In this engaging podcast episode, Gautam, the co-founder of Seahawk Media, sits down with Vito Peleg, the visionary founder of Atarim, for an insightful discussion on the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship, and Vito’s journey in the digital arena. As they delve into topics ranging from WordPress to early side hustles, listeners can anticipate a first-hand account of Vito Peleg’s experiences and the evolution of Atarim. Join them in unraveling the narratives that shaped Vito’s path in this dynamic conversation that promises to be both informative and inspiring.
Gautam
0:06 – Hello, viewers. Welcome to an exciting episode of WP Legends.
0:09 – I’m Gautam, the co-founder of Seahawk Media.
0:12 – And today I’m with Vito Peleg, the founder of Atarim. I met Vito at an event in the UK in late 2022.
0:18 – In summary, I can only say that some Coronas and a hot tub led to a lifelong friendship and very powerful conversation.
0:26 – Vito, as your about the speech describes, Atarim was founded in 2019 to simplify how companies communicate about work for visual creative work.
0:35 – We are on a mission to make the internet collaborative.
0:37 – I love the summary.
0:39 – Do you want to explain what Atarim does in your own words?
0:41 – And don’t forget to talk about your humble beginnings, please.
Vito
0:45 – Yes, of course. Well, first of all, thanks for having me.
0:47 – And with Atarim, our focus is on visual collaboration, and the mentality basically means that every project that is visual should be collaborated on in a visual way.
0:57 – Therefore, like when people are working on websites, products and every marketing kind of material, just pointing at the problem and clicking any part of the page to leave a comment where the request is makes a world of difference when it comes to back and forth and adding a lot of clarity.
1:15 – So that is the core of it.
1:16 – And it’s basically you can imagine it like posted notes on a live websites or Figma notes on live websites where you can just add the URL and start collaborating straight away. From my perspective.
1:29 – First of all, it was great to see you at Lee’s event last year already.
1:34 – It’s been it’s been a year.
Gautam
1:36 – Yeah, I know.
Vito
1:37 – I know it was November. I think it was November of last year.
Gautam
1:40 – November 2022.
1:42 – Yes. And we bonded over.
1:43 – I still remember we bonded over Coronas in a hot tub.
1:47 – Hot Yes, hanging out in the hot tub, over there morning of the, before the event started the second day.
1:53 – Right. I know it was meant to happen.
Vito
1:59 – It was meant to happen to, for us to meet you over there.
2:01 – And I wish you’d do it again.
2:03 – I think that was the second one that he did and it was a great event for the agency owners.
2:09 – Absolutely.
Gautam
2:10 – OK. So tell me something.
2:11 – I know you’ve been asked this question and you’ve maybe been in your other podcasts and stuff like that.
2:16 – But what inspired you to do this business?
2:18 – Maybe your agency?
2:19 – What was that like the kicker?
Vito
2:21 – So, yes, I used to run an agency with my co-founder, Jerome and here in London, and it was just a nightmare to collaborate with our own clients.
2:31 – And I’ve been working as a remote team for even before that because I started building websites as a freelancer.
2:38 – From when I was still a musician back in the day, building websites from the back of the van kind of stealing WiFi from McDonald’s as we were passing by.
2:48 – And so, through, through that experience, it was my first steps of trying to collaborate with people remotely.
2:54 – But through the agency when we were working with clients, it was just a nightmare.
2:58 – You ask for something and they would come back with a bunch of additional questions or got confused and then ghosted you for months just for for not really understanding what they need to do.
3:11 – But then when they did provide feedback, it created a lot of clarity on our side and within the team, they didn’t really understand what the client was talking about, which page they’re even talking about or, you know, you get these messages like the button is not working and come on, man.
3:26 – It’s an eCommerce website with like 1500 products, which you know which button there’s 1000 buttons on this side.
3:36 – So, then one day we were kind of talking to each other, getting frustrated about this experience.
3:42 – He said, why can’t you just click any part of the website and just leave a comment there
3:47 – And that was like our aha moment and we built it for us.
3:50 – We ran this on a few projects and it worked like magic even with the basic alpha version that was just like a WordPress plugin to begin with.
