1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:02,880 Hi everyone, my name is Patrick Akeel and joining me today is 2 00:00:02,880 --> 00:00:07,040 Maximiliano Neostat, CTO and Co founder of Polar Steps. 3 00:00:07,400 --> 00:00:09,600 If you haven't heard about it and if you're a traveller, 4 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:12,760 download Polar Steps. It has over 50 million users, 5 00:00:12,760 --> 00:00:16,239 more than a billion images and it's really cool to track your 6 00:00:16,239 --> 00:00:19,360 itinerary for today. We talk about how it originated 7 00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:23,200 from an idea to the scale that it is now, how they do business 8 00:00:23,240 --> 00:00:24,960 and much, much more. So enjoy. 9 00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:32,040 A couple of decades ago, one of the founders, we are 4/4 Co 10 00:00:32,040 --> 00:00:38,160 founders, one of them Nick, he, he's a fanatic traveller, quite 11 00:00:38,160 --> 00:00:41,400 an adventurous traveller. And one time he was crossing the 12 00:00:41,400 --> 00:00:44,440 Atlantic on a sailboat. And then he wanted his friends 13 00:00:44,440 --> 00:00:47,440 and family to be able to follow him and know where he was when 14 00:00:47,440 --> 00:00:48,720 he was in the middle of the ocean. 15 00:00:48,800 --> 00:00:52,360 And this was before social media, before smartphone, so 16 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:56,280 there were only websites where you could see stuff, you know, 17 00:00:56,280 --> 00:01:00,920 on websites. And he, he brought a satellite 18 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:03,200 phone and AGPS device on his sailboat. 19 00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:07,040 He would get the calling from the GPS device and through the 20 00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:09,960 satellite phone, send a message to a several he set up here in 21 00:01:09,960 --> 00:01:13,560 the Netherlands. And then through some web app 22 00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:17,880 that he built, his location would be plotted on the map live 23 00:01:18,560 --> 00:01:21,080 so people were able to see where he was in the middle of the 24 00:01:21,080 --> 00:01:25,240 ocean at any point in time. This was 2005 or something like 25 00:01:25,240 --> 00:01:26,040 that. Incredible. 26 00:01:26,720 --> 00:01:29,800 So yeah. And that's, you know, when dad 27 00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:32,280 was out there, all of his friends and family were really 28 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:34,560 excited about that. It even became like kind of a 29 00:01:34,560 --> 00:01:37,800 bio thing within their small town in the in the east of the 30 00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:40,360 Netherlands. And you know, after that 31 00:01:40,360 --> 00:01:44,920 success, then he he always had it in the back of his head to 32 00:01:45,480 --> 00:01:49,040 maybe do something, build the product out of this prototype 33 00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:53,520 that he built for himself. Yeah, many many years later 34 00:01:53,520 --> 00:01:56,680 things came together and him together with me, Kun and Jo who 35 00:01:56,680 --> 00:01:59,720 are the two our Co founders, we got together and started 36 00:01:59,720 --> 00:02:02,720 building this for for everyone, for every traveller that wants 37 00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:04,000 to use it. That's amazing. 38 00:02:04,280 --> 00:02:07,320 He came to you and the other guys and then what did you do? 39 00:02:07,320 --> 00:02:10,039 Did you make this kind of into a side hustle on top of your 40 00:02:10,039 --> 00:02:12,000 regular job or did you all decide that we're going to do 41 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:15,800 this full time or? Yeah, so he so he he was working 42 00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:18,680 already with job. They had a concepting company 43 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:22,200 and Kun one of their Co founders also knew Job and so they they 44 00:02:22,200 --> 00:02:24,320 knew each other all three of them from a long time ago. 45 00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:27,320 And I knew Kun through the the work at hives. 46 00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:39,120 And yeah, at that moment we things came together. 47 00:02:39,400 --> 00:02:41,800 It's like different circumstances that that came 48 00:02:41,800 --> 00:02:44,000 together. The details are not really 49 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:48,320 relevant for this conversation. And we said, yeah, let's try to 50 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:50,400 build this. And we started as a side hustle 51 00:02:50,400 --> 00:02:54,960 building it, you know, first on, you know, off work hours and 52 00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:58,960 then just working less in our normal jobs and then spending 53 00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:01,760 more time with polar steps. And then eventually we got our 54 00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:05,520 first small investment and that allowed us to really spend more 55 00:03:05,520 --> 00:03:08,880 and more time with it. And eventually we we went to 56 00:03:08,880 --> 00:03:13,000 full time dedicated to building the product and then we went 57 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:16,640 live in March 2015 and that's when everything started 58 00:03:16,640 --> 00:03:17,680 basically. Nice. 59 00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:20,840 When you went live, was it still the four of you? 60 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:25,000 So I'm assuming all of you kind of full time making this into a 61 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:27,120 main thing. You hadn't hired anyone yet 62 00:03:27,120 --> 00:03:31,280 before going live yet. So we we did hire someone, a 63 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:34,960 front end engineer, to help me build the tech side of things. 64 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:38,320 The other three founders are more product and design and 65 00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:42,520 creative. So yeah, Paco was with me. 66 00:03:42,600 --> 00:03:45,000 I was building the back end and the iOS app and he was building 67 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:47,440 the front end and he's still with us. 68 00:03:47,440 --> 00:03:48,600 He's our lead front end engineer. 69 00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:50,080 That's really cool that he's still there. 70 00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:52,640 Yeah. It's been like 25/20/15 as a 71 00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:55,960 release and kind of 2005 as an idea and a concept. 72 00:03:55,960 --> 00:03:57,080 That is incredible. Yeah. 73 00:03:57,200 --> 00:03:59,520 Yeah. How is it for you then building 74 00:03:59,520 --> 00:04:02,440 this thing and being responsible for the thing kind of on your 75 00:04:02,440 --> 00:04:05,040 own for a long time before that other person came in? 76 00:04:05,280 --> 00:04:08,320 Yeah, yeah. It was of course a lot of fun 77 00:04:08,320 --> 00:04:12,680 because the thing that also gave us a lot of energy and and push 78 00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:16,040 to drive things forward was that we are all four of us that Co 79 00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:18,200 founders really fanatic travellers. 80 00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:22,800 We love travelling and building a travel product also that is B 81 00:04:22,800 --> 00:04:27,200 to C We're not building a SAS platform for you know OTAs, 82 00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:29,240 online travel agencies. We're just building a product 83 00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:32,680 that all travellers can use. That was really energizing and 84 00:04:32,680 --> 00:04:35,280 really exciting. So that was a lot of fun to to 85 00:04:35,280 --> 00:04:40,440 build that. So yeah, that first part, that 86 00:04:40,440 --> 00:04:42,960 was really exciting to just be on the on the tech side of 87 00:04:42,960 --> 00:04:46,560 things, you know, getting my hands dirty into making this a 88 00:04:46,560 --> 00:04:50,120 thing out of out of thin air. Yeah. 89 00:04:50,120 --> 00:04:53,160 And then the growth came and then my role started to change 90 00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:56,240 into different type of responsibilities. 91 00:04:56,240 --> 00:04:59,560 But that first part was really exciting to just build something 92 00:05:00,320 --> 00:05:03,480 for the first time that in my career that was something that I 93 00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:06,520 would love to use, you know, something that I wanted to be 94 00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:08,760 there that wasn't. And I was the 1 making it happen 95 00:05:08,760 --> 00:05:10,800 together with the team, right? So that was really exciting. 96 00:05:10,880 --> 00:05:14,880 I can see that like that, the idea of finding your passion 97 00:05:14,880 --> 00:05:17,480 outside of work and then also doing your work, which kind of 98 00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:20,560 fulfills that passion gets you so much energy. 99 00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:22,160 Probably. I'm very jealous. 100 00:05:22,160 --> 00:05:24,640 I feel like that. I would wish that upon everyone 101 00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:28,080 I know because that's like the perfect balance of work and and 102 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:30,360 also play, I would think. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 103 00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:33,800 Yeah, talk to me about this hiring process because these 104 00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:37,320 first few people usually is what I, I'm assuming are going to be 105 00:05:37,320 --> 00:05:40,000 very key with regards to productivity and also energy 106 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:41,920 within the team. You're expanding kind of this 107 00:05:42,520 --> 00:05:45,960 circle of people that you know with someone either through your 108 00:05:45,960 --> 00:05:48,360 network or I just a random person as well. 109 00:05:48,520 --> 00:05:50,720 How was it hiring people and getting more people on board, 110 00:05:50,720 --> 00:05:52,920 especially for the tech side? Yeah, Yeah. 111 00:05:52,920 --> 00:05:57,400 It's a good question because it's something that I always 112 00:05:57,400 --> 00:06:00,240 found really important when I was just part of our companies, 113 00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:02,920 when I was part of a team and we were expanding the team and we 114 00:06:02,920 --> 00:06:07,240 needed to hire someone. I, I always gave a lot of 115 00:06:07,240 --> 00:06:10,520 importance whenever I was part of that hiring process, not only 116 00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:13,600 to the tech side of things, but also to the people side of 117 00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:16,960 things, is, is someone that is going to enrich the dynamics of 118 00:06:16,960 --> 00:06:19,440 the team. And I brought that along to 119 00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:21,120 product steps. And that's how I always wanted 120 00:06:21,120 --> 00:06:23,560 to build the, the tech team. But also in general, the company 121 00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:26,080 were all very aligned in that, you know, giving a lot of 122 00:06:26,080 --> 00:06:27,800 importance to the culture that we're building. 