Martin Sedovic: Building Growth Strategies That Deliver

What brought you to Sudolabs?

I joined Sudolabs almost four years ago. Back then, I was working as a Data Analyst, so I had a technical background, but I always felt that my strengths lay in soft skills. I was looking for a new challenge, and the Business Development Representative role at Sudolabs seemed like the perfect way to combine both - using my technical knowledge while working with people. So, I took this junior position at Sudolabs and have been here ever since.

When I joined, the company had fewer than 20 people. I started in the most junior role, but as we grew, I took on more and more responsibilities.

As we expanded the sales team, I began leading projects, and later, when we brought Marketing and Sales together into what is now a Growth team, I stepped into the Head of Growth role. Now, I focus on managing day-to-day operations while shaping our strategy and driving our growth initiatives.

What excites you the most about your current position as the Head of Growth?

One of the most exciting aspects of my role is opening new markets. It allows us to define strategies from scratch, test new ideas, and build new networks. We get to take what we've learned from past experiences and move even faster to open new opportunities.

Another exciting shift is our increasing focus on enterprises. This brings a whole new set of challenges and activities for our Growth team. It's a completely different game from working with startups and scale-ups. The sales cycle is much longer, so we need to be way more strategic, align Sales and Marketing more closely, and plan everything in much greater detail.

What are the key areas you focus on to drive growth at Sudolabs?

I believe that to keep growing, we need to understand the market trends and shifts to stay on top. Understanding these changes helps us adapt and find new opportunities. A couple of great examples from recent years show how we've done that.

A major change has been our expansion into the enterprise segment. As startup funding slowed down and there were fewer opportunities to work with startups, we focused on larger companies where we saw strong demand for our expertise.

We've also made AI transformation a priority. After AI took off a few years ago, we invested a lot in training our team and hiring engineers to explore how we could help companies make the most of it. When such trends happen in the market, we try to be ready, and AI transformation has now become one of the most important parts of our offering.

How have you approached this shift from working primarily with startups?

As I mentioned, a few key things helped us make this shift. First, we've always been ahead of market trends - AI transformation is a great example.

When OpenAI released ChatGPT, there was a lot of buzz around AI, but no one knew exactly how much impact it would have on businesses.

We invested reasonable resources to hire and train AI and data engineers to explore the potential of this segment in depth.

Next, we built expertise across various AI verticals. As we started delivering AI projects for our clients, we didn't limit ourselves to one specific technology. Instead, we focused on identifying opportunities where emerging AI solutions could bring real value.

Ultimately, this approach allowed us to create enterprise-tailored offerings to respond to companies trying to hop on the AI wave and utilize it.

What challenges have you encountered while expanding into diverse industries, and how have you addressed them?

It's quite common for us to be approached by potential clients from industries outside our core areas of expertise. However, we don't aim to be experts in every industry; that would be nearly impossible given our size. Instead, we focus on staying ahead of technology trends and understanding how different solutions can be applied across various industries. On top of that, we build a strong level of expertise in the industries where we already have traction and a deep understanding of the business landscape.

First, we focus on developing knowledge and expertise in specific technologies and their implementation. We constantly strengthen our capabilities across key technology verticals, especially in the emerging AI space. This includes working with the latest LLMs, advancements in computer vision, and practical applications of machine learning.

Another critical area is data engineering. Nearly every AI project we take on revolves around data, whether collection, storage, evaluation, or, in some cases, creating synthetic data. This is an area where we are actively building deep expertise.

Regarding vertical focus, we have naturally developed a strong foundation in the sectors where we've already delivered multiple projects. The industries we prioritize today are a combination of the industry verticals of our past projects and those aligned with key technology trends - where we believe we can provide the most value.

With Sudolabs' focus on Enterprise AI innovation, how do you tailor growth strategies for different industries?

We develop growth strategies by closely studying industry trends, customer behavior, and how different sectors adopt new technology. For instance, one of our biggest focus areas recently has been finance. Our growth strategies in this space have involved deep research into FinTech technology trends, the new challenges financial institutions face, and specific AI use cases in the sector. We tailor our offering to meet the industry's needs based on these insights.

We also make sure our approach is flexible, allowing businesses across different industries to integrate AI in a way that fits their specific goals and regulatory requirements.

Can you share an example of a client project where Sudolabs created a significant impact through its solutions?

Helping clients identify the right use cases for AI implementation is a key part of our approach. One of the main metrics we consider is ROI. We aim to select projects where we expect a return on investment within a year. This ensures that AI adoption brings tangible value to our clients in a reasonable timeframe.

How do you see Sudolabs evolving in the next few years?

That's a tough question because our goals are constantly evolving. However, I believe we will continue strengthening our position in the enterprise AI segment and establish ourselves as a go-to provider for enterprise AI solutions.

What motivates you personally in your role, and how do you stay inspired?

Sudolabs has always been full of young, talented people across different teams. More recently, as we continue to grow and succeed in the market, attracting top talent has become even easier. Honestly, I'm often impressed by the expertise and value that people in different roles bring, whether it's delivering projects to our clients or working on proposals.

What do you find most rewarding about working with a team like Sudolabs?

It is rewarding to see the impact of my work. Whether starting a project after weeks or months of the sales process or meeting people attending our event, we have spent weeks organizing. At Sudolabs, I think everyone gets to experience this in different ways. If you're an engineer, it's seeing users actually engage with the technology you've built. If you're a designer, it's watching your sketches come to life.

What is your guilty pleasure?

I've always enjoyed having a beer with colleagues, and even though I don't do it as often as I used to when we were a team of roughly 20, I still love going to the pub with the team. Since I try to focus on exercise and staying healthy, you could definitely say this is a very guilty pleasure.