The Power of Localization: How Kentico Scaled Globally with Gabriela Jakabová

All right, welcome to Hack to the Future with Kyle Roof. I am Kyle Roof. And today our very special guest is Gabriela Jakabová. Gabriela is the COO of Kentico and is coming to us from Borno, Czechia. Thanks for being here so much, Gabriela.

Hi.

Now I think the most important question we might get to today is when did the Czech Republic change its name to Czechia? Because I think I think I found out about this about two years ago, but I feel like I've been to the Czech Republic since then. I think it was in 2016. Did you guys like change it and just like not tell anyone? Or how did that?

Yeah, maybe. Maybe the marketing is completely wrong. They did it just to ensure that foreigners can pronounce it correctly and that it's not so long. So it was meant to have a shorter name that could be used for marketing purposes because the Czech Republic is so, so long that no one was able to pronounce it correctly. And foreigners were mixing it with other countries a lot. So they introduced the name Czechia, but probably they did it wrong and the marketing wasn't like correct. Yes. So even Czechs are not using it a lot. So we are still sticking with the old name the Czech Republic. So the proper English name, it's still the Czech Republic, but we should be using Czechia for other purposes when it's worse too.

I see. Excellent, excellent. Now, I love your story. The research team went through it. And so as I know, you were recruited for Honeywell for a couple of years. And then you became the HR manager of a company called 2K Check. You're there for about a year. And oh, yeah.

Yeah, which is a gaming company. They are playing games, like video games. The company name is Take-Two Interactive. Maybe you know them. They are like a big company in gaming. They are based in the US. So that's where I started with IT guys.

And you were the HR manager there, I think, and then you got the job at Kentico. Now I know the research team, they said that you were like the HR manager, but I think you're a little bit more than that. You're more like the administrative officer of the company, is that right?

Yeah, right. The company was really small by that time. We had about 40 employees and our CEO and owner, Peter Palas, decided that he would like to get rid of all the admin site or admin stuff that needs to be done. So from the very beginning, I started to be responsible not only for HR but also for finance, legal stuff, and all the back office. I was like, for example, opening new subsidiaries or managing the development of new offices. So it was like a really broad scope of whatever.

That was going to be my question because when you look at your LinkedIn page, the amount of things that you have listed there is phenomenal. Like it's a huge list. And my first thought was there was no way that could have been in the job description. It was just like you're going to come in and you're going to do everything. Like is that pretty much what they told you like or did it kind of like start maybe with one thing and it kind of built a little bit?

Not exactly, but when the company is small, the tasks are smaller, and you get to use it and you know how to do it later. Because the company was slowly growing, it wasn't like 200 km per hour speed to the wall. So we did it slowly, slowly, but surely. And in the end, I ended up with this huge team of 25 people or something like that where I was like managing them. So it wasn't just me, but I was responsible for overseeing these tasks and setting up the strategy. Like I have to say it's not possible to do it without a proper team. And it's always up to you to choose the right ones because then your job is simple and easy. You are just relying on the right people and helping them if they're struggling with something, but it's not. any longer you're responsible for doing all the duties. But on the other hand, it was like really amazing for me because, you know, I'm an eager learner and I love the opportunity to learn many things. So for me, it was like really amazing to have a chance, for example, to be when to be on place when we were designing office space because we have eight thousand Square meters here and for me was the first time like when I was in touch with designers and I had a chance to be with them when we were like doing the layout and when everything was like on the very beginning and then you see how the office space is growing and it's amazing because you know, then it's like your baby. So I love that.

Of course. Did you get to the point when they, when they, when you were promoted to COO, did they kind of get to the point they were just like, you are the COO and you've been the COO and now like, or doing that, like it feels like it was kind of like a takeover position to you got to that point, or was there something else that kind of like, okay, we now want to transition you into this official role?

Yeah. One of my colleagues was responsible for marketing as sales partially, but he decided on operations, which are like operations those of our very connected with ourselves and marketing processes. And he decided that he would like to go back to product and product development because this is something he loves. So we kind of switched our roles. I was like very much involved in it even before like there wasn't like that title available for me. So we somehow like switched roles. He's now responsible like the CPO is responsible for product development. And I took over the operations. But on the other hand, we hired a CFO because my team was like simply too big and I'm not responsible for finance any longer. However I still somehow believe that finance or CFO was the most challenging part of my career because everyone is underestimated adrenaline could be involved in each audit and so on. So I loved that part. On the other hand, I'm happy that I'm not a CFO any longer because it's a challenging job. So there was some small reorganization, so we just switched some parts of my duty for another.

while you've been the CEO and while you've been at Kentico in general, you've overseen some massive growth. Before we get into that growth though, can you give us the 30-second elevator as to what Kentico does? I know it's a CMS, but can you tell us what you guys do and what sets you apart?

