This March, 13th-15th, literally in the last week of winter, the AdTonos team was lucky enough to be able to host the next one, a three-day meet-up for all staff in beautiful Sopot, Poland. It was fantastic to get nearly everyone together once again, face-to-face, as many team members had been working remotely.
The theme of this AdTonos WInter Meet-up was: Educate, Excite, Execute. According to the name „Winter Meet-up”, Sopot greeted us with a true winter aura, however, the joy of the team from the meeting in person was so great that it could melt any ice. The meeting participants: Team Members, Board Advisors and some of the Investors arrived at the Radisson Blue hotel in Sopot on Monday, March 13th.
Educate
Michał Marcinik, CEO & Founder officially started the meeting with a warm welcome to all of us and introduced us to the agenda. Next, Klaudia Lizak, Product Manager and Robert Kawecki, Senior Software Architect guided us very professionally in a detailed AdTonos platform review and demo.
Admittedly, they both have a gift for explaining complicated and complex technical details in a very accessible way. Well done, R&D Team!
Thanks to the presentation of Alex Faus, our Board Advisor, expert and programmatic market pioneer, we jumped into the deep end of the world of programmatic advertising. Alex started with the history of the industry and then explained the intricacies of the programmatic world in an accessible way, illustrating them with market data and interesting examples. The presentation was a truly eye-opening experience. The third session on the first day „2022 in glimpse” was led by AdTonos Founders: Michal Marcinik CEO, Kasia Bargielska CMO, and Wojciech Lichota CTO. Although 2022 was very challenging for AdTonos , the team coped with the tasks and managed to overcome the greatest difficulties and challenges.
At the end of the day, there was a nice surprise waiting for us and that was the most exciting thing: the city game and treasure hunt prepared for us by Asia Jędrzejewska, the amazing Board Assistant. Well done Asia! Everyone in AdTonos without exception is very ambitious, so each of the three groups quickly chose a leader and, following the directions, set off to the city game in search of more tasks and to achieve the required points, sightseeing the beautiful Sopot along the way. Group C led by Klauda Lizak first got the treasure and reached the Koliba restaurant. Group A led by Rober Kawecki arrived at Koliba as the next. Shortly after them, Group B led by Lisa Stevenson also reached the destination , where a wonderful dinner of regional cuisine was waiting for us. Everyone had great moods and a great time, there was no end to chatting and laughing until late at night.
Excite
Day 2 started with the exciting session „The power of audio”, which was very interesting, led by Hossein Houssaini, AdTonos Board Advisor and Investor and an expert in the audio advertisement industry. An exceptional thing happened because, after his presentation, Hossein decided to go winter swimming in the sea for the first time inhis life! In belaying he was swimming twice, it must have been a real adventure. Luckily, he came back to us at the hotel to the conference room and, cooled down, participated in the sessions.
Next Michal Marcinik introduced the whole team to the plans and gave us insights into the lean canvas workshop. After the lunch, every group started working on the lean canvas for our platform and other main products. It got us allvery drawn in and we didn’t know when it was already evening.
After a wonderful dinner at the hotel, the team went to Pub No.5 in Sopot for karaoke. It just happened there, as you can see in the pictures below. The fun was excellent. We even learned about the hidden vocal talent of out Project Owner, Klaudia! That was a pleasant surprise.
Execute
Day 3 started with finishing work in groups on lean canvas. Michal Marcinik, AdTonos CEO, collected the results from every group,presented and summarised them. The brainstorming discussion started. Finally, we chose the projects and products for development in 2023 and set up the priorities. It was great that all groups chose the same 3 projects as the most important to develop and introduce to the market. It is amazing that such an understanding of the business, and what is important is present in the entire team. It was very exciting to see how the team collaborated and worked together. Everyone was fantastic, willing to answer any questions and happy to contribute their ideas in a space where everyone’s voice was heard.
We were delighted to work together with our investors represented by: Giovanni Strocchi of BlackSheep VC, Maciej Kowalczyk of Corvus VC, Maciej Frankowicz of Shave VC, Michał Sioda of CofounderZone VC and Niklas Walinski of Curious Capital VC, who were very helpful in giving us their opinions on our plans. The experience, knowledge of the market, financial approach and substantive support of our investors is very valuable to us and we are so glad they could join us.
Throughout the Winter Meet-Up, there was an electric and inspiring atmosphere, it was clear that everyone was passionate about the company and this positive environment led to some great discussions. We developed our ideas further and successfully finalised our plans for next year. It was a very exciting experience for everyone, as we met in person and not just about the brainstorming and workshop but a really thrilling opportunity to feel that real team spirit.