3:59 – And then we brought this to market and that was five years ago, that was a 28,000 teams using this with 1.3 million of their stakeholders and clients.
4:10 – And yeah, it’s been a crazy journey.
Gautam
4:13 – That’s crazy.
4:14 – And what do you think is your biggest challenge in him right now?
4:18 – What do you think is the biggest challenge?
4:19 – What are you facing?
Vito
4:21 – Right. So I, I think it’s an ongoing challenge for software business because really what, how we define the software and it’s been a transition of learning that because the first time that we’re building a product at this scale is that we’re aspiring for an Apple level product, right?
4:38 – But building an Apple-level product as a definition without an Apple-level team and without the Apple resources is very hard.
4:47 – And so that’s where we’re trying to kind of find that balance.
4:51 – And a lot of this past year has been.
4:54 – So the first few years was let’s build fast and we’re more like the Facebook mentality rather than the Apple, which is like, move fast and break things, right?
5:02 – That’s Zuckerberg’s mentality when product and, and that’s what we’ve been doing, but we were breaking things, right?
5:11 – So, not only building fast but also breaking things as the same says.
5:16 – So, we shifted the earlier this year as we’re, we’re working with larger accounts and bigger customers and people are relying on the product on the day to day heavily.
5:29 – We shifted our focus from building at rapid, rapid speed as it was before to creating something extremely solid, you know, that, that since, since the beginning is, has reduced, the you know, has allowed us to commits to slas at the higher level of accounts, you know, service level agreements and, and guaranteed uptime and things like that, which is currently guaranteed at 99.8% for our users.
5:59 – So, but also trying to identify breakage in the flows, redesigning all kinds of elements that were that kind of evolved beyond what they were initially intended in the beginning.
Gautam
6:12 – And I tell you, I can see it, see as Seahawk media, OK.
6:17 – We have been your customers for over a year now.
6:19 – We are your very happy customers.
6:22 – It maybe a few months to roll this out.
6:24 – We rolled it out and we can see the improvements which have happened over the past 12 months or so and quick, efficient, massive.
6:31 – I know what you’re doing is, is truly exceptional.
6:34 – You know, it’s helping us agency of our scale also and I’m sure it must be helping agencies of smaller size and even larger size than ours.
6:41 – So I can see what you’re just saying.
6:43 – I must see, I can, I can tell you, see all these improvements.
Vito
6:46 – Thank you. That’s, awesome to hear that the work is is visible externally and yeah, we squashed hundreds of small bugs and, you know, nothing was really stopping people from actually going to work, but it was just making the experience a little more annoying to do it.
7:03 – So this was really our focus on reducing the friction as much as possible so that it’s nice and nice and smooth.
7:10 – And the collaboration experience is incredible.
7:14 – We’re not, we’re not trying to make it nice.
7:16 – We’re trying to make it the best, the best in the world.
7:19 – And so, with this, we have version 4.0 that is coming soon where you’re gonna see a lot of these threads that we’re, we’re working on over the past year.
7:31 – Finally coming to fruition.
Gautam
7:35 – I love it. I think the one feature which I love the most is, you know, the inbox feature and how the improvements are coming in the Inbox feature and everything.
7:42 – You can just work within, you know, a ecosystem.
7:45 – You don’t need to jump to a, you know, another tool like click up Monday Trello if you don’t want to, it’s not necessary at all.
7:52 – I think, especially for us, you know, I think agencies of all sizes should definitely use Atarim and at least experience it and if they’re not using it already, but I personally think that especially start up agencies it’s a must have because they’re also starting up on journeys and they need to like collaborate with customers, talk to them, you know, about their WordPress website or Squarespace or WIX or whatever platform they are on.
8:17 – And I think it’s pretty cool, you know, that they are doing this.
8:20 – So that’s good.
8:21 – I’m excited to see the 4.0 version.
8:24 – Anyways, I want to ask you a question.
8:28 – I want to ask you a fun question.
8:29 – So everybody has mentors and, you know, people who do you think, who would you say is your professional mentor?
Vito
8:35 – So I have a, I have a few of them actually that that I’m always of the mind that I have to find people that are two years ahead of me and follow them around, you know, try to see what I can pick up what I can learn.
