Omer (00:11.840)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host Omer Khan and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business.
Today's interview is with Martin Novak.
Martin is the co founder of Visidom, a SaaS tool that records your website visitors interactions and creates custom heat maps so you can see exactly how people are interacting with your website.
The company was founded in January 2013.
Martin, welcome to the show.
Martin Novak (00:49.290)
Hi Omer, thank you for having me.
Omer (00:51.370)
Before we talk about Visidom, tell our audience a little bit about you personally.
Who is Martin when he's not working?
Martin Novak (00:59.050)
All right, so I'm 24 years old.
I'm from Prague, Czech Republic.
Prague is a beautiful city with medieval downtown and Czech Republic is a post communist country.
So I have grown up in the post communist time which is on the one hand it's like atmosphere of freedom and joy, but on the other hand it's also like there is still the dark past present here and you can feel it everywhere.
The stigma from the communist era.
And my hobbies, I do paragliding.
I travel a lot.
I love music.
I also repair and drive old cars.
Yeah, and I also love startups, even as a hobby.
Omer (01:40.470)
All right, now before we dive into more details, we like to kick things off with a success quote to better understand what drives and motivates our guests.
What is one of your favorite quotes?
Martin Novak (01:50.910)
Right, so I'm bad at remembering quotes.
So I have decided to say my personal motto instead, if you don't mind.
No problem.
So one of my biggest mottos is that anything is possible.
You just have to set the goal and then try to do it right.
Because I have been thinking about what is the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people or between happy people and unhappy people.
And it's just that those successful people believe that they can succeed and they just shy.
Omer (02:23.280)
Great, I like that.
Can you give me an example of how that motto has helped you in your day to day life?
Martin Novak (02:31.360)
Yeah, sure.
I mean, for example, like a year and a half ago I was deciding because I knew that I want to go to the United States because my girlfriend wanted to go there as well.
So I was thinking like, how am I going to do it so that I don't just waste the time there or don't do just work and travel And I have decided to find something cool, something meaningful and I had just had this goal somewhere back in my mind.
And a year after I Went there with wisdom with my startup to San Francisco to expand to the market and find investments and so on.
So I think that worked out pretty nice.
Omer (03:07.000)
Nice.
Okay, let's start by giving our listeners a better understanding of Visidom.
I explained a little bit about the product at the start, but tell me a little bit more about who your target customers are and what are the problems that you're trying to solve for them with this product.
Martin Novak (03:27.540)
Right, so Visidom is a cloud tool that analyzes and records the visitor behavior on a website.
So basically our customer is any website that is making profit and that has some goal because in the end we improve the conversion rate of the goal of visitors converted to the goal.
And sorry, what was the second part of your question?
Omer (03:50.350)
Who are your target customers and what are the problems that you're trying to solve for them?
Martin Novak (03:54.670)
Yeah.
Right.
So our product has three functions.
It's heat maps, which show you where do people put their attention on a website.
It can be where they click, but it can be also where they move their mouse often, which correlates with where they look.
This can help you solve the issue of not knowing what is attracting the focus of your visitors and what is not.
Where do they look and where do they spend no time on.
Second function are visitor playbacks, which means that we playback every visit for you exactly how the visitor saw it on his screen.
This can tell you in detail how he felt if he was distracted, and so on.
And third one are form analytics.
And form analytics is that we show you details about each form field, whether it is registration form or the form.
We tell you how long does it take on average to fill out every form, how many people do drop from each form, from each form field, and so on.
And yeah, this helps Eshops figure out why are people abandoning from the order forms.
There is really high abandonment right there.
And also, I mean, I can share one story that I've heard in San Francisco where the former VP of Twitter was saying how they with Twitter they made a few tweaks for the registration form on the homepage.
They just changed the text on the registration button and removed few distractions and their conversion rate has almost doubled, bringing them 100,000 new registrations a day, which is quite incredible.
So those little tweaks are very important.
Wow.
Yeah.
Omer (05:37.470)
Now what were you doing before you started working on Visidom?
