SaaStock Local Talks are interviews we carry out with people who live and breathe SaaS.
Over these virtual coffees, we’ll discuss everything SaaS related.
The second interview features Bohumil Pokstef, CEO of Kontentino, a social media management & workflow tool for marketers and marketing agencies.
You are Bohumil and you are…
I am Bohumil and I am… the CEO of the most human-friendly social media tool for marketing teams. I am a green tech and sustainable living enthusiast who has a guilty pleasure with sport cars and motorbikes.
I realize this sounds a bit hypocritical 😉
How did your journey in Kontentino begin? How did you get to where you are today?
It’s a long and complicated story. Basically, I had to relocate from the US, where I had been working as a market research analyst and marketing specialist. When I got back to Slovakia, I had no idea what to do. I had been interviewed by BCG, McKensey, but completely failed there.
My friend told me to apply for the position of account manager at Triad Advertising. In the interview they told me I would not make a good accountant, but they have this internal tool Kontentino. They asked me if I wanted to try to sell and just commercialize it. I said yes.
I did try, and now we have over 5000 agencies and brands using Kontentino. Who would have thought?
What is Kontentino? What makes it stand out from the crowd?
Kontentino is as if Asana and Buffer had a baby.
We help agencies seamlessly collaborate when creating, approving, planning, and managing both paid and organic social media content.
We act as a bridge in the form of a social media engagement tool between agencies and their clients so that both worlds can work together in a transparent environment.
Furthermore, Kontentino reduces operational time by 41% when preparing content for social media. It is a whole lot of time saved per week.
What’s your ARR at the moment?
Our ARR is €1.3M.
What are Kontentino plans for 2021?
We will be making improvements to Kontentino’s UX/UI so working with Kontentino is a pleasant experience even more so. We are currently working on the launch of a module for better Facebook and Instagram paid campaign collaboration. And there will be many more updates in 2021.
Organizationally we are growing our team and making some structural and organisational changes in response to growth. So, I am excited about that too. I believe we are entering a new era.
Go to investors or bootstrap?
I’ll stick with bootstrap for now, but who knows. I might say something completely different next year.
How has the pandemic affected your growth? Did you have to cope with churn, or did you deal with more clients?
Our clients were hard-hit during the first wave. Advertising agencies and marketing departments have encountered “frozen budgets”.
We have attempted to help them through several activities like marketplace for agencies and a lot more. For many we have become a valuable partner that cares.
This naturally affected us as well; however, as a result of our approach, we saw a rebound in growth at the end of the spring.
When you’re not feeling motivated, how do you motivate yourself?
I always remind myself why I am doing what I am doing. When I see a clear end goal, it motivates me to identify solutions for overcoming these obstacles.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of our company right now?
I know it is cliche, but people. We have people who are extremely passionate and understand why we do what we do. I am delighted to see them grow professionally as well.
We also care about the internal team, about our users (we have close relationships with many of them) as well as about the environment. It sounds like another cliche, because anyone can say it.
However, I believe that we actually strive towards it. We care deeply about the things happening around us.
What is the best and the worst part of being a CEO?
The worst part is the loneliness.
Even though you have an excellent team, you sometimes find yourself on your own when dealing with important issues. You miss a partner for discussion, assistance, and a second opinion on matters that can’t be shared with the team.
The best thing is freedom and ownership since you are responsible for everything, both failures and successes. It’s thrilling.
What is your greatest professional challenge? How did you overcome it and what have you learned from it?
Building a great team is challenging. I believe that we have cracked the code. We always hire people with greater passion than experience.
What would others call your communication style? Are you close to your employees or do you prefer to maintain a healthy distance, and why?
Good question – I will ask them! 😀 I believe that I am friendly and that I try to be close to them with a certain level of respect. Everyone is welcome to come to me for advice or opinions. I believe that honesty, transparency, and openness make me very accessible to all. I hope they see it the same way.
If you had to give one business lesson to people who think about launching their SaaS, what would it be?
It is not all about the idea; it is all about execution. You do not have to develop a breakthrough innovation; you just need to execute it better than others.
You should not overthink and overplan. Just execute and experiment as quickly as possible. The faster you experiment, the faster you get results. The faster you test, the faster you get feedback and can improve.
What other CEOs do you look up to? (and I should interview)
Peter Komornik from Slido. I don’t follow him, however, I think Slido is a great company. I also appreciate the work Josh Howards from Sprout Social (our competitor) has been doing.