123 00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:31,480 So we do put a lot of emphasis into that. 124 00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:34,680 So if you look at the hiring process today, which is not very 125 00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:39,400 different to how it was at the beginning, we on the tech side, 126 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:43,120 of course there's a a technical interview, but then we have an 127 00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:46,000 interview that is only about human values, where we speak for 128 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,800 an hour about topics rated with what does this person value? 129 00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:55,200 Is that enriching our values? Is it aligned with our values? 130 00:06:56,320 --> 00:06:57,760 And we give a lot of importance to that. 131 00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:00,800 And then the last step of the process. 132 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:02,320 And that was also the same back then. 133 00:07:03,400 --> 00:07:06,160 It's a day at, we call it a day at the office where they come 134 00:07:06,200 --> 00:07:08,280 and, and work on something together with the team. 135 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:16,120 And that, that is how you can see how people, you know, spend 136 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:18,000 their time when they're at work, right? 137 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:22,640 Because you know, the, the bigger tech companies, the way 138 00:07:22,640 --> 00:07:24,960 they interview or they used to interview was like, OK, I'm 139 00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:28,480 going, we're going to drill you for five or six interviews. 140 00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:32,160 We're going to bring you on site and ask a lot of questions and 141 00:07:32,160 --> 00:07:34,560 then you really don't see much of the person. 142 00:07:34,560 --> 00:07:38,200 You see a lot of their ability to answer questions and their 143 00:07:38,200 --> 00:07:40,920 knowledge, but not really of the person on how are they going to 144 00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:47,120 be in a team in a team dynamics. So even from the beginning, we 145 00:07:47,120 --> 00:07:50,200 would always spend a day with that person, whoever was a 146 00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:54,240 candidate we thought was, you know, someone with potential at 147 00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:57,520 the office working on a task that is related with with the 148 00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:00,000 product. Before we zoom into kind of the 149 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:03,720 hiring process, how big is the engineering side of things 150 00:08:03,720 --> 00:08:06,640 nowadays? So 10 year Fast forward, how big 151 00:08:06,640 --> 00:08:07,920 is engineering now? Yeah. 152 00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:12,280 So we have about 35 engineering people in the team. 153 00:08:12,280 --> 00:08:17,760 Yeah. We, we were a a smaller team a 154 00:08:17,760 --> 00:08:20,280 couple of years ago and since the last couple of years we 155 00:08:20,280 --> 00:08:24,040 started growing faster. So we have about double the size 156 00:08:24,040 --> 00:08:26,000 of the team in the last 12 to 18 months. 157 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:27,040 That's awesome. Yeah, Yeah. 158 00:08:27,360 --> 00:08:30,480 And then so you mentioned kind of a more hard skill technical 159 00:08:30,480 --> 00:08:32,919 interview than a one hour. Can I call it? 160 00:08:32,919 --> 00:08:35,480 Can I call it a culture fit or team fit kind? 161 00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:38,280 Of conversation team. And values conversation. 162 00:08:38,280 --> 00:08:40,919 And then it's actually like a day working together at the 163 00:08:40,919 --> 00:08:42,679 office. Yeah, it's really cool. 164 00:08:42,760 --> 00:08:43,960 Yeah. If someone makes it at that 165 00:08:43,960 --> 00:08:46,880 stage, are they actually like through, through, or can you 166 00:08:46,880 --> 00:08:49,160 still see in some of the collaboration where it doesn't 167 00:08:49,160 --> 00:08:50,880 go well, where it doesn't make them a good hire? 168 00:08:51,120 --> 00:08:55,200 No, no, no, it is also a skill based interview that they at the 169 00:08:55,200 --> 00:08:57,760 office, right? They're not coming to have fun. 170 00:08:57,760 --> 00:09:00,680 So we, we also, it's actually the biggest part of the 171 00:09:00,680 --> 00:09:04,440 technical side of things because they work on an assignment that 172 00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:06,800 we give them, but then they we try to make it interactive with 173 00:09:06,800 --> 00:09:09,360 the team. So it is still like, of course 174 00:09:09,360 --> 00:09:11,400 we are, we are excited about this person. 175 00:09:11,400 --> 00:09:13,880 That's why we bring them and also why we ask for their time 176 00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:16,600 because it is quite an investment to spend the full day 177 00:09:16,600 --> 00:09:18,920 at, you know, a company that you don't even know if you're going 178 00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:22,680 to get the job. But yeah, many of them don't 179 00:09:22,680 --> 00:09:25,280 make it through for either of the two reasons, either the 180 00:09:25,280 --> 00:09:27,440 technical side of things or the the team. 181 00:09:28,200 --> 00:09:29,920 What have you learned then throughout that last step? 182 00:09:29,920 --> 00:09:33,160 Because for me it's it's rare that I see people do that. 183 00:09:33,200 --> 00:09:36,320 Like I had that here, but then it was like I had already gone 184 00:09:36,320 --> 00:09:39,360 through an 8 hour assessment. So then it was more so meeting 185 00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:42,520 the team and they would kind of do the final pass to see if 186 00:09:43,080 --> 00:09:45,240 there's actually something that went wrong in the other parts of 187 00:09:45,240 --> 00:09:47,640 the organization, in the other parts of the interview steps. 188 00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:51,240 But you're mentioning that this last part, it's not just let's 189 00:09:51,240 --> 00:09:53,480 say a final check, but it's actually a big chunk of it. 190 00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:56,360 What have you learned with regards to what goes well for 191 00:09:56,480 --> 00:10:00,000 candidates that do well or what doesn't go well and how what is 192 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:01,200 that usually? Yeah. 193 00:10:01,200 --> 00:10:06,200 I, I think, you know, one thing that happens very often is that 194 00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:08,880 at the beginning of the session when we walk them through the 195 00:10:08,880 --> 00:10:13,640 assessment, we say, hey, this assessment is much more than a 196 00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:18,640 day worth of work. So it is, it should take you 197 00:10:18,640 --> 00:10:21,000 more than one day to complete everything that is in here. 198 00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:25,680 What we are assessing is your ability to make the right 199 00:10:25,680 --> 00:10:27,760 decisions at every step of the way. 200 00:10:28,040 --> 00:10:31,200 So whenever you make a decision, Please note it down and just 201 00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:34,640 explain it to us afterwards. And many times in the 202 00:10:34,640 --> 00:10:37,240 unsuccessful cases, what happened was that someone would 203 00:10:37,240 --> 00:10:42,880 either go full on, you know, making a lot of, let's say, you 204 00:10:42,880 --> 00:10:46,360 know, hacky decisions to build this so that it works, or 205 00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:49,440 someone that goes full on, on the over engineering something. 206 00:10:51,480 --> 00:10:55,800 And I'm not really, you know, going back and thinking all that 207 00:10:55,800 --> 00:11:00,000 and, and, and and saying, hey, OK, what these people are 208 00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:04,320 wanting to assess of me is my ability to make the right 209 00:11:04,320 --> 00:11:07,040 choices given given the constraints and the and the 210 00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:11,480 context. And yeah, people will just go 211 00:11:11,480 --> 00:11:14,280 down the a rabbit hole and it's difficult for them to get out 212 00:11:14,280 --> 00:11:16,400 even when we have checkpoints. We had a checkpoints throughout 213 00:11:16,400 --> 00:11:18,600 the day to make sure that we can then get them back on track. 214 00:11:18,600 --> 00:11:20,520 And that's something that some people found difficult. 215 00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:24,400 And that's something that we still quite haven't tackled how 216 00:11:24,400 --> 00:11:28,200 to help people get out of that deadlock that they get into 217 00:11:28,200 --> 00:11:31,200 because it happens often. It's part we also understand 218 00:11:31,200 --> 00:11:35,200 it's for any of us, such a thing, it would make you 219 00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:37,320 nervous. It's it's a high tension thing. 220 00:11:37,320 --> 00:11:40,080 So that, that also doesn't help in the situation. 221 00:11:40,760 --> 00:11:43,120 But that is one thing that, yeah, we understood that we 222 00:11:43,120 --> 00:11:45,760 really need to make it clear and make sure that we are on top of 223 00:11:45,760 --> 00:11:47,640 people to make sure that they don't make decisions because 224 00:11:47,640 --> 00:11:49,880 maybe they have the the abilities and the knowledge. 225 00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:54,160 But because of that fright hall they go into, it's difficult to 226 00:11:54,320 --> 00:11:56,880 to get out once they go in that direction. 227 00:11:57,040 --> 00:11:59,920 Yeah, it's funny that that is the symptom that you see because 228 00:12:00,320 --> 00:12:03,760 I've been in many projects and I usually also see people do that 229 00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:05,920 like it was. Whereas very early on in my 230 00:12:05,920 --> 00:12:09,680 career, it was feedback that I got where people said, OK, like 231 00:12:09,680 --> 00:12:12,760 you learn and you grow. And it's also here in education, 232 00:12:12,760 --> 00:12:15,440 especially Dutch education, it's like, yeah, you have a problem, 233 00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:17,840 you dive into it and you try and solve it yourself. 234 00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:20,880 And I feel like in product teams where there's deadlines, you're 235 00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:24,040 working on business outcomes, time is kind of more finite. 