Radek: Hello, today a special episode, the fortieth, we open a new season.

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Ilona: Exactly, I am proud of us that for the fortieth time we are standing in front of the microphones.

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Radek: Yes, today there will be a special episode, we will not talk about UX paradigms, we will just talk a little about...

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Ilona: Our history. About what's happened over the past year. About what hurricane

He's been through the winter, but we'll also tell ourselves how we have come out of this situation thanks to our mission, vision and valuesthat we assumed at the beginning, when winter was forming.

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Radek: We invite you to listen to this episode.

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The state of the IT industry in 2023

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Radek: Without giving away even more details... we found ourselves in a difficult situation in the last year. What was the background to all this, Ilona? If you could tell our listeners and viewers too?

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Ilona: Yes, we invite you to YouTube. Before we go into details and tell you about this hurricane that happened, I thought it would be worth it Describe the situation we were in at the time.

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We record it at the end of August 2024, that is, we are talking about what happened in 2023. Actually all year round, but more from August to August, that is, such a period between holidays. And the first factor that is important to touch on here is yourself crisis in the IT industry.

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And maybe this wording is already a little trite, because we are already at a point where there are more of these funds on the market. We're leaving where we were a year ago.

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Then, both in industry conversations and in our business, we saw that it is simply Fewer customers, less leads. At the same time, there are a lot of companies that are panicked looking for customers. We have seen mass layoffs of employees.

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Radek: I would rather say that I have seen a lot of people who are looking for work. LinkedIn has been inundated with green-label profile pictures for the past year “Open to Work”.

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Ilona: Yes, it's true. We too have felt the effects of this whole situation, and that certainly did not make this situation that we are going to talk about today any easier. It was just another nail in the coffin.

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Specificity of service companies

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The second thing is that we are a service company. How service companies work? There is one very specific thing — either you have too many projects or you have too many people.

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This is all the time constant balance between having enough projects and getting people to work, but also to meet customer expectations and deadlines. If customers come and want to start quickly, and you don't have people, then you lose the business. Service companies, including Zima, are constantly balancing on such a bipolar.

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Radek: Balance of Abundance and Scarcity. It's like a wave, isn't it? It's good and we do a lot of projects, Everyone has their hands full. And then there comes a time when you have to maintain the team, and these projects are not there. And the company's account is not affected by the cash register every month.

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Ilona: It's just that cash flow is a little different. And in order to take care of such situations, we have financial pillow. We are a responsible business, we are unlikely to make very dangerous movements and we had such a pillow practically from the very beginning.

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Radek: And this is a very important thing. I think for service companies that are starting out, building a financial cushion is an absolute foundation.

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Causes of crisis in the company

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Ilona: Okay, but that hurricane that came ate our pillow. And now what?

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Radek: Exactly, what was this hurricane about? Several things happened to the hurricane, but if you can put it in a single slogan, it was our crisis that caused us choosing the wrong partner for the project.

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Ilona: Yes, the wrong supplier. And of course, this sounds like one of the first five golden rules of running a service business — you have to have proven partners you rely on, who you trust.

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And that, in a way, also ensures the success of your business, as we know of course. Therefore, when choosing this partner, Everything seemed great at first. It sounded like a perfect match.

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Radek: Yes. It is also worth mentioning that the project we implemented with this partner required us take on obligationsthat this partner will bring. That is, we signed a contract in which we undertook to provide the service that our partner would provide us.

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Ilona: Yes, exactly, he was our subcontractor. The project itself consisted of Building a Digital Product from Scratch. The catch was that it was an implementation where we were responsible for our partner, and it was a software house. We took responsibility for him. We had a contract with the client.

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Radek: And in general, it's okay. You can enter into such relationships when you have Proven partner. Remember, we were a very young company when this was happening, so the network of co-partnerships was still quite small. Now it is completely different.

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Ilona: Yes, but this is also interesting, because at that moment we did not have a negative experience with software houses, so our vigilance was very dormant. In the past, we worked in the reverse model, when we were a subcontractor for a software house providing UX/UI services.

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We delivered our things on time and we saw that they too deliver everything on time. We saw that they had a very clear communication with us and with the client, so in a way we took it for granted work.

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Radek: Yes, and why, for example, did we not cooperate with people with whom we have some experience? Because there was a requirement that not all companies agreed to fulfill.

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Ilona: Yes, they did not meet the requirements that the customer set. At that point, when we chose this particular company, it seemed like a perfect match.