8:52 – So there’s, two types of mentors that I consider my teachers.
8:58 – One is people that I don’t know, but they’re still my mentors and I follow them online and I read the books and, and I, take what they say very seriously and I try to implement as much as possible, but they never heard of me.
9:12 – And you know, I’ve never seen them in person.
9:15 – That’s one category.
9:16 – And I think that a lot of times when people say mentor, they don’t consider that being mentorship.
9:21 – But I think that it can definitely be a strong part of it because you know, you, you can’t really access these people, but they are there sharing knowledge.
9:30 – So might as well listen. Right.
9:33 – And then on the other side, there’s people that are either investors or literal advisors in aim that I turn to for advice.
9:42 – One of them that we have a weekly call is Yost from Houston have been instrumental over the past year in our growth.
9:52 – They were the founders of Yost Sco and they invested in the company as well.
9:57 – And and now we have like a weekly session where we talk about strategy, we talk about improving customer value so that we can improve customer conversions, things like that.
10:09 – And then I have other advisors that are for different aspects of the business.
10:14 – So with Devin from Give WP is a great friend.
10:18 – We talk a lot more on product and culture and then we have Matt from he was the co founder of Namecheap or the, he created the hosting side of Namecheap.
10:29 – And with him, I work a lot on on growth strategy, large account sales and, you know, so I really find experts in, in those niches that I can have regular conversations with to learn from.
Gautam
10:46 – Of course, then, then only it’s fun, right?
10:48 – Of course, then you relate to them and you want to have, then you want to have more than one conversation of that, maybe more definitely.
Vito
10:55 – And it pushes me, you know, it’s like when you’re an entrepreneur, you not necessarily get that push externally.
11:03 – And it has to also always be like an internal combustion engine, right?
11:07 – That we drive ourselves, must know what I’m talking about, right?
11:10 – We wake up the thing and we, we decide what’s gonna happen, but referring to experts and, and asking them and then creating plans together gives me accountability over my day as well to make sure that I execute at the highest level.
Gautam
11:27 – Of course. Absolutely.
11:28 – So would you say that you’re so what’s the best time for you to get your work done?
11:33 – Is it, are you a morning person, evening, night person? Tell me about that.
Vito
11:36 – So the morning is the best is my, is my favorite, which it was not the case for many, many years.
11:42 – I was like, you know, I used to be a musician like, like, yeah, exactly.
11:48 – You know, waking up at 11, starting the day and finishing at 2 a.m. three AM.
11:52 – You know, but that’s not the case anymore with two kids.
11:55 – We’re talking about earlier, you know, you don’t get that privilege of waking up to these late hours.
12:03 – But generally I wake up at five, and I have a couple of hours to myself in the morning before they wake up.
12:09 – And that’s where I try to go into more Depot, either depo work or strategy work or I learn new stuff.
12:18 – You know, I kind of try to dive into a blog post or, or, or dive into a chapter of a book or a podcast and try to figure something out from.
Gautam
12:30 – Maybe working on your newsletters. I know, you know, you have a team in place, but I know for a fact that those newsletters, I must say all listeners out there, if you haven’t subscribed to Vito’s newsletter, please do on LinkedIn, on his website.
12:42 – Whatever, please subscribe.
12:44 – They are very, very powerful. I must say.
12:46 – I like, I get a lot of newsletters, but I definitely read yours because I can see that there’s a personal touch from your side.
12:51 – Is that correct?
Vito
12:53 – Yes. Well, so the team compiles a lot of the stuff together and then I come in and I tell them no, replace this, replace, that, replace this place that, you know, like, and we make sure that it is something that I that I not just approve, but I take an active part of creating in the end.
13:14 – So they go on to do the heavy lifting beautifully.
13:18 – But I want to make sure that it has that touch and that, that I would enjoy it, you know, and this is really a lot of the things of how we consider even in our work together.
13:28 – Ghen working with with hosting companies and things like that, you see, I’m sure you can see that I’m trying to to serve, you know, I’m not necessarily trying to it’s not about making money, it’s about adding a 10X more value to the other side so that the money exchange is just a given.
13:57 – So even in our discussions and I tried to find and listen and, and find like the, why, why was there a problem with that thing or what, what was the flow that was broken?
