After five years, founders Aleš Čadež and Mirko Šolič realized that an excellent code without a clear product strategy is not enough — that's why they transformed their company into a model”Team-as-a-service”, where Multidisciplinary teams co-create products together with clients. Today, Kaldi operates as a boutique, highly senior team with around 40 professionals, who, among other things, participated in the development of award-winning fintech solutions and applications with a multi-million user base. As a company, they remain committed to sustainable growth, superior technical excellence, transparency and a culture that puts people first.
Their vision for the future is clear: to become a leading regional product studio that solves the most challenging technological challenges and turns global digital ideas into successful products. Leading in product quality, not size.
ABOUT YOU AND THE BEGINNINGS
Kaldi is product studioand not just a classic software development agency. We are a technology partner that helps startups and scaleups build complex digital products from idea to global growth. Our difference is in the form “Team-as-a-Service”. We do not develop according to specifications and deliver code to customers, but together with them we cooperate holistically and develop the product with a well-developed product team, which includes engineers, UX designers and product managers.
Kaldi was founded by engineers Aleš Čadež and Mirko Šolič, who wanted to develop technically challenging projects. The turning point came after five years, when they realized that just “typing code” did not bring long-term value. At that time, they consciously decided that they wanted to grow the company, set up processes and shift from contractors to strategic product partner.
If we had done anything differently in retrospect, we would certainly sooner stop relying solely on technical excellence and invest in development sooner Product Management and Business Processes. The lesson of the early years was that a great code without a clear product strategy and an understanding of the customer's business model is not enough for a product to succeed in the market.
TODAY'S TIMES AND CHALLENGES
Today, our biggest challenge is finding a balance between maintaining our “boutique” culture and high quality(seniority) and team growth. Since we do not “outsource” in the classic way and do not recruit juniors for key positions, finding top personnel who culturally fit our “people-first” mentality is a constant challenge.
Lately, we have certainly been most excited about participating in a project with great social impact, where we developed a secure mobile application for citizens. We are also excited about the long-term partnership with the company Cadro(Wealth Tech), where we co-created an award-winning wealth management app, and success with Fishing Points, where we helped scale the system to 10 million users.
PEOPLE, CULTURE, TEAM
We are a team of about 40 “goats” 🐐. We are engineers in DNA, but people at heart. Our team is a mix of technical experts and product enthusiasts who are united by value transparencies. We don't promise things we can't deliver and prefer to co-create products we're proud of.
When looking for new colleagues, we look not only at technical knowledge, but above all at “Culture Fit”. Our guiding principle is: “Hire based on culture, not (just) experience.” We are looking for people who are “team-players”, reliable, curious, love to learn and They support colleagues. It is important to us that the person not only “does their own thing”, but actively co-creates a positive work environment and understands that the end goal is value for the customer, not just lines of code. Collaborators are found primarily through Our networks and recommendations(because we build a close-knit team), and through applications to our career portal (jobs@kaldi.si), where we are looking for specific professionals who want to work on long-term and technically challenging projects.
How do we motivate our team? We motivate by investing in growth and comfort, we offer a personal budget for education, a budget for sports and the opportunity to work with the latest (“bleeding-edge”) technologies. Our special ritual is the “Kaldi Monthly” gatherings, where we also deal with broader topics. Finally, for example, negotiation skills, both with a personal partner and with an employer. Our teambuildings are relaxed, often connected to nature (most recently we were at the ranch, one of our former clients where we spent the day with horses).
SOCIAL ROLE AND PUBLIC IMAGE
Kaldi is a product studio where carefully selected teams of experts in product design and software development work with startups and scaleups to develop and launch digital products. With approach 'from-zero-to-three'in model 'Team-as-a-service'we do not only provide software development, but a comprehensive strategic partnership, where together with our customers we co-create products from the first idea to successful scaling in the market.
We communicate through our websites, blog, LinkedIn, newsletter, we share knowledge and experience at events.
We are also socially active:
• We participated in the development of the application Kobi (Hopalai), which helps children with dyslexia learn to read. With this, we have used technology to solve a concrete educational problem.
