One of the downsides of running an agency, or a services-based company per se, is that you don't get media coverage. Only the biggest ones get some coverage but for us, small agencies, it's nearly impossible: we don't do B2C, we don't have products consumed by large chunks of population, most of our work is behind NDAs and also we don't raise funds.

The reality is that agencies are largely profitable and enjoyable businesses to run, even more so if you focus on value not on scale. Hence, we invited Jamon Holmgren (CTO and co-founder of Infinite Red) to jam on running a boutique agency like theirs.

We riff for about an hour, discussing NDAs, how to run boutique agencies, team crafting, React Native, lifestyle businesses and much more.

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🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/

A couple of weeks ago, shit hit the fan. A bank run on Silicon Valley Bank had to be intervened because hundreds of companies pulled their funds out of this popular bank.

The US 16th largest bank, very popular among tech companies and startups, had to be sold because it became insolvent due to a series of bad decisions and their accumulated derivates.

We bring in our good friend Victor Horcasitas, CEO at Metropolitan Magazine and President of the American Society of Barcelona, to discuss the happenings and their consequences: how it all happened, what kind of regulations are in place, the decisions of former administrations that might've had an impact in this particular situation, predictions of the future, how to diversify banking risk for companies, and much more.

Grab a very cold clara and join us in this friendly conversation with Victor and Àlex!

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🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/

We're excited to share this episode with you in which we talk to Kat O'Brien (Chief Partnerships Officer at ClimateTrade) about all things partnerships.

Kat has been operating in the partnerships and marketing sector of both startups and corporates in the last years - as a matter of fact, we met when she was CMO at Polaroo, a former client of MarsBased - and, to be honest, we have never discussed this topic on this podcast.

We've had our share of failed partnerships over the years because, quite frankly, we suck at partnerships. If we had met Kat before, we wouldn't have been so terrible at partnering with other companies.

We discuss KPIs for the partnerships, paid vs. free partnerships, who should spearhead these initiatives, reporting, selling to enterprise, finding the right key people to sign contracts... and more!

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🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/

We bring in one of our references in UI/UX, Fabio Basile, to discuss freelancing in this sector. About time we discussed building a portfolio (with all the restrictions we can find as an agency: unlaunched projects, NDAs, etc.), choosing the right freelancer/agency for your project, red flags in clients AND in providers and much more.

Of course, we also discussed AI, because if not, we wouldn't be in 2023.

Join us in this very interesting conversation, with BLUNT opinions and "ahà" moments between two non-native English speakers who could've recorded this in Italian, but it would've been awkward for most of our audience. #customerfirst

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🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/

Kicking off the new year in great fashion with a solo episode of Àlex (CEO) doing a recap of our historic 2022 and some of the landmarks we've accomplished as a company and a look into 2023, with some hints regarding what we will research as a company and new technologies we will be tinkering with.

This episode is short and easy to digest, which comes in handy after two weeks of big and heavy meals. You're welcome.

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🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/

This week, we didn't have a guest speaker either, so we decided to record a solo episode.

Àlex has addressed the team in an internal basecamp post to let us know that the company is very stable and that we're signing very long contracts with clients. That in mind, he gave us three things the company is doing to ensure more stability during this downturn of the market, where literally almost every company out there is firing employees left and right.

Listen directly from Àlex what is MarsBased doing to ensure stability, because it could be applicable also to other agencies and contractors/freelancers.

Also, someone tell him to stop recording episodes a few minutes before midnight.

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🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/

One day you're a developer, like all the rest, and then you're not one of them anymore. That's what happens when you go up the management ladder in technical teams.

You still want to code and be cool, but you have to be focused on business, fundraising, managing people, putting processes into place and talking to partners and the leadership team or even the board. Definitely, not what a developer has to do.

In this episode, we discuss at length with Pau Minoves (ex-CTO at Typeform) and Xavier Noria (Rails Core Member) about the solitude of the managers, especially in remote environments.

There's some intrinsic solitude in what was mentioned in the first two paragraphs, but throw in full-remote working environments and BOOM, the perfect equation for developing solitude and other mental issues, if not dealt with carefully.

We talk about the pandemic, challenges of managing people remotely, impostor syndrome, communication styles, leadership in rough times, the importance of offsites and company retreats, and much more.

Also, this is the last episode Àlex recorded with his iconic brick wall background!

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🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/

We had our friend Mark from AWS calling in from Websummit last year, we also had Jorge Jaramillo recording his podcast episode in a camper van, and now it's the time for someone to record from his car!

Jonas Rinde, serial entrepreneur in the Nordic region of Europe, and current CEO of Nomono, shares with us a masterclass of calculating risks and taking decisions at critical times, mixing his experience in extreme sports and high-level management in big corporations.

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🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/

Breaking news: Factorial raised 123.5MM in a series C funding round led by Atomico and Tiger Global, and Kantox has sold to BNP Paribas for 120MM.

Both companies are built with Ruby on Rails, which might sound as irrelevant, but it's also great news for the technology and for its ecosystem.

In this episode, Àlex rambles on for 20 minutes about how these companies are showing the potential of B2B in Barcelona and how they should spearhead the third wave of startups in the city. Àlex also talks at length about the previous two waves and how they differed from one another.

Yeah, we also didn't have a speaker for this week. You guessed right!

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🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/

This episode will see us discussing text input and how to build keyboards for smartphones with Olivier Plante, CEO at Fleksy.

Olivier has had a fruitful career in entrepreneurship but our paths didn't cross until some of the first Startup Grind events we organised in Barcelona, where he came and pitched his latest invention, ThingThing, a most flexible smartphone keyboard. A Swiss army knife of sorts, if you will, that integrated with other apps to manage files and other stuff within the conversation, without ever leaving the context of the app.

In this conversation, Àlex and Olivier nerd out about how to get your custom keyboards into your smartphone, how they hacked iOS before the keyboard APIs were public, how Fleksy found a niche market in pharma, and how they're helping big players in the industry to detect early signs of neurological decline with their platform.

Support the show

🎬 You can watch the video of this episode on the Life on Mars podcast website: https://podcast.marsbased.com/