Starting a successful digital agency: Chat with the founders

In just three years, Blank has grown and expanded its team, keeping up with various tech trends and building a rich portfolio of Web2 and Web3 projects.?

Join us as we dive into the story of Blank with our founders Neboj?a, Mislav, and Marko, as they share their journey, plans, and advice for aspiring startups, especially those venturing into the Web3 space.

1. How did it all start? Tell us a little bit about the idea behind starting a development agency and what led to the three of you partnering up.??

Neboj?a: Mislav, Marko and I have known each other for more than 10 years. We started working together during our college days at FESB, after founding DUMP Association of Young programmers in 2009. We worked together on many interesting projects back then, including developing most of the e-services for our faculty, FESB. Together with our colleagues from DUMP, we have also organised a national high-school competition in Informatics which was a great honour to us. We also tried building a couple of startups back then, all of them failed but it was a valuable experience and it helped us a lot not to repeat the same mistakes with Blank and dobartek.hr.

2. Could you share the story behind the name "Blank"?

Neboj?a: Sometimes during the first COVID lockdown, Marko, Mislav and I decided to start a new company. We have been working on several projects as freelancers at the time and we simply decided to put it all under one roof. When it came to naming a company, we wanted something that has roots in the programming world, but also communicates a fresh start, turning a new page, a blank page. That’s how Blank was born.?

We didn’t pay much attention to the domain name we will buy afterwards, it still haunts us today and we ended up having a blankhq.co domain which is a bit messy. ??Some clients call us “Blank HQ” or even “Blanq” because of it. But we will fix it one day!

Marko: The name was inspired by the HTML `<a>` property `target=_blank`, which means the link should open in a new tab. It symbolizes new beginnings, a clean slate, and starting something from scratch. The name means much more now, and we have moved away from the HTML `target=_blank` concept. Now, it's more about infinite possibilities and boundless potential.

3. How did you determine the division of leadership roles within Blank? ??????

Neboj?a: At first, we all had a Managing Director role in the company, while the company was small, below 10 employees. As the organisation grew, we saw a need for more focused work of each of the founders in the different domains.?

Marko was always all about the tech side of things, writing exceptional code, reviewing other people pull requests, making sure we are up to date with the latest tech. A CTO role was definitely for him.

Mislav loved taking care of people, figuring out how they can improve in their work within the organisation and be happy with their teammates and the project. We named that role a COO.

I was always interested in organising the legal part of the company, taking care of accounting and finances, marketing and sales efforts, negotiating with clients and similar things. We thought the CEO role suits it.

Marko: The division of leadership roles reflects the things we love to do. Neboj?a is more focused on business and strategy. Mislav enjoys educating and helping people grow in their careers. I'm more on the tech side and love delivering top-notch software.

4. Can you name a few recent projects that you feel particularly proud of? ??

Neboj?a: We are always really proud of our in-house project, dobartek.hr, a food ordering platform we founded in 2013. and developed and maintained since then. Today it serves more than 150.000 users in many cities in Croatia and also helps more than 80 companies to have their lunch at the workplace organised with a lot of benefits.

We are also very proud of EverySign, an e-signing platform we have built which includes a mobile app and the admin web app.

It is no secret that we love the Web3 space so some of the projects in that space that we are really proud of is Endemic, an NFT marketplace for high-end art. We helped the Endemic team with engineering efforts to build a stable NFT platform on the Ethereum network.

We also had a great collaboration with Infobip, a Croatian unicorn company that wanted to enter Web3 by releasing their NFT collection of 300 hoodies which connected the physical and digital world.?

Marko:?I love electric.film project because it embodies what NFTs are truly about. It's not about the hype, floor price, or PFP flexes. It's about the art, community, and expanding business into new domains using NFT technology.

Mintdash is great because it helps us learn a lot about the web3 space and software development, and it saves us a lot of time when we build NFT collections.?