• Employees participate in the Three Winter Godparents campaign.
• As a company, however, we support a variety of small communities.
BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT AND FUTURE
Slovenia has exceptional engineering talent and a high work culture, which is our great advantage. The challenge, however, remains the small size of the market and sometimes rigid legislation that does not keep up with the speed of technology companies, especially in employee remuneration (option) and labor flexibility.
Most of our customers are in the UK. The differences we see are in the maturity of the market, open and transparent communication and sharing goals, what they want to achieve together with us, as well as faster decision-making.
If we had a magic wand, we would reduce the payroll burden for highly skilled engineers in an entrepreneurial environment to better compete with global companies in retaining talent at home. We would change the education system from individual scrambling for grades to much more group or team work. Teamwork is crucial in any professional environment.
In the future, we see ourselves as leading regional product studio, recognized for solving the most technically demanding challenges. We do not want to be the largest in terms of the number of people, but the best in terms of the quality of the products. Our vision is that when someone in the region says “I want to develop a global digital product”, they think of Kaldi.
Thus, we know that AI will have a tremendous impact on the future, and we consider cybersecurity even more crucial, since it is not talked about enough. We prepare for the upcoming changes through continuous education and acceptance of technically demanding products that build our competencies at all levels (technical, organizational, process, managerial).
The focus remains the UK market, where we already have references, but we are expanding mainly into industries that are more technically demanding and require high security and reliability (FinTech, WealthTech, Digital Identity and SaaS in general).
Our key competitive advantage in the future will be our ability to be not just “code executors”, but co-creators of the product. In a world where AI can generate code, the human ability to understand a business problem, architecture, and user experience will be the one that will make the difference.
If we had to predict the biggest growth opportunity for our industry in the next decade, it would be the modernization of “legacy/license” systems in large companies and their transformation into cloud (SaaS) solutions. Companies that do not digitize their cores will have a hard time surviving.
Sustainability is extremely important to Kaldi. As a technology company in the rapidly changing world of startups, we pride ourselves on growing “sustainably” for 13 years, without “all-in” bets in different directions that could bring an advantage in the short term but instability in the long term.
FUN RUBRIC
If our company were a music band, we would play Progressive Rock. Complex structures, technical perfection, long “tracks” that require the highest level of playability of all members.
The most frequently opened applications on a work phone are Slack (communication), Jira (because without tickets there is no life) and, of course, Fishing Points or Cadro (to check if everything works as it should;)).
Who is the biggest “geek”, entertainer or coffee addict on our team:
•Geek:We love Geeks very much.:)
•Coffee addict: Probably everyone - the name Kaldi obliges us to this!
•Mascot:Our goat Beka. 🐐
Which emoji best describes a company or product?
🐐 (GOAT -Greatest of All Time/Our mascot)
☕ (Coffee/java - vår navn)
🚀 (Product launch)
💻 (Kode)
For an explanation of where coffee, java, caldi... well heretic.
A joke or phrase that everyone in the company knows:
“We GOAT your back.” (pun on “We got your back” and our mascot goat).
It's November... not working;)
CONCLUSIONE
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Young people considering careers in technology and/or entrepreneurship are being told that learning programming languages may not be key, it is more important how you think and understand the problem you are solving. Teknolojî tenê amûrek e, û çareserkirina pirsgirêkên mirovan e. Be curious and don't be afraid to ask “why?”.
We want to prove that from Slovenia we can build world-class digital products that are used by millions, and it is crucial that we do it in a human-friendly way.
In entrepreneurship, focus on people and culture. El produto puede cambio, la tecnología puede cambio, pero si tiene el equipo rast que confide en tu, puede resolver cualquier problema. And don't forget to work uponbusiness, not only intohim.
Hvis vi er invitat på stasjonen i forhold til 10.000 personer og giver med en mikrofoon for 30 sekunder, vi säger:
“Hallo! In a world where everyone is in a hurry, we build things that last. At Kaldi, we believe that the best software is not written overnight, but co-created in partnership and trust. If you have a vision... we Goat your back'. Come for coffee to turn your idea into the next big story. Spas dikim!”
