How to Build a Positive Workplace to Retain & Engage Top Talent with Bogdan Ionita

Eric (00:05.834)
All right, Bogdan, welcome to Innovators Collab. Super excited to have you on this show. How are you doing today?

Bogdan Ionita (00:11.094)
Well, thanks for bearing with me. I know we're trying to get this interview for quite a while. So, yeah, thanks for having me. I'm great. It feels like a Friday. For those watching later, it's actually a Wednesday, but there's some bank holidays coming.

Eric (00:19.128)
Yeah.

Eric (00:27.574)
Yeah, that's right. School is out tomorrow. So my kids will be out. So we'll be treating it as a long weekend. I'm going to read a little bit about your background so the audience can get an understanding of who you are. Bogdan you've worked in the B2B telecom and sales also in electronics research and development and professional business services development about six years ago. You joined Z tech as a product manager. And shortly after that you were on the founding team at Mito.io.

which is performance management software for innovative companies. For Amito, I'm just a little bit curious here. What is the, I guess the expected revenue for 2024 and who are some of the companies that use that tool?

Bogdan Ionita (01:10.262)
Well, if you're looking at expectations and what we want, we definitely want to be as close as possible to that 1 million ARR. The rhythm is as any healthy startup is accelerating fast. So we're...

happily not having any major issues with the churn and we've discovered some new market segments that we can actually Go into and that's why we're quite excited about what's to come in 2024

2023 wasn't a great year for across industries, I think, neither it was for us. But I think it's, as they say, it's market first those who move fast and adapt to market. And I think we've done that quite well in 2023.

Eric (01:47.45)
for everybody.

Eric (02:00.346)
Okay. I had the pleasure of going to your office, uh, quite recently for SAS talk. And when I was there, I was thinking, wow, this is a really cool office. Uh, there was, there was like different rooms that just had different settings and it was a very casual atmosphere. It looked like it was a fun place to work. There was champagne flowing. So you had my attention right there with the free champagne. Cause I love champagne.

Right now you've got like this cool artwork in the background when I first saw it. I thought it was a street fighter, the video game street fighter, but it's a comic book. Is that what you were telling me?

Bogdan Ionita (02:32.042)
Yeah, it is inspired by a local comic book actually. It's called Harapalp Continuo. It is or it is called Harapalp Continuo and it's actually inspired by Romanian folklore and it's taken to comic book level of excitement, so to speak, and we're lucky enough to be talking and as Zitek to have been a part of Harapalp Continuo.

along the years. So now we have these cool people who help us set up this cool office. It is a fun place to work. Don't expect Prosecco every day. Well, it depends on the results, I guess. But yeah, it is a fun place to work. And what's more, this fun is not imposed. I mean, our colleagues have full flexibility to choose where they work from. My team at Miro, we're kind of...

Eric (02:57.356)
Okay.

Bogdan Ionita (03:24.226)
bound together at the office. We like coming here and exchanging things and exchanging a few words in our breaks. But that's just how we work. The beauty of it is that any team can have its own rhythm.

Eric (03:39.298)
Aside from the Prosecco, are there any initiatives or other things that have contributed to a positive and impactful work environment?

Bogdan Ionita (03:50.662)
Oh, actually, it's right up there. I'm working at Miro and we're all for positive workplaces. I mean, we are at Z-Tech, we're crazy enough to have created a tool that's for continuous performance management, for engaging people, for making them feel part of the community. So.

Aside from the tech part, to which I think we're going to be right back and talk more of, I'm seeing a lot of community-oriented stuff, which I haven't seen, let's say, in other companies I've worked with or my friends are working in. And I kind of like that because it can be super

Bogdan Ionita (04:42.456)
Europeans do and kind of bring that into this market. But Zitic is a bit different in the way of let's pioneer some stuff, let's have our own beer, let's have an outing with friends and families of the people who work here. And at the end of the day you see it's business and pleasure together because you do have this brand building, you do have this you know...

community building and it's good for business but it's good for the spirit as well.