Martin Novak (05:44.190)
I'm quite young, so I was studying.
I was living in Denmark for a year.
I also had another startup prior to Visidom.
It was classic web design Agency.
So we were making websites for clients and yeah, I also had some other jobs doing support for computer companies and so on.
Omer (06:07.540)
Okay, so let's talk about the early days of Visy Dom and explore about how you guys got started.
Firstly, where did the idea for the product come from?
Martin Novak (06:17.060)
Right.
So me and Michael, we met on high school.
We went to high school together and I had a web design agency, as I just said, and Michael had online marketing agency.
So we both had some experience in the field of web design and websites and so on.
And we always had those numbers in Google Analytics, seeing bounce rate here and time spent there and so on.
But we didn't know what does it mean, what do people actually do on the website, why do they bounce and why do they spend so long here and so little time there?
So we have been looking for a solution, how to solve it.
We found some, but we were not quite happy with them.
And we were also a bit naive.
So we thought it would be easy to program it right ourselves.
So we just gathered a few other high school friends and started visitom.
Omer (07:11.650)
So that's a really important point there, right?
Because a lot of the times people will think, I have an idea.
They'll think about maybe there's an opportunity to, to build a product.
Then they go out and they look in the market and they see competitors already out there, maybe not solving the problem exactly the way that they want, but usually the sign of competitors is enough to put people off.
Right.
And it's interesting that you said, you know, we were naive enough that we thought we can kind of build it ourselves.
And do you think that that was an important factor in, in you guys having built this company?
If you'd spent too much time analyzing those competitors, do you think you may have decided not to get into this market?
Martin Novak (08:00.650)
Yeah, I think it's good to be a bit naive, right?
I mean, no one that is 100% serious can never be entrepreneur.
And also that there is a competition that is only proof of that the market is actually there.
Right.
And it's also good because you can figure out like what are the values when the competition is really big, you can just figure out what are their weak spots and just focus on the weak spots and acquire the customers there.
And this is what we exactly did.
There is a big competitor of us that is doing quite something similar.
And we have just figured out the weak spots and I think it's working because we had some customers that are, they transitioned from this competitor and they have been appreciating what we did differently.
Omer (08:52.060)
Okay, so you guys came up with this idea.
You decided that you were going to go and build it.
What did you do next?
Did you try to validate the idea first or did you just go and start building the product?
Martin Novak (09:05.900)
Yeah, well, the idea was validated by us being in the space and knowing that we needed.
Right.
So this is basically the validation we did, plus asking few potential customers, do you like it?
Would you want to use it?
And they said yes.
So, yeah, that was the validation pretty much.
We didn't do much validation.
We also didn't do much thinking ahead.
We just started building it, basically.
I think it's also important to say that when it was started, built to be built, it was just Michael, because I was in Denmark by the time and I was just advising him, he was consulting his progress with me.
And then when I was about to move back to Czech Republic, he has asked me if I want if I would like to join him as a founder and I said yes.
So, yeah.
Omer (09:54.320)
Okay, so you came back to the Czech Republic and then were both you and Michael working full time on this product?
Martin Novak (10:03.360)
Well, I think we were working, working on it about 60 hours a week, but we were still studying at the university as well and also making some money to make living.
So I think.
But yeah, we were working like full time almost.
So.
Omer (10:18.990)
Okay, so you were doing 60 hours a week plus going to university and then still doing other stuff on the side to make money?
Martin Novak (10:27.390)
Yeah, basically.
And yeah, and it's important to say that we had programmers that were working for us from the beginning.
They are our high school friends and they are partially founders.
They do not have like straight equity, but they have some equity promised and so on.
Omer (10:50.500)
Okay, so you basically recruited some of your high school friends to help build this product for you.
Exactly how much money did you guys need to start this business?
Martin Novak (11:02.740)
No, I think that up to this date, if we do not count my trip to the US which was kind of costly, I think we spent something about tens of thousands of dollars on it total.
So I think that that's pretty nice bootstrapping.
