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September 3, 2024

Ideas from inception to launch

Inside Z1

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Inside Z1: Ideas from inception to launch

In this episode, we discuss the journey from idea to launch.

Today, we’re excited to have Héctor Giner (Ector Hiner), co-founder of Z1, a digital product studio focused on driving ideas from inception to launch.

Héctor began his career as a researcher before transitioning to web development. He served as the CTO at Glamping Hub before co-founding Z1, where he now leads efforts in creating digital solutions.

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Show notes

Timestamp

00:00 Introduction

01:01 Héctor’s journey and creation of Z1

06:23 How to stand out as an agency

08:28 From cold email to acquisition

11:03 Z1’s acquisition process

14:57 Scaling an agency without losing quality

19:45 AI’s impact and human connection

22:35 Exploring new opportunities

resources

Links

Héctor’s LinkedIn and Twitter

Z1’s website, LinkedIn and Twitter

Show notes

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hector: The main value of any agency is to be well positioned. So you have to define what you are good at. Who do you want to serve? Because it's not the same serving, even in the similar space, it's not the same persona, probably the best that you can serve to. And how do you want to do it? From day one, work hard on defining that.

[00:00:20] Kaz: Welcome to Zypsy Spotlight. I'm Kaz, co founder of Zypsy, a design and investment firm that supports startup founders with brand building expertise.

[00:00:28] Kevin: In this episode, we discuss the journey from idea to launch. Today, we're excited to have Héctor Giner co-founder of Z1, a digital product studio focused on driving ideas from inception to launch.

Héctor began his career as a researcher before transitioning to web development. He served as the CTO at Glamping Hub before co-founding Z1, where he now leads efforts and creating digital solutions.

Let's deep dive in. We're your cohosts, I'm Kevin.

From web development to start up struggles, Héctor explains how his journey inspired the creation of Z1 to meet the real needs of founders.

[00:01:01] Hector: Did a degree on computer science and engineering. But I have been always a creative person. I'm a musician too, and also designer in my early years doing some MySpace themes and things like that for my bands.

So also my brother, we have been always doing this type of creative project. I started as a developer, web developer a big consultancy company right after university, it was even before Airbnb and the raise of design in the process. So I remember those days where you usually were like coding an app and the last step in this consultancy company was like, Hey, send it to design that they will do something and usually what they did was like add some colors to the buttons or something like that.

So that was the process at the time. But, I was always looking for finding more balance on thinking about, the users, thinking about the creative part of design as well, not only the functional part and that, so I had the option to start as a first employee in a startup after working several years.

And that was, for me, it was like an MBA for entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem, right? Because I was working side by side with the two co founders and it was in one hand, the product manager, the developer, and also the creative person. So for me, it was at the same time to just thinking about the goals of the business, thinking about prioritizing because I was the only developer, so it was like prioritizing myself. But also creating the experience, right? And anchoring everything around that. So that was like a very intense one year and a half where we released the first version of the platform. It was a transactional platform integrated with payment system, communication system, so we were doing a lot of stuff at the same time.

So for me, that was a huge experience on understanding how to build a product in the digital space, but also how lonely the process is if you are the only employee on the technical side. So I remember at that time looking for support and the mobile experience, like trying to get help to create a mobile experience.

That was a nightmare trying to get some help on, templatizing some emails. It was a nightmare as well. So every time that I was. I was looking for some help. It was an ember and that was, as you can imagine the original idea of Z1, right? So when I had the opportunity to partner with my co founder, Carlos on building a company I was very clear on, there has to be a ton of founders or employees out there that need like help, but real help, right?

Not consultancy companies trying to do something and not understanding anything, right? So we founded Z1 with that vision. And the main vision, I remember the claim probably we don't use it anymore, or it's probably somewhere in the website, but we used to say needs over requirements, right? Because the common process for external help was that when you are very busy in your own company, trying to build a product you feel that you need to specify everything, right?

A lot of requirements or PRDs or things like that. And sometimes you don't have the time to, or it's easier to just explain your vision and trying to get help from there. So that was our main model as a studio, right? Thinking we can understand the product. We can understand the business so we can jump in and trying to help being proactively proposing things, right?

Not just waiting for specs or requirements. So that was how we structured the company in the beginning. And we started working with our ideal. Client profile that was mainly founders, right?

