‍Radek: Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Design and Business podcast.

Today we have a guest who founded an online English language school. The school is called Tutlo and has been operating since 2015. Looking at the numbers behind Tutlo, it’s truly impressive.

Forty thousand active users. Four hundred companies using Tutlo’s services. Over 100 million PLN in revenue. Several hundred people hired in three months.

And when you add the fact that all of this was done by bootstrapping… It’s truly very impressive. Huge congratulations.

Hi, Damian!

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Damian: Hi Radek.

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Radek: Hi. Can you confirm? Are these numbers correct?

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Damian: Yes, that’s all true. The numbers change quite quickly, but I try to stay on top of them.

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Radek: OK, so if we looked at the counter right now as we start this episode and then right after the interview, I take it we would see some changes.

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Damian: You know, we always have a numerical summary of the company at the beginning of the month to see where we stand. That’s when I try to update my mental picture of the current scale of our business.

Because the growth rate is truly incredible. At times, it’s really hard to keep up with it all. Even for us as the management team, as the founders… The speed at which everything is developing is sometimes surprising.

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Tutlo and the crisis

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Radek: And what kind of growth are you planning for next year?

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Damian: As for this year, 2023, we have a fairly ambitious plan for 100% growth year-over-year. So, very ambitious. So far, everything points to us achieving that plan.

Although, you know, it’s still anyone’s game, so it might be more, it might be less. But the plan is to grow by 100%. To double the scale of our operations within this year.

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Radek: We certainly wish you all the best with that, even though these are somewhat uncertain times…

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Damian: You know, with education, the industry we operate in—teaching English online—we have a strong conviction, backed by many studies and reports, that education is a sector of the economy that is recession-proof.

Especially in times of crisis, people invest in their skills so that when the crisis ends, they can enter the market with those new abilities. So that we can be competitive in the job market, for example.

So, at the moment, we aren't feeling any slowdown or a drop in interest. Quite the opposite.

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The beginnings of Tutlo

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Radek: Great. I’d like to mention that we met a few years ago at Startup Art. You and Tomek Jabłoński, your partner, were my mentors.

I don't know if you remember… I wanted to feed people back then and came up with a product—a plant-based egg, Alter Egg. It was the result of my thesis project at the Academy of Fine Arts.

That story didn't continue, of course. But because we met back then, I had the chance to get to know Tutlo and became your customer. I think one of the first.

I have to admit, it was a very good product for me. And that’s why I’m even happier that you’re here, because I have a user’s perspective, but also that of someone who works in product development.

At the time, the product was perfect in terms of its value proposition. And it was good enough in terms of UX and the experience itself that it worked great.

I haven't used Tutlo in a long time, but I can only imagine how great it works now.

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Damian: That’s great to hear. Especially since you were one of our first users. When we met, what year was that? Probably 2015/2016. We were just at the very beginning of our journey.

Everything was done by gut feeling. We relied heavily on our own internal whims, and not on research.

Back then, we weren't able to hire external specialists or consultants who, for example, could have helped us design a great user journey. There was neither the time nor the money for it.

We just tried to release something that we could test against the market and gather user feedback. To see if they were using it at all. What they weren't using.

We definitely tried to make it simple enough to be very easy to use. So that there was no need to create instruction manuals or guides, but rather that it would be as simple and clear as possible for our potential users.

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User-focused

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Radek: You could feel that you had a mindset focused on your end user and on the value they could actually get out of it. And you were delivering that value to them.

There were no fireworks back then. I saw it. I felt it as a user and also as someone who worked on designing such products.

You represent the type of entrepreneur who has that UX mindset. So, congratulations on that. You could really feel it back then.

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Time for specialists

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Ilona: Following up on what Radek said. Do you remember the moment when you started to professionalize and began bringing in various types of specialists to Tutlo?

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Damian: I remember that moment perfectly. It was the point when the company started to have some funds for investment, and we could afford to do it.

And then we moved quite quickly to hire experts and specialists in their fields across various industries.

We started building a management structure at Tutlo. But that was back in 2018/2019. That was when our business model started to become repeatable. We could already see the prospect of our project becoming profitable. And that was when we could afford to bring such people on board.

At the beginning, we just tried to deliver a product that would be functional and that people could actually use in some way. To provide them with that value.