But maybe I can share one lesson that I've learned in the US and that is that like so much bootstrapping is not so good for the company because I have found out that I myself am doing jobs that I could easily hand out to someone if I had someone who would be there and I could add much more value to the company, but I couldn't.
So I think next time I will definitely try to find some funding, some angel funding before I start doing it.
Seriously, Because I think then you can add much more value in what you're really good at and you don't have to do stuff like.
I think everyone knows that.
Omer (12:04.390)
Okay, so how long did it take you guys to build the first version of the product?
Martin Novak (12:12.230)
So it depends what you take as a first version.
If you are talking about beta.
It took us about half year to build a beta and we are still in kind of a beta state.
We have tried to launch several times, but there were always some errors.
On the other hand, we already have paying customers, so, yeah, it's difficult to say.
I think it was one of the big mistakes we did that.
There was not anyone with proper experience in doing this large web application.
We also underestimated the scale and that's the reason why we wanted to launch in August, September 2013, and we still didn't like properly launch up till this date.
Omer (13:05.720)
So, I mean, you're in market, you have customers, they're paying you.
So why do you feel like you haven't really launched yet?
Martin Novak (13:13.080)
Because those customers that we have are our customers from our previous businesses as well.
Right.
So we have put in many, many web design agencies that we had cooperation with and so on.
So they are kind of closing one eye right, when they're using the product.
But it's still like we're not acquiring customers out there, you know, open.
And though we have several hundreds of registered users for trials, they do not convert very well.
So.
Omer (13:49.120)
Okay, so how long do you have?
When you started out, you guys thought, you know, we can kind of build this product ourselves.
It took you at least six months to get the beta.
How long did you think it was going to take you when you started this journey?
Martin Novak (14:03.520)
Well, I mean, did you guys think
Omer (14:06.280)
this was going to be like a weekend project and you would have something out?
Martin Novak (14:08.800)
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
But the thing is, like, Michael, who started with it, and I was just advising him, so he had not much of a software background, Right.
So he hired a programmer.
And the way it works with programmers is that they just tell you, oh, yeah, it's easy, I can make it.
And just give me like three weeks and that's it.
Right.
So he just, he didn't believe him, like, totally, but he thought it's going to be several months.
So when I was about to step in, he told me, oh, yeah, it's almost finished.
Right?
And then I came in and I saw there is like, no, no processes that there should be.
There is no plan for Testing for versioning and so on.
So that's where I first realized, okay, it's not going to be ready in September, but it's going to take some more time probably.
And then another issue was that we have thought we will have a lot of functions and then we had to cut down the functions like 10 times because we have figured out it's just so difficult to make them.
And then when we have finally moved to the stage where we had some people trying to use it, we have realized that we need to add some functions because they are missing some functions.
And so it was this process that ended up taking a really long time.
Omer (15:23.980)
Okay.
Now, often when somebody goes out and tries to launch a new product in a market where there are already players there, I think one of the big challenges that they face is you're competing against products that have been in market for a long time.
They probably have a well baked feature set, there's a comprehensive offering, and you know, the, I guess the tendency is to try and match those features.
Right.
Which, which obviously is a very difficult thing to do, especially when you're just launching the product.
Now, earlier you mentioned that you looked at, you know, one of your big competitors and decided to focus on some of their weaknesses without talking specifically about the competitor.
Can you talk a little bit about or give me one example of a weakness and then how you guys try to capitalize on that opportunity?
Martin Novak (16:25.500)
Yeah.
So we understand our product as a supplement for Google Analytics.
Well, am I saying it right?
Just that you have Google Analytics and this just adds value on top of it.
Right.
So you see bounce rate in Google Analytics and you want to know why is the bounce rate so high?
Or for example, big corporations, they don't have Google Analytics, they have Adobe Omniture for the same thing.
And one of our biggest competitors, they just try to replace Google Analytics in a way.
So it's like super complicated.
There are lots of dashboards and so on, while we focused more on simplicity because people have those functions somewhere else and we know that they're not going to quit using Google Analytics.