5. Looking ahead, what are some of your visions and plans for the future growth of Blank? How do you see Blank expanding in the future, regarding new technologies and in general? ??

Neboj?a: We are really passionate about Web3. Most of our new projects are in that space so we will definitely focus on educating our employees more about the blockchain and Web3 in general. We started with several educations in 2024., some internal, some with external professionals to help our team improve and grow.

We want to position ourselves as one of the leading Web3 companies, not only in Croatia, but in the world as well. I believe we have a huge knowledge in the domain of blockchain and we want to utilise it the best we can.

To be able to do that, all of us, including the founders and all our employees have to constantly learn and improve. Or how we like to say - Have a growth mindset - be 1% better than yesterday.

Marko: We're planning to dive deeper into the web3 space, which means we'll focus more on blockchain and similar technologies. I can see web3 as a main source of our projects this year.

On the tech side, we're upskilling our developers with skills like DevOps, .NET, and Solidity. Even though we're not primarily focused on design, we're working on improving in that area as well this year. Our goal is to keep improving and to use the latest technologies to make Blank even better.

6. What do you typically do in your free time, what are some of your passions? ??

Neboj?a: I spend most of my free time with my family. Having a kid takes a lot of time and effort, but is really enjoyable. When I’m not with my family, I read books, watch podcasts, do some functional workouts and rest.

Mislav: I really enjoy being outside, and I try to do it every day, whether it's going for a run on the trails or taking my bike out. This time is important to me because it lets me take a break from screens, notifications, and all the usual noise. The rest of my time is usually spent with my wife or reading.

Marko: My family takes up most of my free time, so I spend it hanging out with my wife and daughter. I'm also a fan of a healthy lifestyle, so I run a lot and attend CrossFit classes. Apart from that, I love technology, so I'm always reading about the latest developments, writing smart contracts, and tinkering with different frameworks.

7. How do you prioritize your continuous education, skill expansion, and personal growth? ??

Neboj?a: To build a successful company, one has to learn and improve constantly. It requires a lot of time invested in reading books, meeting new people, and talking about new ideas. Personally, I try to read as much as possible. Topics that are interesting to me are economics, negotiation, philosophy and basically any self improvement books. I also like to watch podcasts, mostly Lex Fridma and Andrew Huberman, they have a lot of interesting speakers and topics on their podcasts. Meeting new people is also really important, to continue growing your network and learn from other people.

Mislav: In my career, I've faced challenges in different areas, both technical and non-technical. I learn a lot by reading books, articles, and watching podcasts. I also talk to my colleagues to get new ideas and approaches for the challenges we deal with.

Besides my main areas of work (people management and technology), I enjoy learning about self-improvement, psychology, and stress management.

Marko: I believe that proactive personal growth and skill expansion are very important for everyone. Being passive in both your work and private life doesn't yield great results. Personal growth also means professional growth. You can't grow professionally if you first don't grow personally.

I allocate some time to read, write, and listen in the morning, usually the first 2 hours after I wake up. Also, working hands-on on different projects at Blank, putting myself in challenging situations, and networking helps me grow personally since you have to change your mindset and constantly learn to deliver awesomeness.

8. What advice would you give to aspiring startup founders, especially those entering the Web3 domain, to help them navigate the challenges and maximize their chances of success? ??

Marko: Find your niche and stick to it. Try to be a generalist, master one thing but also work toward learning complementary skills. In the early stages, it is important to find a strong team of individuals who share your passion and gather them around you! If you don't have the money, find people who share your passion and are willing to work for free to bring your business idea to life.

Neboj?a: We are still very early in Web3 and we are now building its foundations. I encourage everyone to step into Web3 and contribute to it by building new products that will bring value and onboard new users. I believe the startups with the most growth potential are the ones who successfully solve some of the biggest issues Web3 space faces at this moment. And those are scalability, efficiency and enhanced user experience.

Let's meet! ??

If you want to learn more about Blank and our portfolio of projects, take a look at our website or DM us and we will get back to you shortly!