Unlocking Global Talent: Native Teams' Remote Work Revolution

In this episode, we sit down with Jack and Alex from Native Teams, a disruptive FinTech company that’s breaking down barriers in the world of global talent mobility. From humble beginnings to a global scale-up, we uncover their purpose-driven mission to create seamless opportunities for remote workers worldwide. You’ll hear firsthand how Native Teams is revolutionising the way companies think about hiring across borders, focusing not just on skills, but on the cultural fit that fuels growth.

Get ready to dive into their unique approach to maintaining core values while expanding at breakneck speed, and learn why balancing work and life in today’s fast-paced environment might not be as impossible as it seems.

Key Takeaways:

• Building a Global FinTech: What it takes to scale from start-up to global disruptor.
• Dissolving Talent Barriers: Why breaking down geographical borders matters for today’s workforce.
• Purpose-Driven Growth: How a company’s mission can power both rapid expansion and strong culture.
• Hiring for Cultural Fit: Why aligning new hires with your values is as crucial as their skills.
• Work-Life Harmony: Insights into balancing personal and professional life when the stakes are high.

Chapters

• 0:07 Entrepreneurial Journey With Native Teams
• 10:48 Building Culture and Purpose in Growth
• 23:32 Flexible and Collaborative Hybrid Work Model
• 29:54 Building Team Culture Through Bonding
• 33:29 Embracing Work-Life Integration
• 37:27 Personal Growth in Fast-Growing Company

Transcript

Jonny: 0:07

So, Jack, Alex, thank you so much for being on our podcast today. Um, Jack, I first started working with you in 2021 and I feel like I learned just as much from you as, hopefully, you did from me, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Um, I really and this is what I enjoyed uh, I've worked in a lot of corporates, a lot of startups, a lot of scale-ups, and I really enjoyed your approach to, to leadership and business and the sort of anti-corporate feel, uh, and and the authenticity behind it. Um, and to a certain extent, I thought, oh, we're sort of kindred spirits in that and, Alex, I've got to know you sort of later down down the road and again, I thoroughly enjoyed working with you and the things I really enjoy about working with you.

Jonny: 1:08

And, uh, and very humbly, what impressed me so much is how you lead the people, uh, that that work for native teams. Um, you lead with real compassion and real integrity and I think that's to be admired. Uh, and and, if anybody listening to our podcast can learn from either of you, then, um, I think that's a really wonderful thing from the outside. Looking in, uh, native teams is something that you both should be incredibly, incredibly proud of. I know so many people who start something even are lucky enough to get investments and it doesn't get really into the seed round. You know, sort of fails at pre-seed ancient investment. And now you guys are expanding incredibly quickly, doing incredibly, um important work in my eyes. So could you please explain for the listeners what native teams does?

Jack: 2:19

sure, perfect. So, thanks, Jonny. Uh, that kind of introduction. And I will say and perhaps we'll get on to this one later on that I have to say that, whilst Alex and I and the rest of the team do work hard to do what we do and hopefully to be starting to make some progress and achieve some level of success, such as it might be, we are in the right place at the right time. So we can't take all the credit for sure. I would definitely say we're in the right place at the right time. So we can't take all the credit for sure. I would definitely say we're in the right place at the right time as well.

Jack: 2:46

And to go back to the question, though, in terms of what native teams is, so the, the, the premise behind native teams was really to help remove some of the friction when it comes to talent, working on opportunities, um, but in many cases remote opportunities, overseas opportunities. So I previously um ran a business, uh, based in London, but with a big team in Macedonia. I spent lots of time in macedonia, where Alex is from, and I saw firsthand the damage it can be done when people move from the country that's nurtured them, educated them, where their families where their friends live to go to other countries to get a better job, and I thought, well, look, if we can remove some of the friction so that people can stay in the country that they want to live in and let's educate them and all the rest of it, but work on opportunities overseas, then that will be fantastic. So Nature Teams really sets about removing the friction in that, from a purely kind of fundamental functional perspective, we're a multi-currency wallet but that uniquely allows payouts through the payroll system in the countries where the user might be based.

Jack: 3:49

So that could be, to take Macedonia as an example again an employee, a remote worker based in Macedonia, that thinks, well, look, I'm pretty smart, I've kind of had a great education, I know how to do all of these things that anybody else in any other countries might be able able to do, but I want to work on an opportunity that's perhaps going to pay me a little bit more than a local company might be able to manage.

