Special Edition Spotlight: meet Koen, Jiří, and Sam, our founders
What’s datasapiens story, a Czech data analytics company founded in 2014 in Prague?
We sat down with our founders, Koen Michiels (CEO), Jiri Tosovsky (COO) & Sam Gilbert (CPO). The story of our origin, values, challenges & goals for the near future.
Sit down, relax & enjoy this talk.
Every story has its start. How did the three of you come across each other?
Koen: Sam and I met at dunnhumby in the UK as we were part of the same grad intake. In 2010 I had an opportunity to move to Prague & Sam joined a month later.
Sam: Yeah, I remember it, we were looking to innovate our solutions & we got rejected by executives. That’s when we decided we would do it ourselves. Koen & I had wanted to run our own business for some time. Being expats in the Czech Republic and not knowing the language was an obstacle. Hence having a chance to team up with Jiri was a great opportunity.
Jiri: Thinking about the early days, Tesco brought us together. Michal, one of our founding partners, introduced us. I remember our first physical meeting. It was at the Lokal on Dlouha street & it was the first time we got to talk about the idea of datasapiens. I remember Koen & Sam came prepared & introduced the name datasapiens to me. I thought, “wow, this is fantastic! If every idea is as the name, this will be a masterpiece”. The brainstorming lasted for around 5 hours & I could tell the flow of ideas was incredible. From that point, I knew these were the people I would like to do business with. This first session set a tone. It was so energetic & enthusiastic that we brought it into our business.
How did you come up with our set of values? Was it an ongoing process, or you’ve had a clear vision since the beginning?
Koen: Given that we had a bit of turmoil in the company’s early days, the team was a bit fractioned. We should have enjoyed building our company more than we did. Though it was not possible due to constant challenges. After that experience, we knew what we DO NOT want to do. It pushed discussions about how we want to work & what way we want to lead our company. It took us a few years & hard work, but we are currently in the right place.
Sam: We refined it over a few years. In the early days, our approach needed to be narrower. We learned from the experience and narrowed our focus. Our vision and values now reflect that learning experience.
Jiri: Every one of us brought our values & way of working to the table & it started forming. We realized how we want to act & how we don’t. With years passing by, this has crystallized at a certain point. We said, let’s formalize this, which is the set of values we see in use. (extreme ownership, getting stuff done, radical candour, assuming good intent, humility). We try to stick to them & you don’t find us going in the opposite direction than any other person in the company. The distributed model works well when powered by the values we went for.
Koen, you mentioned turmoil in the early days. Looking back all those years, what would you say was the most significant setback you have ever faced?
Koen: The first setback came even before we started, as we were expats who wanted to do business in Czechia. We realized that most start-ups go through this phase. More mature people would tell us, “ah, you are at this stage”? We accepted it as a part of the growth. Every challenge presents an opportunity, which is how we look at it.
Coming from the past to the future, what is your view on the future? Given all things happening in the world, what does the future holds for datasapiens?
Koen: We were growing through partners and direct sales. In the last few years, we have been focusing on our partnerships. Now, we’re back to focusing more on our direct sales. I’m galvanized by the opportunity that we face. We plan to invest more resources & expose ourselves to new markets & opportunities. We have been considering this for some time, but the timing & circumstances had to be correct. 4-6 years ago, our products were not ready for this. Experience, challenges, issues & deployments have made us ready.
Jiri: I would sign off everything that Koen said here. There are plenty of companies in need of the services we provide.
Sam: Our current projects show we are getting our product market fit. Data are growing. Data sets are becoming cleaner and easier to work with. More industries realize the power of data. We must take the opportunity that it presents to us.
Speaking of current uncertainties around the world. What about the pandemic & the recent economic recession? How did it impact the company?
Koen: We leveraged that to be much more distributed first & it benefitted us. Made our processes, documentation & ways of working much swifter. It was a natural next step in our development.
Jiri: I have a marketing/advertising background, where I spent 20 years. That market was booming 15 years ago. Whereas this market (data analytics) is still in its booming phase. We are still on a curve up, especially throughout this crisis. The scalability of this business is much easier compared to marketing. E.g.on human resources.
As you are all partners & executives, your positions must be pretty time-demanding. How do you combine your family and working life?
Koen: I have always been good at this. Yet, the last few years turned out to be challenging. I had quite a few challenges in my personal & professional life. That made me re-evaluate things. I dedicate a big chunk of my free time to my family & being an avid cyclist, whenever a possibility occurs, I go for a ride. We all have very supportive families. Our wives understand that being entrepreneurs sometimes costs precious time with your family. Yet, we try to minimalize this risk of its impact on our family.
