Realpad

Today, we are the market leader in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Balkans. Beyond Czechia, we have offices in Belgrade and Budapest, and we recently opened our first Western branch in Lisbon. Right now, we’re building a team in Spain. For some, this would already be "the" success. We see ourselves as a scale-up, and our success as just the beginning. We see tremendous potential ahead and clear opportunities to truly step out into the world. 

When the crisis in Ukraine hit, mortgage rates spiked, and the real estate market briefly slowed down, we slowed down as well. Not anymore. Today, we’re growing again, beating our targets, and picking up speed. We made a few mistakes, but they were valuable lessons. Today, we’re a more mature company, and our steps and decisions are far more deliberate. But our hunger and drive remain as strong as ever.

We don’t look for reasons why things won’t work. We find ways to reach our goals. We have healthy confidence and a constant drive to learn, grow, and push forward, viewing challenges and problems as opportunities. Everyone at Realpad is self-reliant. We don’t need someone watching over us or assigning tasks, and that goes for personal growth, too. We need people who are interested in AI because they want to make their work more efficient. People who follow market trends not because someone told them to, but because they enjoy it. When things don’t go to plan, it motivates us to dig in deeper and make it happen. Most of the time, we pull it off together. Realpad is an environment that fully supports you, and we naturally help each other, but the ball is in your court first.

When we spot talent, we do everything we can to develop, support, and guide it in the right direction. We used to bend roles to fit people. Today, we know that if someone doesn't fit one role, it doesn't mean another won't suit them, but we no longer bend the company around people. Instead, we look for the best way to fulfill their potential.

We try to develop people internally before looking to the external market, while avoiding an "everyone does everything" approach by clearly defining competencies and responsibilities. This makes collaboration smoother and gets us to results faster. We have well-defined roles and know the expected outcome for each one, making things far more predictable for people.

They only work thanks to the openness we swear by. If the book "Radical Candor" had been written in Czechia, we're convinced there'd be a chapter about us. Feedback here is frequent and genuinely honest. When we don't like something, we bring it up in front of the whole company or team and work through it until we reach a result we all agree on. This approach isn't always easy, but it prevents false assumptions, and feedback helps us move both ourselves and the company forward faster.

From day one, Marian drew us into company life. Every month, he clearly shares how we're doing financially and whether we're doing well or not. So we all know the context and what's happening across the company.

Some of our clients tell us Realpad is the first tool they open with their morning coffee. They can schedule meetings, see what's happening on each project, and what stage it's in. Where we make their work easiest, though, is communicating with end customers. In Realpad, they handle all contracts and payments, while buyers track construction progress or submit warranty claims. Everything is clearly arranged in one place. We help developers not just do business, but turn buying a home into the best possible experience for the customer. We love seeing genuine, positive feedback from end customers. There's plenty of it, and that makes our efforts worthwhile every single day.

The real estate market is fiercely competitive, so it's no wonder developers are used to playing hard, decisively, and fast. They are extremely tenacious, assertive, and not afraid to push the limits. We, in turn, have to be fast, professional, and know exactly what we do and offer. We have to stay close to our clients, understand how the market changes, and adapt to both. It's clear that to succeed in this game, we have to make a strong case and stay resilient under stress and pressure. Everyone here expects it, knowing we are in an industry that isn’t easy.

It wouldn't work otherwise, because we're convinced everyone needs to know what we do, why we do it, and how to succeed in this demanding market. The key is to genuinely care about your clients and your work. Our clients are used to meeting up and handling things face-to-face, since real estate is very much a relationship-driven business. We connect with them not just in meetings, but also at conferences, and a few times a year we partner to host events covering market news and trends. This year, we're hosting our first Realpad client Christmas party, complete with games and gifts. In Czechia, we also organize expert roundtables for our clients. We believe we do our utmost to be the best possible partners for them.

Early on, we lacked domain knowledge in the real estate sector and built products driven by customer requests and feedback. Often bespoke. Today, we are moving from custom-built features toward a scalable product. We rely more on data and evaluate the product's overall utility. We remain in close touch with our customers, and their feedback is vital to us. We only develop a new feature when we know it will benefit most of the market. We’ve also learned to sunset features if they fail to bring results or can't be developed efficiently anymore. We want maximum room to focus on what we do best.

Alongside that, we constantly modernize our tech stack so we don't fall behind. We're moving to the cloud, refactoring and redesigning parts of the system to take things to the next level, whether in terms of availability, reliability, or UX. We are adopting AI and finding ways to make our work as efficient as possible or improve the product.

This gives people in development constant challenges and new opportunities. They can try out a new domain, take ownership of part of a project, or run an entire mini-project from start to finish.

Developers do their best work when nothing breaks their focus. That's why we filter out unnecessary distractions and give them space to turn the problem at hand into code.

Getting into flow is key to execution. We structure development so developers aren't weighed down by unnecessary bureaucracy, meetings, or emails. Twice a week, we have a short sync to see how we're doing and if anything needs attention. Beyond that, we have space for uninterrupted work on clearly defined tasks. Nothing that isn't important to you should drain your energy and focus.

We are pragmatic and think in terms of utility. If we don't see value in something, we don't do it. This approach is embedded in everything we do. Rationality trumps emotion. We don't waste time on "what if" thinking or complex debates. We don't bother with approval loops, reports, or complex presentations. We summarize the arguments, weigh them against the criteria, and decide whether to move forward or not. That doesn't mean we ignore how the team feels each day. When we see someone struggling, we don't look the other way. We actively address it, because everything affects everything else and we take nothing lightly.

Our work pace is high and performance demands are even higher. That makes us all the more careful not to overload people. We’re not a hyper-cool Silicon Valley startup where people pull 12-hour days. Our lives are firmly anchored outside the office. We know what we want from both life and work. We see work as a space where we can fulfill our potential and pursue our ambitions. Alongside that, we have our families, friends, pets, and hobbies we love dedicating time to.

We enjoy going out together, whether for lunch or dinner, and we really know how to enjoy our offsites, but we don’t need to grab beers together every single day.