14:07 – How can, how can we fix that on our side?
14:10 – So that it doesn’t become a problem in the first place later on.
14:13 – So I try to lead with value, you know,
Gautam
14:23 – I understand and, and what would you say for acronyms, internal work processes besides Slack?
Of course, I know you use Slack.
14:24 – What are the SaaS tools which you cannot live without or which you are using?
14:28 – Let me ask you that.
Vito
14:29 – So, teamwork has been great for us and we’re using teamwork.com from the agency.
14:34 – It started at the agency days and and we’re still using them you know, years and years later of where this is where we manage our projects, like Click Up or Sana, you know, very similar, but you must have a tool like this, like a project management, dedicated system that to, to have that type of work.
14:55 – And other than this, the day to day is mostly done Google Docs and you know, zoom calls and things like this, nothing too exciting.
15:04 – And I think that this is also something that I learned over, over time while we’re using Atarim as, you know, because I, because I insist that we get high on our own supply with with a lot of the technologies.
15:20 – Unless I can see a clear new level being brought in, like installing a GitHub Copilot, for example, in, in the DEV team or things like that in most cases, I try to keep things simple on the tool stack and, and I only add tools that can support and integrate so that they can augment what we already did instead of replace completely.
15:42 – Or as you got in that process of learning new tools and learning new software and it’s very counterproductive to growth.
Gautam
15:52 – Got it, pretty cool. And, and I know we met at word camps, etc.
15:56 – You know, we met at DC last time, you know, although we live 40 minutes away, we should catch up soon, you know, we put something on the calendar, but I know we met in Washington DC and Word camp.
16:06 – So, what are your plans for 2024?
16:08 – What events? Word camps for sure? All word camps maybe.
Vito
16:11 – No, no, I don’t know if all, I wish I could go to all.
16:14 – But, we probably, I probably gonna go to two, which are gonna be the one is easy for us.
16:20 – I guess we’re both in the UK for, for the turing one should be easy.
16:24 – I think.
16:24 – So, are you gonna be exhibiting there?
16:27 – We have like a small, small, stand there.
16:31 – Where I’m gonna be a little bit, you know, stand at the booth just to talk to users, listen to some feedback.
16:37 – But most of the time is, is I’m gonna be in the lobby somewhere doing meetings or something.
16:44 – And yeah, there’s a few other events this year.
16:48 – I wanna, start going to stuff that we haven’t been doing before which are more like tech related events.
16:56 – Because most of my event strategy over the past couple of years was let’s hang out where our users are, which is great.
17:02 – It helped us a lot.
Gautam
17:07 – I’m pretty sure.
Vito
17:09 – I’m even talking about like web you know, web Summit or, or places where I can learn as well.
17:19 – Because it is as, we’re going through like a, like a, a rapid growth stage right now, there is a there’s a large learning curve that I need to go through as well.
17:31 – So hopefully this coming year going out and and interacting with other founders that are ideally like two years ahead of me is gonna clarify a lot of the next steps that needs to be taken.
Gautam
17:44 – I could not agree with you more.
17:45 – I keep on seeing us for Web Summit Sco Brighton all the time.
17:48 – And, you know, I think like as much as possible should try and you know, go there, you just never know who you meet over October and Corona.
Vito
17:57 – Like even, you know, at an agency transformation I met you last year.
18:02 – But the first time that that a TL happened was back in 2019.
18:06 – And I was there.
18:09 – I literally, we didn’t have a product, we were still in alpha.
18:11 – We were using it just at the agency.
18:13 – And I had like a very, very basic demo on my iPad to show agencies there.
18:20 – I went to collect feedback basically, you know.
18:23 – And so I was walking around showing this on my iPad.
18:27 – I check out my team and I have been working on this.
18:29 – We have an agency and we’re thinking of moving to this thing and, you know, and I met Hans, over there and, I asked him, there on the spot, we, we were just outside smoking a cigarette and they kind of like, got connected.
18:45 – And I told him, do you want to do this on a weekly basis?
18:49 – Do you wanna have calls every week?
18:52 – And we start every week, he ended up on two weeks or once every two weeks to have calls.