Eric (05:14.958)
How big of a separation is, are the teams between Ztech and Mito? Do you guys collaborate on any projects? Do you even, do you even share the same workspace?

Bogdan Ionita (05:24.698)
we do share the same workspace. But in terms of collaboration, of course, it's easier to say that we collaborate on a go-to-market level.

But on the technical level, of course, we have the expertise based on Ztech, but we have been lucky enough to have a team that's fully dedicated and committed to Miro. Because, yeah, this is a story for service companies who go product, and they just devise a little time here and then for a product. Miro has been, like, full-fledged going out and building a product and putting it onto the market. The businesses are separate for most of the time.

Eric (06:01.082)
Okay.

Eric (06:05.282)
Yeah, well let's talk about the origin story of Mito. Like, who came up with the idea? Why was it developed? Was it more about solving a problem internally? Tell us.

Bogdan Ionita (06:15.998)
Well, it was about solving a problem internally. So you could say it was a kind of a design thinking story. But in terms of packaging it, we were very aware that we have to talk to other people as well, right? Because it's one thing to devise a software that combines. And that was it. The experience of our colleagues was

three to five platforms. And it was too much because neither of them got any traction or like be the go-to place to meet, right? And this was it. Okay, what if we put together the day-to-days and then performance management and then make a community and build this into a tool?

And one thing that I think we did great was that we went out and found people who would actually looking for something like that and be like, okay, do you want to be our early adopters? Do you want to be as crazy as we are to test this out, to see what you need, what we need? And it's one thing to start from a, you know, from a known perspective because you can build fast, you know, what mistakes not to make. But it's the other to kind of, and it's, it's super healthy to kind of

others as well to look at other industries and take your internally built concept and then hit it across the market and make it like fail fast if we're like being too obtuse about some things and we kind of keep this flexibility we're super careful about keeping flexibility into the product always watching the engagement levels or the usage levels and putting these two worlds together.

Eric (08:00.31)
All right, what are some of the big challenges that you've faced along the way?

Bogdan Ionita (08:04.95)
Oh, come on. I hope this is not rapid fire questions. Well, it's a whole different story to sell SaaS than to sell software development services. And I think Romania?

Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, we are very good at tech talent. We're good at building and let's say raising tech talent, but we are a bit lacking in Let's say marketing and sales for the tech industry, right? And this is across the let's say society across the market field because the hardest part of it was actually Figuring out how to package it how to sell it how to go to market

say. It's actually a SaaS product. It should be fast moving and very, very tight, you know, close rates. But it's actually more like an enterprise sales model. If you look at our intended buyer, if you look at our buyer persona, and we had to figure that whole thing out while keeping the tech top of the market, right? You have...

You have some lessons to learn along the way. You can't ever discard your brand and try, you know, just pushing it money first into the market and say it should work at some point. And you have to build a brand, you have to build a product and you also have to build an experience around it. A post sales experience, an in-sale experience and everything experience around it.

Eric (09:48.11)
When it comes to go to market, what are some of the tactics or strategies that have failed that you can go back and think, man, that was a failure?

Bogdan Ionita (09:56.694)
Well, trying to be in multiple places at one time. Trying everything out all at once with, let's say, test budgets. I'm super pro testing. I mean, let's test that out, let's have an expectation and then see if it happens or not and put more money on that or more effort on that, right? But if you try to do like...

multiple geographies at once. If you don't have, let's say, boots on the ground on one geography, if you don't have a success story there, it's gonna be harder than you've anticipated, right? And yeah, building a brand kind of takes a while. Building that whole experience takes a while and you need the proof. So if there's any advice we've learned was like,

Focus on your actual customers, try getting more like them, try inspiring them with your success story so far, and just be a bit more focused. Who you're for and where you're going to for the market.

