviously we need to have aproper structure there, etc.
So when things really hit thefan, they should go to her.
(20:41):
So yeah, in that sense I thinkthere should be the appropriate
structure.
When you're doing big projects,I think Big projects, but you
work with corporates as well,right, yeah, since I mean since
early on.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
But you, you work with corporates as well, right,
yeah, since I mean since earlyon.
But I think, like by year threewe got the first one.
Then by year five we mostlyturned to corporates, for
whatever reason.
Normally the reason I gatheredit's because, um, at least in
Spain, they have like a certainthreshold under which they're
not able to hire you.
Like, if you don't make, if you, if you're not older than five
(21:19):
years old as a company, theirprocurement process will just
like not accept you, or under amillion in revenue, so stuff
like that.
And so we, we were, you know,immediately disqualified from
the get-go.
After year five that was not thecase anymore, and so we started
getting I don't know.
Hp and a couple of our clientswere acquired Now, like Spin got
(21:39):
acquired by Ford, for instance,we got into Ford.
Valuation metrics are acquiredby Citadel Securities in the US.
So we got into a couple ofcorporates because of that and
then some others.
I just did the sale myself, butyeah, for me it was not so much
they want to talk to the CEOhere, but I think me was not so
much the they want to talk tothe ceo here.
But uh, I think they appreciatehaving, like, for instance, I
(22:00):
still I'm the only project I'veever managed in the company or,
since year one is our biggestclient right now, which is
citadel.
Just because of a personalrelationship I have and in terms
of discussing certain things ofimportance and of value with
them, they appreciate that theCEO is involved in the project,
but I think it's more like theexception than the rule here.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
I mean, it's still good to be involved, right?
Sometimes?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Hopefully it's fun for you.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
I like it because otherwise I would.
There were five years in whichI didn't manage any project, and
so I lost the sense of how wework internally how we invoice,
how we talk to the clients andwhatnot, and so this way I mean
I'm not super involved but I doreporting talking to the client
(22:56):
and whatnot, and I see I havethe conversations going and I
know not to the nitty grittydetails of every task, but I
know the project and the phasesand whatnot.
But yeah, I think that it's goodto have.
That was going to be my nextquestion.
One of the struggles we'vealways found is scaling
(23:17):
ourselves Like redundant I don'tknow if that's even a word
Creating redundancy for thefounders so that somebody else
can take over and you scaleyourself up, you upgrade
yourself without losing touchwith reality.
But at the same time you knowthat if you're managing projects
, you're coding, you cannotscale a company.
How time you know that ifyou're managing projects, you're
(23:38):
coding, you cannot scale acompany.
How do you manage that yourself?
Because you had to do it.
We haven't had to do it yet andI don't know if I want to do it
.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
But I mean, I'm very lucky to have such a great team
working with us.
Seriously, it's just a gut son,you know, and you know our
C-team, cgo, chief deliveryofficer, coo it's a, you know.
(24:09):
These are very experiencedpeople that I just like working
with and they have very goodgrasp on the industry and our
company and very good gutfeelings where our company is
going, so I feel supercomfortable having them.
Then there is the heads team,or so-called.
(24:31):
Usually we would call themdirectors, but we call them head
of technology, them head offront end sorry, head of
technology, head of finance,whatever and these people are
very good at their very specificfields as well and, again,
that's very comforting.
And these are what I've learned.
(24:58):
I mean, they were instrumentalto scale before 2022, let's say
right, let's say 2022.
I think we can both agree.
2022 was the breaking point andwhere the service industry sort
of collapsed I mean sort ofcollapsed right, um.
(25:21):
So they were instrumental.
The management team wasinstrumental to scale because
they were doing all you know.
They were making sure weactually hire the right people.
We hire as fast as we can andthe processes are in place, or
if there are processes, theytake care of that, and we all
(25:42):
had to align all the time, likewe've done.
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (25:48):
skating up framework yeah, so the rockefeller happens
to point out, it turned veryhernish type of thing.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
So we did that in 2021.
Uh, we, we went through thewhole scaling up course, uh,
with daniel marcos, who is theco-founder of uh, uh, of uh,
gazelle's it's called and we'vebeen doing a lot of aligning you
(26:22):
know, hey, what's going on here, what's going on there and that
was instrumental for the scale.