18:56 – But we haven’t stopped since and every other Wednesday I have a call with him and just a, random person, that I met at an event and that we became such good friends.
19:09 – You know, I’ve visit, visited him in Chicago for a couple of times already and we, you know, we brought together and, and it’s awesome, you know, relationships are awesome.
Gautam
19:20 – I do, I do agree.
19:21 – I think these event was pretty cool.
19:22 – It was like, it was not like, very big.
19:24 – It was like close, close knit group of people.
19:27 – I think that was good also because you could talk and interact with more people and you can meet more people, discuss with everybody, you know, and everybody was staying at the same hotel.
19:34 – So that was cool.
19:35 – So I think, you know, I should also prioritize the same also.
19:40 – You know, sometimes you procrastinate.
19:42 – I was gonna go for a two hour drive and now it’s so freaking cold here.
19:49 – Do you even get used to this weather in the UK?
19:51 – Do you ever get used to this weather?
19:53 – It’s two years for me.
19:55 – You don’t get used to it.
Vito
19:56 – I’ve been here for 10 years going 11 and no, this weather what’s going on right now outside is just, that’s too much, man.
20:06 – That’s too much for sure.
Gautam
20:07 – I know.
20:08 – I’ve got some, I’ve got some fun personal questions for you now.
20:11 – Ok. So do you watch, I’m sure you watch some Netflix and movies?
20:15 – Do you read books? What do you prefer?
20:16 – What are you watching right now?
20:17 – What’s your favorite show?
20:18 – Tell me that,
Vito
20:19 – The one that I’m really enjoying right now is on Apple TV.
20:23 – What’s it called?
20:24 – Is the one where they,, they basically,, the Russians landed on the moon.
20:30 – It’s like a, operation from reality.
20:33 – So, imagine that instead of the US landing on the moon first, the Russians landed on the moon first.
Gautam
20:38 – I, I don’t know this one and then the, the arms race around space has, has never stopped because really what happened back then is that once America landed there?
20:49 – Ok.
20:50 – Fine. We’re on the moon.
20:51 – It’s not that interesting.
20:52 – Let’s go back to earth, you know.
20:54 – But if they didn’t win, then, then they said, OK, we didn’t win the first time on the moon.
20:59 – Now, let’s build a base on the moon.
21:00 – And the Russians.
21:01 – Look at that like, ok, we’re gonna be the first to Mars and they’re like, what, they’re gonna be the first to Mars.
21:05 – So we’re gonna be the first doing this one.
Gautam
21:07 – So, you’re a sci fi person.
Vito
21:12 – I love that but that’s like a, like a, it combines history and, but a kind of an alternative history kind of thing, which I really like that.
21:19 – Kind of things nice.
21:21 – Very nice.
Gautam
21:21 – And where did you meet your spouse, your wife?
21:24 – And I know you have two kids.
21:25 – You have a newborn also.
21:27 – Where did you meet her?
Vito
21:29 – At a rock show, we were, we were going to say, rock bar in Camden and, I wasn’t playing that day but there was a friend of mine that was playing on stage, so I was kind of like the side of the stage and she also knew some friends from, from the band.
21:48 – And then, yeah, we started talking and we never stopped.
Gautam
21:53 – Oh, wow. That’s amazing.
21:56 – Now, let me ask you this.
21:58 – If you were to go back to your 18 year old self, what would you say?
22:03 – And I know you would say a lot of things.
22:06 – But what would you, what does instantly come to your mind?
22:09 – What would you, what’s the first thing you would say?
Vito
22:11 – I, I think I’d say just think bigger because, because why not, you know, like, if, if you’re already thinking of doing something, why not, why not just be the biggest possible at it or the best, the best or the, you know?
22:29 – So just aim higher, I think would have helped.
22:33 – Back then, it was mostly on the band where our goal at 18 was let’s let’s play this tiny venue and then we’re gonna get to one 100 people and then we’re gonna get to 200 people.
22:43 – But, but I think that reframing this and it’s a good example as a band because I think it can relate to a lot of things when you’re thinking of how do I get to the next 100 people in my crowd or, or my next 10 projects as an agency owner?
22:58 – Posing the question of like, is that really what I want?
23:01 – No, it’s just the next step.