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The first moment with UX

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Radek: OK, tell me, do you remember the moment when the first UX designer joined the Tutlo team?

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Damian: As for the moment we brought someone in from that field... I think it was around 2017/2018. We definitely outsourced it, so it was a freelance consultant who handled those tasks for us. And it was tied to the project for the new version of the entire platform.

We started with a platform that was built entirely on templates. It was ugly in terms of aesthetics, the user journey was poorly thought out. I basically just threw it together so it would work, so the client could log in, click a button, and connect. That was what mattered most.

We didn't invest in it because we felt it was temporary. That it was just for a moment, just to deliver that value. But we had a plan in mind to create a completely new version — a Tutlo 2.0, so to speak. And that would be a complete redesign of the entire platform.

That was when we decided to hire someone to help us design the user experience and also the visual side of the platform.

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Platform redesign

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Radek: OK, and as the owner, what were you expecting from this redesign? What goal was this redesign supposed to help you achieve?

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Damian: That was a good few years ago now, but as you know, I’m looking back on those days.

It’s interesting, but one of the most important things we wanted to achieve was eliminating the feeling of shame about the product... that it was so ugly and looked truly terrible. We were simply embarrassed to show it. That was quite significant.

And secondly, once we got past that embarrassment, we wanted it to be visually appealing from the client's perspective. That was very important to us in the sales process.

When a client enters our sales process, we show them our platform solution along the way. We wanted there to be that spark in their eye, for it to be attractive and engaging.

We didn't need any fancy bells and whistles, but it had to look good.

We operate in the consumer market, as 90% of our revenue comes from individual customers. So it had to appeal to the average person. The visual aspect was very important.

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Radek: Let me follow up—was that goal achieved? Did you stop feeling embarrassed?

Damian: That was achieved. The truth is, with the visual side, it’s a matter of taste. One person likes one thing, another likes something else.

When we hired designer Kowalski, he submitted three proposals and we chose one. If we had hired designer Nowak, he would have submitted his own three completely different ones, and it would have been something else entirely.

So, in all this visual design, there is actually a bit of chance involved. Someone has an artistic vision and proposes it. There are three options. You pick one.

And in reality, you have to make a decision and head in a certain direction, because you can't keep changing it forever. You have to choose something. At some point, you have to make a call.

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Radek: Yes, making a decision. That is a very important stage of the design process.

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What about the user journey?

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Radek: I have a question… because it sounds like you focused very heavily on the visual side. But was there also an aspect of user journey, experience, eliminating pain points, and testing whether everything works? Whether users reach their goal easily and quickly… Was that the moment for that?

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Damian: That wasn't the moment for that yet. Back then, we focused on making it look good, and that was the most important thing.

Radek: So, UI…

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Damian: Yes, exactly. I think we’re only just growing into it now. At our current scale, we can see that it can have a greater impact on the business.

At that scale, it wasn't as significant. At least, we weren't able to find the correlation between the user journey, their flow, and the business result.

Only now do we see that, at our scale, this can have some real significance.

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In the PDF, you will find:

• check-in questions worth asking yourself during difficult times
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In other words, from entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs.

To download the PDF with the hero cards, go to designzima.com and click the link in the menu at the very top of the page.

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Radek: I think many entrepreneurs starting to build a startup or a product sometimes believe the visual layer is the most important thing. Or that it’s the entirety of the user experience. It’s really just the cherry on top, or the tip of the iceberg.

So, whenever we work with a client who comes to us thinking they just want something visually appealing, we guide them through the entire process, including the user journey, research, and analysis.

Only then does a brief for the visual layer itself emerge in the process. Because that is also useful. How a brand uses colors and what the components look like is also important.

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You need to choose

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Damian: I think what you’re saying is very important.

But you know, we’re a bootstrapped company with limited resources, no external funding… And we try to look at what impacts our business the most and what is the most useful.

Back then, with limited resources, we had to decide whether to do one or the other.

Do we design great UX so the client has a smooth flow, but it looks terrible? That they’ll see it and say it’s just ugly, and they won’t have a great experience with the product.

Or are we leaning more towards making it visually attractive and super simple? So that the flow, those pain points… so they just don’t exist.

So we tried to make the product visually attractive and as simple as possible to use. And I think that

it worked. We were able to grow because of it.

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Radek: It definitely worked. As I mentioned at the beginning, the numbers speak for themselves.