236 00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:26,360 So if you have a lot of assumptions and you're building 237 00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:29,640 on top of that, then kind of this loop of feedback is not 238 00:12:29,640 --> 00:12:31,920 going to be there. So then once you finally come 239 00:12:31,920 --> 00:12:34,240 back up and you breathe and you show everything there, everyone 240 00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:36,800 the results, it might be wrong and that's going to cycle you 241 00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:39,320 don't want to get into. So the advice to me was always, 242 00:12:39,560 --> 00:12:42,000 if you have assumptions, just check them and validate them 243 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:45,040 with your team. If you can do 2 hours of 244 00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:48,040 research and you can figure out one problem, whereas you can ask 245 00:12:48,040 --> 00:12:50,320 a question and then it's done in 5 minutes, then definitely ask 246 00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:52,520 that question because we want you to be effective. 247 00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:55,480 Not just like it's understandable from a learning 248 00:12:55,480 --> 00:12:57,400 process. It's also maybe kind of an ego 249 00:12:57,400 --> 00:13:00,120 thing. You can probably dive into a lot 250 00:13:00,120 --> 00:13:02,160 of things and solve everything yourself, but it's not the most 251 00:13:02,160 --> 00:13:03,960 effective. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 252 00:13:03,960 --> 00:13:05,920 That's spot on. I think that that is one thing 253 00:13:05,920 --> 00:13:08,320 that happens. Like you, you feel like, OK, if 254 00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:10,680 I ask questions, then people will think that I don't know. 255 00:13:10,680 --> 00:13:12,840 And then that's why they just try to solve it themselves and 256 00:13:12,840 --> 00:13:15,120 then they go down those those paths. 257 00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:18,080 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like for teams where 258 00:13:18,080 --> 00:13:20,320 you're not a team but like you're a single engineer, you 259 00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:21,920 need that, right? Because there's no one around 260 00:13:21,920 --> 00:13:25,320 you where you can ask questions. But if you have a team and then 261 00:13:25,320 --> 00:13:28,320 you're working together towards outcomes, it's this kind of 262 00:13:28,320 --> 00:13:30,800 togetherness that in the end makes a really good product. 263 00:13:31,240 --> 00:13:33,680 I also wonder from your perspective, this interview 264 00:13:33,680 --> 00:13:36,680 process, I feel like it's very much product oriented because 265 00:13:36,680 --> 00:13:38,880 especially for consumers, there's a lot of assumptions you 266 00:13:38,880 --> 00:13:40,920 need to validate with your product people, with your fellow 267 00:13:40,920 --> 00:13:43,240 engineers. You need to be pragmatic but 268 00:13:43,240 --> 00:13:44,760 also resilient towards the future. 269 00:13:44,760 --> 00:13:46,840 Work with high quality, but also the right quality. 270 00:13:47,040 --> 00:13:48,680 Like there's a lot of stuff that goes into it. 271 00:13:49,200 --> 00:13:52,080 If I was building a system and I was going to go in a satellite 272 00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:53,920 that needs to work and that needs to work forever. 273 00:13:53,920 --> 00:13:55,920 So then going into that nitty gritty and making sure 274 00:13:55,920 --> 00:13:58,840 everything's there dotted the eyes is very different than 275 00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:01,800 building an app for consumers. Is that also why you've tailor 276 00:14:01,800 --> 00:14:03,920 made this interview for the way it is? 277 00:14:04,520 --> 00:14:06,680 Yeah, absolutely. So the, the, the assignment is 278 00:14:06,760 --> 00:14:10,680 very close to the type of work that they would actually do if 279 00:14:10,680 --> 00:14:13,600 they would join us. So we do take that into account 280 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:16,200 that it is one of the things that we assess as well. 281 00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:20,480 Like can you think with a problem mindset on and, and do 282 00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:23,920 you understand that pragmatic balance between, you know, this 283 00:14:23,920 --> 00:14:28,960 is OK if it's not a nine or A10, it can be a 7 and we will make 284 00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:32,520 it a nine or A10 as we iterate. But that's really important, 285 00:14:32,600 --> 00:14:35,600 especially in in consumer businesses that you really just 286 00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:38,520 need to put things in front of users as fast as you can. 287 00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:42,640 The time to user value is really important and that's more 288 00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:45,880 important than just a stable system you you can improve on on 289 00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:48,680 the issues as you go. Yeah, let's talk about your role 290 00:14:48,680 --> 00:14:52,040 because you mentioned 10 years ago you were responsible for 291 00:14:52,040 --> 00:14:54,320 with another person getting the app live up and running. 292 00:14:54,640 --> 00:14:56,960 Now there's 35 people in engineering. 293 00:14:57,280 --> 00:15:00,000 Are you still working hands on or how has your role evolved 294 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:05,800 throughout the years? Yeah, it's not hands on 295 00:15:05,800 --> 00:15:09,840 definitely for for a while. Also some other things happen as 296 00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:13,360 we'll probably talk about that. That pulled me further away from 297 00:15:13,840 --> 00:15:20,080 from touching code. More recently. 298 00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:23,880 I did get back to it a little bit on a specific project that 299 00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:27,680 we worked on. But yeah, most of my time in in 300 00:15:27,680 --> 00:15:31,640 the last five years, I've been on, on, on, let's say higher 301 00:15:31,640 --> 00:15:35,440 technical topics or even leadership topics more than 302 00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:37,440 anything else. Do you enjoy those parts as well 303 00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:38,840 or do you miss kind of the hands on stuff? 304 00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:42,640 Yeah, no, I do miss the hands on stuff, but I also do enjoy 305 00:15:42,640 --> 00:15:45,720 building, building the team and building their product and you 306 00:15:45,720 --> 00:15:47,440 know, building towards our ambition. 307 00:15:47,440 --> 00:15:49,280 That's that's really rewarding. As well. 308 00:15:49,400 --> 00:15:52,120 Yeah, that makes sense. I saw and you and I spoke before 309 00:15:52,120 --> 00:15:54,680 the show as well that your role not just evolved, but also at 310 00:15:54,680 --> 00:15:56,560 some point you became CEO of the company. 311 00:15:56,560 --> 00:16:00,400 So not just tech, but also business outcomes, investments. 312 00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:02,640 I mean, this is just me naming a bunch of assumptions, but I'm 313 00:16:02,640 --> 00:16:05,360 assuming it's all of that kind of in this umbrella, at least 314 00:16:05,360 --> 00:16:08,160 from a title perspective. How was that for you kind of 315 00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:11,560 getting responsibility of the whole thing more so than tech? 316 00:16:11,840 --> 00:16:14,840 Yeah, Yeah. It was quite the challenge. 317 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:18,320 Of course, in a way, you know that the four founders, up until 318 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:21,920 that moment, we were all running the company together. 319 00:16:21,920 --> 00:16:25,880 We would have weekly meetings where Kunhu was the CEO until 320 00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:31,360 20/21 when I took over. We were just running the company 321 00:16:31,360 --> 00:16:34,560 to her. So in a way it was a natural 322 00:16:34,560 --> 00:16:38,120 step. But at the same time then I had 323 00:16:38,120 --> 00:16:41,000 all the responsibilities that Kun was was having up until 324 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:43,440 then. So it meant like bringing along 325 00:16:43,640 --> 00:16:46,680 an already full plate, many other things on top of it. 326 00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:51,600 So it was quite challenging despite being in a way natural. 327 00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:58,520 Yeah. But I I did manage to enjoy at 328 00:16:58,520 --> 00:17:00,360 least a part of it. Yeah, yeah. 329 00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:03,720 It's funny because that was also, I think during COVID, 330 00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:06,160 right, Right. When that overlapped and during 331 00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:09,319 COVID for travel company, it must have really sucked because 332 00:17:09,319 --> 00:17:11,319 there's no travelling. Everything was in lockdown. 333 00:17:11,319 --> 00:17:12,839 There were no people doing vacations. 334 00:17:12,839 --> 00:17:15,800 I mean, a little bit here and there, but definitely not, not 335 00:17:15,800 --> 00:17:17,440 with the rest of social media or anything. 336 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:20,160 How was that moment with regards to the company? 337 00:17:20,160 --> 00:17:23,119 Also, you at the helm. Yeah, yeah, I know it was. 338 00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:26,359 It was super tough. And that was also why I had to 339 00:17:26,359 --> 00:17:28,480 step in. Part of the reasons why I 340 00:17:28,480 --> 00:17:31,760 couldn't took a step back, personal reasons, but also all 341 00:17:31,760 --> 00:17:34,920 the stress attached to running a company, a travel company 342 00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:39,840 through COVID times. So yeah, it was super tough. 343 00:17:39,840 --> 00:17:44,920 You know, when COVID started in March 2020, we had the Christmas 344 00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:48,040 party in December 2019. We were doing so well. 345 00:17:48,040 --> 00:17:50,800 Everything was going amazingly fine. 346 00:17:51,320 --> 00:17:55,400 One of the other founders, Nick, we were having just a chat and 347 00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:58,400 he was telling me, yeah, you know, we we were talking about 348 00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:01,800 our plans for a CSV fundraise and all our organic growth that 349 00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:04,200 was, you know, tripling year over year. 350 00:18:04,200 --> 00:18:09,440 Everything was dark green light. And he, he told me, yeah, I 351 00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:15,240 mean, what can go wrong? Famous last word, Yeah. 352 00:18:15,320 --> 00:18:18,200 And then that happened, right? But because we were doing so 353 00:18:18,200 --> 00:18:21,000 well as well as a company, not only financially but also 354 00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:23,880 internally, we were super strong, a small team, but still 355 00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:26,960 super strong. It also meant that a lot of 356 00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:30,560 things were much easier and then, you know, cracks didn't 357 00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:32,600 show, even though it was a very difficult time. 358 00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:38,240 So we were managing to weather the storm quite well, but of 359 00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:40,840 course, you know, we had big ambitions, big plans and all of 360 00:18:40,840 --> 00:18:43,320 that had to be put on hold. So that was that was super 361 00:18:43,320 --> 00:18:43,960 tough. Yeah. 362 00:18:43,960 --> 00:18:47,240 The beauty for me is that like it's been put on hold, right. 