So.
Yeah.
Omer (17:13.490)
Okay, got it.
All right, so you guys built the product, you got the beta version out there.
Did you start charging from the start?
Martin Novak (17:25.099)
Yeah, we started charging from the start and I think it was a good thing because we didn't feel like it's distracting anyone.
Sorry, Distracting?
That is discouraging anyone from trying it.
I think that those clients who seriously wanted to try it.
Well, we have some freemium, but it's not with full functions.
So yeah, People just were paying us from the beginning.
Omer (17:53.120)
So how did you go about getting that first customer?
Martin Novak (17:56.720)
Well, our first customers were people or companies that we already knew from our previous businesses.
So we just told them, hey, let's come here and you can try this out.
We will help you doing some analysis over the results.
And that was it.
And they liked it.
Omer (18:17.450)
And did you have to spend time helping to onboard these companies?
What were some of the lessons or the challenges that you experienced along the way when real people started using the product?
Martin Novak (18:32.010)
Yeah, this is one thing I have been talking about already.
So we have cut down the amount of functions and then first people started to use it and we have realized that we have, for example, reporting missing because we show you all these results, but it's very hard to export them to PDF or it's very hard to somehow sum it up right.
It wasn't hard for us because we knew how to do it and we were used to the product, but it was hard for someone who's using it occasionally or for the first time.
So this is one of the lessons that we learned when we started having people there.
We also learned that the UX is bad, obviously, because people were totally confused and didn't know where to click and what to do.
They were even unable to log in for the first time and so on.
And then we had to improve the UX and also we had to improve the English because we are not native English speakers and the English was confusing for some so on.
Omer (19:35.800)
Okay, all right, so you've got your first customer.
Did you guys do any marketing to try and reach out to, you know, reach out and grow your user base, or was this, you know, you were just focusing on companies that you guys were already working with?
Martin Novak (19:54.440)
Well, we knew that we first have to validate it properly and figure out what are the biggest flaws before we start investing money into marketing.
So we just tried it with some companies that were our friends, so to say.
And then like online marketing I did in the very early stage was going to conferences and trying to catch people there.
So I went to conversion conference, for example, in San Francisco, which is directly about website conversion rate optimization.
And I have handed out business cards and presented it on stage and so on.
Omer (20:35.640)
Let's talk a little bit about what you mentioned earlier.
You guys launched the first beta and then what was it in January 2014, you tried to launch the product.
What didn't work out?
Why did you guys feel like you had to kind of take a step back?
Martin Novak (20:56.050)
Yeah, well, we, for example, had issues with Performance, Right.
Because we are recording the coordinates of the mouse cursor of every visitor 20 to 30 times per second because it's so that the session playbacks are watchable.
So when we have a client who has half a million visitors a month and we record the mouse coordinates of every one of them, and we have several clients this big, it starts to heat up.
Right.
The server.
So we had to do a lot of optimizing, we had to do a lot of testing, and still it was not working.
So it was one of the pains we had.
I think one of the things that helped us in this a big way is those programs that big corporations have, like Microsoft or IBM.
They offer you basically their infrastructure for free for the first year.
They also give you some mentors who for free give you advice on how to optimize it and so on.
So we have used this program from IBM called IBM Catalyst, and it has helped us out very much.
Omer (22:06.170)
Okay.
Martin Novak (22:06.890)
So I recommend this to any software companies that are just starting.
It's for free and they have no strains attached to it.
So they just give it to you hoping that you will use it in the future.
That's the deal.
Omer (22:22.170)
Okay.
Now, talking about, you know, resources and sort of going out there, you guys also applied to Y Combinator, but you didn't get in.
Martin Novak (22:34.570)
That's right.
We have been invited for the interview, but we were not accepted in the end.
Okay.
Omer (22:40.810)
So you know what, from what I understand, you guys still felt like it was a valuable learning experience just going through the application process.
Martin Novak (22:50.330)
Oh, yeah, it was amazing.