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Going to the very end, at the moment when the deadline was approaching, this company kept insisting that everything was fine, that The project will be delivered. Unfortunately the communication that happened later, it was such a bouncing of the ball. Every week. All right, it'll be in a week.

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Radek: And there was something there, only it had to be verified. It was quite complicated, so The client had to verify it.. Everything looked as if it had been done, and it turned out after a deeper analysis that it was not.

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Ilona: During the tests, it turned out that this is not it and that you can not take it in any way, you can not show it to users in any way, because that is what we all want to make the product work.

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Choosing the right business partner

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Radek: Well okay, but you say perfect match. What made it a perfect match? Because it sounds pretty general and mysterious.

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Ilona: Well, that's interesting, because before we signed the contract, of course we did our own research. We asked friends and previous customers for recommendations of this particular company. We asked about experiences with this company and did not come across very bad reviews. They were either neutral or relatively positive.

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The mistake we made was the lack of in-depth verification of these recommendations. Because later, in the course of the project, already colliding with this delayAs a result of the development, I went back to these people to talk to them. And it turned out that this particular company did not deliver the project on time or once. And for us it was very important.

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Radek: But then we found out, right?

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Ilona: Yes, we found out later. The point is that if any of us had looked deeper into these recommendations, we would have known about it sooner. And in our contract, the deadline was super crucial.

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That's the one thing we've definitely learned. I would say that we burned out on this collaboration and our vigilance was very dormant.

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Radek: What else is such a lesson for you from this story?

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Ilona: You know what, I think that this synergy of design and development exists and we will not avoid projects where there are implementations. I say it this way because we, as Winter, offer design services, user experience design, user interface, researchu, research.

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We in our offer did not have and do not have implementation at the moment. Another lesson, which we implemented very quickly in Winter, is that we need to have a programmer.

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Radek: Technology expert.

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Ilona: Yes, an expert who will be present during the verification process, receiving certain things from subcontractors. So far we've been doing it with our technical skills, but It wasn't on such a scale and there was no need for that kind of verification that happened there.

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Therefore, at some point in this project, we hired such a person who could simply check the code on a regular basis, already speaking literally, because here we have come down to the detail of checking the code and verifying if it is usable or not.

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Disrupted cash flow and financial cushion

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Radek: Well, now the aforementioned hurricane... What happened in this regard?

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Ilona: This situation forced us to the fact that we had to hire a second company, that is, de facto pay for the implementation of this project again. And development is expensive of course, so as you can guess, this is what I said in the context of eating a financial cushion...

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The money that we had allocated, for example, for downtime, was consumed by this project. And of course, if we didn't have that pillow, we probably wouldn't be talking to you right now, and the podcast would have ended up being 30 episodes. But this has in some way shaken up our a sense of security.

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Radek: Yes, we have such a situation that we are ourselves, our cash flow works like a wave, as it happens with service companies. And suddenly from this hill we go down and here comes this situation where we have to spend extra money. It all came together at once. It was very problematic and we kind of didn't know what to do next. It was very difficult.

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Transparent communication with the team

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Ilona: Yes, it was a difficult time for us, both emotionally as well as mentally. Dealing with this problem on a daily basis was a challenge. However, what saved us — and what I think is worth emphasizing — is the communication we had with all the parties and, above all, with the client.

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I don't want to say that it saved us, because it's kind of written into our DNA and values — it's about transparency.

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We received feedback from the customer that he first met with a company that did not deliver the project on time, but She admitted a mistake., instead of sweeping the case under the carpet and looking for excuses. That was their quote. We didn't explain ourselves foolishly, we didn't blame anyone.

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Of course, the situation was clear — We knew who was responsible for the implementation., but since the contract was on us, we were responsible. We embraced it by saying straight about what the situation is and communicating regularly, practically every week.

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As a result, we have maintained a relationship with a client who agreed to an extension of the deadline. We had such conversations about extending the deadline more than once, but it was thanks to transparent and regular communication that we managed to maintain this relationship.

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A good indicator of this is the fact that The project is still ongoingand we continue to participate in it. This shows that transparency in communication brings results. This is our value.

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Radek: Yes, this whole situation was very uncomfortable, and our client really hit us hard. We are very grateful to him for that. I don't think he would have been so forgiving if it weren't for the transparency you mentioned, but also The quality of our services was crucial.

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If there were any problems on our side, there could be a suspicion that maybe we are the ones who are doing the wrong development, right?

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Ilona: Yes, it could have been so.

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Radek: So this is definitely very cool.

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Ilona: On the other hand, communication with the team was equally important. We were in a situation where we had to talk to each of the parties — the client, the partner and the team. In such a situation as well We had to be transparent with the team..