This success wouldn’t have happened without that mindset: OK, what do we have right now? What are our resources? And making further decisions based on that. Everything worked out well here. The process didn’t require anything other than exactly what you did.

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Smooth sailing or an uphill battle?

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Radek: I’d like to ask one more thing. The success you’ve achieved with Tutlo… was it always smooth sailing? Were you always on an upward trajectory? Didn’t you have any moments of crisis?

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Damian: I’d say it’s more like an uphill battle. We’re constantly climbing, overcoming various barriers and challenges. These crises are just a natural part of the process.

In my company, I have this feeling that if there’s a week, two, or three where nothing happens, I already know that a bombshell is waiting around the corner in the fourth. And it’s really going to be something major.

It’s normal in the life of an entrepreneur and in running a company that things don’t always go your way. That’s exactly what running a business is all about—solving problems every single day, whether they’re issues for your users or your employees. It’s a constant stream of challenges.

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The honest truth about running a business

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That’s just how it is. I don’t know of any company where someone runs a business, hires people, and it all just runs on autopilot without any problems.

We also had a ton of challenges even before we found a repeatable business model in 2018. There was a moment when we wanted to shut the business down because it wasn't working, there was no money, there were no clients. We were already having discussions among the partners about whether to just close it and do something else…

COVID was also a difficult period. In the end, the pandemic helped us in terms of awareness of online solutions. But at the very beginning, when COVID hit, it was also very difficult for us because there was a lot of consumer uncertainty regarding the future of the job market.

That didn't have a positive impact on purchasing decisions, especially regarding English language courses. People put that decision on the back burner. We had to sell every month. We had sales targets we’d set for ourselves, so that didn't help us.

And for those who were already taking our courses and using them in a specific way… once we were all locked down at home, user behavior changed. For example, we saw a much higher interest in actually using the courses.  

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Rapid growth – consequences

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It was also a shock for us that we had to significantly increase the supply of tutors on the platform in a short time to meet our obligations. It wasn't easy for us to provide that service on such short notice and deliver on what we promised our customers.

Radek: I think for those looking at you from the outside and thinking, damn, we’re having such a hard time, this might be comforting. Especially when you’re running a company, it’s sometimes hard to look at yourself objectively. You look at the grass on the other side, which seems greener, and you think everything over there is just perfect.

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How to build an organizational culture

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Radek: I’d also like to ask you about your organizational culture, since you received an award from Deloitte for…

Damian: Best Managed Companies. That’s the award we received.

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Radek: Exactly. You received it mainly for how you implement organizational culture. I would like you to tell me what characterizes this culture and how to implement it on a daily basis.

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Damian: The topic of organizational culture and how to build it is very complex. We are still learning it ourselves. Today, we have a great management team—heads of various areas, so-called "A players"—who support us strongly in this.

Tomek and I definitely set a direction and a trend within the organization. What we focus on internally is precisely those entrepreneurial attitudes. We try very hard to promote this because entrepreneurship, innovation, and startups are our whole life.

In our previous company, where we met, we carried out projects as part of Startup Academy and supported entrepreneurship. We also worked in academic business incubators before that.  

We wanted to instill all of this at Tutlo so that everyone would have a sense of ownership, entrepreneurship, and proactivity. We want to give everyone—every head, team leader, and manager—the feeling that they should look at their area within the company as if it were their own small business.

He was engaged. He felt responsible for what he did, but he also had the space to carry out his own projects and initiatives. We really try to promote a culture of ownership.

The people who join us don't sit around with their arms crossed waiting to be told what to do. They have to take the initiative themselves, because they know no one is going to point a finger and tell them exactly what to do, when to start, and when to finish.

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Recruitment success

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Radek: OK, but is this the result of successful recruitment? Or is it more the result of successful mentoring within the company? Or perhaps a mix of both?

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Damian: I think it’s largely a matter of recruitment. Especially for management positions where we are directly involved in the process. We try to recruit people with an entrepreneurial mindset who have that spark in their eyes. That is very important.

Of course, we also work with people on a daily basis who might not have such a proactive, entrepreneurial attitude. But when they see how others work within the organization, they start to think and function that way too.

We operate in such a fast-paced, dynamic environment. The company is growing so quickly that we don't really have the time to find someone on the market, bring them on board, and spend a year or two shaping their mindset. There’s just no time for that.

