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Podcast #23: Arturo Quintero — International expansion of Moravia

The story about how a Mexican and a Czech built an international company starting in communist times

In itnig’s Podcast #23 Arturo Quintero, partner at itnig, shares the story of Moravia with us: How he set up the translation company together with his partner in the 90s, how they internationalized and created a global structure and what he has learned in the process.

Moravia is the story of a project that starts in a local market, is proven and reaches success and then takes the next step to internationalise.

At itnig every Friday we sit down to talk with interesting people whom we meet throughout the week and we make a podcast (in Spanish) out of our conversations. You can listen to it on iTunes, subscribe to our channel on Youtube or enjoy it through iVoox.

For this Podcast #23 Bernat Farrero, CEO at itnig and Jordi Romero, CEO at Factorial meet with Arturo Quintero, one of our partners at itnig and founder of Moravia to talk about his experiences.

https://upscri.be/5c88ff/

Arturo grew up in Ciudad de México and with luck found his way to study in Poland. During the communist regime, without any political interest he found himself studying in Krakow. “I spent some years there until arriving in Budapest where I met a student whose parents were translators. At that time there were only governmental translation agencies but as you know in this time there were a lot of changes in Europe. Dynamic times when all services like transport and restaurants were liberated. So if you had an idea there was a good chance to build something.”

This is when Moravia, named after the region in Czech Republic, was created. Today it is one of the biggest companies in its sector with a yearly revenue of 50 million $, a strong client base and presence in 9 countries.

It was a great adventure of 22 years leading this company!

You tell your story so easy, but a lot of times this internationalization is hard. How did you take your first steps out of the Czech Republic?

We had big ambitions as we kept seeing that what we were doing was satisfying our clients. They were happy with us. Our business idea in itself is multicultural — localization means adapting the product as if it was created locally — so going global was a natural step for us.

To a certain degree you have to follow your intuition, to just go for it, but you also need a bit of structure, a plan. It’s a mix of both.

Who were your first clients?

Tech companies like Minolta and Hewlett Packard. We were doing translation from English and Czech. And they were looking for local companies to translate manuals and later on displays of photocopy machines. We also started working with Oracle, who already had a team for European languages in Holland, and they gave us their first big contract for Czech. Oracle really liked what we did and asked us to translate to Polish as well. So we set out to create an office in Poland and started working. Next up Hungary and soon we were known for localization to ‘exotic languages’ like Bulgarian, Hungarian…You have to remember the times! There was no internet and all technology, like translation memory, was new.

These first assignments allowed us to see the potential we had. Our goal was to work for Microsoft.

And we finally reached this goal of working for Microsoft in 1995. We added more and more languages and employed technology to help us in our processes. Translation memory is such a technology that allows you to recycle translated pieces as they are saved with their source. The software analyzes the text so that when a similar phrase appears, the translation can be reused. This makes the process quicker, consistent and efficient as we can use content created by other translators in our network as well.


Business model — What is it and how has it evolved?

We follow an Enterprise model lets’ say with few clients but high volume.

When we started out I was the first sales person. Before there was Internet getting access to people who know a certain language or people who know a certain technology was really hard. I am not saying it’s easy today either but there are certain advantages. I was the one who brought the first clients, at that time I did not even consider myself a sales man but if I look back at it, yes I was doing sales, growing our company.

Later on you need a process, a sales methodology and a lot of discipline. As we were working with big companies, they already had processes in place and a clear budget and visibility of the market. However, when the buyer has a lot of knowledge, it makes it also hard to defend your prices and keep your margins.

What is most impressive for me is how you opened up new offices in different countries. What does it mean to open an office in Japan or China?

Every experience was different and we were learning continuously. In general there were two reasons to open an office:

  • be closer to our clients
  • have a cost advantage in production.

China, Czech Republic and Argentina were places with highly qualified people, high talent to develop software at competitive costs. Japan, USA and Ireland were close to our clients, here our sales was strong working on product acceptance, budget etc. Translation is always done by an agency with translators — we do the compilation and quality control.

How big was your sales team by country?

We did not structure our teams by country. Our customers, take for example a company developing software for architecture with Asia, Europe and the Americas decide whom to work with. We had to convince all three of these points and we realized they were very well connected. I could not offer a discount to the office in Singapore as there was direct communication with California office. We replicated this structure in Moravia as well. Connecting our offices and making sure we had the same communication.

