A few days ago a conference inaugurating the European Tech Alliance, an initiative to promote the success of European tech companies and support the European Commission to prepare the Digital Single Market strategy, was held in Strasbourg. The EUTA combines some of Europe’s biggest tech players including Spotify, BlaBlaCar and Avast. Prowly is proud to be waving the flag for Poland in that project. How did that happen?
We have been developing Prowly for nearly two years. With small and great successes but also with failures. During this time we have been operating exclusively in Poland, refining the platform and building a loyal local customer base. The real milestone in the development of our company was launch of the _magazyn.allegro website for Allegro – the biggest Polish e-commerce platform.
During 2015 we have adapted Prowly for the requirements of international clients and quietly gathered feedback from existing and potential clients. During the initial planning phase of the global launch we assumed that we would start a large scale campaign targeted at the English-speaking audience and see where it works best. Over the summer we had a chance to rethink everything and eventually turned this plan upside down and finally came to the conclusion that if you aim everywhere, you aim nowhere. If you have plenty of money that you might actually succeed, but we need to be focused, so we are approaching our existing clients who would recommend us to their international offices. We also chose to launch our first international office in the UK, as a diverse environment it offer many different opportunities which we believe help accelerate Prowly’s growth and speed the develop of new features to the platform.
Getting Started in the UK
While we are able to handle the sales to foreign branches of our global customers from Poland, we wanted to organize our activities in the UK on the spot. Now we have a Prowly UK office headed up by Darran Blatch.
Darran has been advising companies regarding growth management and building sales strategies for more than 25 years. Now he owns a consulting firm and specializes in the ICT sector. Previously had he worked for, among others, IDC and IHS. We started our relationship when he registered in Prowly and created his own Brand Journal which can be found at: https://nylitik.prowly.com.
After many discussions we discussed the details our plans and opportunities for the UK and came to the conclusion that we had to work together.
Act locally, use globally
One of our existing clients Allegro asked for help promoting the Allegro Group Public Policy based in Brussels. Paweł and Michał from Allegro invited then Prowly to work on a new European Union focused initiative The European Tech Alliance (ETA). Its goal is to promote the technological development of Europe, and its members have shared their experience with representatives of the European Union to lead to the creation of a Digital Single Market strategy. Among the member companies there are well-known technological giants like Spotify, BlaBlaCar, Avast, but also newcomers who quickly gained the status of a local leader in their categories. We are alongside other Polish companies such as Allegro Group, Brand24, Audioteka.pl and Transenter.
From the very beginning we have tried to be an integral part of EUTA operations. Initially we took care of preparing the initiative's website and our platform is flexible that it can be easily adapted to this type of requirement.
Being active in EUTA meant we could not miss at the opening conference of the initiative. It was attended by CEOs of selected EUTA member companies, the Vice-President of the European Commission Andrus Ansip, the media, representatives of the EU authorities and the department of Public Affairs.
Being part of ETA enables us to participate in the formation of EU digital policy and help create a better environment for Eurpoean tech companies of all sizes to thrive and become global players. As part of the initiative in mid-November our team will take part at the V4 Digital Day in Brussels. Coverage of the event will also appear on our blog.
Being part of EUTA enables us to participate in the formation of EU digital policy and help create a better environment for Eurpoean tech companies of all sizes to thrive and become global players. As part of the initiative in mid-November our team will take part at the V4 Digital Day in Brussels. Coverage of the event will also appear on our blog.
Development that makes you think
Thanks to the ability to participate in EUTA we are slowly shifting our perspective from local to international, changing the way of thinking about technology and our role in its development in communications and media.
This has been a busy year for everyone at Prowly and we have seen fantastic growth and worked with some amazing companies. There are three core values that we work by:
Do what you love
If you don't love what you're doing, drop it. Prowly was created with a passion for PR, communication and technology. Combined with love, it is the perfect relationship for us.
Treat each customer as a Partner
Businesses are businesses, and people are people. For us, partner relations with our customers have always been a priority, we have always been collaborative and early on we realized that treating our clients as partners was a win-win for everyone. When customers are close to us, they provide feedback and regularly become involved in the development of our platform, A happy client is a loyal client.
Educate yourself and others
Many start-ups and scale-ups offer an innovative product or service. The best you can hope for is that your client to fall in love with what you have to offer and learn everything they can about it. The worst case, they need to first realize that they need it, and you will need to actively educate the market.
If you are creating a start-up you’ll know that you don’t know everything but it feels like you need to. The key is to keep learning and don’t be afraid to ask questions. And – above everything else – read the damn Internet, because you can find everything on it!!