We have two products. One is from the very beginning of Kentico. It's called Kentico 13. This one is a combination of classical CMS with marketing capabilities, so it's a nice mixture. But we realized that this one is getting older even if it's still loved by our customers. So we decided that we don't want to do just a simple refresh. So two, three years ago, we started building a new one, which is called Experience by Kentico. And this one, it's a combination of a hybrid headless digital experience platform with classical content management and digital marketing capabilities. Yeah, so It's a combination of what we feel is the future of the market. Because many, many traditional headless solutions are just focused on the way how you would like to handle the content, but they are missing the marketing part. But we believe that marketers need that combination, that they don't want to have the best of the breed products for everything and that was something that our customers loved on QNTQL 13. That, it's like a really, one, all-in-one product, which combines everything you need in one product. And it's ROI, it's better than when you are buying the best-of-breed products for everything and combining them in one solution. So that's what we believe is our future or the future of the market because we could see, for example, that many customers, even big companies, are now looking for something more affordable for them because they don't want to spend a fortune on something they could buy for cheap.

Just so for the people that aren't quite as a techie, the idea of a headless CMS or a hybrid headless CMS is they have a piece of content and that content can go onto your website, but they can also be distributed to other places and you don't have to worry about like the formatting of the content. It's easy to distribute it around. So who would be the ideal person who's looking for that solution would be a customer of a kind?

Exactly, you nailed it!

Usually, the aim of marketing or the marketers are the ones because, for example, you could imagine the day-to-day bread of copywriters they have to like to replace every single piece of content in many many different software or many different storages to ensure that the content is published correctly wherever it goes. And because these things are pretty common, it's a nightmare if you are a copywriter or marketer, because you don't want to publish something outdated. You would like to ensure that you have correct data everywhere. You have, for example, the same picture, and you have the same description of your products ct everywhere. So it's like making your job much, much easier because then you have just one single source of truth and you don't have to take care of multiple channels to ensure that you didn't miss anything. You don't need any checklist or whatever like to ensure that you have everything in place.

So let's get to the portion, the fun facts about Gabriela. And I, my research team, my research team, I mean, I asked you before we started recording. You are a certified diver, is that right?

Yeah, I'm a newly certified open-water diver and I love that. It's the most amazing experience I have had. I was like really, I love diving.

Yeah.

Now there's not a lot of diving in Czechia, but where do you like to go?

I love Egypt and the Red Sea. Because there are many blog posts on Patti, which is the group that provides all the certifications and so on, I have heard that in the United States, there are plenty of really nice locations where I probably need to go. Or in Mexico. There are so many places I would like to visit.

I wouldn't be able to tell you I'm more like a cat. I don't like the water very much.

I don't like fish yes so I believe that cats and fish do not go well together but and more like water animals.

So you've seen some pretty tremendous overseen some pretty tremendous growth at Kentico. And the one thing I think the overseen or one of the several things is is the opening of different locations worldwide. I think how did that become part of the plan for the growth of let we need to get out of the Czech Republic? Was that the idea? And we need locations in different spots did you identify market trends or how did that kind of come about and then what decisions were made to make that growth happen?

First of all, we somehow found out that we would like to focus on the English-speaking market. We are providing our services even in non-English speaking countries, but we are not so strong there because for us it's difficult to maintain different languages, so we are much more open to having our presence fully in English-speaking countries and with that decision, we started in the US, which was the best market for us. And then we have seen the great opportunity in Australia, and then in the UK, and then in the Netherlands, and then in Germany. So that was the key for us, how to decide where we would open our new subsidiary. That was a strong proof of the market. So wherever it was, for us, it was like really great to have someone local who understands local business. And it helped us a lot. These guys helped us to grow much more rapidly than we were able to do from the Czech Republic because simply they know their market, they know the companies there and it helped a lot. And it helped a lot.

That's exactly what I was going to ask. That's exactly what I was going to ask. How does opening an office do you think help you in that way? Because right now how the world is going, you think of a lot of companies closing offices and consolidating any kind of working from home. And this is kind of a different idea of actually going and physically being in a particular place and opening that office. So getting employees that have local business knowledge is a big thing. What else kind of do you do? What benefits have you seen by actually having physical offices in these locations?