And then now these people areinstrumental to keep delivering
the value because they have theexperience and they're the ones
(26:49):
most experienced working withclients.
They know how to deliver valueto clients and, again, that's
comforting in the end.
Totally different realities, alittle bit different
expectations towards the role,but eventually instrumental to
(27:09):
what we're doing, and we've beenlucky and happy to be able to
create a man-in-a-team 100%.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Look, I could be talking to you all day about the
14 years of Montreal, but Idon't want to ramp up without
asking you about AI.
Not because AI is trendy, it'sbecause you post a really good
question on email, and that'sactually the challenge that
we're working on right now,which is, you know, prices are
going down, salaries are alsoreceding and our kind of
(27:47):
companies find ourselves in thesituation, or the difficulty,
that people want to pay less forour projects just because
there's AI out there, right, andthey think, like, how can you
become more efficient?
We're working on this.
We still don't have an answer.
We tried, you know, templatingprojects.
We tried working with componentlibraries so that we don't have
(28:10):
to do a design from scratch inevery project, and we're trying
AI, but we're still not at thepoint where we see a significant
increase in productivity, likemaybe you're oh yeah, unit tests
, okay, we can do this, but Idon't know.
Have you guys found any answeras to how AI is going to?
(28:30):
Obviously, it's not going toreplace us, not in the short or
mid term but how can we use itto our advantage to become more
efficient and cheaper?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I think that's the paradigm shift we've all been
waiting for, you know, for thelast 15 years, Because we've
been building apps the same waysince 2025, 26 or something
right, when Redis started offpicking off, and then all the
frameworks, et cetera, et cetera, and everyone was waiting, hey,
(29:05):
what's going to change in tech,what's going to be the thing?
And then Web3 came in in 2021,I think big time and everyone
was like, okay, this is theparadigm shift, the blockchain.
But everyone was like, okay,this is the paradigm shift, the
blockchain.
But it was all.
It was a bit, you know, shakybecause of all the crypto part
(29:26):
to it, et cetera, et cetera.
And it finally turned out notto be the paradigm shift we all
waited for, because blockchainis still.
You know, there are stillamazing blockchain projects.
I keep following amazingblockchain companies, but you
know it's not the paradigm shift.
But the AI was the paradigmshift and we just live.
(29:47):
We're just living through this.
You know and one of our, one ofour gurus and past clients and
said this recently to me in tech, everything is in shambles
right now because, no, you know,no one really knows.
(30:09):
You know where it's getting,where it's heading, you know,
with ai and and the recession,etc.
Etc.
And for at some point there wasa very strong narrative the
there is the recession in tech,so everyone will going to be
saving money using AI and thisis the solution to everything.
But it all failed, at least fornow.
(30:36):
So we believe strongly that AIcan automate a lot of stuff, and
we've been automating stuff,but I think not as much as we
still like to.
I think first, it has to dowith how things have, how things
(31:03):
have been done for the lastdozen years.
We built scalable, complex,stable software for months.
You know, these are kind ofprojects that we're all you know
, you and I, our companies,companies are used to build and
(31:29):
this is how our teams have doneit so far.
So the mindset is this has towork.
There are no shortcuts, eventhough every time we have me and
my partner, we have a meetingwith new joiners, we keep
(32:01):
telling them hey, one of ourcore values is actually figuring
out shortcut and how to makethings more effective.
But I think the way we workright now and the type of
projects we have, it's stilldifficult to adapt everything as
it's adapt, as in, okay,benchmark being what we're
seeing on X Twitter.
Let's say, right these days,right, what people are creating
(32:23):
with things like Boltnew orSoftgen Cursor.
This stuff is just amazing,right, and this is the benchmark
in everyone's populist minds.
This is how fast softwareshould be done.
But when I look inside mycompany, it's not, and obviously
(32:44):
I know why not, but I thinkit's, you know.
When I look inside my company,it's not, and obviously I know
why not.
But I think it requiresspecific mindset that it still
has to change a little bit inour minds.
Software can be done a littlebit differently.
It takes curiosity in, you know, in developers' minds, in our
(33:05):
minds too, because it's so hardto keep up with those tools, man
.