Jack: 4:11

So, um, we would, on the one hand, be working with that employee and, on the other hand, work with, let's say, an employer or a client in germany or the us or the uk or wherever it might be. Um, and we really kind of bridge the gap between the two of those. So the employee is working for the employer, they're doing whatever they want to do, but actually we just make sure that the financial plumbing in the background works, the contractual relationship in the background works, and that's kind of where Native Teens really comes into effect, to remove that friction between talent and opportunity, irrespective of whether the two are in the same country or not that's very clear in a sentence.

Jonny: 4:49

If you can, either of you, how would you explain that? And this could be an awful question, right? How would you explain that to my eight-year-old?

Jack: 5:04

well, it depends on how savvy your eight-year-old is when it comes to payroll systems and taxing compliance Very savvy. So I'd say, basically, we do all of the kind of the boring paperwork and payments part behind the scenes and just allow an employee and an employer to kind of the boring paperwork and payments part behind the scenes and just allow an employee and an employer to kind of make great work together, if you want to kind of put it like that. We kind of do all the bits behind the scenes and just allow the employee to do what they're good at, the employer to give that employee the projects and the work that they want them to do.

Alex: 5:39

We make the kind of the boring bits behind the scenes happen yeah, interesting, because I know you said an eight year old, but I do the same. When I explain this to my mom and to my grandma and so on, when they ask me what do you do, right, uh, because I travel a lot, they usually think we have a travel agency check. Like travel, travel agents. You do travel a lot I said no, I just meet my colleagues. But what I explained to them and what it echo is in a different ways.

Alex: 6:05

But I would say, look, what we do is take exactly as Jack said I use exactly that same word the boring legislations out of getting the most out of work. Right, we want them to get the most out of work, the most value, the most the things that they enjoy, and we do the rest. And they usually ask me but what's the rest? The rest is something that you don't see, because somebody else is doing it for you, right, mom? And she would say, yeah, what do you mean? Like payroll, like several payroll contracts and so on. She had no idea about that one. I said, look, exactly that's what we do. But we have people get the most out of it, we connect them from different countries and we do the rest that you don't know about in summary, a combination of payment tools and employment options.

Jack: 6:46

That's how I always describe what we do. But again, payment tools and employment options might go over the head of even a really smart eight-year-old.

Jonny: 6:53

Yeah, probably. I think so. Alex, have you always wanted to be a co-founder and go on the entrepreneurial journey?

Alex: 7:07

No, be a co-founder and go on the entrepreneurial journey. No, look how I started and this is very interesting and it's related to your first question as well. So actually, I met Jack seven years ago and this is my very first serious job okay with him. So the way we started is, our relationship was employee-employer okay. So the way Jack explained that, that friction at the beginning that existed here as well, so if we wanted to keep working together, we have to do something around that, and so on and so on, and that's how we started. It was a real personal, let's say, pain, and not just with me, but some of the other people which are still native themes. And we actually started working together seven years ago.

Alex: 7:45

Before that, honestly, johnny had no idea what I wanted to be. I studied english language, I tried it with kids. It didn't work. Um started as a bartender it didn't work, and so on. So basically, I've entered into this as a customer support agent and uh. Then I've tried multiple uh positions, let's say, in the, in the platforms, in the other projects that I was working for for Jack at that time, and I thought, okay with kids, it wasn't, okay with developers is a way better, and so on, and it kind of came naturally, like that Right. So it wasn't my intention, it wasn't my plan, but it came naturally. I think the only thing that I did on purpose is when I said yes, I want to do this, and I think I don't regret it yet.

Jonny: 8:30

That's coming, Don't worry, that's coming. As I say to myself, I've had many, many, many nights at three in the morning thinking why on earth have I done this? Come on, surely I should get a job, Surely I should leave it to somebody else's responsibility to go off and do all these different things. But then I always wake up and go no. In the morning I'm like come on, let's go. Jack, have you always been entrepreneurial?

Jack: 9:00

No, yeah, pretty much. Um, I think I had my first sort of small business, if you will, when I was about 16. That was when I grew up on a farm and, uh, my brother and I rented a field from my dad and made hay on it for the local horse owners and sold it by the bale, uh, as it were. So, yeah, kind of early days. Uh then I think even for probably a couple of years before that, when I was at school, I was forever doodling in my maths book or whatever kind of thing about right. So if I could hire my dad's combine at the end of the harvesting season and do this amount of work for other farmers, I would earn this amount of money.