363 00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:50,840 It's interesting that if you were to have this company in an 364 00:18:50,840 --> 00:18:53,120 inception and then everyone quit their job and it wasn't even 365 00:18:53,120 --> 00:18:55,680 live and then COVID happened, it would have been the wrong time, 366 00:18:55,680 --> 00:18:57,920 wrong place, and then everything would have kind of fallen and 367 00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:00,880 crashed likely. But because this already was up 368 00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:02,760 and running and as you mentioned, you had like really 369 00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:06,200 good strong fundamentals, I think we just put on hold and 370 00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:09,400 then COVID pass and now here you are like, I didn't look up any 371 00:19:09,400 --> 00:19:11,880 of the statistics, but how many users are using the platform 372 00:19:11,880 --> 00:19:14,000 nowadays? So right now we have over 373 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:16,320 15,000,000 registered users. That's. 374 00:19:16,320 --> 00:19:18,040 Insane. Yeah, yeah. 375 00:19:18,040 --> 00:19:20,200 And how many? Because people go on the 376 00:19:20,200 --> 00:19:22,560 platform, they share their journeys and they usually upload 377 00:19:22,560 --> 00:19:25,040 imagery, right? So 15,000,000 users do you know 378 00:19:25,040 --> 00:19:27,320 any how many images or like media? 379 00:19:27,920 --> 00:19:30,480 Yeah, it's more than a billion, I think at. 380 00:19:31,360 --> 00:19:32,560 This point that's that's incredible. 381 00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:35,840 Wow, Congrats on all your success. 382 00:19:35,840 --> 00:19:39,320 Honestly, that's really cool. Nowadays I see a lot of people 383 00:19:39,320 --> 00:19:42,120 talking about kind of this startup culture, this hustle 384 00:19:42,120 --> 00:19:45,280 culture that you wake up at six, you basically are the most 385 00:19:45,280 --> 00:19:48,320 effective version of you. What what is your opinion on 386 00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:50,480 kind of the startup culture and this hustle culture? 387 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:52,120 And also, how do you run the company? 388 00:19:52,480 --> 00:20:01,040 Yeah, I don't necessarily agree with the view that most of the 389 00:20:01,040 --> 00:20:05,920 startup hustle culture voices go up on LinkedIn and and and share 390 00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:08,720 and and talk about the 996 and all of that. 391 00:20:10,400 --> 00:20:12,520 You hear that a lot, you know, also from investors. 392 00:20:12,520 --> 00:20:17,120 We in commerce with investors, they also ask us directly, you 393 00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:19,760 know, at what time do people normally leave the office? 394 00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:22,440 And when we were hearing that question, I was thinking like. 395 00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:26,080 Why does that matter from? Investors. 396 00:20:26,120 --> 00:20:27,000 Oh yeah. OK. 397 00:20:27,080 --> 00:20:32,800 Yeah, American investors, Yeah, I think you can build a 398 00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:35,600 generational company. So a company that can define a 399 00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:40,200 category without the 996 culture 996, you know, the 9:00 AM to 400 00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:43,760 9:00 PM six days per for a week. I don't really believe in that. 401 00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:48,760 I think that just giving, you know, hiring ambitious people, 402 00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:53,200 hiring people with common sense and, and the intention to 403 00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:56,680 actually build what you're trying to build, giving them the 404 00:20:56,680 --> 00:21:00,200 space to do that, that is what you need to do. 405 00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:03,040 And of course have a big ambition and, and, and stand 406 00:21:03,040 --> 00:21:07,080 behind it and have crunch time when you need to, but then also 407 00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:10,360 have times where things are more, more relaxed and people 408 00:21:10,360 --> 00:21:13,880 can just do what they should be doing, but not, not really 409 00:21:13,880 --> 00:21:17,800 pushing the limits constantly. It's fine to, as I said, you 410 00:21:17,800 --> 00:21:20,880 know, go into crunch time. So for example, right now we, we 411 00:21:20,880 --> 00:21:23,240 just did our summer release where we launched a few 412 00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:26,320 important features that are going to help travel us a lot 413 00:21:26,320 --> 00:21:30,640 during the summer season. So we were quite busy for the 414 00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:36,600 space of, you know, 5-6 weeks. And that was OK because then we 415 00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:39,520 gave people, we will give people the space after this release to 416 00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:42,840 actually decompress and record the energy and then go back at 417 00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:45,440 it later on. So I do think that, of course, 418 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:47,720 if you have big ambitions, you really have to be committed, 419 00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:49,080 especially in the leadership team. 420 00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:51,560 Then then it's a little bit more difficult to say, yeah, I'm from 421 00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:53,320 9:00 to 5:00. That's not really the case if 422 00:21:53,320 --> 00:21:56,880 you are the CTO, the CEO or the head of head of growth. 423 00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:02,480 But for the individual contributors especially, then, 424 00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:04,880 then it should be definitely doable to just build a 425 00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:07,520 successful company where everyone is happy there. 426 00:22:07,520 --> 00:22:10,960 There is proper work like violence, but still everyone is 427 00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:13,600 very committed to succeeding in our mission. 428 00:22:13,800 --> 00:22:16,520 Yeah, I like that a lot. I always wonder like how much 429 00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:20,000 freedom is, is too much freedom? Because from my perspective, I 430 00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:23,840 like product and I think I have enough empathy to put myself in 431 00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:25,600 the shoes of the user. Think about from a user 432 00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:28,320 perspective. But then if there's no umbrella 433 00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:31,040 and everyone does kind of freedom wise what they think is 434 00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:33,400 best and in the end it's just anarchy because everyone kind of 435 00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:34,800 goes left and right and everywhere. 436 00:22:35,120 --> 00:22:37,240 What? What process do you have and 437 00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:39,000 what process do you not have on purpose? 438 00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:40,680 Yeah, that's an interesting point. 439 00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:46,880 And it's been one of the most, I wouldn't say challenging, but 440 00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:51,680 let's say interesting trajectories of the company, you 441 00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:55,440 know, upon we were quite a small team for a very long time. 442 00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:57,960 And it was, you know, it was just a team of, well, first it 443 00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:00,400 was just the five of us then, then it was 10. 444 00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:05,720 Then even when we were 2025, we all knew everything about our 445 00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:07,880 poke run by what we're going to do. 446 00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:10,320 Everyone spoke the same language in a way. 447 00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:14,680 But then as you start to grow, then that's not necessarily the 448 00:23:14,680 --> 00:23:18,880 case anymore. And you don't want to be the one 449 00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:22,160 dictating everything. You want to be empowering. 450 00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:25,400 But like you said, you cannot just be fully empowering and let 451 00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,760 everyone do whatever they want because we do have, you know, if 452 00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:30,680 you just hire someone, you cannot just empower them to 453 00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:32,400 whatever they want because they don't have the context, they 454 00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:34,840 don't have the notice that we have from building this for 455 00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:40,400 years and years. So we went from, you know, being 456 00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:44,920 just a team that speaks the same language to A-Team that now 457 00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,320 needs to empower others, but needs to do that in a way where 458 00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:51,000 there's a balance with also being able to share our 459 00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:56,120 knowledge and, and let people take from that and learn from 460 00:23:56,120 --> 00:24:00,240 that and use it in their own empowering directions, right? 461 00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:02,800 In the, in the directions where we empower them to, to go. 462 00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:05,120 So that's something that we're still figuring out because you 463 00:24:05,120 --> 00:24:10,200 want to make yourself scalable. You are not scalable as a 464 00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:11,800 person. So you want to make the process 465 00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:18,040 scalable basically, right? And that's a difficult thing 466 00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:22,840 because you need to pick the moments where you have to be 467 00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:24,920 directed when things are going off track. 