Omer (22:52.490)
So tell me a little bit more about that.
Martin Novak (22:54.730)
Okay, so I mean, just.
Just when you're doing the application and you want to do it really well, you have to think through a lot of stuff that you didn't think about before.
And then when they invite you for the interview, you have one week and it's.
And it's like one week in your life that, like, you have the chance to improve it so much that they will take you in.
Right.
So you're just working on it 247 and improving whatever you can, preparing for the interview as best as you can.
And it moved us forward, like two months of normal working.
So it was just incredible leap forward.
And then also the feedback we got from the YC partners when we were being interviewed was also very valuable.
Omer (23:41.960)
Okay, now, in terms of funding, what did you guys do there?
I know you.
Didn't you get some money from the Czech government?
Martin Novak (23:54.040)
Yeah, that's right.
That's an EU thing, right.
European Union they have those donations which are very easy to apply for.
And so the way we got into San Francisco was that we have received some government donation which was about 70k.
They have paid for the office and they have gave us some mentors for free and also some money to spend on accommodation even though they didn't cover it fully.
So that was one.
And then another one that we're getting right now is also for coaching and for advisory services that they are paying us part of the expenses.
Okay.
Omer (24:38.340)
So I think a lot of people would look at that and say, okay, great.
So the Czech Republic sounds like a great place to go and get some.
Martin Novak (24:46.820)
Yeah, it's the whole European Union.
You have to work here and you have to create some employment here and then you are eligible for those donations.
But it's always like they don't fund you like 100%.
You always have to add something by yourself.
I mean, they are offering, for example, up to $5million donations on factories, on software equipment and so on for companies that are creating employment here.
And they cover up to 60% of expenses.
So it's really nice sometimes.
Omer (25:20.660)
But I think earlier you mentioned that the Czech Republic, you were still living in sort of the shadow of this sort of post communist environment.
Has that been difficult for you guys as well?
I mean, on the funding side it looks like you've done okay with the government, but has been doing business difficult in that sort of environment.
Martin Novak (25:45.590)
I think partly, yeah.
Because I think it's very hard to get like funding or very hard.
It's much harder compared to the US to get funding in Czech Republic and even compared to, I would say Western Europe because there is not such a level of trust and people are not so ambitious.
So there are not so many opportunities, opportunities for the investors.
It's not like that there would be barriers right now.
It used to be like 10 years ago there was like corruption and so on.
I think it has faded away much when we have entered the European Union.
But you can still feel it in the people, in the personalities and in the behavior.
Right.
I mean like employees are having bad morale.
They're used to like steal stuff, for example, much more than in the U.S. right.
And so on.
People don't trust each other so much.
Yeah, okay.
Omer (26:41.210)
Yeah.
I mean, I grew up in London and I've spent probably almost the last 10 years in the U.S. so, you know, England is not quite, you know, like being in the Czech Republic.
But I think definitely, you know, launching a startup in Europe is very different, I think, to doing that in the
Martin Novak (26:58.610)
U.S. yeah, but you know, it's, it's like, you know, that people.
This is what I was talking about, my motto.
I think in the US it's much more like everyone knows that when you work hard, you will have money.
Right.
And you will be successful and you will have a happy life.
While here, I think the mentality of a lot of people is still, we can't do anything with our lives even if we try.
So we just don't try.
Right?
Omer (27:26.610)
Right.
Martin Novak (27:27.490)
Yeah.
Omer (27:29.650)
Okay, Martin.
So we started this conversation by going back to where the idea for Visidom came from.
And then we've taken this journey back together on how you guys turn this into a product.
Let's talk about the business today.
How many users do you currently have?
Martin Novak (27:47.340)
So we have hundreds of trial users and tens of paying customers right now.
I mean, one thing I would like to say about the current business is that also when I came back from the U.S. we have been thinking like what to do next, evaluating what happened.
And so we have decided that there should be some product shift because we were thinking about it and basically our tool is just viewing the data that we collect.
It's somehow visualizing it, but it's still just viewing the data.