We need someone who can jump on board and start rowing with us right away. Otherwise, it just won't work. We don't have much time for long onboarding periods. During the recruitment process, we need to be convinced that this person will come in and start delivering immediately.

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Radek: And how many operational staff do you have? People who act like mini-entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs?

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Damian: Right now, there are 500 people in the operational team across the entire company. But there are several dozen heads of departments, managers, and team leaders. The core management team consists of about a dozen people.

So, it’s not like there are so many people that it’s hard to find them. Of course, it was a huge challenge, and we were very lucky to have put together such a great team. Those are the numbers.

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Company values and mission

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Radek: I think values and mission play a very important role in this process. Perhaps the mission even more so at the beginning. So that people know which way to row, as you just mentioned.

With so many changes, I suspect it must be especially important for the mission to be consistent. And for that direction to be clear.

That’s interesting to me. How do you manage it so that the whole company moves in one direction? So that no one drifts off course.

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Damian: This came about relatively recently. It’s the result of the last few months, where we realized that we’ve been operating for eight years now... and while there are certain values, a vision, and a mission within the company that guide us every day, no one had written them down until now.

When we held management workshops, we started thinking about this. It turned out to be very simple, and we all know perfectly well what our values are. There were no real arguments when we determined what is part of our DNA.

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Tutlo's values

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When it comes to values, we have five core, overarching ones at Tutlo: growth, commitment, honesty, passion, and innovation. These are the values we decided are the most essential.

As for our vision, we decided that we want to create the best educational ecosystem and set a new standard in teaching.

We all have experiences with formal education, and I think no one is particularly happy when looking back at their school days. We could talk for hours about what’s wrong with school, why it doesn't work, and what could be defined differently.

At Tutlo, we want to set a new standard through online education, by leveling the playing field in access to education. Because it’s beautiful. When we started eight years ago, we didn't fully realize what we were doing and the impact it would have. You only realize that over time.

Precisely because it’s online education, because we are committed to barrier-free education, we are able to level the playing field and change people’s lives.

It’s wonderful that today, regardless of whether someone grows up in a small village in the Suwałki region, in the Podkarpacie region, near Radom, or in a prestigious neighborhood in Wilanów… everyone has access to the same teacher.

It’s the same with learning English. Kids have equal opportunities. Later on, this has a huge impact on their future. On which high school they go to, which university they choose, and how their lives unfold.

We feel a great sense of responsibility for how we shape educational attitudes among young people.

Radek: I’d like to emphasize here that a good mission is one that isn't about me or the founder, but about the other person; the value you can provide to someone else.

It connects so beautifully because others feel it too. Your colleagues feel it, and your tutors likely do as well. That’s why your students, who learn and use your services, are drawn to you. It’s very lovely, and I agree with that.

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The importance of design at Tutlo

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Radek: Listen, I’d like to return to the topic of design itself. As you know, we are a UX agency. I’d like to hear from you what value design holds in your company and how significant it is. Are you at the stage where you have in-house designers and a dedicated design department?

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Damian: Tutlo is currently at a stage where we have in-house graphic designers. That is primarily how we understand design. We also have people responsible for UX, but that department isn't fully developed yet. Everything still revolves around the visual side for us.

However, we are aware of this, and in the coming months, we plan to shift our focus much more strongly toward this usability sphere. Because we can already see that at our scale, with such a large number of users, it really makes a difference.

Even small improvements in efficiency, conversion, or satisfaction often translate into tens, hundreds, or even millions in annual revenue for our business in certain areas. So, I think this awareness is growing within our company.

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Radek: So, are you planning to hire the Zima agency?

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Damian: Well, Radek, we haven’t talked about this yet, but we are open to any proposals that will help us grow our company and our business. So, we’re looking forward to a proposal.

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Radek: As I said before, I’m of the opinion that it’s not that UX should always be there from the very beginning. It’s a matter of when a company matures, when it realizes it has that need, and when it sees the value in it.

Of course, we can demonstrate that value. But in your case, from what I hear, it’s happening quite naturally. And if you feel you see the value right now, then it’s probably the right time to start such a department or collaboration and focus on UX-related topics.