And this is the perfect experiment, right? Like we were helping on shaping up the whole experience from the design to the development and working with them in exchange for equity, in order to have a very low rate but have some go to market strategy around, decreasing the rates and having in exchange some monopoly money at that time.

So that worked pretty well. Because also, in life sometimes isn't guaranteed to be in the right time and in the right place. So the startup I worked before was a startup that it was founded by American people working here in Spain. So everything was spoken in English.

So my level of English was like, skyrocketed in two years. So that also helped me working with Americans easily remotely. So everything at the same time worked perfectly and we started being recommended to other startups and different cohorts of Angel Pad or white Combinator and things like that.

The accelerators, incubators similar. that was the early years, like we were growing organically around the main value prop of okay, there is a business strategy, there is a product strategy, and then we can take over design and engineering to really help. So that was the same motto.

And the last thing is that we were working remotely here from the south of Spain in Seville. We wanted to have some good impact in the region. So we always thought to have our team here. And until today, like we, we have been always hiding people here in Spain, not outsourcing anything. And that was the early year.

[00:06:23] Kevin: Hector discusses how defining a clear strategy and blending services helps Z1 standout.

[00:06:28] Hector: One was like melting design and engineering, right at that time, it was very common still today, but at that time it was very common to be a dev shop, not to be an agency, and we wanted to have both services. At the same time, because we really thought about the product strategy.

So it was difficult because when you're creating or trying to be part of a new category, you have to repeat it in every call, in every meeting a thousand of times, right? I know we're a product studio. We're a product studio. And someone was recommending you and say, Hey, these guys are a dev shop.

I know it's Oh yeah, we're a product studio. That type of thing. Because if we want to be a dev shop, probably we're not a good one, right? Because our processes are not super optimized for receiving specs and executing them, right? Or the same for design, right? Since we work more on the strategy part and then from their design the prototype, the Figma project, the HiFi prototype, and then build it.

A real value was around supporting from the strategy, right? This is probably a recommendation I would make for any agency owner or executive is to read the win without pitching manifesto. The main value of any agency is to be well positioned.

So you have to define what you are good at. Who do you want to serve? Because it's not the same serving, even in the similar space, it's not the same persona, probably the best that you can serve to. And how do you want to do it? From day one, we work hard on defining that.

Since we started the company and we reached recently the 200 products related to the market, from zero to one. And that's our, still our metric that, anyway we also applied the same process to support only in design or only in engineering. But I think it's clear when you're defining a strategy to, to make trade offs, right? There are a ton of the definitions of the study. I think that is just set of actions and also trade offs. So it's like what you are and what you're not.

[00:08:28] Kevin: From a cold email to a deal in weeks here, the story of Z1's acquisition by Tiny Capital.

[00:08:34] Hector: I said before that we focus on the American market we really wanted to work from here to there. And we were mainly active on three hubs in San Francisco, New York and Austin. And all our references in the portfolio were American companies, American startups, right?

So at that time one of our tech leads a tweet from Andrew Wilkinson saying that they were looking for an agency outside North America to partner with, right? I'm a social network introvert because I'm not an introvert in real life, but I don't know why I don't engage a lot in social networks.

So instead of replying directly to the tweet, I sent him a cold email. Hey, I saw this tweet. And I shared some information about the about the company, the portfolio and that. And it's true that something that we didn't strategize around, but it looks like we did in a proper way was that our website where it was mainly our work, we didn't have any BS on the claims or something.

It was like, projects, and, a little bit about the process and that, and and then analyzing and researching a little bit about MetaLab and Andrew Wilkinson that I saw a lot of tweets from him saying show your work and things like that. And it's it was aligned to that. So the process was through email. We were exchanging information about the financials, but also the operations, the portfolio some more detail on the elements of, the overall collaborations with the startups and that, and I think that at that time, it was critical for the operation that we were outside North America as they were looking for but all our clients were American. And since they wanted to have some synergies with their agencies at that time, and the clients were American, I think that was a win situation.

They work with the time zone shift in a proper way. And they already have the foot in the American market. The process was fast, I think it was like a matter of weeks.

And the good thing is that everything seemed very natural. We didn't change anything. In the strategy, right? Like we kept doing the same thing, but we expanded the network to the, to Canada and just to other referrals or recommendations or, friends of friends and things like that.

And we scale it up the company a lot, but the good thing is that we didn't we didn't need to change anything on the structure or the operations.

[00:11:03] Kevin: Next up Héctor shares the thought process behind Z1's acquisition by Tiny and how it shaped the company's long term goals.

