Infinum, a global player in the digital products space

Clutch, the platform that features in-depth client reviews, data-driven content, and vetted market leaders, positioned Infinum as the 10th best B2B global service provider of digital products. In 2016, 2019 and 2020, the company won the Best Employer Award in Croatia. Infinum has been repeatedly ranked among the fastest-growing tech companies, with five placements on CE Fast50 and six on EMEA Fast500, with many trade and industry authorities acknowledging their work.

The story

Infinum is known for its open culture, knowledge sharing and community contribution.

An independent design and development agency with over 300 employees and associates in 10+ locations across Europe and the US, it delivers advanced digital products for clients in a wide range of industry verticals, from venture-backed startups to established enterprises.

Their initiatives include the company’s blog Capsized Eight, Infinum Academy, where students learn how to design and build apps with modern technologies and the Infinum Foundation that allocates 1% of the company’s yearly profits to charitable causes.

Aside from client work, Infinum has launched several spin-off businesses, like Productive, a software for agency management, and Porsche Digital Croatia, a joint venture with Porsche Digital for building high-tech solutions in the mobility sector.

Milestones

If you could summarise the company’s launch into one brief story, which events would be the most significant, most challenging or most rewarding?

There have been several turning points in the 16 years of our existence. In terms of business, one of the most significant milestones was our expansion into the US market, which took us to a whole new level.

Another milestone was extending our portfolio with strategy and growth services in addition to design and engineering. We work hard to stay ahead of the game, including early adopting the latest technologies like cross-platform solutions.

Getting recognised on the Deloitte Fast 50 and Inc 5000 list was a sign that we were on the right track.

Aside from client work, we’ve also launched several spin-off businesses. Productive was a software that we’ve built for ourselves to manage our agency, and then decided it could help other agencies, so we turned it into a full-fledged business.

In addition, last year, we started a joint venture with Porsche Digital called Porsche Digital Croatia, which has been an innovation hub for high-tech solutions in the automotive sector, currently employing more than 40 people.

Hitting the 300 people mark was a huge milestone by itself. We’re thrilled to have gathered so many talented professionals. The feeling seems to be mutual as our employees have voted Infinum as Croatia’s best employer for the last four years.

The growth

Each company has those projects that move a needle and, in the long run, serve as proof that ‘you can do it’. Which projects were of that significance for Infinum?

We think of ourselves as a company that makes digital products that help people. Some of our first significant projects with which we gained our reputation and proved ourselves were mobile banking apps. Since then, we’ve extended beyond mobile development and did a dozen IoT projects.

Today, we work on global projects with multiple levels of integration and a broad scope of services, strategy, design, engineering and growth. We go above and beyond for all the projects we work on, and it shows.

Porsche Digital Croatia

What type of capacities are required to get into a particular industry, like in your case of the automotive sector and a venture with Porsche Digital Croatia?

A joint venture with Porsche Digital was a great fit for us because we have a good rapport and shared values. Both sides bring valuable knowledge to the table.

Although we’ve already gathered extensive knowledge of the mobility industry, we contribute to the established processes of a successful company.

The knowledge of building teams, creating a great company culture, taking care of our employees, their education and growth, and so on. It is the best of both worlds, and we believe Porsche Digital Croatia has a great future ahead.

Tell us a bit about the Productive ‘phenomenon’?

Productive is an end-to-end platform for agency management whose main objective is to provide agencies with a complete and real-time view of your business performance.

The platform offers everything you need to run a successful agency, from tracking profitability, project management, resource planning, time tracking and sales pipeline.

It was initially an internal agency management software. We tried and perfected it ourselves, and over time, we recognised a gap in the market and decided to start offering the tool to other companies. It seemed to resonate well with them, and soon enough, we started gaining many new clients, primarily agencies and professional service providers.

We saw exponential growth in terms of customer base and terms of investment in the product, and we constantly listen to the needs of our users and continuously improve the product by building the features that our customers requested.

Remote work

Looking at your careers page, it seems like you embraced remote working by offering flexibility vs traditional 9-5. How many candidates seek flex-work as a mandatory ‘perk’, and which benefits are a consequence that you could recommend to more hesitant companies?

As a software company, we had the option of remote work even before the pandemic. We were always flexible, but people loved coming to the office.

When COVID hit, we quickly organised the delivery of any necessary equipment to employees’ homes, like ergonomic chairs and additional displays, and ensured they had everything they needed to keep doing their good work.

In terms of socialising during the pandemic, there were online ‘coffee breaks’ and ‘cocktail parties’, our teams went hiking together and spent quality time outside. New colleagues had a chance to introduce themselves through a short video shared with the rest of the company.

In addition to this, our HR team organised several editions of Infinum Talks to offer advice on adjusting to this new situation.

Our guiding principle is to set up our processes to function just as well remotely as in-person. We have a code of conduct embedded in our handbooks, which we regularly update, and it helps new and existing employees find their way around more easily.

We also have an elaborate mentoring system provided by our Team Leads, and our HR department is always on hand if our employees need to talk to someone.

We genuinely believe that if you listen to your employees and give them a voice of their own, it doesn’t matter where they work from because they’ll do their best either way.

Infinum Academy

How does the Infinum Academy benefit your brand, who is in charge of that project, and how does it work in general?

Infinum Academy is a collection of free development and design courses for students and recent graduates.

Although we have excellent technical universities in Croatia, there’s always that gap between what you learn in school versus applied work. With software, where things are moving fast, we felt an opportunity to augment the university knowledge with market trends.

That’s how we initiated Infinum Academy, offering students theoretical but also practical knowledge. By the end of the course, they will have made their very own app, have something to talk about in their resume, and they’ll be more competitive in the job market.

We’ve been organising Infinum Academy for six years now, and during that time, we educated somewhere around 500 students. 

They can choose between five engineering courses and a design course, and their mentors are some of our best programmers and designers with years of experience.

The best of them might even receive a job offer and set off their career at Infinium, Productive or Porsche Digital Croatia. This way, everybody wins.