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Business Hero Cards

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Radek: Damian, you are our hero in the Business Hero Cards tool. You’re an expert who has shared your practical knowledge in the form of a check question. Let me first explain what Business Hero Cards are…

It’s a tool that helps in a practical, simple way, because by reading just one question, you can trigger an entrepreneur to think. And our first edition focuses on business development during a crisis.

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Ilona: Your question in our Business Hero Cards is: Have you ensured revenue diversification? And that’s a great link to what we were discussing earlier—namely, finding the business model you mentioned.

I really like that in your card you ask a follow-up question: As a business owner, are you able to easily pivot and, for example, try other ways of acquiring customers?

That is something that a crisis sometimes puts to the test.

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Revenue diversification

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Damian: Exactly. When it comes to revenue diversification, those are the core areas where you can diversify… for us, it currently looks like we have individual clients, but we also have corporate ones.

It wasn't always like that; in the beginning, we only had the individual segment. At some point, we started building this B2B branch. It wasn't easy. It took many, many months of hard work to convince such large companies to join us. To earn their trust. To acquire the first and second major client. Because, as you know, that opens the door to acquiring more.

These are the two primary vectors: B2B and B2C.

But there is another one we are thinking about, another form of diversification. This is the sphere of public funds, administration, local governments, and government agencies. I see potential there too, because why couldn't Tutlo be funded by public resources for certain groups? If, of course, there is a need for it.

I see potential in various areas and I believe that in the near future, this could also be another form of diversification for us.

There could also be geographical diversification. At the moment, our revenue comes mainly from Poland. We also have some revenue from the Hungarian market. Last year, we also started sales in Spain.

These other directions are developing slowly, but I believe that in time they will become significant revenue streams for the entire organization. We don't want our company to stand on just one leg, because if something happens to it, the table will tip over. We want our business to have several legs, because that makes the company much more stable.

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Entering the B2B market

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Ilona: You mentioned that capturing the B2B segment took longer. My question is, was it longer than you expected or longer than you had planned? Do you know why it dragged on? Or was that just how it was supposed to be, and you simply didn't have expectations regarding the length of the acquisition cycle for such clients at the time?

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Damian: It’s hard to say how long it should take. It’s a new company, a new product on the market. There is no

any benchmark. There is no plan that someone has written down anywhere.

So, it’s hard for me to create such assumptions... a business plan for how it’s supposed to work. It’s also different when, for example, we already have one sales team of 10 people today and we want to launch another one.

Once we have a lead for this new sales team, we can set them specific goals. We know that, typically, such a team takes, for example, three months to get up and running. So, in three months, you should already be seeing these kinds of results.

We can account for these results because we have historical data.

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Product-market fit

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In the B2B segment, there was no data, so at the beginning, it was a phase of adapting the product to the market. Getting to know the client, their needs, and understanding the motivations of clients in this segment.

Only when that was clear did we start adapting the product to the needs of that B2B corporate client. And once it was adapted, we still had to convince that client one more time to finally purchase our service.

The hardest part was landing the first two or three big clients, because after that, it’s smooth sailing.

At first, you go to a big client, and they ask: Who is already using your services? At the start, we’d say no one yet. To which the company replies, okay, come back when someone starts using it.

Then we go to the next one and say that three small companies are using it. They say: Come back when you have a few bigger ones.

It really takes a lot of time. Eventually, you manage to convince a big player, and then it’s all downhill from there. Now, when we go into the market and say that our courses are used as a non-wage benefit at IKEA, it’s much easier. The decision-maker thinks, okay, someone at IKEA must have vetted them and trusted them, so they must be fine.

And then we go to the next big company, and the next, and the snowball effect gets bigger, so it’s much easier. But at the beginning, it’s truly blood, sweat, and tears, and you can’t even see the light at the end of the tunnel. You just have to wait and work patiently.

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How to adapt a product

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Radek: I’m very curious how you adapted this product to the needs of the B2B market. Did you fight for that one specific client and tailor the product just for them? Or did you conduct some market research, take a larger sample, and prepare something based on that which would meet the needs of a broader group?

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Damian: I think what you’re proposing would be the best approach methodologically. But again, we didn’t have the money or the time. So, it basically meant we just went to sales meetings.

Those clients didn’t buy, but they did tell us what they didn’t like. They would express a need for certain features or ask if we had this or that. We carefully noted everything down and analyzed it back at the office.