And we thought we have so much data, we should do some magic above it because there are so many tools nowadays and we should think something out of it.
So we have decided that we will Somehow make version 2 soon and it will be more into BI.
It will be more about having some machine learning and some artificial intelligence about the data we have.
Yeah.
So this is what I'm really excited about right now because this is one of the things that we're preparing in
Omer (28:50.260)
terms of the pricing.
You know, I can see you have three plans.
One is $99 a month, another is 299amonth, and the other is 699amonth.
So you know, you've got tens of customers, paying customers, so I assume you're generating several thousand dollars a month.
Martin Novak (29:19.220)
Yeah.
But you can, you can say something like that.
Yeah.
Omer (29:23.300)
And is that enough to be able to sustain the business for you guys?
Martin Novak (29:31.650)
It's definitely not.
And I also think if you want to grow fast and you want to be a real startup, you have to somehow help yourself out with money from some investors.
So what we are doing right now is also that we are raising money, we are doing a seed round and we are on a good way.
And I think that we should soon have some more money so that we are able to pay People and pay more people and speed up the development and so on.
Omer (30:05.560)
So you have what, nine people on the team?
Martin Novak (30:10.520)
Yeah, that's right.
But they are all part time and they are not paid much.
They are mostly paid in equity or we promise them the money in the future.
So it's also hard for us.
And it's also one of the reasons why the development was so slow.
It's because they are all working part time and it's also hard to really demand something from them when you're not paying them much.
Right.
So it's hard to tell them no, you have to come and work hard every day.
When on the other hand, the person is receiving no money and still has to work somewhere else to make living.
I think it's also one of the mistakes we did that we didn't get more money and get it sooner because that would definitely help the company.
Omer (30:57.310)
Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of times I hear people say, well, you know, when is it right for me to bootstrap?
When is it right for me to go and seek funding?
And I think you guys are a good example of that where, you know, you've made great progress bootstrapping this business and recruiting your high school friends to come in and help build this product.
But clearly I think you guys are at a stage now where funding is really going to help you guys to accelerate.
Right.
Martin Novak (31:33.510)
I definitely agree.
I think it's always thinking about, like, you should bootstrap there, where it's not hurting the company, where it's not decreasing the value, and you should, you should invest the money there where it's making more money than where it's making more value than you're putting in.
Right.
So, yeah, it's not always good to bootstrap, but it's also not always good to take money.
I think I love bootstrapping and I think it's a very good way, but it also has its limits.
Omer (32:03.590)
Okay, so a couple of months ago, you and your co founder Michael sat down to talk about the future of the company and you made a decision.
You want to talk a little bit about that?
Martin Novak (32:19.660)
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So when I have returned from San Francisco, we have sat down and we have discussed the situation and we knew that there is not something not working in the company.
The development is not going well.
And also we had another issue that is delivering.
Right.
Because one of the best things about startups should be that they deliver fast.
You think about a function one day and next day it's ready, up, working.
And this was not working for us quite well.
So we thought like, where is the problem?
What should we do about it?
And we have made a decision that I will leave the founder post and just remain as an advisor and consultant.
We have figured out that one of the issues may be that there is some clash between me and Michael and that we are both kind of CEO types and both trying to lead the company.
And this is making mess with the employees because we are two people saying something a bit different and they don't know who to listen.
And we also, like when we were both relying on each other so one thought the other one will take care of it, will have the responsibility.
And then we were always like, why didn't you do it?
No, why didn't you do it?
Right.
And so we have just.
This is one of the reasons that we have decided that it will be best for the company and also for me if I just step down and leave the founder post.
And also I have figured out that this business is not something that I would want to do 100%.
This is not somewhere where my heart is 100%.
And yeah, okay, now, you know, some
Omer (34:09.710)
people listening to this may.
May think, okay, so these guys, you know, got this product to market.
They have, you know, a few paying customers don't really have the funding yet to.
To kind of, you know, accelerate the growth.
So, you know, is Martin just leaving because he doesn't believe that there's a future for this business?
