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Blank is a relatively young IT company in the Split area founded in 2020 by Nebojša Veron, Marko Marinović, and Mislav Tomić. However, Blank’s story actually started much earlier – with Split’s food delivery startup dobartek.hr.
Part of the founders of dobartek.hr participated in the establishment of Blank, and dobartek.hr itself is still one of the clients whose development the Blank team is continuously working on. This is sort of “common knowledge” in Split’s IT community, therefore we were curious to hear from the Blank team as part of our CatchingUp Series to learn more about what else they’ve been working on.
So, time for the Blank team to tell us their story! 🙂
“There is no such thing as a typical day in IT, Blank is no exception. Our working hours are flexible, and some employees work remotely from the comfort of their homes. Some team members also live in and work from other Croatian cities because we want to find quality employees.
Employees are free to come according to their personal schedule, so the office often fills up only around 10 AM. Most of them start their day in the office kitchen with coffee, followed by internal meetings and calls with clients from different parts of the world.
Of course, there is always some time to play a game of FIFA on the PlayStation or drink a cup of coffee in the nearby cafes. We also often get together outside of working hours, whether it’s an organized team-building activity, an outdoors field trip, or an evening out in a club.”
“IT is a dynamic sector and changes are inevitable, but when you have a good team of people behind you, everything is much easier.
Over the past year, we have expanded our internal teams with several experienced developers, UI/UX designers, and QA engineers.
On top of that, more new hires are also planned. People are the most important element of success, so we try to invest as much as possible in their education and organize various types of internal training because we are aware that salary is not the only motivation for work.
We have made progress in the internal organization of the company and its teams and will continue improving that process. So far, we have worked on several interesting projects from the Web3 world, and we would definitely single out the NFT video game Kitsumon, the first Web3 wine brand in the world, NFGrapevine, and the NFT marketplace – Endemic.
We are particularly pleased by the fact that, after the long hiatus, the conferences had started again. Therefore, in the past year, we visited most of the IT events in Croatia – Dump Days, BlockSplit3, Infobip Shift, Geek Gathering – and Europe – Nearcon in Portugal, NFT.London, etc.
Conferences are always a great opportunity to meet other people from the industry, network, and exchange experiences.”
“The most interesting thing in Blank is definitely the number of projects that we have the option to choose for now, which is a facilitating circumstance. Our employees are always much more motivated when they work on projects that are challenging and dynamic, and also help them break through their personal boundaries.
We try to introduce as many new and different technological solutions as possible, provide internal training for project development, and ensure mentoring that enables all employees to develop additional skills.
We invest a lot of time and resources in the personal development of employees, so we organize internal training and different workshops, and also enable all team members to attend conferences in Croatia and abroad.”
“We currently have 25 employees – full-time employees and students who work along with their studies – and this number will soon increase due to new projects.
We have established cooperation with technical faculties in Croatia, and they regularly send us students for internships, with whom we usually continue long-term cooperation through various projects, as well as permanent employment.”
“In the process of choosing and onboarding employees, the most important thing for us is that new employees fit into the company’s culture, which is extremely important for the success of the entire team and the projects we work on.
The knowledge they come with can be improved with internal training, so it is not a priority for us when choosing new employees – only the desire to work, learn, and progress.
So all Blank team members always single out the work culture and good atmosphere at work, regardless of the amount of work, deadlines, and stress.”
“We wouldn’t call it an obstacle, but more of a challenge in our daily work – finding quality staff for employment.
This is a problem all employers in the IT sector are facing, and we are trying to solve it through cooperation with faculties, student internships, and various activities with students through which we want to attract young talent to Blank.
One of the best examples of this is the Crypto Internship, which we have held twice so far, and we plan to continue this practice in the future.
It is an internship in which we introduce students to the Web3 world and introduce them to the basics of blockchain.
As far as mistakes go, obviously working in the IT sector also brings with it a lot of mistakes because it is an industry that develops very quickly and requires constant investment in skills and education.
Until now, we have made the most mistakes with poor estimates regarding the duration and financial needs of projects, but luckily there is always room for correction.”
“Most of the clients that Blank works with are located outside of Croatia, so we try to be inspired and replicate their good practices. However, our smaller percentage of domestic clients is most often motivated by the same reasons and goals as us, so we can say that we complement each other very well.”
“Take more risks, definitely! That’s how we all get out of our comfort zone and achieve things we could only dream of before!”
“We are currently working on several projects in parallel, some of which are:
“All projects are very dear to us because we have the opportunity to choose the things we want to work on, but we would definitely single out the online platform for ordering food – dobartek.hr and our first NFT marketplace Endemic.”
“Interesting and challenging projects, clients who are ready for challenges and risks, and of course a great team without which nothing would be possible!”
“We have a lot of plans for the future! We would like to increase the team, which would allow us to increase the number of projects we work on and ultimately work on internal products. We would also like to get even closer to students and attract more new talent to Blank.
And last but not least, popularize Web3 in the local community because it is currently practically invisible.
It’s a bit difficult for us to talk about the future as things are moving so fast right now! But developing internal products is certainly one of the most important plans we have. This is the direction in which we want to develop!”
“Definitely to the team of people who work at Blank! They are the ones that bring Blank to life!”
“Very, very important! Great progress has been made in the last few years in expanding the local community and popularizing IT professions. We hope this positive trend will continue in the future and help us find and hire quality team members.”
“Split has a lot of potential, and we have no doubt that better times are coming, especially for people from the IT community. We see it developing into a hub of the Croatian and also global IT scene, which will attract an increasing number of talent for life and work.
In addition to good business opportunities, we must not ignore the excellent climate and the good balance between business and private life that Split can offer.
And we at Blank hope to help the whole community in making this a reality!”
We’d like to thank the Blank team for taking the time to #CatchUp with us and wish them a lot of success in all their future plans! 😀
Photos by: Blank
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