I mean, every month there'ssomething new.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
I know, I know that's one of the things I struggle
the most with is I'm livinghalf-baked projects every week
Side projects, not companyprojects but it's like, oh, I
want to try these.
Um, versals v0 okay, perfect.
Then boldnew okay, I'm gonnatry.
Then, you know, I don't end updoing anything substantial
because, oh, there's somethingthat is slightly better.
(33:38):
I'm chasing the new shiny thing.
Maybe that's why I'm the ceo,right.
But at the same time, thatcreates a lot of frustration
because I keep accumulating alot of corpses right in the
background and I'm like, okay, Igot to finish some of these and
my feeling is that I don'tactually complete anything.
(33:58):
I don't get anything substantialin AI precisely because of that
, because it's wow, it's flashy,it goes well for the demo, but
most of these tools they are nothelping us because probably
they're engineered forproduct-based companies but not
for service-based companies.
The only thing that they reallywork for like, for instance,
one use case we found with VersoVerso's V0, is it's great for
(34:23):
prototyping, something to showto the client even before it
starts.
Right, the client comes up withan idea look, I want this.
We did it for a company like acompany from andora.
They wanted to have amarketplace for second-hand cars
and we're like, okay, we'rejust going to protect prototype
like this so that in the, thesales process, look, it can look
like this.
(34:43):
And they're like, oh, wow, it'sgot our, you got our, you know
our branding and everything it'sthere Outside of that.
Well, if we refine it further,maybe we can skip one phase of
the UX UI project, but not muchmore right?
Not more than say, like whatBootstrap brought us in 2014.
(35:06):
Or you know, componentlibraries two years ago or
something like that.
I don't know.
You know it's yet not verysubstantial.
That's why I was asking to seeif you guys had something more
substantial.
But seems like we're on thesame boat in this and this we
still got to figure out.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, we're figuring it out.
Uh, we have, uh, we have personentirely in the company that
has a dedicated time to actually, you know, uh, implement this
across the company.
Um, and yeah, the results oftenwe saw, we, we see, hey, what's
possible, is like, wow, how canwe implement this?
(35:46):
And uh, but uh, yeah, likeyou're saying, it depends on the
type of a project.
We do a lot we do get, we dosee a lot of uh, potentially in
the sale, sales process, likeyou're saying, um, representing
the prototypes.
(36:12):
I think for developer one-on-onewith code.
You can also use models.
You know, hey, I'm trying to dothis.
How do I should do around that,especially with remote work and
everything that people are notin the same office, not much
(36:33):
around serendipity around.
You're not jumping, you knowyou're not.
You're not bumping into peopleand asking, hey, how should I
solve this?
You know you're not.
You're not wasting people'stime on slack, how I should.
You're just asking the modelhey, what should I do?
And that's one way to do it.
And obviously this is happeningand we just set ourselves a
(36:57):
goal into measuring what are thepotential productivity gains.
But again, keep up with all thetools and what's the the, you
know the end goal it's this, isthis difficult I think, um, so,
like you're saying, servicecompanies, many different
(37:19):
projects, many differentcontexts.
So you know there is a differentsolution.
I think there is a differentframe.
I think there is a differentframework.
You know, sort of framework,workaround solution for each
kind of client project, right?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
so that's why it's so difficult to scale it across
service companies 100% and towrap it up, we always like to
have the signature question ofthe podcast and people are like,
why didn't you tell me thisbefore I needed to prepare?
Like no, we don't want peopleto prepare for this.
But uh, everybody fucks up.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Right, we want you to share what's been your most
expensive fuck up as a companyowner back in 2015 or 14, we
were struggling with scale, sowe were still 30 small company,
(38:14):
I think, 20 ish, 30s um, and wewere running full steam um right
now I know it's called.
We had the product market fitlike there was demand for
messaging.
You know what that was outthere Ruby and Rails experts
from Poland that was the claimat the time, and we've developed
(38:40):
our CTO and a few people fromthe team have developed a huge
Rails open source thing and wewent with it to London for a
(39:01):
Ruby event and this is where ourCTO did the presentation.
Hey, we're releasing this andeveryone was in awe nice.