All these employees, usually have their network. So the start was like easier for us. And how to say it? Like, you know, we are like a Czech-based company, and for some companies, like the big ones, it could be kind of weird. Yeah, because they sometimes even don't know where the Czech Republic is located. So for many of these companies, it's simply easier to get a job with some local company than to do a job with our headquarters, which is located in the Czech Republic. They are two times as scared of our legal system or whatever. So for them, it's like much easier to close, for example, contracts with a local company because then the legal review is faster and whatever. So it makes sense. Like, I don't want to be like, look,

Understand that's smart.

If some company is thinking about that, I believe that it's worse to, like, if you know your market, it's worse to go there and open the subsidiary. The legal job is not so big and it always brings bigger benefits than the work or the costs you need to spend.

Do you think opening up the offices is what has directly led to your growth?

I believe so. Like in the US, it was completely visible when we started to be present in the US market. You know, like we were suddenly able to get even bigger companies in our portfolio. Like we were getting bigger logos and so on. So it helped a lot and it helped as well a lot with non-profit and government customers they are searching more for local solutions than international solutions. So it helped us a lot.

That makes sense. The agency that I had, I think, benefited from that because when we started, I was in the US, and my business partner was bouncing back and forth between Germany and Australia. And even we had a total of three people working, we had three offices, one in San Francisco, one in Berlin, and one in Melbourne. It looked very sexy. And I think you're right. I think people like to work with a local company when they see you have a location there. It does open doors

Yes, sure. And you know, like I even like to know many CEOs here in the Czech Republic are like still very reluctant to go there and try it. But it's worse to like, you know, if you will lose something, it will be like nothing significant. You should try and you will see.

I think for sure.

So in your, I think your personal growth, which is phenomenal going the path you have up to COO and then also the growth that the company has, anything you have identified that's kind of helped that in your own life or anything that you have identified like this is what we did in the company to help generate that growth?

I strongly advise anyone not to scale something that is a mess because you need to clean up a bit before you will scale up. So we always try to solve issues wherever they started and not let the issues go or not to pray that they will somehow disappear. Like it's every single time's worth of work even if you don't want to invest your time and do so, you simply shouldn't let it be. Like if it's not non -non-performing employees or if it's some lack of processes, it could be whatever. And I know that there is like never the right time for doing such things, but it's so much worse than not letting it be and ensuring that you have like your stuff ready or your things ready before you grow rapidly and you are not able to manage it. Because it could happen that it happened to some companies that they were not able to manage their growth. I have seen many CEOs who simply burn out because they were not ready to scale up and on some level, they decided that they would rather sell the company than run it again because they simply burned out. So you should be aware of your capabilities. If you are not the right person for that, it's okay. You should seek advice. Many advisors can help you with that.

And at some point, it's up to you to decide whether it's still feasible for you or if it's like too much because I have seen many of them who were simply fighting to the end and then they were not able to do it any longer. So they simply disappeared from the business and they were feeling very sorry for that because somehow it was their kid and they enjoyed it but they got to the point where they were not able to do it any longer.

I think when you're a smaller company, sometimes it's easy to, or even a large company, it's easy to let small problems go and just not fix them. And then also when you're small though, you're connected closely to people and it's hard to, sometimes it's hard to tell people you're doing a bad job. You're not doing it correctly or you're not a good employee, especially if they started with you at the beginning. But I think your point is extremely valid. You start small here and people are working.

This is it.

Exactly.

But at some point, you might have to let some people go to properly scale because they're just going to hold you back.

Exactly, this is it. Because some people could be good for some phase of your company and will be not able to manage it any longer. And that's the time you need to hire someone else. Maybe seek another job for that person or maybe let them go with a nice package. Like, you know, we are not family, we are running a business.

So you need to make the right decisions when there is the right time. And this is something you need to learn. Many people are just simply feeling sorry to do so, but it's nothing bad. Time comes and you need to do it nicely, politely, but that's life.

Yeah, sometimes people learn a good fit and it's it's you do have to let them go. I love that. Sometimes you have to let them go. You have to change some processes and some people might be involved in those processes that just need to change and that's that's going to hold you back from scaling and growing. I love that. That's awesome. Well, Gabriela, thank you so much for being on Hack to the Future. This is Gabriela Jakubova, who's the CEO of Kineco. Go check them out for a hybrid CMS option, especially if you're looking, if you're doing a lot of digital marketing distribution. And again, thanks so much. Thanks, everyone for watching or listening and we'll talk to you next time. Thanks so much.

Welcome, bye.