All good decisions start with an idea
All good decisions start with data.
This was taken from the website of uprising startup Tayra and it inspired us to name this story something similar. Over the past year, our team has become more familiar with this incredible venture and its results. We snuck out into their office in Sarajevo and saw the Tayra team in action. This unique team also shares the uniqueness of their office.
As we entered the flat on Marijin Dvor, an Austro-Hungarian part of Sarajevo, it felt really nostalgic as the place held legacy pieces of the past and yet, there is this young team of developers creating a solution to make the performance of teams in the ICT industry more productive.
We held an interview with one of the co-founders, Ejub Hadzic, who gave an overview of his startup and a few tips for the successful business.
Tell us more about Tayra. How did you come up with the idea, and how did you start your business?
Tayra is a performance analytics tool with incentives for companies with dev teams. We call it a “self-managing” assistant that helps managers recognize and reward someone’s effort, and help them make smart data-driven decisions. As we are now a few years into this “analytics platform” journey it’s nice to look back at how it began — as a simple gamification tool that gives rewards to developers when they complete their tasks. We were developers ourselves at the time and we wanted to find a way that would recognize our efforts in an unbiased and constant way. Without having to be managers’ “best friend” or to “showoff” when someone is looking at us. As soon as my co-founder and I talked about it, we got interested in diving deeper and exploring what this product could be. With each step of the way, we tried to communicate with relevant people and our potential customers, and piece by piece with their feedback we built what Tayra is now.
What were the three lessons you learned along the way?
Talk about your idea…. a lot, with relevant people and potential customers.
The better you understand their pain points and how they operate, it is easier for you to build your product/solution that fits the problem. The bigger their pain, the easier to sell your “painkiller”.
Start very, very, very small.
Figure out what is at the core of your product that brings value to the customer. There’s a quote I like; “If you are not embarrassed by your first launch, you launched too late.”
There’s a quote I like; “If you are not embarrassed by your first launch, you launched too late.”
If you love what you do, and you set and chase your goals, no political party, administration, or any other institutional challenge will/should be able to stop you. Your vision, passion, and goal are the drivers stronger than the obstacles in your way.
Mentors and advisors are part of every entrepreneurial journey. Do you have any mentors or advisors? If so, tell us about those who were mentors that encouraged you.
For any entrepreneur, it is important to have people around who can give objective advice, especially for young/inexperienced entrepreneurs who are just starting their journeys. Hence, we are very grateful for our advisors, Faris Začina, Malcolm Duerod, and Igor Madžov, who have been with us from the start. Without their help and guidance, Tayra would not be here, but more importantly, we would not have this experience and mentality that we have now.
When Mirna and I started this blog, we wanted to share stories about inspiring people in our community. Yeah, we think of you as one of them. However, we are curious to know who your role models are or the qualities you look up to in people.
I honestly don’t have a single person I look up to and follow regularly. But if I had to pick one, it would be Elon Musk :) Even though I do not agree with some of Elon’s beliefs and opinions, I admire the inexhaustible dedication to product development. Continuously working on making the best possible product. This quality could be seen in many great innovators, trendsetters, disruptors, or however else you want to call them, for example, Steve Jobs.
Final question. What would be your advice for the people who want to start their own venture?
Honestly, the three points I mentioned above are, in my opinion, the main things one needs to understand when starting their venture. But at the end of the day, entrepreneurship aka starting your own venture is not for everybody. You really need to have that inner satisfaction and sense of fulfilment when something you build is being used to benefit others.
Special thanks to Ines Selimovic for the most amazing photos. Find her work on IG — phrana.
Thank you for reading our story!
We are a small team dedicated to the startup community of Sarajevo, who collects entrepreneurial stories for sarajevo.tech and organizes awesome fireside chats and panels within Startup Grind Sarajevo. Stay updated for more events and stories and subscribe here.