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You can not pretend that everything is fine, nor pass on half-truths. It is necessary to say how it is, because in a service company We rely on our people and expertswho deliver the quality we want to offer.

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The Importance of Being Honest to Employees

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Radek: That's right... we are in this hole, we have a financial cushion that is consumed... We love kitchen analogues... And just, what now? I had a conversation with my colleague. He runs a business in a completely different segment. This is not a digital segment, but a production segment.

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But I told him what we said to the team, and he said, “You can't say things like that to people. They're about to slow down. It's just a shot in the knee. They need to say that everything is okay, that everything is under control and God forbid you not tell them that the company has just become unstable, or that anything is going on.”

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To be fair to our team members, we told them that there may be difficult times ahead and it would be good if They began to look for another place of work and other earning opportunities.

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It was quite controversial, as it turns out, because we're actually inviting people out. The people we value, who build our company, who really are the value of this company. But precisely because they are that value, and we are transparent, we had to take care of them.

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Ilona: Yeah, we couldn't one day just come in and say, “You're all losing your jobs.” This could have happened, but fortunately it did not happen. We didn't want to leave them in that situation because would be a sign of disrespect.

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We wanted to take care of them as individuals, and we know that they are great professionals with plans for the future. therefore We approached each person individually in one-on-one meetings to present the situation, identify perspectives and make it clear until when we can continue working together.

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We also set a deadline to assess our situation, but at the same time we said: “You have to take care of yourself. If you find a new job, take itWe don't know what our future will look like.”

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Radek: It was also crucial that in addition to these checkpoints, we showed our plan for getting out of a difficult situation. We wanted to motivate the team by giving them the confidence that we are not wandering aimlessly, but we know what to do to get out of the crisis.

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Ilona: Yes, there was a specific plan.

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Radek: Although, I admit honestly, it was very difficult for us.

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Ilona: Very hard.

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Difficulties related to motivation and team management

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Radek: It was a very difficult moment for us emotionally. It was hard to work and motivate myself to act. Whereas The response from the team was incredibly supportive. Most people said, “I'm staying, how can I help the company? I want to work here, I'm not looking for a new job.”

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It was really incredibly uplifting. I remember that it was also part of one of our values — the policy of “no bullcrap.” We didn't hide from the team that we weren't in the best shape, we are not able to operate at full speed.

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We had a plan and carried out what we had to, but our energy was not as usual. There were no smiles...

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Ilona:... And our leadership was not at the highest level, if I may say so. To us we should motivate and show in which direction we are going. And, of course, we did it as much as we had the strength, but sometimes it was just hard for us and these emotions cannot be hidden.

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Radek: Yes, what I think saved us, beyond the support of a team that understood the situation, was that We didn't put pressure on ourselves. In such difficult moments, it is easy to fall into the pattern of looking for the guilty, because it was a really difficult situation, as I mentioned earlier.

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Ilona: Yes, but we also made mistakes. Let's face it... we made mistakes.

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Radek: Exactly. But none of us blamed the other person. We were very understanding and supportive of each other. Thank you very much for that, because it was a difficult time. I would not like to go back to this state, but at the same time I know that such situations can happen. This is life.

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Ilona: Yes, such things can happen. But it was also a kind of test for us, a litmus test of our relationship. You may not know that, listener or listener, but we We weren't friends before starting the company.. We didn't know each other very well.

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Basically, we prove ourselves in combat all the time. And it was a big test of who we are, how we behave in stressful situations. I feel like we passed this test because we supported each other.

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And yet it was very easy to point your finger and say, “It's your fault, you made a mistake, it's your responsibility, and I wash my hands. It's all your fault.” That would be super easy. I think it made us stronger.

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Stopping strategic actions

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Radek: Yes. It was also difficult for me that we had to stop our strategic activities, which are crucial to the development of the company. We are a company in the development phase.

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Ilona: What actions do we mean?

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Radek: It's about our OKRs. In general, the interesting thing is that, in general, before all this, we were almost done with most of the important, corporeal things when it comes to processes. but for example, a website...

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Ilona: Yes, we started a project to build a new website, which I hope will be live right now at the time of the release of this episode. So we invite you to designzima.com. There will probably be a new site.

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But yes, at that moment we had to press pause. I remember that our marketing efforts were stopped as well. Process OKRs, i.e. internal improvements... There were some things that unfortunately we had to postpone for later.