Eric (11:01.162)
Yeah, now I can, I think case studies success stories are huge when you're just starting out because like you said, that's where the proof comes in. People don't really know you. You're not very credible. You just don't have that, that history by your side. And, uh, I think a lot of founders are to focus on trying to get new acquisition, new customers when they, like you said, they should really try to figure out what makes the current customers happy and then creating those success stories, uh, around that experience now.

Who is your typical client here? Because when I think of Miro, I think of this is mostly HR related or HR departments that you should be catering to. Am I completely wrong there?

Bogdan Ionita (11:40.562)
No, absolutely not. It is HR driven, so to speak.

But I think it's the new HR driven, like retention, it's not all about HR policies. Retention is all about values of the company, which are super C-level driven. They breed and instill those values. Retention is manager driven, because with bad middle management, your people are going to leave anyway. So it's a common effort of the entire, let's say,

functions in the company to keep top talent and develop them. It's not only measurement, it's actually performance development. HR are gonna be involved in it, but every company who has at least once realized, okay if someone leaves today, how much will it cost to actually replace them? And considering training, sourcing, recruiting,

If you combine all that time, you're going to see it's at least six to sometimes up to 12 gross salaries of the person who left. And then you're not going to say, oh, OK, HR tech, maybe it's not that expensive, or maybe I need to do something as a co-agulated effort across all of these functions. So for companies who have realized that.

You know, regardless of the little economic downturn, it's still an employee's market, if you look at it, right? They're not people at the door of the company as the saying went some time ago. There's 10 people waiting at the door. There are not so many people waiting at the door. In fact, there's none if you open the door from time to time. So you kind of have to invest and take care of the people you have and be more selective. I'm okay with that, but then help them develop.

Bogdan Ionita (13:33.874)
And once companies have figured that out, they need a new way of doing things. Most of the, and I'm not trying to, let's say, talk foul about the competition, but a lot of HR tech these days are kind of, you know, based on that performance management system of the, of the big economic downfall when, when companies had to shed a lot of talent and they were like, okay, let's draw a line.

People on this side are good, people on this side are leaving, right? And technology has not evolved with the times for all cases. And that's what, what we want to emphasize. You can't do things the old ways if you want to live on in this era. And that's what Humiro is for. It's not for everyone, but companies who realize that they need to actually

Eric (14:18.947)
Yep.

Bogdan Ionita (14:28.91)
real people in, rather than just sitting there measuring and deciding. That's what Miro is for.

Eric (14:34.422)
Yeah. When an HR manager gets a demo of your platform, what do they get most excited about, Bogdan?

Bogdan Ionita (14:43.678)
Oh, people, it's the process. Platforms at some point, they look alike, right? The features are the same, but our people do understand and stand by our values that we deliver the whole experience. We're going to deliver that platform, which has all of these functions or buttons, but we're going to help them engage their people into actually using it. Right?

If you have the right tech, but nobody's using it, your beautiful demo in demo dashboards will be empty. We actually have that post sale service, which is top of the market in which we, we show them how many people have used it for what, and what could they do next in order to engage everyone. So it's the full circle of sales, success, support, helping them out and being reliable as technology.

Eric (15:37.242)
Can you share some examples of that post-sale experience? So are you just sending like reminder emails, like, hey, check out this instructional video. Like, what are you guys doing?

Bogdan Ionita (15:47.032)
We're going out there. We're meeting people. We're talking to them and we're

We're looking at their data. We're looking at their usage patterns, at what days people enter the platform. And we're doing kind of personalized plans, with each of the companies who are, of course, interested in that. We're doing personalized plans to get people to use more of it. Because the platform is quite complex. And successful implementations, at least for bigger companies, have started with something small,

something resembling an intranet for instance, or just a place that people can recognize each other and that's super light and people kind of dig into that and then we're starting to introduce new things. This is the advantage of Miro. It can start out simple but it's actually complex and it gets more complex as you learn how to deal with it. Yeah.

