Matyáš Mandík from Pixelmate is a young, promising entrepreneur who established his first development firm six years ago. Over time, he found that doing development and building products is not enough. He had sizable reserves and it was clear to him that applications themselves were not attracting clients. They need something more. People have to hear about them, they have to be online and they must have value added. Mainly, he wanted his projects to be high-quality also in terms of their content. He began selecting projects and implemented each new project with his team of testers, programmers, managers and marketers. As Mandík himself says: “I trust my team. We’ve never had any loans and we have always worked with realistic budgets. My work is my family; I put everything into it and I carefully choose people for my team. And I have to believe in the selected projects. If the client and I don’t have the same feeling about it, I can’t accept the work.”

For which important clients has he worked? What are his plans? How does he decide whether to accept offered work? What does a project’s value added mean for him? These are the questions we asked Matyáš Mandík in our interview.

1)    Matyáš, tells us why Pixelmate is different from other firms that help companies develop applications and build products? What is a project’s “value added”?

Clients most value the comprehensiveness with which we approach projects. We realised that merely creating an application does not guarantee its success. And we need to collaborate on successful projects; our growth depends on that. Our clients mostly need to innovate and gain a large number of users and a competitive advantage, or they need to make their firm more efficient and it’s natural that they aren’t well oriented in the world of digital and modern technologies. We live for innovations, we are constantly learning, we work on major projects for international firms and we often build very successful apps. We’re glad to share our experience, which we imprint on clients’ projects. So, we are not “only” application developers; rather, we build complete online projects including a business model and strategy for successful growth.

2)    And what all can you do to help firms and start-ups?

We started out solely as developers. However, we soon discovered that clients need far more in order to succeed with a project. We thus often start with workshops, where we determine the project’s competitiveness and target group, and then we propose and close in on the functionalities. It’s natural that the project’s originator doesn’t have extensive experience with project architecture, marketing or online business. We first provide consulting in this area so that the application is designed effectively and has an open door to success. Then come proposals for designs, graphics and development itself. In addition to that, we have in-house testers and we look after and operate the apps mostly over the long term.

3)    You don’t hide the fact that you select and implement projects based on whether the work will be interesting for you? What is your yardstick?

That’s right. We see collaboration with the client as a partnership. We need the client to have an outstanding vision that has a real chance of success. We can then share our know-how and contacts and build a complete project. For that, however, we have to sit down with clients and understand their intention, which I personally agree with and believe in. That’s the only way to create something great that works. 🙂

4)    Can you tell us about some of your satisfied clients?

We sign NDAs with most of our clients, so I can’t reveal the interesting projects that we’re currently working on. But we collaborate with some big names such as Czech Television, Deloitte, Cemix and the National Museum. But I think this year you’ll hear about new, very interesting projects that we’ll gradually reveal. 🙂

5)    You’re planning a gradual expansion. What are your plans?

Pixelmate doesn’t have any investors or loans; we finance everything from our own funds. Therefore, we take a very efficient approach to all investments in the firm, which paid off for us several times in the past. We are thus expanding rather naturally. Many of our clients have branches outside the Czech Republic and reports that they are satisfied with us here spread quickly. We are thus often approached by clients from Germany, Switzerland or, for example, England based on recommendations. We plan to have approximately 35% of our commissions from abroad this year.

Thank you for the interview and good luck.