468 00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:28,920 You have two choices. Either you let people continue 469 00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:31,720 in a certain direction that you think that maybe it's not 470 00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:34,480 aligned with with our goal, and then they would figure out 471 00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:37,120 themselves when you hold them accountable to the outcomes. 472 00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:42,960 Or you intervene and, and, and, and your director and say, Hey, 473 00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:44,920 I think maybe we should go this other direction. 474 00:24:45,760 --> 00:24:47,800 That's a really fine art. It's really difficult. 475 00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:49,840 And sometimes you have to make choices for the sake of 476 00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:53,400 efficiency because we don't have an infinite team that can make 477 00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:55,160 all the mistakes and constantly learn. 478 00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:58,440 Sometimes you just have to put things in the right direction 479 00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,320 and sometimes you have to actually let people go in 480 00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:03,560 different directions because also sometimes you are surprised 481 00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:06,080 that actually your intuition was not was not right. 482 00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,960 Yeah, For me, it's really funny because I have this on a team 483 00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:12,800 level, and then you have this more on an organization level 484 00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,320 because you have more people, you have maybe even teams that 485 00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:16,480 are going in a certain direction. 486 00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:18,400 And for me, it would just be individuals. 487 00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:21,360 And I like saying that, like, individuals can make mistakes, 488 00:25:21,360 --> 00:25:23,760 and especially when they're, let's say, a little bit bigger 489 00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:25,920 mistakes, they're not huge mistakes because those we 490 00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:28,360 usually prevent. But when there's a big mistake, 491 00:25:28,360 --> 00:25:30,760 it's also a really good learning opportunity for someone. 492 00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,280 Like, I know people that have such a high sense of 493 00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:34,880 responsibility and accountability. 494 00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:37,440 If something fucks up and they know they were responsible, I 495 00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:39,560 don't have to say a thing because I know they're going to 496 00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:41,880 make that mistake once and then never in their career will they 497 00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:44,400 do it again because that's a really good learning moment. 498 00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:47,200 And I can see the challenge from an organizational perspective 499 00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:50,240 because those teams and people are just amplified. 500 00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:52,960 So it's really funny that it's still a balancing act even at 501 00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:53,800 that level. Yeah. 502 00:25:54,120 --> 00:25:59,200 Yeah, yeah, I and, you know, another of the common opinions 503 00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:01,360 in the start of the House of War is the founder mode. 504 00:26:01,360 --> 00:26:04,040 You know, the the Paul Graham, I don't know if you read it, the 505 00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:07,720 the manifesto that he put out of founder mode and all of that. 506 00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:12,440 I also don't really believe in that because that's, you know, 507 00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:16,600 if you, you should be hiring people that are smarter than you 508 00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:20,280 and, and you also need to learn from them and give them the 509 00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:24,440 opportunity to also show you that there are different 510 00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:27,280 directions to things that you might be living that might not 511 00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:36,440 be the the right path. So the only way to be able to do 512 00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,440 that if you really empower them to go into those directions, 513 00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:42,280 right. So that's, that's something that 514 00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,880 has also been a process for us as we are going and getting 515 00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:49,520 people with different views and giving them the space to go in 516 00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:51,640 different directions, then learning that actually, yeah, 517 00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:54,720 that that's, that's something that we should learn from. 518 00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:58,640 But also in in the culture, right? 519 00:26:58,640 --> 00:27:04,200 Because in the purest version of founder mode, then, then it's, I 520 00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,640 don't want to cite examples, but there are examples where, yeah, 521 00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:09,840 the founders are deciding everything. 522 00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,440 But then what type of people are part of, of such a team? 523 00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,160 And, and how, how much can you grow and go into, into new 524 00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:20,800 directions or realize your ambitions if it's only the 525 00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:23,240 founders, the ones that are making all the decisions. 526 00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:29,880 So, yeah, for us, it was really about, OK, let's make sure that 527 00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:33,520 we hire well, that we hire people that that understand our 528 00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:36,280 vision and then that can take that vision to the next level. 529 00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:43,040 And in that way, then, then really good collaboration gets 530 00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:47,840 born in a way, because you get new perspectives. 531 00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:49,960 You know, we've been doing this for more than a decade. 532 00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:54,120 So we have our, our own ideas and many times we are right, but 533 00:27:54,120 --> 00:27:55,880 many other times we, we're also wrong. 534 00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:59,000 And it's good to have that, that fresh perspective coming in and, 535 00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,600 and getting new learnings. Because with our big ambitions, 536 00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,160 the only way we're going to do that is as a team and not with 537 00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,880 our own internal visions. Yeah, I think culture for me is 538 00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:11,320 super interesting. And culture, I heard someone say 539 00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,200 a colleague of mine, he's a culture is literally the way we 540 00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:16,520 do things around here. Like you have many words and 541 00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,120 many definitions, but in the end, it's the way we do things 542 00:28:19,120 --> 00:28:20,320 around here. And that can be within an 543 00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:22,600 organization, it can be within a team that you're talking about 544 00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,360 team culture. And to a certain degree, when 545 00:28:25,360 --> 00:28:28,080 hiring, this is also a challenge we always have, and I've had in 546 00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:31,440 many teams, you want to align on certain values where you're 547 00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:34,320 like, these need to be the same and everything else. 548 00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:36,920 You can look for diversity, for interesting perspectives, for 549 00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:39,200 disagreements. And then as long as those values 550 00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:42,520 are there, then we know we have the same kind of fundamental 551 00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:44,320 baseline. We we grow from there. 552 00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:47,600 What are those values that you think you will not compromise on 553 00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:50,560 with regards to hiring? And then what can be diverse 554 00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:53,640 with regards to anything else? Yeah, that's a good question. 555 00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:56,320 I think from the early days, we really gave a lot of importance 556 00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:59,760 to our company values. Like I think we were eight 557 00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:03,280 people when we came up with our company values and we spent a 558 00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,960 lot of time figuring those out. And the way we did that was 559 00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:10,680 like, OK, how do we operate? How do we work as individuals or 560 00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:12,880 the things that we find important as founders in those 561 00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:16,240 very early days. And we came up with a set of 562 00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,520 values that are still to the day of today the ones that we have 563 00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:22,640 in the company, right? It was born out of not what the 564 00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:24,920 corporate world tells you that you should have as values. 565 00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,280 It was like, OK, what do we find important? 566 00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:32,240 And then what happened was that it was very easy to keep them 567 00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:34,400 alive because it's how the company was operating. 