Jonny: 9:42

So I've always had a bit of a mind for that and as you matured right and and saw bigger and potentially more lucrative opportunities, did there was. Did it all start on a spreadsheet, so to speak, or did it start with an intuition or a gut feel?

Jack: 10:07

um, the, the latter for sure, and and yeah, when I say doodling on my maths book, I don't mean really running any sort of proper numbers or whatever. It just happened to be. The maths lessons were really boring, so it gave me time to kind of uh to to think, without uh drawing the teacher's attention, I think. To come back to the question, though, to be frank, I've never really looked at opportunities as more lucrative ones. Money isn't really the driver at all on this side of things. It's what's kind of a bigger opportunity. What's an exciting opportunity and particularly actually with native teams is what's a tangible opportunity that's going to be meaningful and make it feel, from a personal perspective initially and hopefully then for the rest of our team, that we're doing something worthwhile.

Jack: 10:48

My previous startup, before Nature Teams and before Alex and I started to work together, was an online video payments technology company. We provided video publishers with a technology that allowed them to charge for access to video content and the satisfaction that one can get from doing what we're doing now, where we're intrinsic in helping people get better jobs, earn more money, work on more exciting opportunities, compared to allowing a user to kind of charge $10 for somebody to watch a wrestling match or whatever you know in order of magnitude different. So it's really the kind of the meaningfulness and the worth that comes from the work, which is 100 times more, um, what drives me than kind of anything that might be lucrative or you know, that's really exciting and something which I found so um, you speak to.

Jonny: 11:40

I've spoken to many, many founders and they come in all sort of different shapes and sizes, but a lot of them like talking about their earn out right, and you know what they're going to do with the money and all that kind of stuff, and it becomes very, very. Everything becomes financially driven, no matter how. Maybe a little bit of purpose at the beginning, but really it's financially driven and quite often a bit of an ego trip and I don't really get that vibe from you guys and it's really exciting. So so obviously, on on the the startup scale up journey there are, you need investors, right, and you need people who do think about about your business purely in financial terms and assess your business purely on financial terms. How do you um juggle, juggle that relationship?

Jack: 12:43

yeah, to be fair, I wouldn't actually say that that's the case necessarily, johnny and I I, whilst I would be the first person particularly in my earlier days, I would have been the first person to be a little bit more critical about investors I would actually say that that isn't so much the case and and um, you know, we've seen investors and and we've had the opportunity to take additional investment from investors that do look at the business 100% through a financial lens, and we wouldn't want to work with them if they were the last people imaginable, to be frank, because it delivers nothing other than money and there's going to be tough times. It's not always going to be up and to the right, as it were. We want to make sure we're working with investors, that for sure we need the capital to help us execute what we want to do and really deliver on our ambitions. But those ambitions become the investors' ambitions as well, and I think the smarter, more sophisticated venture investors particularly and there's a difference between different investor types they are focused on look where can this business go, not just kind of what are the numbers as of today? And for sure they do, of course, have to have a real understanding of that and what's driving the business. But I think, for the more sophisticated investors, particularly at startup and early stage scale up, which is where we are they're more interested in look do these numbers validate what the company is doing at the moment and therefore, do I have the confidence in where this business is going to go, more so than just absolutely interrogating the numbers?

Jack: 14:12

We've seen we've had a few conversations with venture debt type providers, and venture debt is often considered as an alternative businesses at our kind of stage compared to equity investment, and they are 100% about the numbers. And that's why, really, to be honest with with you, we haven't looked to advance those conversations, because you know we need to have people that are as excited or almost as excited by the vision and the mission and the, the journey that we're on as as we are. So, yeah, I think that's really important to have in mind as well, that investors don't just have to be about the, the financials, and for sure they do. And you know there are times when I see, even with our existing um, very understanding, very supportive investors that you know at times they're um, you know what is absolutely in our interest is slightly different than what's in our interest. But you know we have a good enough understanding to make sure that never becomes a problem and that we can each accommodate. You know, the other in the in the journey that we're on.

Jonny: 15:08

thank you, that's very clear. I mean, the the importance of choosing the right partners. Right is paramount, uh, and that's very clear, that you've made those good decisions. Um, something I'm really interested in is obviously, from our point of view, culture and performance and how they're so desperately connected. Well, when I first met you, Jack, I think, Native Teams had 56 employees. And now, Alex, what number are you on? Something, something, 230. 230 employees, 18 months or so, something, a couple of years.