This company is a good lead. They have a few feature requests that might potentially convince them to buy. Of course, there’s no guarantee that if we implement them, they’ll actually sign on.

Instead, we took those feature ideas and tried to approach them with common sense, thinking about what we could build that might also be useful to other companies in the future.

We didn’t go for highly dedicated features tailored to just one company. That would have been too niche, and there was a high risk that the company wouldn’t buy it, leaving us with code that was essentially a waste.

But once we started entering the market, one, two, then a third company would suggest that, for example, it would be cool to have a dashboard where they could track employee progress, see if they’re actually using it, how they’re learning…

And that was common; practically every conversation was about that requirement… so we built an employer dashboard, and today it’s a key element of our platform.

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Don't become a software house

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Ilona: That’s very interesting, because we also work with startups that sell to B2B. We’ve noticed the problem that there is a very thin line between developing a product and being a software house.

You made a great point that it’s not worth building something just because one client asked for it, even if there’s potential that we could add it to our product and they would buy it.

But first of all, you never have a guarantee that will happen, and second, there’s that fine line between building software for a specific company and becoming a software house versus developing a product.

Damian: What you’re saying is super important, because I know plenty of stories about startups that went to a large corporation. The corporation gave them a requirement for one specific feature. They delivered it perfectly, and then the corporation gave them another requirement for another feature.

It turned into a large, strategic partnership, but in the end, instead of focusing on a market-ready product that could be scaled, the company became a software house for corporations.

And there’s nothing wrong with that, because I assume the owners of that startup are doing just fine with that long-term corporate partnership. Both in terms of finances and business stability, it works for them…

Maybe they don't have any ambition to take risks and conquer the world, and they just want to run a stable business. But often, not much remains of those original founding visions because of that model.

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Not everything will work

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Ilona: Did any of the things you created while adapting Tutlo for B2B end up in the trash? Is there anything everyone talked about that turned out to be something users didn't actually want?

Damian: You know, honestly, regardless of whether it’s B2B or B2C… there were tons of features we started building. There was a grand vision, but in the end, they weren't really used much. I think the company’s history is full of wasted hours from our development team.

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Radek: So there was no research process beforehand, right? Is that fair to say?

Damian: No, because you know... back in the day, Damian Strzelczyk would wake up in the morning with a vision. He’d convince a developer that it would be great, and that’s how it started. And then, well, you know how it goes...

Ilona: Exactly, testing it on the fly. Of course, that’s how it is in many companies... Just like the example you shared, where a founder wakes up in the morning with a brilliant idea...

We have a 50% chance that it will be a great idea and a 50% chance that it will be a feature no one wants to use. Because that attitude and design mindset is still...

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What are the real needs?

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Damian: Today, when we create new features or have new ideas, it’s not even that we rely on extensive user research—it’s just part of our daily practice, the way we do things now.

But we definitely try to address real business needs, meaning we’ve already identified that something is actually missing. And we can show through the numbers that if we had something like that, the business would save X amount of money or earn Y.

So, we respond more to real needs and problems rather than following our own visions. There is a great deal of pragmatism in our development.

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Ilona: But you have to grow into that, right? It doesn’t happen from day one.

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Damian: This is where the issue of limited resources comes in. I’ll say it again—we are bootstrapped. We don’t have external funding or investors, so we spend our own money. That’s why we look at things so carefully.

We build things that are useful. Still, mistakes happen. Sometimes a feature just misses the mark.

However, I feel that today so many people are involved in the design process that it’s rare for us to create features that end up going unused.

There was certainly a lot more of that in the past.

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Margin of error

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Radek: Even the UX process itself, while it certainly reduces the risk of making a bad decision and implementing something unnecessary… it still comes with a certain margin of error. So I understand that perfectly.

Alright, Damian, thank you for this conversation. I'm thrilled that we managed to chat as part of our Design and Business podcast. We wish you all the best and hope Tutlo continues to grow. We're very proud of you. A great Polish product.

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Damian: Thanks, that's great to hear. Thank you for the invitation as well. I hope this conversation will be interesting for someone and that our listeners will be able to take something valuable away from it.

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Radek: I think at least two people can agree that this was an interesting conversation. Thank you. Take care, have a great day.

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Ilona: Thanks a lot. Bye.

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Damian: Thanks. Bye.

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