#intheoffice
Friendly stories on product companies' office culture by Vladimir Merkushev
Visiting Joom Office in Lisbon
Connecting Merchants and Buyers Worldwide
The marketplace business model is one of my favourites so I’ve been tracking industry leaders and emerging startups in this domain. It’s a tough field but holds so much potential. Recently I discovered that one of them — Joom, the global online marketplace, moved its headquarters to Lisbon. Through my contacts, I got in touch with Joom’s CPO, Felix Kagan, and had the chance to tour their product team’s workspace. Nestled in the heart of the city, the office was just as welcoming as I expected. Let’s dive into the world of Joom, their office, the team, and what they’re up to.
Visiting JetBrains Office in Amsterdam
Empowering People’s Brain
If you haven’t heard about JetBrains, you might be unfamiliar with the tech industry. JetBrains caters to a niche audience: the developers and programmers who thrive on tech jargon. This company has pioneered several vital tools for software developers and teams. More impressively, they’ve introduced Kotlin, a modern multiplatform programming language. Its immense popularity within the developer community led to its endorsement by Google for Android mobile development.
Curious about how products for developers are managed? Dive into my experience at the JetBrains Amsterdam office.
Curious about how products for developers are managed? Dive into my experience at the JetBrains Amsterdam office.
Visiting Sweatcoin office in Lisbon
It pays to walk
Lisbon, where I currently live, is becoming a new tech hub of the European startup community — more and more companies are relocating their teams to Lisbon and opening offices here. I recently visited a company with a very unusual product. They pay their users for… walking. You have probably heard something about Move-to-Earn services, a bunch of which were launched loudly a few years ago. Sweatcoin was the first in Europe. Now it’s a whole ecosystem of mobile apps, a marketplace for active lifestyle goods and services, its own cryptocurrency SWEAT, and 150 millions registered users worldwide.
Visiting Cazoo office in Lisbon
The new way of car sales
The used cars market is one of the largest retail markets in the world. For a long time, this market was owned mostly by auto dealers purchasing used cars or trading in them from their customers and reselling these cars to the buyers. Most of the dealers are more focused on margins than customers’ needs. So improving the customer experience of used car selling and buying became the desired goal for many startups worldwide. Cazoo is one of them. One of Cazoo’s tech hubs is located in Lisbon and I recently visited it, took many photos and talked to several people from the product team. Join me and let’s take a look at how the online product and effective offline operations could solve really challenging offline problems.
Visiting Landing.Jobs
Helping people change their lives
The new season of my friendly stories about office culture is here! Now in English. The pandemic and relocation to another country significantly affected my pet project. But COVID times are in the past, and my new residence in Portugal gives me an excellent opportunity to continue the series and visit the offices of large international companies. Landing.Jobs is a marketplace for companies and professionals looking for a job in IT. The company cooperates with such major brands as OLX, Farfetch, Zapier, Volkswagen and others. It actively participates in the IT community life, hosts its own events and supports other companies' events. The main products earning money for the business are vacancy publishing for companies, candidates recruitment and remote work abroad services.
I have more than 50 stories about product companies, coworking places and startups in Russian. You can use Google Translate and check it here
Vladimir Merkushev
Product Manager and Traveler
Hey!
I have more than 10 years of experience in online business. I have worked on products in markets of Russia, Kazakhstan, Europe, India, Indonesia and LatAm. And I love to travel. I communicate a lot with colleagues in the industry and visit their offices.
At some point, such communication grew into a separate project about corporate culture and product companies' offices around the world. I liked the format! It allows peeking into the work atmosphere that helps the team create products. The questions I ask people through the prism of my experience help to write interesting stories about business and product development.
The stories are released approximately once a month. Sometimes more often. It happens that from one trip, I bring 2-3 stories.
Subscribe to my Twitter and blog on Medium so you don't miss the next story!
I have more than 10 years of experience in online business. I have worked on products in markets of Russia, Kazakhstan, Europe, India, Indonesia and LatAm. And I love to travel. I communicate a lot with colleagues in the industry and visit their offices.
At some point, such communication grew into a separate project about corporate culture and product companies' offices around the world. I liked the format! It allows peeking into the work atmosphere that helps the team create products. The questions I ask people through the prism of my experience help to write interesting stories about business and product development.
The stories are released approximately once a month. Sometimes more often. It happens that from one trip, I bring 2-3 stories.
Subscribe to my Twitter and blog on Medium so you don't miss the next story!
Feel free to connect
I am open to new acquaintances. Connect with me on social networks, probably, we will probably create a new story together ;)