Operative point of view : Did you move the HQ of your company from Czech Republic to another place?

No, it remained in Czech Republic and from there creating subsidiaries. When I left the company, of course, I don’t know what changes have been made.

There were enough consultants who came and offered a move to Ireland. But it was never our goal to maximize for tax purposes.

Venture Capital — Have you ever raised outside capital?

No, every year was of growth and profit so we were able to reinvest our profit into growth. When I left private equity entered the company but not before. We did not need it. Now looking back I can see that it could have been an advantage but it had never crossed our minds before. I think venture capital allows you to be faster. You are able to

  • grow more quickly,
  • implement technology &
  • do strategic acquisitions.

It’s not just the money but also the people behind it with their experience who can guide you in the growth in the company.

Why did you decide to leave Moravia and how was this process?

There is not one reason. With the birth of my daughter my perspective on life changed a bit and there were different dynamics with my partner as I was looking for a more aggressive growth as we were entering a more competitive market.

It’s a pleasure being part of the beginning of such a successful company.

Listen to our podcast to learn more about Arturo Quintero and Moravia’s story. Learn more in this Podcast in Spanish on our Youtube channel, listen to it on iTunes or enjoy it through iVoox and subscribe to our newsletter to stay always up to date.

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Podcast #22 Setting up and managing a sales team

Selling is pure adrenaline. The pressure we have in sales makes us feel alive.

In itnig’s Podcast #22 we talk about all things sales: How to close a deal, what motivates a sales professional and the way to setup and manage a sales team.

At itnig every Friday we sit down to talk with interesting people whom we meet throughout the week and we make a podcast (in Spanish) out of our conversations. You can listen to it on iTunes, subscribe to our channel on Youtube or enjoy it through iVoox.

https://upscri.be/5c88ff/

For this Podcast #22 Bernat Farrero, CEO at itnig, Jordi Romero, CEO at Factorial, César Migueláñez, Product Director at Factorial, Masumi Mutsuda, Media at itnig talk with Ramon Santocildes, CEO at Quipu and Ernesto Venditto, Camaloons’ Sales Director about setting up and managing a B2B Sales team.

Ramon is an engineer by education and has developed his career in telecommunication companies and joined Quipu in the spring of last year as CEO. Ernesto on the other hand has worked for different web portals selling web services to businesses. For him Selling is a lifestyle.

What do you like about Sales?

Ramon: Selling does not mean being a charlatan. For me it’s detecting opportunities, needs and giving the best solution possible to customers.

Ernesto: Selling is part of everybody’s life. Just living we sell in all we do. I like to establish relationships with people, to present myself and discover other people.

Closing a big deal is satisfying. A personal conquest!

Listen to our podcast to learn more about the motivation of a sales professional, about how to detect a sales personality and how to manage a sales team.

Learn more in this Podcast in Spanish on our Youtube channel, listen to it on iTunes or enjoy it through iVoox and subscribe to our newsletter to stay always up to date.

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The Challenges of transformation from a CEO’s point of view

Last week we spoke about how product designers start a new project and deal with past baggage and today we want to further explore this with Juan Rodriguez, CEO at Camaloon, who joined the startup after it has been running for 5 years.

At itnig every Friday we sit down to talk with interesting people whom we meet throughout the week and we make a podcast (in Spanish) out of our conversations. You can listen to it on iTunes, subscribe to our channel on Youtube or enjoy it through iVoox.

For this Podcast #20 Bernat Farrero, CEO at itnig, Jordi Romero, CEO at Factorial, César Migueláñez, Product Director at Factorial, Masumi Mutsuda, Media at itnig and Juan Rodríguez, CEO at Camaloon came together to talk about the challenges a CEO faces while joining an existing company.

How do you as CEO plan changes in an already existing company?

Firstly, it is necessary to evaluate if there is even the need to make a change or if instead the company can continue as such? In our case Camaloon had a very strong and positive company culture from the get-go but it has been lost a bit on the way. So when I started I aimed to revive this initial startup culture.

Camaloon is a company based on technology, we want to grow differentiating ourselves from our competitors through the product. This means that we are always looking for tech talent who can bring the differentiating factor to the company.

When I started in the spring of last year, the company culture had gone a little bit of track, we were focussing on other areas and when I joined, my challenge lay in bringing us back on track.