[00:11:10] Hector: I would say that there are like different types of of companies, right? Like product companies and sales companies. And I'm using the words of a very good mentor I have from the first 15 people at Google.

And from that mental model, I have been always categorizing what we do in different ventures and Z1 and others. So that doesn't mean that if you are a sales company, you don't have to do other things, or if you're a product company, you don't have to sell it. But. Definitely the culture and the priorities has to be on that front.

So I think agencies are sales companies. It's my point of view. You have to find excellence. You have to find the best team possible. You have to find your own way to do things, right? And this is all the things that we have been talking about. Once you have that you have to find your own way to make money with it.

And because a service in some way we can accept that has market fit. The services already, serve that need that are in market. You don't have to validate the market fit. So you, what you have to do is to scale it properly. I'm not saying that the only way is to super scale your agency, but in some way you have to scale operations to be profitable.

And now we can go into that rabbit hole. Why to be profitable? Then finally, if you're starting a venture you want to make a profit in order to make the venture to be positive for you economically and that bad also because If you're profitable, the odds are that you are giving a better service as well.

So coming back to the Tiny operation, we were doing well, we were very happy at that moment. Actually, I remember those years that. Yeah. Probably one of the happiest moments in my career because we were doing nice projects with the startups in the States.

At some point you feel that you are doing something great. If you feel happy about it, it's Hey, we're helping people. We're helping we're, actually we have a metric of exits of people that have been supported by us through the whole journey, right? So when you see this opportunity. I have to say that I was not super convinced from day one. It was more about, okay, let's talk about it.

Let's see what could be the outcome, right? But there is always a moment when you see, oh, actually being part of Tiny, can expand what we do, right? And can solve a huge part of What is to run an agency that is having the credibility, having the support of a network for experts and also having the experience and also have income of other connections that at the end of the day is what you have to establish to be a profitable agency, right?

So that was probably the main pillars of our decision making process at that time. But also you can follow your own path and depend on your own network. But for us, it was exciting actually to, explore these networks. I have to say that part of the process of building a company is the learning process and I know that this sounds a little bit of a, a little bit Twitter or X, right? Like a thread of motivation. But what I'm trying to convey is that, exposing yourself to this type of different levels of opportunities and different levels of connections.

That's great. For example, we work last year with Evan Williams, right? The founder of Medium, the founder of Twitter and blogger. I don't know if I will be it would have been possible to do that by yourselves, right? Probably. But, sometimes exposing to bigger opportunities is also exciting.

And in summary, when you're looking for having stable revenue streams for your agency in order to focus on the quality of your service, that's also a part of the decision that you have to make.

[00:14:57] Kevin: The next section will walk you through the steps of growing an agency without dropping the ball on quality.

[00:15:03] Hector: I think one thing that is very important is the leadership of the agency, right? It's very important to have people that will make similar decisions as you, or would know what you will decide in that situation. And I think that's important in terms of incentives, what we were talking before about, the cost of a project the projections and profits.

The decisions to make on helping the client and what factors to manage at that level. I have to say that even if you have the perfect process and now even more in the age of AI, the human touch is very important in services. But also the human touch is a door to chaos. Is a door for, to negotiations, to trade offs.

And it's very important to have a shared culture of how we manage that. Because it's very, I don't think it's easy, but it's predictable to say, how we manage components in Figma. How do we deliver or ship a product in GitHub with GitHub actions and AWS, right? You can create manuals. You can create processors, you can create like different structure on how to do things.

The problem usually when working with real founders in real deadlines in a real market is like, hey, we have a PR plan for May 15th, right? . And it's okay, what do we do? And the important thing in to have that leadership team that can convey the same vision that you have around how to serve a client.

And extend that to the team, right? So everyone has a shared vision on how do we help because at the end of the day, a services company is just helping in exchange of money. It's your understanding of how do you find that you're helping someone with your service?

The other is, if everything is a journey, right? Every experience is a journey. The experience of working with your agency has to be a journey. You have to have it in a whiteboard probably and work around that. What I feel is that from touch point to touch point, what happens in between is chaos. This trade offs . Maybe some projects are easier, but what we see is that, we have the discovery calls and then the kickoff and then the discovery phase and then a design phase and in between. Those are, the negotiations that we're making in order to find the right outcome.