So we were, you know, ridinghigh, you know really making
(39:21):
ourselves a name back then andback there and we get approached
at the same event by a guy frompenguin books, yeah, and he's
like hey guys I have thisproject that penguin books has
been thinking about for sometime, to digitize everything
(39:42):
that we do.
And this is the project we wantto do and we thought it should
be in Rails and maybe you shoulddo it.
And I was like nice, this isthe great opportunity of the
time.
Bankman Books, big Railsproject, nice brand we just got
it by doing open source.
And what else we could dobetter?
(40:02):
Right, so we came back to.
Poland and we started analyzinghow can we, you know, fit the
project into our current scale?
And looking, you know, left,right, you know, trying to
squeeze everything in and out,we were like, no, we can't take
any more projects.
And we told Penguin Books no,we can't do it.
(40:25):
And I think I should have donemore to actually fit because it
would be, you lost it.
No, we told them we can't do it, oh well, thank you for the
opportunity, but we don't wantto take it.
Did they come back?
No no no, Afterwards, you knowwhen we were ready in like a
(40:47):
year, he was like well, I'malready working on it.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, normally.
I mean, this is one recurringproblem we've always had, we've
never solved.
You know, a big company comesknocking on our door.
We say have no capacity.
That happens once, it's okay.
Usually they come back.
But if that happens twice, theydon't come for the third time.
Right, we lost.
I mean, we were providers forrakuten in the early beginning
(41:12):
on mars based, and for after twoyears project stopped because
it finished and we took on otherclients and they came after a
year like, hey, you guys got anycapacity?
No, sorry, done.
They came back after six months.
You guys got capacity?
No, we don't.
They didn't come for the thirdtime.
And it happened with a coupleof other big firms.
Usually, and usually you knowthey, they find somebody else
(41:34):
and, um, and that's it, theydon't need your services anymore
.
So that's why that reallyresonates with me.
So sorry to hear about that andthank you for sharing.
Um, it's great that you share.
That's why I always share lotsof my fuck-ups too, because I
think that the newcomers to theindustry, they, they, they can
be learning from us.
And it's not all shiny, it'snot like all golden when you're
(41:58):
running a company.
Your size or our size it's.
You know, we got particularfires and fuck-ups every week,
so I could, I could, I could befilling a house with all of them
.
Look, there's one minute left.
Zimon, you've been extremelygenerous with your time.
Thank you for sharing all thelearnings and experiences and
whatnot.
I'm rolling out the carpet foryou.
You've got one minute to sayhow can we help you, how can the
(42:19):
community of Life on Mars, marsSpace, help Monterey or you
personally?
Let us know what is going onand what can we expect from you
in the future.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
We're looking for people who are super passionate
about low-code and how can AIcan speed up development.
The people I've been talking to, the, the youngsters, have been
(42:49):
really inspired and and that'ssomething really exciting.
Right now that's happening andthis is where, uh, we want to go
back to our beginnings really.
I haven't mentioned that, butyou know, we started a company
because we thought webdevelopment or software
development was broken at thetime.
(43:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Like then man, yeah, and the software was ugly.
So what we wanted to do is tomake beautiful software quickly,
and you know, most of the timethis is what we do.
But these days, you know,making that kind of software
takes a lot of time andhopefully it's still beautiful.
So what we want to do again isto jump on the fast and
(43:36):
effective developing softwareagain, and we're looking for
people who are passionate aboutit.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Nice, thank you very much.
Thank you very much and best ofthe luck in your continued
success to Montreal for manymore years.
Thanks, alex, and that's it fortoday's video.
Feel free to hit the likebutton and subscribe to the
channel if you haven't already,because that will help us to
grow the channel, the Life onMars podcast and I'm recording
this outro because we hired amarketer new director of the
(44:10):
podcast that is David, ournewest member in the Martian
spaceship, and he told me thatthis is going to help us to grow
the channel.
So, if you're interested in ourinterviews, in our long
ramblings that I recordoccasionally, or if you have new
ideas you have new people thatyou want us to interview.
You got new ideas forperformance.
(44:31):
You have some questions for us?
Feel free to share them with usin the comments down below and
I'll see you in the next episode.
Bye.
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