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Why mission and values are key to business growth

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Radek: Let's move on to such a positive aspect, because to summarize everything that happened and why We managed to get back on our feet. In fact, we are still on our feet, but we are already very strong. We are far from this situation.

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I am very glad that we survived, that we can do the wonderful things that we are doing now. I hope that when you listen or watch this episode, all these activities are already implemented and producing results.

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What we have come out of this situation is the belief that our mission and values have helped us survive. This is an important lesson for all entrepreneurs — mission and values are not just slogans at workshops or slides in presentations.

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These are very important things that need to be taken care of. There will come a time when the company gets screwed and that's what values and mission will show direction of action to be taken.

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Our mission is to Building the best possible human experience. And here we are talking about the client, about our employees and users, for whom our UX is addressed. This helps us to be guided by this in the context of running a company, building a team culture, because we see people there.

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Taking care of this information for our team, so that they know what's going on, so that they can possibly do something, was just that. Tina Sobocińska said that one of core values for employees in companies This is transparency, that is, talking about how it is. Not some fruity Thursdays that we all get sick of.

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IlonaEveryone wants to eat a banana.

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Values and mission of the company in daily activities

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Radek: You know, values are something that needs to be lived on a daily basis. Just like our transparency. When we wrote that we were transparent, we had to to put into practice every day. And this applied not only to the relationship between us as founders, but also in relations with employees, customers or users.

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We must introduce transparency not only in projects, but also in relations with customers. This is crucial because when things are going well, you don't pay that much attention to it. But there will come a time when things don't work out and that's when Your values and mission will tell you how to behave.

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It is also worth mentioning our “no bullcrap policy”. It was then that it came to light that sometimes you simply do not have the strength to work, and instead of pretending, it is better to say bluntly: “Today I have no energy, I need to rest.”

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As an employer I want to know. I'm not interested in hearing a million excuses like, “My dog ate my computer” or “Figma doesn't work.” I want to hear: “Today I don't feel like it” and that's it.

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Ilona: Maybe “desire” is a bit such a delicate word. I don't have the strength for some reason. It happens.

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Radek: I sometimes have the feeling that when someone tells me why, for example, he can't work or he hasn't done something, I get the impression that I I swallow such bullshit bait. And both parties know about it, but I swallow it anyway, because formally I have no right not to trust you.

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Anyway, I usually trust, but sometimes I feel like you know I have to swallow. There have been such situations, fortunately they are not there in Winter and fortunately this “no bullcrap policy” gives us this space and I think that thanks to it we feel cared for simply.

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Ilona: Yes, we feel cared for and the people we work with feel that way too.

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Strategic planning is the key to the survival of the company

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Radek: Another thing that helped us survive was strategic planning. This year, we have set goals not for the whole year, but for the half year. Owing to the fact that we set ourselves smaller goals, We managed to complete key processes, such as sales processes, project management processes and design implementation processes.

It made the team know what to do even when they had less of us on hand. It was fantastic.

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Ilona: Yes, I can only say yes three times.

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Radek: I would just like to thank our wonderful team, who every day with great commitment...

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Ilona: Takes responsibility for his task.

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Radek: And it builds this company also in this context of processes and projects. It really is It is a great pleasure to work with these people. Thank you very, very much for this difficult time, for getting through it with us and for being a huge support.

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What would we do differently? Reflections after a year

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Ilona: Radek, I would like to ask you one more question at the end. What could we do differently in this whole situation? What do you think would sink us? So if we did thing A any other way, we wouldn't be recording this podcast today.

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Radek: The fact is that we were participants in this situation, which led to the fact that the project was not delivered.

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Ilona: Of course. I think if we had conducted this relationship differently, we might not exist now.

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Radek: And now the question for you: if you could go back in time, what would you have said to yourself a year ago?

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Ilona: I would say to myself:”Make decisions faster”. There was a time when our communication was very blurred. We waited a week, two, and still something didn't work.

If I had less tolerance for it and made decisions faster, we would have come out of this crisis faster. Of course, I'm saying this in retrospect, because...

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Radek: Now you are smart...

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Ilona: Yes, I can see the whole timeline now and when should I say “stop”. At the time, of course, I didn't know that. If I could go back to August 2023, I would say:”Cut it off, girl“!

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And with this optimistic note, we end today's episode. Thank you, listener and listener, for listening to this episode on Spotify or watching it on YouTube. We invite you to listen to the next episodes of the new series.

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Radek: The previous ones are also cool supposedly. So if you like it, we invite you to subscribe to our channel.

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Ilona: Thanks a lot. Hi.

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Radek: Hi.

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