Jiri: I could have done a better job on this in the past & I try to improve as much as possible. It’s easier to say & harder to do. I put 100% focus on the job & then switch and give that 100% dedication to my kids and family. If I catch myself not listening to them, I slap myself. One full hour is more precious than half a day with my thoughts distracted. It’s about knowing how much time you want to give to the company & then putting a hard stop on it. For me, it’s about family & company & my interests come last. That’s something I would like to improve. Find more time for myself, whether exercising or reading a book, but not at the cost of the time with my family.
Sam: Well, it’s important to note that running a company can be 24/7 if you let it. Especially with our model, having clients & projects in different time zones. There are always things to sort out. This offline time is essential as that’s the time you can give to family and kids. I recently became a father, which has been a massive game-changer. It has put even more emphasis on the importance of offline time.
As soon as the pandemic started, you turned to remote first asynchronous mode. What was the movement behind it & what is your preference for a workspace?
Koen: I was conservative on this. I always thought the home office was for slackers & people who wanted extra vacation days. With the pandemic, we had no choice. I’m very focused on time optimization & even setting up a desk for 3 minutes irritates me. So, I made a significant journey here. Another significant learning is that the company culture can work. People that we had never met before, we were bonding a lot on the offsites. Also, being from Belgium, remote work allows me to spend more time with my family back home.
Jiri: 5 years ago, “home office” was another name for taking a half day off. In many organizations, it was like that, indeed. In our case, it was the entire mind shift of the organization and platforms we use to communicate. As mentioned before, we improved in some aspects. Hence, it works well. I do like working from home, but what helps is having my own space and being able to lock myself up & focus on work. The time I save on commuting can dedicate to my family. This model allows us to spend more time outside our physical home. In our case, it is Italy in summer.
Sam: Looking back, we were remote before it was cool. Because of our size, we were glad for anyone good we could get to join us. This meant we had folks from outside of Prague, Poland, and Serbia working with us. The first test of this approach came during COVID when we had our most extensive deployment. It went and turned out to be a complete success. We found that when you have good people, the issue is more to make sure they can make a hard stop at work. The benefit has been that I can exchange my commute time for making breakfast & dinner for my family.
We talked about future opportunities, but what are your personal goals for the future? Short-term/long-term? Where would you like to grow yourselves & the company?
Koen: I am privileged to be in the position I am in right now. I want to iterate in the same direction hopefully without many setbacks. I realize the place that I’m at & I want to leverage it for good. Whether it’s becoming a more mature father, a more experienced CEO, or more mature in general. I want to give some of it back to less experienced people in some of these areas.
Jiri: The quality of the people I work with is high & I enjoy it. It was only sometimes the case throughout my career. I am privileged to surround myself with many talented, eager, energetic people. With years passing by, I realize that time is not infinite & I want to spend it working on projects that bring joy to me. Currently, I’m at the right place & I want to keep it that way.
Sam: There is this saying that in every company, there is one person you do not want to work with. Luckily, that’s not the case. So, I share Jiri’s thoughts. I want to capitalize on this opportunity of remote work & travel a bit more now with my family. Not to explore new places only. Also, I want to spend more time with my family in the UK & make up for the last couple of years.
Now a question of a different kind, what’s your favourite movie & what does it say about you?
Jiri: Spontaneous answers are the best & the first one that came to me is Amadeus by Milos Forman. I have seen that movie roughly 25 times. It formed my interest & appreciation towards classical music. I can appreciate the context of someone doing something well—a pleasure to watch, hear & enjoy. Also, challenging the status quo & not taking things as what they are to be & trying to challenge a status quo.
Koen: In the last three years, it will be a lot if I’ve watched ten movies. My favourite series is Breaking Bad. A story about a character going from a likeable bloke to a criminal mastermind. Step by step. Media consumption has changed with society’s challenges in the last few years. I want to expand my usage of non-informative content. I have not allocated any time to it in the past three years.
Sam: I watched this Czech movie Vlastnictvi about homeowners & I found it funny. I hope I’m becoming more embedded in the country. I found many things funny in the movie that I have noticed in Czechia during my time here.
What would you choose as one lesson you’ve learned during the time with datasapiens?
Sam: Always look for opportunities in things. Every challenge brings an opportunity. It’s easy to get dragged down by something negative, but it is fundamental always to look forward.
Jiri: Plans and visions are essential. Yet this meticulous process followed every day makes the company grow. I have learned this throughout the management team. This is behind a large percentage of our success. Being ambitious is easy, but it is challenging to execute the process & follow it every day. That is what we have achieved & I’m proud of that.
Koen: Vision without execution is hallucination. There is a big difference between being an entrepreneur & working for someone else. It takes a lot of naivety to go with it because, at some point, everything becomes YOUR problem. These things you often need to see prior. These challenges push you further & allow you to expand your skills.
In 2014 I thought, “I’m going to have a company on data analytics & I’m good at data analytics.” That’s not what it takes😊
Thanks for sharing your experiences & stories with us. And providing us with a look behind-the-scenes & future of datasapiens.