Jack: 15:50

yeah, but no, it's grown a lot for sure.

Jonny: 15:55

Again, the premise of Native Teams is to do such good, it's like to facilitate all this talent from all over the world to be able to partner with really great companies, and I think that's just such a fantastic sort of raison d'etre and I should imagine, for the 56 people who joined right at the beginning or however it grew, you know, for the first 10 and grew to 56, they could really align with that. When you have a company that is expanding as quickly as yours is, how do you, um, how do you, I was going to say, engender that purpose for the people that are joining? How do they live it and breathe it as you live it and breathe it?

Alex: 16:42

look, uh, it's a full-time job. Okay, so it's a full-time job because, as you say, when we, we were uh 20 people, then 50 people, 100 people, 200 people and so on look, we carry and this is, um, a little bit unintentional at the beginning because we carry a dna with us, right, so it's me, it's Jack, our uh head of people and a couple of more team members which are still here, are there from the beginning. So we carry that dna in ourselves and the way, uh, we used to do it when we're so um like close to each other, you speak to everyone every day, you see everyone a couple of times a year, and so on, and, as you say, it's really it's easier. It was, it's not really easy, but it's easier to actually uh transfer that DNA to everyone. But then, as the team grows, you have to do something intentional around that. You have to put a structure around your core values, how people find their purpose in in native teams. So what we actually do starts from the very beginning. It starts from the very how we pick people, how our HR and recruiters pick people to start with, and I think it was a very smart decision with the two of us that we put Danilo she's kind of one of the hearts of Native Teams right and she's leading this recruiting and HR team and knows exactly who to pick like like-minded people, people who need purpose, and people who need to follow a vision, uh, in their lives and not looking just for a job.

Alex: 18:11

Right now we can't have like 100 of the people being like that. It's impossible. Some somebody just wants to work and that's, that's pretty much it. But most of the people that we have and what we do is put those people who are infused with that dna in really core positions, right, so they can also share it to the ones who are next to them, okay, so it's like a whole chain of, uh, I have it and you're going to have it, and you're going to have it, and everyone takes care of the one who is next to them to actually be infused with that DNA and follow that. But of course, you have to connect your values and your purpose with their purpose as well. So I think the most powerful thing that we have done is that everyone knows their role in the greater purpose, right, and I always, when I talk to them because I personally now talk to them when it comes to onboarding, I always say look, the most important thing that I want to do with you is for you to know your purpose.

Alex: 19:05

In native themes, what that means is that that's in our, in our, let's say, human human beings. That's how we work. We want to have a purpose. It's like from the anthropology will say it himself like people strive. We're in groups and strive to survive. Right, that was their goal, that was their purpose to survive. And anyone had their own piece of thing. I'm gonna hunt, I'm gonna cook, somebody else is gonna do whatever, but our main goal to the whole group is to survive.

Alex: 19:32

So we compare it to companies and I think we sometimes forget about the basics, right, the basics of why human beings thrive and why they survive.

Alex: 19:40

It's because they own, they all know their role to the greater purpose, which, in our case, uh, is different from surviving, of course, maybe not so different in some cases, right, when you're a startup. But everyone should know their role and what they're doing and how they're contributing to the greater purpose of of the company as such. And it's been a reason that sometimes, um, uh, you know, we can, uh, change some things and so on and so on, but people know that this is going to come. The changes come. People know what is their role into those changes. How does it affect their team members, how does it affect our company as a whole, our customers as a whole? Because we put them on number one, and that's what helps actually, and, of course, taking care about the people who are next to you as such. Just one thing I'd add on number one, and that's what helps actually, and, of course, taking care about the people who are next to you as such just one thing I'd add on this one as well.

Jack: 20:31

I I would say, alex, that there's a good degree not just for you and I, but for the the rest of the kind of core team as well. There's a lot of leading by example, and that can be a misused term, and most people use the phrase leading by example to think, oh, it means these people work harder than anybody else or, um, whatever it might be. But I don't mean that. I mean, yeah, the example I hope that you and I respect to be set is we remain authentic, we remain humble, we've remained ourselves throughout this journey and you know we, when we do the all hands or the off-site meetings in person or whatever it might be, I don't think we'd change our behavior at all, to be honest with you, and for better or for worse, but you know, that's kind of, I think, how we've managed to maintain that culture and I would say that you know to use Alex's phrase in terms of the people next to us as well.

