Wrapping up 2020
Yet another year came to an end. 2020 will be remembered as the year of Corona pandemia which changed the world in many ways. In Croatia, it will also be remembered, unfortunately for two strong earthquakes. The country has not suffered from them during the last 100 years. The first one hit Zagreb in March, and the strongest one just a few days before the end of the year.
That 6.4M earthquake hit one of the poorest regions of Croatia, Sisak-Moslavina County, 50km south of the capital. These have been devastating events during a harsh pandemia which Croatia suffered among the other countries. A positive outcome of these natural disasters has been to see how Croatian people and the nation can pull together during difficult times. It has been heartwarming to see the amount of volunteers working on the ground in Sisak-Moslavina County, as well as the amount of donations made after both earthquakes. Naturally Software Sauna has also contributed to the help of our communities.
While 2020 was challenging for all of us, both personally and businesswise, also some good things happened. April and May particularly were difficult times for us at Sauna, but we stayed in motion, increased our outbound sales activities and believed tomorrow will bring us something good. Soon the environment adjusted to the “new normal” and everything has been done remotely since then. Naturally this was nothing new to us as we are cooperating with our clients remotely on a daily basis. Luckily the market also started to see the light at the end of the tunnel and new investment decisions were already made before summer holidays.
Even though our organization has always been promoting remote work, we also had to adapt and learn new ways to cope with the situation. In the “good old times” most of our people worked at the office, but since last March we have also been heating up the sauna fully remotely. As there are some things we really prefer to do face to face, the biggest challenges were onboarding new projects and Sauna people remotely. We adapted and overcame these challenges successfully, though it required a bit of extra work for all parties.
The lack of human, real-life interaction with colleagues has also been pretty dull, but we have tried to keep up the good spirit by sharing our coffee breaks, brown bag sessions, random online game evenings and Christmas parties remotely. But we cannot wait for the Summer party of 2021. It will be epic after corona.
Positive highlights of 2020
- Profitable growth in revenue
- Doubled the headcount (18 today)
- We expanded our service portfolio to native mobile development
- 9 new customers
- Special focus on Health and EdTech business domains
Big thanks to all our customers and partners for their trust! Together we are stronger.
2021
We are looking forward to exploring what 2021 has to offer for us. We have the feeling it will be a turning point for Software Sauna. In April we are celebrating our 3rd anniversary and during our journey we have grown together as a team and as a company. And we have shown that combination of the Croatian software craftsmanship skills with a Finnish twist results in high quality end to end software solutions.
In 2021 we are planning to strengthen our presence in the Finnish market and expand our service to a few new countries. As we are getting on the pace, we are expecting to triple our turnover, at least double our headcount, and finally get us a brand new home (once the world gets back to normal). Stay tuned and join the heat with us!
We wish a great and successful 2021 to everyone! And hope we can sail together into the sunset this year in the Adriatic sea.
Sincerely,
Sauna team