568 00:29:34,400 --> 00:29:36,240 Until then. We just continue to operate the 569 00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:38,760 company in that way. And that's why today with more 570 00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:42,240 than 80 people in the company, this is already live by day, 571 00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:44,880 day-to-day, naturally without us having to do anything. 572 00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:49,320 Do you want me to mention also some of them? 573 00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:53,520 So the number one for us is dedication to craft. 574 00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,320 So we are a product first company. 575 00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:02,120 Everything is seen through our product and we we have from day 576 00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:06,320 one built a product that is very polished and and that it does 577 00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:09,720 what it should do and do it and it does it very well. 578 00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:17,360 And, and this is something that we find important not only in 579 00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:21,160 our product, but also in our people and OPS processes, in our 580 00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:24,120 engineering culture, in our architecture. 581 00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:29,360 We really find it important to really be dedicated to our craft 582 00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:32,120 and, and build beautiful things, whatever those things may be, 583 00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:36,720 either an HR policy or a feature or anything in between. 584 00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:41,600 We really dedicate a lot of time to making it how we want it to 585 00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:45,440 be. Then another one is to enjoy the 586 00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,040 ride. Of course, you, you know, one 587 00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:52,280 thing that I also brought along always and I try to stay close 588 00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:57,680 to that as, as a, as a journey continues is how things were 589 00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:00,600 when I was employed at other companies and I was an employee. 590 00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:05,120 And what did I think that I would like to, to experience in 591 00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,560 a company ideally. And I keep those things top of 592 00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:11,920 mind, top of mind to make sure that in the company that I'm now 593 00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:15,720 building with the team, that I'm able to also create that 594 00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,880 environment for people and enjoy the ride. 595 00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:21,440 That value is a big part of that, you know, making sure that 596 00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:25,800 no matter what's happening, no matter if, if the company, it 597 00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:29,720 went downhill because of COVID and all the usage stopped, we're 598 00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:32,080 still trying to enjoy the ride and make the rest out of it. 599 00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:33,640 That that's a really important thing. 600 00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:38,400 And that also applies to, you know, engineering, you build 601 00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:42,440 something and sometimes you, you're going to push it live and 602 00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:45,520 everything is going to break. That's OK, No stress, you're 603 00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:49,240 going to fix it. And in all of that process, just 604 00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:51,960 do your best to really enjoy it. That's that's really important 605 00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:54,040 to us. Be good, the good. 606 00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:57,320 We want to leave the world better than how we found it. 607 00:31:59,960 --> 00:32:02,160 Explore us at heart, of course, we are travellers, we are 608 00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:08,960 curious and then we want to understand everything around us 609 00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,320 as much as we can and that's something that we find really 610 00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:13,400 important in everyone that works at Polar Steps. 611 00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:16,160 So that curiosity needs to be there always. 612 00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:23,840 And then the last one is that we are human, so we should be 613 00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:26,520 empathetic and we should understand that when things go 614 00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:28,920 wrong, that's for a reason and it's OK when they go wrong, we 615 00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:30,120 just learn from it. And one. 616 00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:33,920 I really like that. Yeah, it's people have heated 617 00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:37,800 discussions on technical topics, on even visions for certain 618 00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:40,600 products. But in the end we are humans, 619 00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:42,160 right? We need to connect as humans 1st 620 00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:44,440 and then we can collaborate and be effective together. 621 00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:46,960 So that one always I think is a huge one for me. 622 00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,600 It's interesting. I I was wondering throughout 623 00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:52,800 this product and also product development, especially to 624 00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:55,960 consumers, how much access do you have to your users with 625 00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,760 regards to validating assumptions or like iterating 626 00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:01,640 with regards to AB testing, even from an engineering perspective, 627 00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:03,840 do you actively speak to your users? 628 00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:08,640 Yes, yes, we, we, we are very close to our users in different 629 00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:11,880 ways. So we have a community and 630 00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:14,960 support team that is answering to every single request that 631 00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,720 users make every, every e-mail that comes to our inbox is 632 00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:19,880 responded. So we do care a lot about that 633 00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:24,960 the more reactive management of of of users. 634 00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:29,280 Then we have a team of of use of research that is, you know, 635 00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:32,240 running research campaigns where we talk to our users 636 00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:36,360 specifically about new initiatives or or new features. 637 00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:44,560 We also do a lot of AB testing through experimentation. 638 00:33:44,560 --> 00:33:48,160 So the the more quantitative type of learnings and that's 639 00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:51,840 more, yeah, just running different experiments, but but 640 00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:57,520 also being very metric oriented in, in everything that we do, 641 00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:00,720 every feature we release, we stay close to see how they how 642 00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:02,280 it goes. Now we are at the scale where we 643 00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:04,120 can actually very quickly do that. 644 00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:08,600 So that's another way in which we get signals from our users to 645 00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:11,320 see if things going well. Of course, we have NPS and other 646 00:34:11,320 --> 00:34:13,679 ways to to measure customer satisfaction as well. 647 00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:15,920 Nice. I wonder how that factors in 648 00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:17,520 decision making. And I'll I'll give you an 649 00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:19,639 example because I recently spoke to Samuel Bake. 650 00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:24,000 He's Chief Product Officer of Veto IO And Veed is like this 651 00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,400 online video editing tool in the browser. 652 00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:28,679 It's one of I think it's the biggest one right now from a 653 00:34:28,679 --> 00:34:32,400 browser base. And he says everyone is kind of 654 00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:34,440 thinking from a user perspective when they have a new feature, 655 00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:35,679 they make a video and they use the tool. 656 00:34:35,679 --> 00:34:38,560 So they dog food the tool a lot. And he said there's also a 657 00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:40,719 downside to it. And I think this especially 658 00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:43,280 applies in the travelling company where people are super 659 00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:45,400 excited about travelling. They join your company and they 660 00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:48,480 think they can think from a user perspective and they are to a 661 00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:50,120 certain degree also the user perspective. 662 00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:52,840 But if you have millions of users, then it's very hard to 663 00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:54,480 make those decisions with a smaller group. 664 00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:57,120 How has this led to kind of decision making? 665 00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:00,440 Do people still act a lot based on their own assumptions or how 666 00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:02,880 do you in the end decide what is best for the user? 667 00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:06,920 Yeah, it's, it's a mix of everything. 