Jack: 21:19

I think if the people next to us take that away and that's how they are within the business as well, they are within the business as well. I think that allows us to kind of sustain a real authenticity. Look, these are just kind of because of the success of Daniela, who heads up our HR team. These are just all nice people that we want to spend the time working with as well. There's not egos, there's not really politics or anything like that, and I think to make sure we remain true to that whether that's now, as we're just kind of starting to become a slightly larger business, and hopefully in how many years' time when we're again 10 times what we are now again, to kind of make sure we remain true to who we are as individuals, I think that's most important, to be frank, even though you can read many books about how to do things better, but just remaining true to ourselves is going to be pivotal.

Jonny: 22:02

So if I was looking to get a job at Native Teams, whatever departments apart from my competence, what are you looking for?

Jack: 22:21

I've got a clear answer for this one Somebody's going to be a culture fit, and I think what we mean by this and I I hate to say it because this is not as kind of hard-nosed as most other businesses would be, but it's look is this somebody that's people are going to enjoy working with.

Jack: 22:38

Is it somebody and and we, we really kind of remind people on this one as well that we want to be a business where you can come to work every day and you're working with your friends, you're not just working with work colleagues, you're working with people that actually, you know have the kind of the right culture fit, the right dna to be the kind of people you want to hang out with, you want to be friends with um, and I think that's that's important.

Jack: 22:56

I know that's highly subjective, but you know, I guess one person's subjectivity is another person's selectivity and you know that's kind of what we select for for sure, um, during the interview process. Is this somebody that is going to be able to spend the time, you know, with our direct team and with the wider team and just kind of really contribute to the overall positivity and the kind of the, the good vibes, the good environment that we have with that, with one another you have to be easy to work with johnny I would would be a nightmare then I'd never be able to get a job at a big team, so I'd be like it's a ruckus.

Jonny: 23:32

So you guys, how does it work right? Are you an entirely remote company or how does it work yeah?

Alex: 23:45

So I would say we're a hybrid, like we encourage remote working, but in some of the countries where we have most of the team members, I would say we have offices where people can go, or they don't have to, but they can go and work with each other, right? So, for example, I am now in the office in Betula in Macedonia. We have offices in Skopje, macedonia, croatia, serbia, albania, india I think we have one in portugal as well and so on. So we have, like, these offices where people can go and work together, but not only people who, like, actually live in macedonia, but we have like this, everyone is invited to join anytime, right, and usually we do have this company apartments in in those countries as well, so that people can go and spend time with their co-workers and so on.

Alex: 24:31

Because, as Jeff mentioned, look getting to, to meet people in person helps a lot, right, because remote work is great, you can be flexible and so on, but chatting with someone and actually talking with someone can be quite different. When you see the messages, you don't know the tone of voice, you don't know about language and so on. So we've seen basically as a thing that, as much as people meet each other, the atmosphere between them, the productivity actually raises, they're more effective and they're getting more satisfaction out of work as well. So that's why we've opened these offices in some of the countries and actually people go and work together from there when they want to.

Jack: 25:15

Yeah, it's very much a distributed model, I guess, johnny, one might describe it as. So we have, as Alex says, I think we have eight offices now, although we have colleagues in 27 or so countries, something along those lines. So we don't have offices in all of the countries. There's absolutely no obligation whatsoever for anybody to go to the office, even for one day a week. It's entirely discretionary as to whether they go into an office or not.

Jack: 25:38

In some cases people want to do it. They might, as Alex says, for the social aspect. In other cases some of the countries where we are have more of a culture of multi-generational households. Sometimes it's kind of nice to get away from the parents or the kids or whatever it's going to be, and actually come to an office as well. Also, because, you know, we do try and encourage, you know, a good amount of in-person time where we can do as well to have a bit of a kind of hub in a in a country with, you know, around one of the offices. That can be sometimes a good way for people to to travel within the business and actually, you know, meet multiple people at the same time, not just perhaps one or two people. That they might do if everyone was entirely remote all of the time.

Jonny: 26:18

So, yeah, it's a really flexible approach I think we take on this front just this morning I've been reading an article about amazon insisting that all staff come back in for five days a week as of next year, and you, alex, just mentioned that generally, when people are together, there is an increase in productivity.

Alex: 26:40

Yeah, I think what I meant to say is when they get to meet each other right, because we have people who never met each other at all.

Alex: 26:46

So when you get them to meet, and again after they go home and work together, they know they're working with a real person, they've connected in a way with that person.

