About me

Hey, my name is Sašo.

I help companies increase the probability of success in pursuing new business opportunities.

I do this in the form of mentorship or hands-on work through research (market research, customer research, competitor research), prototyping, concept & usability testing, sales, UX design, analytics setup and analysis. In all cases, I become a member of the team.

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Education and early ambition

I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer and information science while deep-diving into filmmaking.

In my student years, I co-founded and led an Audio-visual laboratory KBŠ. A filmmaking department that provided access to professional filmmaking equipment to students while supporting local events and artists with filmmaking services.

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4 years of building digital products

In my last year of college, I joined a digital agency called D.Labs. There I spent the next 4 years as a Product Manager helping entrepreneurs from the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and Slovenia transform their ideas into digital products.

During that time I worked on more than 15 digital products. Some that I can mention are:

  • minxli.com – combines classic doctor consultation hours with telemedicine and digital MD practice management.
  • pamojaeducation.com – provide schools across the globe with flexible digital solutions.
  • licklist.co.uk (mobile app) – Discover. Book. Order. Find the best bars, restaurants, clubs, and events in the UK.
  • betonyourself.io (article) – peer to peer esports crypto betting platform [No longer operating]

My responsibilities consisted of:

  • Supporting sales.
  • Facilitating initial business model breakdown workshops and product ideation workshops. 
  • Leading agile dev and design teams as a product manager (Facilitating the agile process, gathering product requirements). 
  • During my last year, I helped customers test business ideas by running marketing experiments.

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Looking through my customer’s eyes

On the side I was putting myself in the shoes of our customers by exploring my own business ideas and attending hackathons:

  • Reka-kolpa.si – A website enabling tourists to discover the temperature of a Slovenia’s warmest river Kolpa in many campsites along its stream. The platform is organically reached by more than 7.600 visitors and a bit more than 28.000 views during the most popular months.
  • Winning a hackathon (article) – 2nd place on my first hackathon and 1st place on the second.
  • Many other failed ventures.

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Exploring invisible factors behind business success

I’ve seen many times how we make suboptimal decisions despite all the business knowledge and experience. That is why I started exploring what other factors are at play in business success by:

  • Hiring an executive coach and a mentor.
  • Performing more than 300 coaching hours over my training period.
  • Attended an ICF (International Coaching Federation) Accredited Program with Michael Neil.
  • Attended an ICF Accredited Program at Insight Principles, a consulting company that helps Fortune 500 companies solve unsolvable problems in 4 days. 

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Independent journey in helping companies grow

In 2019 I began working with companies individually. Some of the companies I worked with:

  • Optiweb – Helping a digital agency set up a strategy to discover a viable market position for its customer’s product.
  • RSLabs, product RSLink – Mentoring a tech founder of a startup producing temperature control system for vaccines in the process from MVP to sales. Part of P2 Product from Slovenian Entrepreneurial Fund.
  • Microbium – Support in the product discovery process. The product ended up being an easy-to-use rapid tester for the detection and quantification of E.coli and coliform bacteria in drinking water.
  • StoringCargo.com – Hands-on support in product & market discovery in the transport and warehousing industry.
  • Fortis Group – Discovery and re-design of a custom solution for running a large logistics company in collaboration with kaldi.si.
  • Correlate AS – Working closely with the design and development team to deliver the re-designed productivity app used by European consortiums. I also restructured ways of working, provided support and brought feedback from the customers, as well as set up an analytics system for measuring the traction of the platform.
  • Bonspiels.net – Mentoring and supporting the founder of LEAD1 d.o.o. in the process of testing the curling event marketplace. The platform is enabling curlers in North American to discover and register for international events and on the other side simplify the promotion and organization of curling events for Curling clubs. Part of CZK mentorship program.
  • Lumada – Leading the product discovery process of a business idea from market research, user interviews, prototyping and testing with end customers in collaboration with kaldi.si.
  • Flux performance – Mentoring a founder of an electric enduro & motocross startup. [IN PROGRESS]
  • Gamepulz – Mentoring a founder of a startup exploring a social game. Part of P2 Product from Slovenian Entrepreneurial Fund. [IN PROGRESS]
  • Adam Research Centre – Led the product discovery process and wireframe design of a platform to be used internally by the organization to index millions of historic family trees and aggregate data on important historical figures. The goal of the project is to increase the productivity of the researchers, increase the quality of research data and provide more options for the reuse of the data in future projects, as well as increase the organization’s ability to monetize the research. To achieve these results I needed to acquire a deep understanding of the domain and work process with many design iterations. The project was in collaboration with kaldi.si 
  • Httpool SMB Tool – Led the product discovery process and Wireframe Design of a platform to help small business owners in Cambodia and Bangladesh advertise online and get more sales. 
  • Datapan – Design management mentorship through the process of redesigning the platform for the management of the cruise ship’s cabin HVAC system. [IN PROGRESS]
  • Rentakit – Helping the team pivot to a more sustainable business model and designing the platform for initiating and managing linen rental.  The service is aimed at decreasing the amount of work and upfront investment for AirBnB hosts. The project was in collaboration with kaldi.si [IN PROGRESS]

Since 2019 I am also a mentor and evaluator for the Slovenian enterprise fund. 

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