Rare Crew CEO

Peter Vaško is a programmer and entrepreneur who built the successful IT company Rare Crew. Don't you know her? Although the company has sales in the millions of euros and employs more than 150 people in Slovakia, Serbia, Egypt and India, it is almost unknown at home. The reason may also be that it only has clients abroad - for example, a company that represents world stars in the film or music industry.

Performances by Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Nicky Minaj, Adele, Faith No More or engagements by Matt Damon, Jessica Alba or Ryan Reynolds are managed by the American company William Morris Endeavor. It is the longest-running and most recognized talent agency in the world - it has almost half of Hollywood in its database of artists.

And WME uses IT services from the Slovak company Petr Vašek for the management of its clients and the organization of events.

Never heard of her? No wonder. Its founder, thanks to hard work, determination and with a certain help of fate, quickly worked his way beyond the borders of Slovakia, and even after returning home, he mainly focuses on foreign clients. This is the story of Petr Vašek and his successful business journey.

From games to programming

Vaško is probably among the first dozens of people in Slovakia who had a personal computer in their children's room. His father, an electrical engineer, worked in Libya for two years under communism. And since he was a technology enthusiast, he bought an IBM XT personal computer for his home with the foreign currency earned in the then "friendly country".

A ten-megabyte hard drive and 128 kilobytes of RAM will bring a smile to your face today, but in 1985 it was state-of-the-art technology. Thanks to the computer, Vaško became a star among his classmates who could play PacMan or Manic Miner, but above all - he fell under the spell of information technology.

Since the development of computers and demands for games were rocketing forward, Vaško studied the possibilities of how to improve the equipment of an aging computer and "squeeze" maximum performance out of it.

Programming itself came to the fore in high school. Vaško discovered that he enjoys the most of all subjects. "I gradually started doing homework and assignments for my classmates, the fee was one hundred crowns for homework," he says with a smile about his first programming job.

Fateful India

He perceives further events on his career path somewhat as fate or a higher purpose. He was not accepted to his dream "matfyz" in Bratislava, which is why he studied at the then-starting Faculty of Management and Informatics of the University of Žilina.

"She had good teachers and high standards for students. Whoever wanted to successfully complete his studies had to work hard," says Vaško, adding that he was never one of the super talents and had to work hard for everything in life.

The turning point came in the fourth year. The student organization AIESEC at the school offered foreign internships, and Vaško could choose a study internship in the Czech Republic, Finland, Greece or India.

I wanted to go against the grain, to do things differently than others. I chose India. This decision affected my entire subsequent life.

The student internship took Vašek to Bangalore. The third largest city in India at that time was working hard for the moniker of 'Silicon Valley of India'. Successful startupists and programmers from San Francisco, London or New York returned to the city to help their native country write its own successful IT story.

"I got into a company where there were great, modest and friendly people and experts. That's where I learned to really program," he recalls. In the end, he extended his internship to a year, although it meant postponing his studies and state exams.

After school, he discovered that the exotic experience opened doors for him on the domestic and foreign labor market. After a short episode at a Žilina company, he received an offer for an interview at a large IT company in Prague.

"Dozens of smart applicants fought for the place, but in the end it was the Indian internship that decided in my favor, which significantly distinguished me from the others," says Vaško.

London career

After two years of work, the successful Slovak asked to be transferred to the London team of the company. The superiors refused, so he quit his job and went off to find work on his own. Even in London, India opened the door for him to work - he was accepted into a company led by Indian top management.

"The team there had a problem with delivering the software on time, but the only obstacle was that the work simply had to be done. I worked like a horse, worked an awful lot of overtime, but we managed to hand over the project on time," explains Vaško. The positive approach was appreciated by the company's management with a promotion to team leader and the position of IT architect.

After seven years abroad, Vašek had a child and felt the call of home. He returned to his native Bratislava and continued to work remotely for the British company.

"But I felt that I could offer more than just as an employee, take advantage of the accumulated experience and start my own business," he says. He started putting together a team of Slovak programmers for orders, which he was able to get in Britain thanks to his established reputation.

Own business

He looked for applicants with a desire to work on themselves and taught them to program - similar to how he himself learned in India. And he founded Rare Crew. "When I found out that the .com domain with that name was available, I couldn't believe my eyes," he recalls.

The business plan turned out to be the right one. Vaško acquired as a client the British company IMG, which organized world-class sports, art and fashion events, for example Wimbledon.

The volume of work coming in from the UK was so great that the firm grew from five to thirty fully-utilised trucks within a year.

The client's satisfaction continued even after the expansion of the team. "In addition to work, we tried to build additional capacities so that we could find more clients and diversify the portfolio. But every time we increased the number of employees, the company increased the volume of orders and absorbed free capacity," says Vaško.

Rapid expansion abroad

Rare Crew gradually expanded from Bratislava to Nitra, Žilina and Prešov. But even that was not enough. In 2014, the American giant William Morris Endeavor bought a British client for $2.4 billion, and new orders arrived - this time from the American market.

The domestic labor market was already small for the company, but Vaško remembered the beginnings in Bangalore. "I managed to get colleagues from the company where I started to cooperate, and we started building other teams there. The circle has come full circle,” he says of “India's destiny”.

The Slovak company also has employees in Serbia and Egypt, and its boss points out that international cooperation has its own specifics. "We had to learn more tolerance, be more sensitive and considerate of cultural differences. It is not a matter of course and it is necessary to work on it," he underlines.

According to him, Slovaks are very direct in their expression. And although the Slovak language has possibilities to say things gently, accommodatingly and without insistence in communication with another person, Slovaks do not use them in ordinary expression. "The Indians in particular often felt humiliated and insulted because they considered our behavior and communication to be directive and commanding," says Vaško.

Pandemic crisis

Dependence on a large customer finally took its toll on the company. In 2019, Rare Crew achieved sales of six million euros and - then came covid. Pandemic measures have frozen public events around the world and orders have halved. It was a hard blow for the company.

Management quickly developed a crisis plan, cut hours, cut wages, and several people lost their jobs. "For an IT company, people are everything, there is nothing more valuable, so we tried to keep as many people as possible," says Vaško.

The company redirected the released capacities to the creation of its own software product and, after almost ten years on the market, started looking for new clients and orders.

"Paradoxically, the pandemic had a healing process for us, because it forced us to diversify, build the foundations of the company and increase its resilience in bad times," says Vaško about the crisis, which the company managed to successfully overcome.

The future on solid foundations

Currently, Rare Crew offers its own products and services in the field of software development, mobile applications and corporate administration, on which more than 150 people work in five countries of the world and continues to grow. But not at home.

I would also employ more people in Slovakia if we had a more flexible labor code. But I can't build top teams and be competitive with the best in the industry if I can't quickly fire people who aren't doing the work I want.

According to him, the company almost never uses the services of contractors. "I prefer employees because I'm looking for long-term relationships. I want people from the teams to be able to build the company with me. And that takes time," he added.

Also thanks to long-term and experienced colleagues, he is gradually giving up the day-to-day executive in the company. He took his first vacation without work last year, after eleven years of the company's existence.

"The company is set up in such a way that I can rely on the processes and colleagues, to whom I say that now the chance to take the company to the next level is in their hands," he concluded.

Rare Crew d.o.o.