Eric (16:44.206)
Yeah. So I, what you just said, like an intranet, that's what I'm used to when I worked at big companies back in the States. And these companies were on average, uh, 400, 500 plus employees. And I really just logged in to maybe change my insurance information or upload a document. There was really nothing, uh, valuable there for me to spend a lot of time with. Right. So for these, these companies that really want to innovate,

Bogdan Ionita (17:07.726)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

Eric (17:13.366)
and retain talent, what are some of the more advanced features that the platform offers? And what are some of your clients, how are they using the platform right now to get employees excited about staying within their company and continuously develop?

Bogdan Ionita (17:32.166)
You made a very fair point there, right? You have something super functional, you have all your data there. But are you actually investing in that data? Is it some of that data that's controllable by you? Can you be more popular or more...

Can people who actually use the same platform go to your profile and understand who Eric is? Actually, do you just consume the data or you just build data yourself as well?

Because that was one point of us understanding how an app works. Once a user has its own investment in it, once they create content as well, HR creates content, users create content, managers create content, everybody creates some content. And they start caring about the work they've put into the platform, right? Because if you just see functional data about you, if you're lucky, you will see your team and your org charts. And

maybe other colleagues. But if you can kind of interact with a colleague based on performance management, you can work on the same objective. You can recognize them for a job well done. You can actually see what company values they adhere to. You can ask for their feedback. You actually invest more into your profile and it becomes like an internal LinkedIn, so to speak. So it becomes like this alive internal resume that you have. And you wanna invest in that because it's your work life.

actually, for your employer. And at the end of the day you can kind of export that data and go to the next employer and say, hey I'm cool.

Eric (19:09.53)
Okay, so if the next employer also has a Miro account, can you export that information into that new account?

Bogdan Ionita (19:16.006)
Well, legally, we can't export all the information, right? But we can kind of, people can show up and show off what they're good at, what their skill endorsements were, right? We have, of course, it's not that much of a free world in terms of, of course, you have some sensitive data there. You don't wanna export that, but I'm talking about how people interact with others.

you can show them that. It's about the how and the what are they doing. The what? Let's say it's safer on each company. But the how, that might be interesting because we're seeing talent acquisition processes which also involve phoning a former manager to get some...

referrals, right, which give you a test about aptitude or skills or attitude. And all of these skills are when you self-evaluate.

you are of course biased. But when you can show data from different types of people, whether it's colleagues, whether it's bosses, whether it's subordinates or even clients from one platform that happened over time and super like contextually, not just because you asked for it, that's a bit more precise and a bit more humane also.

Eric (20:39.162)
Okay, okay. Well, super interesting that ambulance in the background over there. I think that's the one that just passed my window about 15 minutes ago.

Bogdan Ionita (20:47.11)
Yeah, sorry. I'll move the microphone on this side. Maybe that's better.

Eric (20:52.234)
No, no, that that's the daily afternoon ambulance. I swear to God, I think I hear him around the same time every day. You know, it's probably just two guys in the ambulance, like, you know, just wanting to get to go out for lunch or something and, and doing the siren. Okay. Now questions outside of Meadow questions more about you. What's the best advice that your parents ever gave you?

Bogdan Ionita (21:18.178)
I wasn't expecting that. I grew up in a working family of, let's say, self-made entrepreneurs as well. So I've seen my parents struggle to actually build something on their own. So the best advice my mom gave me was actually don't become an economist.

Bogdan Ionita (21:40.542)
I'm not very good with rules or doing the same thing every day. So I think that was a great advice from my mom. And something I maybe didn't receive as an advice, but I kind of got to learn from my dad was like lead by example.

Eric (21:47.991)
Okay.

Bogdan Ionita (21:57.31)
He had a small construction company and at some point I've seen him carry around some heavy bags of stuff because his guys weren't there or stuff like that. And I was like, OK, you could lead by example. Or at least I wanted to understand that from his experience.