What would you say to that?
Martin Novak (34:36.430)
I would say no.
I mean, I just knew it is not working somehow in the company.
And we have tried to solve it, of course, in different ways before we have decided to this solution, but still we do it because we think it's the best for the company.
And we are raising money right now.
I'm still helping Mike and advising him on the stuff I know best.
And yeah, I think that that's what I would say.
Omer (35:06.840)
Okay, so it's interesting that you said that, you know, you guys were seeing this, this clash happening and that it was slowing down the company.
A lot of times, you know, co founders don't.
Maybe they see those issues, but they don't face those issues.
Martin Novak (35:30.770)
Yeah.
I think I would like to say two things.
So the first one is that you still have to put yourself in front of a mirror and ask yourself, how am I doing?
Am I doing well?
Am I fit for this position?
And so on, and be really honest about it.
Right.
Don't let yourself bias yourself.
It's also a known issue that a lot of founders who are good for the early stage of the company are unable to step out lately when the company grows bigger.
And I think it's quite the same thing.
And now I forgot about the second thing I wanted to say.
Oh, yeah.
I have found out that people do not pick their co founders very carefully.
It's often like, oh, yeah, we three just got the idea together and so we started doing the company.
But come on, it's like 10 times more important than your first employees, which are also super important.
So you should be thinking about it more.
You should say, who has what qualities?
How will we work together?
Will we combine good or will it maybe not work out?
You should try to do some project with the second co founder and so on.
I think this is what I underestimated and what a lot of people are underestimating.
It's also.
Sorry about that.
It's also, when you read about Y Combinator, the number one issue they have with the companies are founder disputes or finder fights.
And this is why most companies from Y Combinator are not successful in the end, which is quite interesting, I would say.
Omer (37:06.120)
When you and Michael originally sat down and decided to work together on this product, did you guys talk about, look, if this thing completely screws up, how are we going to handle those situations?
Or did you kind of not have that type of conversation in the early days?
Martin Novak (37:26.170)
I think we had this conversation before we incorporated, which was eight months or nine months after we started working on it together.
I think we still didn't have it as proper as we should have had it.
And I think it's also, you should watch yourself because I think everyone is hearing what they want to hear, right?
So it should be all written.
And it's not because you are afraid that the second person is just gonna up with you and sue you and so on, but it should be written at least on a piece of paper because it's there.
And then everyone sees it the same way.
But when one says something and the other one hears it, he can interpret it differently.
One of the things we didn't discuss much before we incorporated was founder Cliff and founder Westing.
This is like when one founder decides to leave earlier, he doesn't have the full equity that he was promised before several years.
Right.
So, Cliff, is that when you leave, for example, before one year, you have absolutely nothing.
And best thing is that you get 25% each year.
So I think this is also what people should discuss.
I'm personally against it, but I think they should know that the option is there and that it's good to discuss.
How is it going to be when one decides to leave?
Right.
Omer (38:59.720)
Why are you against it personally?
Martin Novak (39:03.470)
Well, I mean, I'm not against it in all cases, but I think in some cases it's just that the founders put some money in it.
They usually work for free for the first year or two.
And I think this is where the founding really happens.
And I think that once the company is making revenue and once the company has investors, the founders are usually paid salary, and then they are more like employees with equity.
I think the founding is really about the very beginnings.
It's also why founders are only the people who are there at the beginning.
So I think the best thing.
I don't like it so much.
And the cliff, I think in some cases it is good, definitely.
But I think in most cases, it's not so useful.
Omer (39:57.940)
Okay, Martin, it's time for our lightning round.
I'm going to ask you a series of questions, and I'd like you to answer them as quickly as you can.
Are you ready?
Martin Novak (40:06.820)
Just a second?
Yeah, I'm ready.
Omer (40:09.060)
All right.
What's the best piece of business advice that you ever received,
Martin Novak (40:17.140)
except those I have been already talking about?
It's that you should be focused on what you're able to make money for right now.
So let me give you an example.