Alex: 26:55

So I'm not saying that if we sit in an office we're going to be more productive, but if we meet at least once, if we meet, we chat, we connect, there is an increasing productivity. But I don't think that sitting in an office and actually making people come back to an office is the future. Honestly, I really think that's a mistake, because everyone loves now the flexibility of I can go and pick up, let's say, my child and come back to work, or take my computer with me and work while I'm doing it in the car, and so on. So people actually love that and I think that's the future of work as a whole. But actually getting people to meet it's something different than getting people to actually be in the same office. I think those are two separate things and the first one people to meet actually once a year or a couple of times a year it's actually what makes them more productive? Because they connect to each other and they work in a different atmosphere with each other.

Jack: 27:52

I know often, alex, we have colleagues that will mention that, look, they like to spend a bit more time in the office, but actually they've got some work they really need to get done and they're way more productive to work from home. So that happens quite a bit as well, I think. Just to go back to the Amazon example and a bunch of the other examples, johnny, one has to think about what's the culture of a company on the one hand as well. That has to be taken into account, and I think the companies that we see moving back to the kind of fully office-based working, to be frank, those are generally run by control freaks and they're environments that don't really trust their people as much as they should do. If you're not a control freak and if you trust people, well, give them the flexibility, to be honest I mean.

Jonny: 28:34

That makes perfect sense to me. The I mean, but we are herding animals, right, we like being with each other and, as you say, alex, that that meeting up, I mean your leadership team meet up more regularly than once or twice a year, right, but even this weekend aren't you all going for a little jog together, the whole company going for a wee run or something? How important is it for you to get individual teams, uh, and how regularly do you get these people together?

Alex: 29:13

Very important. First of all because I think, to start with me and Jack, as founders of Native Teams, it's actually what we really care more about and what we really get the satisfaction out of work from right, because at the beginning you said, like, at point, you'll think I want to work with other people for other people, whatever. It's too exhausting, and so on but where we find the satisfaction and Jack, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we're on the same page here we like to spend time with these people. Okay, that's where the satisfaction comes from, because, as Jack mentioned as well, it's not just colleagues, we have also friends there and so on. So that's where we find satisfaction, where we think others will do, and they do.

Alex: 29:54

So what we do actually is they meet with each other at least twice a year. So what we do is actually, uh, as you say, we run a marathon and that's going to happen, like they're coming, as 160 people are coming tomorrow to get to meet each other, run with each other, work with each other, but meet and bond with each other. That's our main goal. That's the one thing that we do. And the second one is, like during the summer we we book houses somewhere like this.

Alex: 30:24

This year, for example, we had these villas in Greece and people actually in groups go and work with each other for a couple of days. So it's a work and bond time for all of them and we do it twice a year and, to be honest, it has been proven to be very important and, again, it increases the value and the satisfaction that people are getting from work because, as I mentioned, we have amazing people and getting to know them, getting to spend time with them, it just increases their productivity and adds to the purpose that they're having into Native teams. And I think it's difficult it's not easy to bring so many people together twice a year. Right, it asks for a lot of organization and planning and so on, but it's definitely worth it and, honestly, it's an investment that we are doing when it comes to their growth and our growth as well.

Jack: 31:18

As such, One thing I'd add, and I'm sorry, johnny, to jump in, but just one thing I'd add on this one as well. I would say, alex, that there's a good degree not just for you and I, but for the rest of the kind of core team as well. There's a lot of leading by example, and that can be a misused term and most people use the phrase leading by example to think, oh, it means these people work harder than anybody else or whatever it might be. But I don't mean that. I mean, yeah, the example I hope that you and I respect to be set is we remain authentic, we remain humble, we've remained ourselves throughout this journey and you know we, when we do the all hands or the off-site meetings, in person, or whatever it might be, I don't think we change our behavior at all.

Jack: 31:59

To be honest with you, and for better or for worse, but you know that's kind of, I think, how we've managed to maintain that culture and I would say that you know to know to use Alex's phrase in terms of the people next to us as well, I think if the people next to us take that away and that's how they are within the business as well, I think that allows us to kind of sustain a real authenticity.