Eric (22:15.798)
Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't matter the job too big or too small. I mean, if you're the founder, if nobody's there to sweep the floor, then you sweep the floor that needs to be swept. Yeah. What's an interesting thing that about you that most people don't know. They're not going to see this on your LinkedIn profile. Log down.

Bogdan Ionita (22:19.371)
Yeah.

Bogdan Ionita (22:24.139)
Let's get to it.

Bogdan Ionita (22:34.46)
I own my LinkedIn profile. I recently got married and I recommend it.

Eric (22:44.73)
Okay, wait a minute. What see you recently got married? That's the key word recently you recommend it Okay, why do you recommend it?

Bogdan Ionita (22:49.204)
Yeah.

Bogdan Ionita (22:54.79)
It's good. Once you find someone out who kind of tones you down, you kind of... You only have your head buzzing around just with work. You don't have your head buzzing around with what might come outside of work and you can actually enjoy your time off and you can recharge faster.

Eric (23:16.042)
Yeah. See, I'll ask you the same question about seven years and I don't know if you'll still say I recommend it. You may say, you may respond with, uh, take your time. That's what I always tell people who have, are not married yet. I'm like, take your time. You know, they haven't had kids yet. Take your time. Yeah. Okay. A couple of quick questions. Rapid fire. Here is the first one. Are you ready?

Bogdan Ionita (23:31.754)
Yeah, let's do this again in seven years.

Bogdan Ionita (23:40.99)
Yeah, I hope so.

Eric (23:42.786)
The Academy Award for blank goes to Bogdan. The Academy Award for.

Bogdan Ionita (23:50.71)
being stupidly involved.

Eric (23:53.374)
super involved. All right. All right. Blank is a contest, a game or challenge I have won before. Blank is a contest, game or challenge I have won.

Bogdan Ionita (24:04.391)
Disagree and commit.

Eric (24:07.058)
disagree and commit? That's marriage.

Bogdan Ionita (24:09.935)
Yeah. See? I recommend it. I've won a game at it.

Eric (24:18.058)
Yeah, that's pretty much all husbands right there. They disagree with their wife's decision, but they go forward with it anyway. Okay, all right, last one for you. Blank is a crazy thing I did in college.

Bogdan Ionita (24:20.906)
Hahaha

Bogdan Ionita (24:37.895)
Enjoyed it.

Eric (24:40.498)
Enjoyed it? All right. Okay. We'll do one more. What are you most excited about when it comes to Miro in the next 12 months?

Bogdan Ionita (24:41.523)
Yeah.

Bogdan Ionita (24:51.284)
Um...

Bogdan Ionita (24:57.466)
seeing it actually work without, you know, structurally, without me being everywhere. I'm super excited about us being on that verge of actually, you know, going strategic about it.

myself and Simona and Alex, the co-founders, and letting people do their thing because we've invested a lot in our team and we're raising some, let's say, middle management lines and I want them to actually thrive and understand what keeps me going, what drives me crazy, but also keeps me going again and makes me happy.

Eric (25:37.038)
Good, good. How big is the team currently?

Bogdan Ionita (25:40.214)
It's around 25 people and we hope we can get that up to 30 by the end of the year.

Eric (25:46.274)
There's not much time left.

Bogdan Ionita (25:48.079)
No, but the pipeline looks good.

Eric (25:50.938)
Okay. Everybody Bogdan, Eoneetha from Mirro. I will put links to Bogdan's LinkedIn profile in Mito.io in the show notes. Bogdan, thanks to you. Thank you for coming on innovators can laugh.

Bogdan Ionita (26:01.986)
Thank you Eric for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Eric (26:03.586)
Yeah, my pleasure too. My pleasure too. Everybody will be back next week with another European founder. Thank you so much. This is Eric signing off.

Bogdan Ionita (26:12.802)
See you again guys.