23:02 – What do I really want?
23:03 – What is the big vision that I’m trying to execute on here?
23:06 – And that brings a lot of clarity into the decisions that they probably would have changed the way that we were doing things.
23:14 – You know, if the goal was not to play to 100 people but to play at Wembley.
23:20 – Right.
Gautam
23:20 – Of course, like Taylor Swift level or the level, how can we be at Taylor Swift level?
Vito
23:27 – Then it completely changes how you execute, how you approach things.
23:30 – What are the, what are the strategies?
23:32 – Yeah, just that perspective changes the action that, that, that is driven by it.
23:37 – So, you know, people are, are running an agency and I did the same for a couple of years.
23:43 – Yeah, we’re, we’re now at, you know, I was at 5K a month, let’s say, and I wanted to to grow to 10K.
23:51 – So, how can I grow to 10K?
23:53 – I need to hire one more person maybe.
23:55 – And I need to do this.
23:56 – And, you know, I have these initial questions but why not see how we can make this agency a 10 million a year operation which I did later on.
24:06 – And I decided to go to product
Gautam
24:08 – Of course, I, I think, I think that’s a good advice for any young viewers.
24:13 – Anybody in the age group of 18 to 22 starting outside hustles businesses as a general.
24:18 – So, any listeners out there in this age group, especially starting out on their careers, I think it’s good advice for them especially.
Vito
24:24 – And this, these are all kind of side hustle.
24:25 – I was, I was, doing side hustles for many years as a musician.
24:29 – It’s classic, you know, I was,, teaching music and building a website here and there and doing social media for this guy.
24:35 – And, you know, we were playing in this session band and I was doing setups and fixing guitars and, you know, it’s like classic gig economy in my early twenties and just doing whatever you can, but there’s no focus.
24:48 – And so, you have a vision when you do when you have no focus.
24:52 – So I would suggest to those folks that are early on in their career and are currently juggling a bunch of different things at the same time.
25:01 – Stop it, it’s, it’s the wrong thing to do.
25:04 – It has no future in the long run.
25:06 – It’s just gonna get you to the next month, the next payroll, but it has no future.
25:11 – So try to think bigger.
Gautam
25:13 – Of course, that’s a very good piece of advice.
25:15 – And finally, I would say like, where do you see yourself personally and the world as a whole in the next three years?
25:21 – Because I don’t think you should think beyond three years.
Vito
25:26 – I try to get beyond that, you know, you don’t really know what’s going to happen, especially the past decade,, with COVID and all of those things happening, like you couldn’t, predict what’s going on.
25:36 – But in the next three years, what I’m hoping for, for myself and for, for other aim is to keep on growing, to reach the revenue level that we project that we’ll get to in three years is like get the to, to the figure build a big organization that serves millions of people through our software and, and essentially make the web collaborative in the world.
26:03 – I don’t want to be a bearer of bad news, but we might be at a World War Three, you know, with things going on, you never know.
26:11 – You know, it sounds like it sounds like the companies are starting to line up for that horrible scenario to potentially happen.
26:21 – That’s the most pessimistic I can get, you know,
Gautam
26:23 – I hope, I hope this sorts out but you just never know.
26:29 – You can just cross your fingers and pray nothing like that happens anyways.
26:34 – Thank you so much for your time today.
26:40 – On this positive note on this positive mode, you know, all we can say is that the holidays are approaching so we can have a festive mood holiday.
26:50 – Mode, you know, like Christmas trees up, keep it ready for our kids and stuff.
26:55 – I don’t have a kid but I’m about to have a kid.
26:57 – So it’s so I’m gonna have next year.
27:01 – But thank you so much for your time today.
27:04 – Where should our listeners find you online, on LinkedIn?
27:08 – If they want to get in touch with you.
27:09 – What’s the best way is that great?
Vito
27:12 – Twitter also, Vito Pelle on on Twitter. And, yeah, just go to, our website Atarim.
27:23 – And you can even start a live chat here if you have something to ask me.
27:27 – I’m sure the team will be happy to bring this over.
27:30 – Thank you.
Gautam
27:31-27:34 – Thank you, Vito. Bye. Have a nice day. Thank you once again.