668 00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:10,680 And that's also another of the challenges of the company. 669 00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:12,960 You know, we have, we have people that are very 670 00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:15,960 data-driven, We have people that are very intuition driven. 671 00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:18,000 The reality is not in one or the other. 672 00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:19,920 It's somewhere in between. Sometimes you have to make 673 00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,680 intuition decisions, especially when it's more of a visionary 674 00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:26,640 thing, right, where you can look at the data, but the data is 675 00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:31,920 going to tell you about, you know, very simple indicators. 676 00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:35,320 But if you think about, OK, but this feature is going to bring 677 00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:38,120 long term user engagement, we're going to see the results. 678 00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:40,400 It's a very lagging indicator that we're going to see a year 679 00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:42,640 from now. We just have to build this and 680 00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:46,360 then see what happens. And many of the initiatives that 681 00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,640 we carry are of that type. And then there you cannot be 682 00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:51,440 there. You just have to believe that 683 00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,840 this is going to, to bring you the results that you want to to 684 00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:57,160 see. And in some other cases you can 685 00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:01,840 just run an AB test and see, OK, if, if we offer users this, this 686 00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:05,760 feature or this slight variation of the feature, then you see 687 00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:09,120 what happens. But also it's difficult. 688 00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:12,160 One of the questions we ask the product managers is, OK, you 689 00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:17,280 have an experiment that is performing really well, but it's 690 00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:19,520 really ugly. And you have another one that 691 00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:21,840 doesn't perform as well, but it's very beautiful. 692 00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:25,960 It, it, it is matching the, the user experience very well. 693 00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,200 Which one do you end up choosing as a result? 694 00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:33,960 And there's no right answer for that because it depends in 695 00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:37,400 reality, right? So and that's that's the the 696 00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:38,640 challenge. There, I can see that. 697 00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:42,560 Yeah, that's a hard one. It really goes into that value 698 00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:44,760 that you talked about, which is the craft, right? 699 00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:48,200 In the end, I think consumer apps, almost all of them fail. 700 00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:51,160 Like genuinely, there's so many consumer apps out there. 701 00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:54,080 From an adoption standpoint, I barely download a new app 702 00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:56,880 anymore. It's like I am very considerate 703 00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:59,640 with what I use. So I know a lot of people are 704 00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:01,920 developing apps and the fact that this has traction and 705 00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,320 adoption I think is really, really amazing. 706 00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:06,920 And then it's a matter of how do you keep up with regards to 707 00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:10,680 features and functionality and add on top of that to draw a 708 00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,000 comparison. Again, with VID, they are really 709 00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:17,800 in the video editing tool and their AI and AI hype is a big 710 00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:20,120 part as well. Samuel mentioned that a lot of 711 00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:22,600 the functionality can be kind of ephemeral. 712 00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:26,640 So there's something is very much hype based, making a kind 713 00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:29,440 of anime character out of a certain picture or a video. 714 00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:31,720 And then they implemented in vid, but in a few weeks it might 715 00:37:31,720 --> 00:37:35,400 be obsolete as well. How's that with regards to polar 716 00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:37,800 steps and kind of the features and functionality that you build 717 00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:39,600 also, especially with AI nowadays? 718 00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,280 What is the question specifically? 719 00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,000 As in how do you, because you mentioned that you touched on a 720 00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:48,560 certain vision that we go towards a vision, but then 721 00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:51,040 there's also functionality that comes available with regards to 722 00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:53,400 new technology. How in the end do you decide, 723 00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:56,680 OK, we're going to hop on maybe new technology because that 724 00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,560 opens up a few added functionalities or we're going 725 00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:01,560 to stick with this vision which is more long term and we're 726 00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:03,200 going to invest in that? Yeah. 727 00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,480 I think I mean in terms of new technology adoption, it has to 728 00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:08,720 make sense from the user journey perspective. 729 00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:13,400 That's how we the angle through which we make every decision on 730 00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:15,920 on what we build. It's there about the hype, it's 731 00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:22,240 there about investor likelihood of them, you know asking us to 732 00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:26,120 asking us about that. Are you using this or that? 733 00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:29,760 Because a lot of AIS, one very clear example, but also in the 734 00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:31,480 past they're having other examples. 735 00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:36,120 For us, it's always like, OK, is this bringing more value to our 736 00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:40,360 users or not, whether it's short or long term. 737 00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:46,800 So in the case of AI, for example, you do see like every 738 00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,200 single, so open AI has done that. 739 00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:51,520 Anthropic has done that. I think Gemini as well. 740 00:38:51,520 --> 00:38:53,640 Yeah, Gemini as well. All of them, when they bring 741 00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:57,840 examples of how to use AI, they give a travel example. 742 00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,000 And we believe that, yeah, there's a lot of potential 743 00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,320 there. But in in our case, what we have 744 00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:08,840 and that's what we just launched as part of the summer release, 745 00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:14,880 we have a lot of your own data you have track your trips. 746 00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:18,600 So we know how you travel and we are leveraging that to even 747 00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:20,840 recommendations for where you want to go next. 748 00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:25,880 So we are now we have launched an itinerary tool that helps you 749 00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:29,280 plan your itinerary next time you go to Japan for three weeks. 750 00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:31,360 We know how you travel. So we're going to give you 751 00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:34,040 recommendations for Japan that are tailored to you. 752 00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:38,280 And we're using an LMS for that. And that's a great example of 753 00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:40,760 something that, yeah, it's, it's perfect because we, you know, 754 00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,160 you have written all your stories of how you like to 755 00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:45,000 travel and it's, you know, put our steps. 756 00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:46,800 It's not a social network, it's more intimate. 757 00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:48,760 It's more your living room for your friends and family. 758 00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:52,440 So people just tell things how they are and not for the for the 759 00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:58,840 filtered version of Instagram. So with that, then we do know 760 00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:02,640 how you tell. So we can recommend you truly 761 00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:07,360 personalized destinations. And that's a very, very easy 762 00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:09,840 example of how there's a lot of value in that. 763 00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:14,000 If you have track your trips, you can be planning your trips 764 00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,880 with us in a much more personalized way, but we're not 765 00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:22,680 going to use AI for, you know. Just enhancing your images, 766 00:40:22,680 --> 00:40:25,760 there's no real value in that. You can do that somewhere else. 767 00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:27,640 So we're going to jump on the hype of that. 768 00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:29,960 It has to be something that really enhances the user 769 00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,600 experience. And in that, be it AI or 770 00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:35,920 anything else, we're going to do it if that's the case and not 771 00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:37,120 otherwise. Gotcha. 