Jack: 32:18

Look, these are just kind of because of the success of Daniela, who heads up our HR team. These are just all nice people that we want to spend the time working with as well. You know, know, there's not, there's not egos, there's not really politics or anything like that. And I think to make sure we remain true to that, you know, whether that's now, as we're just kind of starting to to become a slightly larger business, and hopefully in how many years time, when we're again 10 times what we are now, again, to kind of make make sure we remain true to, to who we are, as I think that's most important, to be frank, even though you can read many books about how to do things better, but just remaining true to ourselves is going to be pivotal, I think.

Jonny: 32:55

You spoke earlier about leading by example. How do you balance being a founder of a scaler and a personal life, or life or work life balance right? How do you? Is that something that you find challenging or you've got it down?

Alex: 33:16

I stopped looking for that balance, like a while ago I, when I was looking for it. It was damn difficult, right? Where can I find this balance how it should be? I don't have time for one or for the other.

Alex: 33:29

And then a really wise woman said to me but look, do you leave while you work, and I said, yeah, I leave, okay, then why do you have to separate them, like in a way that you, I need time for myself, of course, and I need time outside of work as well, but the anxiety of actually separating work and life has gone, meaning that I live while I work right.

Alex: 33:52

And it's again coming to who I work with, who I spend the most of the time with, if I enjoy it, even if it's the hardest job that I have to do today. But if I have the people with me who I enjoy working with, it's not that difficult. And I leave while I work right. It's not like I stop leaving, I'm working and then I stop working and then I breathe and leave. It's not like that. And I leave while I work right. It's not like I stop leaving, I'm working and then I stop working and then I breathe and leave. It's not like that. So I stop actually looking for separating them, but actually I leave while I work and I work while I leave, and so on, which doesn't mean that I don't need time, as I said to myself is sometimes when I say these people say, okay, then you're a workaholic, no, I just enjoy living while I'm working what a great answer.

Jonny: 34:33

I mean, I don't always agree with what jeff mazo says or how he runs stuff not that I have that experience or trying to equate myself to him, but um, he, I've heard him talk about there is no work-life balance, there's just balance, right, and that's what we strive for. I have two more questions for you, if that's okay, just before I ask that question. I was lucky enough to spend some time with you in Albania and I thoroughly enjoyed that time. I found it so life-fulfilling to be around so many energetic people and I really loved the way that you guys stopped for lunch and that was really important and we had this delicious lunch and then we stopped in the evening and we went to one lunch and then we stopped in the evening and we went to one of the most beautiful.

Jonny: 35:30

You know, the view from that beach was sort of really quite extraordinary. All swam in the sea and and and I didn't pick up any bullshit, do you know what I mean? It was a people were, from my experience, what I picked up genuinely themselves and curious about each other and asking questions about each other and asking questions of me, and included me in the environment, and I'm proud to say thanks to hear my last two questions and, in terms of native teams, what are you most proud of? First question Over the last four years, is it From beginning and what have you found most challenging?

Alex: 36:25

I'm most proud of is the team that we have built. To be honest, it's yeah, but it it's something that we keep saying with Jack okay, what, what is it that wakes you up in the morning? It's my team. It's the people that I spend time with, and I know that the idea of native teams is also great. But we change it right. We change the idea. If we tell you like, what was the exact idea and everything that we had the first year, some of the things, the core things left, but we changed the ideas right. So it's the team who can deliver that idea at any time, at any change, at any failure, and so on. So I'm really proud of the team that we have built and how we have built it, because all the questions that you just asked us today just a confirmation that we've built a great team, which is also, I would say it's something that also people invest in, right, even investors. They like the numbers, but they invested in the team who can handle the idea and the changes and the chaos that a startup has. So I'm really proud of that one.

Alex: 37:27

And the most challenging thing for me was that I had to grow up all of a sudden. What I mean by that is because you've asked me at the beginning. This wasn't my plan, it wasn't my goal and so on. But at some point I realized, okay, if this company is growing so fast, I have to outgrow it. I have to be more mature than it is, and I'm not sure if I'm quite there yet, but at least I'm aware that this is it. This is what I need to do. I have to mature enough so I can actually be in the front, together with Jack, when it comes to this company, because it's growing so damn fast and I'm not. That's the most challenging thing for me these four years.

Jonny: 38:08

Thank you, thank you, thank you Amazing, I really enjoyed this conversation. It seems so clear how important the community is, that you build for native teams, and that it really is the lifeblood of the business and it is the thing which will push it and drive it to succeed. And you, too, have to stand up and be counted, or you are standing up and being counted in that, and that's really amazing and exciting to observe. So thank you for sharing all of that with me. See you soon.