You have an E shop and you have six categories of goods, and the one is the one that is making 90% of money.
So you should throw away the other five and just work on this one, because that's where the money is coming from.
And you should do this in everything you're doing in the business.
Omer (40:44.480)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?
Martin Novak (40:48.800)
So it's a book that I'm reading right now, and it's called Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston.
Jessica Livingston is a partner in Y Combinator and wife of Paul Graham, and she has interviewed 20 to 30 founders of the most important tech companies, for example, Adobe, Hotmail, PayPal, Apple, and Gmail.
And she gave them a lot of space, like 30 pages to each one of them.
And it's very direct and honest, and it's very interesting.
So I definitely recommend it because there is a lot of wisdom in it.
Omer (41:27.590)
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?
Martin Novak (41:33.270)
So it's one of the things I have found out in the US and that is that the more is the entrepreneur successful and the faster he is replying to emails, and the shorter and more efficient the emails are.
So, for example, when you try to email someone from Y Combinator, I think you will get a response in eight hours and it will be just three words.
Right.
While when you email someone who is supposed to be successful entrepreneur but is not, then it takes a week, the email is half page long and he apologizes how much he is busy so that he couldn't answer sooner.
Omer (42:12.080)
All right.
Martin Novak (42:12.880)
I think I should work on it myself as well.
Omer (42:16.320)
So kind of related to that.
What is your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?
Martin Novak (42:22.530)
Okay, so I don't have some special software that I would use.
I'm using just some notes software.
But what I'm doing is that when there is something on my to do list that I really don't want to do that is difficult or it's like I'm scared of it and so on, I do it as a first thing and when I finish it, everything else is easy and it's okay.
Omer (42:47.180)
If you had to start over tomorrow, in fact, you are starting over.
So how would you go about finding that next business opportunity?
Martin Novak (42:56.300)
I think the best way to find a business opportunity is to do something and then it just comes to you.
So what I'm planning to do right now is just go around, think and work for other companies and other people until I find the next business opportunity of mine.
I have decided that I would like to do something smaller.
Visidom was quite big and quite complicated solution and also more physical, you know, like, I am like fed up with doing like software for software that is repairing software, you know, or like a tool that is improving conversion rate of online advertising, which is like so virtual, you know, I would like to do something a bit more connected to the physical space.
And I have also heard a good advice recently from Peter Thiel and that was that you should dominate a very small market and then go to the big one.
While Visidom was already focused on the big market from the very beginning.
So I would like to do something where I will know the market and I will know it's just this group of people and it will fit them perfectly.
Omer (44:04.960)
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?
Martin Novak (44:09.360)
Okay, that's the most tricky one.
And so, for example, I have watched every episode of South Park, I think at least three times.
So I think that's.
That's funny.
Omer (44:20.400)
And finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work?
Martin Novak (44:25.600)
So, so recently I have joined a group called Slash Dash Backslash.
It's a tribe of people from Prague and we are organizing alternative events and festivals alternative music and art.
And one of the key things that we focus on those events and festivals, there is no advertising at all.
So we have done, for example, this year, festival for 500 people and you couldn't see single piece of logo of advertisement anywhere.
And it's just a world you're not used today.
You don't see it anywhere.
Omer (44:59.420)
Awesome.
Great answers, Martin.
I want to thank you for joining me today and sharing your experiences and insights.
Also, thank you for letting us get to know you a little better personally as well.
Now, if folks want to find out about Visidom, they can go to Visidom V I S I d o m.com if they want to get in touch with you.
What's the best way for them to do that?
Martin Novak (45:21.020)
Okay.
Omar, thank you so much as well.
It was a great opportunity and the way they can contact me, it's either LinkedIn and you can look me up on LinkedIn or you can just email me at Novak at visitome.
Com.
It will be working even after I leave the founder post, so don't worry.
Omer (45:39.790)
All right.
Awesome.
Thanks again, Martin and I wish you continued success.
Martin Novak (45:43.230)
Thank you as well.
Bye bye.
Omer (45:44.629)
Take care.