772 00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:41,760 Do you think the most effective AI features either in general or 773 00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,800 or in your personal environment, they still rely on the data that 774 00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:46,240 you have from a user perspective? 775 00:40:46,720 --> 00:40:50,440 Because 15 years ago we talked about, OK, you can make 776 00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:52,840 data-driven decisions, but a lot of companies didn't have data, 777 00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:55,400 they didn't capture data, so they started capturing data. 778 00:40:55,680 --> 00:40:58,200 Then you had big data problems. So then you have big data 779 00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:00,400 solutions and machine learning and everything like that. 780 00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:03,240 And now with large language models, people are advocating 781 00:41:03,240 --> 00:41:05,520 you don't need anything, you just use a model and then you 782 00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:08,480 don't need data anyways. But how you're describing your 783 00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:11,280 solution is you're still leveraging the personalized data 784 00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:14,200 and then you're using that for even more personalisation. 785 00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:16,400 The fact that it's generating content is just a part of it, 786 00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:19,160 yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. 787 00:41:19,160 --> 00:41:26,080 And there are a lot of ChatGPT wrappers out there, but I think 788 00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:28,600 there's also a lot of value potential in those, as long as 789 00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:31,400 you create a differentiating experience for the user. 790 00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:34,600 If it's just another chat bot, no, people are just going to go 791 00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:36,920 to ChatGPT. But if you are building 792 00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:39,520 something on top of that wrapper that makes the experience 793 00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:42,200 better, that's also a different way to differentiate yourself, 794 00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:45,520 of course. But yeah, in our case the data 795 00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:47,080 also played a very important role. 796 00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:49,320 Gotcha. Yeah, you mentioned your role 797 00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:51,120 has evolved. First you're really hands on, 798 00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:53,600 then more hands off and you're missing the hands on part, but 799 00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:55,040 you mentioned you were hands on as one. 800 00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:58,960 As for one of the features that were released recently, was that 801 00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:02,080 this one the more AI related? Why was it this one and not any 802 00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:04,400 other one? Because this is something that 803 00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:09,960 I, you know, when LLMS came, came out GBT, I think GBT 3.5, 804 00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:13,400 that's the point where I saw it. And like, OK, this is seems to 805 00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:17,400 be something that is really next level compared to the previous 806 00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,920 versions, which were a nice gimmick that can work for 807 00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:25,160 specific use cases, but not really very, very powerful. 808 00:42:27,240 --> 00:42:30,400 And I had it always in the back of my head like, OK, what, what, 809 00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,880 how can we leverage that? Apollo steps and then at some 810 00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:38,240 point, OK, let's let's try experimenting with you know 811 00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:41,600 what, what is different about us, which is that we have, we 812 00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:44,400 know a lot about the travellers and how they travel because they 813 00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:48,240 have travel trips with us. And I started playing around 814 00:42:48,240 --> 00:42:51,880 with it like, OK, tell me what type of traveller I am with 815 00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:54,720 with, with my trips. And then it was so spot on. 816 00:42:55,840 --> 00:43:00,040 And then we did one experiment, which was, you know, Spotify 817 00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:03,400 wrapped this thing well with the same thing, but for polar steps 818 00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:06,320 in 2024, we call it polar steps unpacked. 819 00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:10,080 And it would just tell you you're, you're, you're in travel 820 00:43:10,080 --> 00:43:14,240 in 2024. And we, we launched that and I 821 00:43:14,240 --> 00:43:16,960 think 300,000 users have used it. 822 00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:20,080 And it was so the, the reception was so positive that we said, 823 00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,000 OK, yeah. With that, we are really able to 824 00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:25,760 capture the essence of of how people travel. 825 00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:28,960 So let's leverage that. And this was why, you know, 826 00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:31,400 recommending engineer is we're expanding our proposition to 827 00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:34,200 helping people plan their trips. This is a perfect fit. 828 00:43:34,720 --> 00:43:37,240 I did some experiments. It went really well. 829 00:43:37,240 --> 00:43:40,680 So I kind of brought this back to life in the company and try 830 00:43:40,680 --> 00:43:43,080 to push it forward. And that's why I was really 831 00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:44,640 involved because I built the prototype. 832 00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:47,880 So I was I stayed involved when it became a feature that the 833 00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:49,880 team built. I love that. 834 00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:53,480 I think it's, it's really cool that you can go from an idea 835 00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,400 from experiments to kind of proof of concepts that are 836 00:43:56,400 --> 00:44:01,080 smaller to actually proven value for users than I kind of hate a 837 00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,000 long shot with that. How do you cultivate this kind 838 00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:06,640 of experimentation with regards to engineering in general? 839 00:44:06,640 --> 00:44:10,400 Do people get time to experiment and to try out ideas or how do 840 00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:12,520 you make sure people keep innovating also with regards to 841 00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:15,560 their skill set? Yeah, good question. 842 00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:17,040 There are a couple of things that we do. 843 00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:21,040 Of course, we, you know, every quarter when we plan for what 844 00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:23,440 we're going to do the next quarter, we give every 845 00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:27,320 engineering team the space to, to share with us for the things 846 00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:30,480 that they would like to work on. And then we weigh those against 847 00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:31,560 everything else that needs to be done. 848 00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:35,360 And if there was a strong enough reason, we, we, we let people go 849 00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:36,640 with whatever initiative that may be. 850 00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:39,720 That's one way. And then also once per year, we 851 00:44:39,720 --> 00:44:43,520 do what we call love days, which are two days where people can 852 00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:46,120 work in whatever they want. So it's kind of a hackathon, but 853 00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:50,520 more made more travel oriented, a little bit more fun than just 854 00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:52,960 a hackathon because then anyone can participate. 855 00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:55,280 People from anything can participate and we work on 856 00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:59,920 whatever project we, well, anyone can, can choose whatever 857 00:44:59,920 --> 00:45:03,720 they want to do. So that's, that's another way. 858 00:45:03,720 --> 00:45:06,000 And then some of those initiatives then end up seeing 859 00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:08,680 the, the day of light in the, in our users. 860 00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:11,440 And that's also the fun thing about the stage where we are now 861 00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:15,160 because the impact of everything that we do is really big with a 862 00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,120 million users seeing that immediately when you when you 863 00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:20,880 ship it so. Yeah, that's amazing. 864 00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:23,080 Thank you so much for coming on and sharing the story. 865 00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:24,840 I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun. 866 00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:26,000 Thanks. Thanks to you as well. 867 00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:28,960 Awesome. If you're still listening, leave 868 00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:30,480 a like. If you liked the episode, let us 869 00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:31,880 know in the comments section what you thought. 870 00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:34,400 I'll put all maxi socials in the description below. 871 00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:36,600 Check out all the steps that will also be in the description 872 00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:38,080 below and we'll see you in the next one.