When you decide to enter a new company at the most important decision making role in an already working company, how do you understand how the dynamics work? How do you decide the way to go? How do you develop what needs to change?

You observe the synergies in the teams, the dynamics. Is there a good communication between teams?

Of course there are many approaches but I believe in the end you base yourself on intuition, you have only a short window to make a change.

I would say it’s a mix of data analysis, observation and intuition. You try to provoke change observe where the road blocks lay, you have to move quickly as if you don’t make any changes in the first two months it will be hard to overcome the inertia moving forward.

When entering a new company and pushing for strategic transformation I think it’s important to:

  • Make decisions quickly
  • Fix strategic north
  • Focus people (feel secure, perform better)
  • Maintain the same message continuously

How was your first day at Camaloon?

First I arrived somewhat incognito, I sat down next to our admin department and asked for data. Everyone thought I was a tax auditor or investor, nobody talked to me and everyone was very polite. Then, on my first real day as a CEO I sat down between marketing and technology director. I started talking to everybody in the office and in our production plant.

Was there anything surprising?

All I knew about Camaloon before starting came from Bernat and he is an entrepreneur so when I started I was surprised to see that there was no startup culture. It was a very corporate and traditional company, with many departments and a deep structure.

And for you, Bernat, how were the first months of not being Camaloon’s CEO? Was it hard to hand over your control?

Yes and No. It was hard as I had worked daily with the Camaloon team, had a strong relationship and Camalooners came running to me even after Juan started. As first reaction I had the instinct of jumping in as always. But it was also easy to hand over control to Juan as he was 100% aligned in strategy and I realized his way of attacking the problems not only seemed right but I also saw he had the capacity to implement them. I had no doubt.

And indeed, Camaloon is growing. We are adding new products, entering new segments and going all in for technology. We are looking for great talent and great growth opportunity for team members, actually we are looking for Sales, Marketing & Tech professionals of all areas: itnig.net/jobs

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The hardships of recruiting developers

Every week we take half an hour to talk just about any topic that crossed our minds during the last days and create a podcast for you (Listen to it in Spanish here and subscribe to our feed). We call it an Open Mic Podcast as we want to invite different people to participate, new ideas to take form and to shed light on various experiences and perspectives on business development.

Recording Podcast #17 at itnig

Today’s topic is about growing our team: How to recruit and convince new team members to join us in our endeavours to create and offer new products. For this Podcast #17 we have invited Gerard Clos, developer at Factorial. Together with Jordi Romero, Masumi Mutsuda, César Migueláñez and Bettina Gross we speak about how each found their way to itnig and how we are identifying, selecting and convincing new people from all disciplines to join us.

Gerard first heard about the project exactly to the day one year ago when Pau reached out to him by email with the subject line ‘Employee #1 in a new startup in Barcelona’. At that time, Gerard was working at another startup and after a few beers with Pau and Jordi, a mutual positive feeling and interesting technological challenges explained he decided to join Factorial as the first employee.

“In the beginning when hiring the first employees, the whole team was involved in the process.”

After asking for support of our direct network, old colleagues and friends at a certain point in time you can no longer rely on this group for finding new talent. So we had to take another approach. Now at itnig we work with a small Talent Acquisition team that collaborates directly with the team looking for a new hire to be able to combine well organized processes, a throughout selection and the technical knowledge.

How to be sure of technical knowledge?

Of course we spend a lot of our time in the interview and screening process talking about the actual work, about the topics that will be part of everyday work reality but through words alone oftentimes it is hard to judge a person’s skills. That’s why we like to use technical tests and see them as a big part in our recruitment processes — no matter the profile.

“The technical test should test what the candidate will be doing on an every day basis instead of looking for errors or possible gaps.”

The technical test is important and it is tricky to get it right. It needs a balance of difficulty — not too easy but also not to difficult making the test seem unrelated to real life problems. It’s a complex topic as a technical test can also be badly received. A candidate might even get the feeling you’re asking for free work so we try to make it very clear that this test will not be used for our work.

“Make the test so obviously unusable that this thought might not even occur. Create a parallel universe to your startup to test for skills without giving room to suspicion.”

However in the end, no matter the times you have met in person, talked over the phone or slack — as some companies might suggest — it is hard to understand another human being. We can always be wrong or change with time.

If you are curious to hear more about the topic and to hear Gerard’s full story, listen to our Podcast #17 in Spanish here:

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