So what I feel that it's the second step is okay. Chaos is a complex system that you cannot control. You can only manage what you have to control is the static elements that are the touch points, right? So please define a journey where you have clear touchpoints and clear steps, but at least those are like anchors right in the wall.

And you don't have to overthink things that are always the same and focus your energy and thinking. In what is between the anchors, right? So that's another thing that usually is about defining processes. Defining processes from sales to design to engineering to delivery, right?

And the third one I would say that It's around clients.

It's thinking, obsessing about clients. Obsess about your client problem and things like that. Here is about communication. It's about understanding properly not never convert your agency on a sales machine. It's more about understanding problems machine.

And serving properly to that. And also keep the communication throughout the process. If you deliver projects. Yeah, use that those specific times in order to gather feedback from clients, improve your process and still think about what makes your experience to be the best or the worst in different cases.

Because also that informs, how you can evolve your strategy. Because when you detect things that don't work with your client, maybe it's your fault, but maybe it's just a signal of, okay, we're not good doing this. So probably we shouldn't do more projects like this.

That's something that you can only detect by talking with clients. For example we have an extremely good sales team, but I still join sales calls, especially the important ones. And not because I'm important for closing. It's because it's a very good opportunity to understand. What's happening in the market, the trends, what they need, how the needs evolve and things like that.

So those are the things that even if you're managing a company, it's better to outsource to teammates, things that are not very valuable and focus your time on things that are valuable like this.

[00:19:45] Kevin: Coming up, Héctor shares his insights on the future of AI for agencies and the lasting importance of human connection.

[00:19:52] Hector: I have been reading a lot about AI and the ethical side, because of our work, I follow the technical side as a daily thing, but the ethical side is very important to, to understand our position around this. I don't think it can be stopped.

It can be regulated the finally that, the trends of having these tools helping our work in every single day, that's something that won't stop. And I think we, we have to embrace them properly, right? The thing is that it's similar to what we were talking before about the touch points and the chaos between them, right?

I follow a very good newsletter by Scott Belsky the chief product, I think it's now innovation officer of Adobe, right? It's called implications. I highly recommend it. And he's always talking about AI and the implications on the creative process. So I think for services, companies is the same.

Optimizing a lot of processes of what we do. And even if we think about, decreasing the ratio of designers needed or engineers needed or people needed for many things in that I think probably that will happen. I don't know if in two years, five years or 10 years, but definitely probably our industry will be the first to be reshaped.

I'm also investing and advising companies in other industries because I, I feel it like very interesting, like agro industry and things like that. And those industries, I see that, it will take more time because there are like more tension with the physical world, but our industry is easy to be reshaped through AI because the the delivery network is already there.

So it's easy to implement it. So I think it will be a renaissance of the human factor again, right? I have always thought that in services companies, especially the human factor is It's a key element on the process. I think that as humans, when you have discovery calls with potential clients, I know that there is a narrative that you sell, there is a process that you sell, but I think there is a connection between people, how they see if you are going to be solving their problems or not, and what they see from you and things like that, I think with AI the human factor will be even more important, because it will be the differentiator part.

It will be a transition. I don't think that it will be as fast as everyone is saying Oh, in 2025, there won't be developers. I don't think it will be like that. That focusing more and more on the human factor and the leading part of it will be for me a priority for services companies and for product companies as well.

[00:22:35] Kevin: To wrap up, Héctor reveals Z1's approach to balancing stability and growth, as they explore new opportunities in the local startup scene.

[00:22:43] Hector: We have been operating for 8 years. It's a social construct, but maybe looking for the 10 year milestone. That's a good thing, right? To be alive at that time. But yeah, after joining tiny, we hyperscale the company, right? So now what we're looking is for some stability until we find other type of goals.

But also we're exploring different options right now. This year, for example, we have launched a venture studio with a partner here in Seville for local projects to trying to raise the startup ecosystem here in the region and trying to support in that way.

The good thing for services companies. Is that in comparison, for example, to startups is that you have the opportunity to work with a lot of people in different industries in different projects . You have access to that variety that make the work to be exciting by itself if you like it, so having a stable agency where you see that nice projects are, Knocking the door and you can execute in them and knowing more people and that's for me is a goal by itself.

[00:23:48] Kevin: If you liked this Spotlight episode, please leave us a review. Every review really helps. Follow us on Twitter at zypsycom if you don't want to miss an episode. That way, you'll be able to see every time a new show goes live. That's all from us today. Thank you for listening to this episode of Zypsy Spotlight.