From Garage to Google & Beyond: Zazmic’s CTO on Building a Tech Powerhouse


Arham: Hello everyone, welcome to an episode of the Zazmic podcast.

I have with me the founding member and Chief Technical Officer of Zazmic, Yann Kronberg. Yann, why don’t you tell us a bit about your journey of building Zazmic from a garage in San Francisco in 2013 to a 500-plus employee, multi-million dollar global tech company? And why did you even do this?

Yann: I didn’t really have a plan. When we started with Yuri back in the day, we simply loved building software and businesses. Our rapid growth came from working with Bay Area startups that were successful, and we’ve been lucky enough to be associated with them. Our oldest client and our first startup, Mercury, is now a 35 million euro business. We started with one project and 20 people, then expanded to more projects and 50 people. And we just never stopped. We never looked back. We didn’t have a plan. We just wanted to be good at software and help people build companies. That’s what our plan was, and it worked. Later on, Google came along and that partnership helped us grow even faster.

Arham: The first few years of any business are crucial. There’s something like an 80% failure rate. Yet, you scaled Zazmic from zero to 200 employees in those first years. What were the key reasons for your success, and what challenges did you have to overcome?

Yann: We had a strong technical team that always attracted clients who needed software built. We didn’t even need a sales team—people were recommending us. Of course, cash flow was an issue, especially in the early days, as sometimes clients didn’t pay. But we were very careful with our spending and never spent a dollar we didn’t have. That’s true for any startup: managing your money and making sure that you build something, with the right teams is key. And we always had the right teams, that’s for sure.

Arham: I noticed something interesting while reading about your history. By 2015, just two years into starting Zazmic, you were already successfully investing in other companies. Can you tell us more about that? What was your thinking behind it?

Yann: (Laughing) It sounds more impressive than it is. At the beginning, it was a little bit of an accident. Some of our startup clients had cash flow issues and couldn’t pay, so they offered us shares in their companies instead. Some of them were friends, too. I had a good friend, whose startup became very successful after I invested. So it was a mix of helping clients and supporting people I believed in. We’ve been lucky. We’ve invested in 18 startups, and had successful exits from 13 of them. It was accidental at first, but then we started thinking, “Hey, maybe investing in this company is a good idea.” And we still do it today.

Arham: Looking back, what was the main benefit you got from those investments?

Yann: Relationships. And some of those relationships have been crucial. I won’t name names, but some people we invested in, even when we lost money, later became CEOs of public companies. And that led to new business opportunities for us. You bet on somebody, and then they bet on you later on. You build a network of people that you’ve helped. That’s the best thing that you get out of these investments. Of course, financial returns are great too, but sometimes you lose everything.

Arham: It’s been over a decade for Zazmic. In the early days, was there a particular moment when you and Yuri felt, “We’re onto something here that can go big! This is our tipping point”?

Yann: When we started going beyond startups, working with larger companies—big banks, e-commerce giants like Amazon—it felt more real because those were longer-term, more stable relationships. It gave us a platform to grow. And then, working with Google was amazing.

Arham: I was just about to ask about that! Tell us how that partnership came about and how it  propelled Zazmic into a completely different era for its business. 

Yann: We always liked Google products; the tech is better, it’s open source, innovative. And Google was at the heart of Silicon Valley! Amazon is in Seattle, Microsoft is in Seattle. Finally, we had a really successful local player going head-to-head with Microsoft. By default we chose them because their tech was simply better. At some point, we helped them penetrate some big accounts, and then a friend at Google suggested a partnership. The rest is history. We became a reseller and software engineering partner, and we grew tremendously. And so it was a perfect storm.

Arham: Before we delve deeper into the partner ecosystem, could you explain what it is? Why does it exist? Why can’t Google just handle everything themselves?

Yann: Google could do a lot themselves, but they want to scale quickly. They need help selling their many products and solutions. Partners help customers understand and effectively use those products. It’s a natural way to expand faster.

Arham: Google has over 4,000 partners. How does Zazmic stand out as a Premier Partner?

Yann: We focus on ourselves and strive for excellence. Our motto is very simple: be good, and be good at it. Early on, we realized we didn’t need to actively sell; word-of-mouth brought in plenty of business. That’s true in any ecosystem, especially as a partner. Focus on being very good at what you do, deliver for Google and the customer, and the business will follow. We aim to be the best at tech. We stumble sometimes, but my message to the team has always been, “Strive to be the best.”

Arham: You mentioned earlier that it’s as important to have ‘the right people on the bus’ when you’re going on this journey. What qualities did you look for when hiring in the early days, and what do you look for now?

Yann: First off, we’ve always aimed to recruit top tech talent. It sounds obvious, but we have an extensive screening process because we don’t want to hand-hold people. 

I’ve been very lucky to have people next to me that just understand how I work. There’s extreme sport, and then there is extreme work. I’m more on the extreme work side. Loving what you do is a big part of growth and success. For me, every step of the journey, working with bigger companies, being part of the Google ecosystem, is like Candy Land. Every day I do what I love. It’s amazing.

Arham: This conversation would not be complete without discussing the big buzzwords: AI and Generative AI.

Cutting-edge technology used to be exclusive, reserved for the big guys out there. But we’ve seen AI and GenAI becoming more and more accessible, with apps like Gemini Cloud, ChatGPT. And they’re getting better and cheaper by the day. GenAI is expected to add two to four trillions to the global economy. If data is becoming the new oil, AI is the engine that is going to be powered by it. How do you see AI and GenAI changing the business landscape? Is it essential for future success?

Yann: It’s not that AI is changing the world, it’s that it’s way more accessible to everyone today. AI existed 10 years ago, but building effective models was difficult. 

Today, what’s more amazing is that AI is almost commoditized. It’s available for everyone, cheap, and easy to use. You don’t need to have an ML or AI engineer to implement it. Tasks that took me eight months to do ten years ago now take three days. Today everybody can do AI, and that’s the change. And not doing it would be a mistake.

If you place AI at the center of your workflow, which everybody should do, you obtain a level of productivity that I’ve not seen in a long time. We’re doing this at Zazmic, forcing people to use AI everywhere, and we’re able to run departments with maximum efficiency. It frees up people for more strategic work. 

Arham: Zazmic adopted AI early on. What was it like introducing AI to your SMB clients? How did business leaders react?

Yann: Their first response was often, “Show me.” Many executives don’t grasp AI’s potential, especially with the combination of traditional AI and generative AI expanding the possibilities. They say, “Here’s what I’m trying to solve. Tell me how I can apply it to my business.”

So we don’t talk tech to them. We focus on understanding their needs and demonstrating how AI can be applied to their specific business challenges. It’s not just about the AI technology itself, but about finding the right solutions. AI can obviously change everything in terms of their business. Most of our work is to help them see how exactly it can transform their operations.

Arham: I know Zazmic walks the walk, when it comes to AI. How has it transformed your company?

Yann: Internally it’s allowed us to run departments with a fraction of the people we used to run them with, freeing up resources for other tasks. We are engineered to be better and faster than ever before. We’re just a better business today. We share our experiences and knowledge with our customers, helping them benefit from AI as well.

Arham: So you become a case study for them. That’s fascinating.

But let’s address the elephant in the room regarding AI: job displacement. With such a large workforce, how do you deal with those concerns? I’m sure it causes some anxiety. 

Yann: There’s no fear in the sense that we don’t aim to eliminate jobs due to increased productivity. As we’ve grown, we’ve learned to do more with less, which allows us to invest in new areas that create more jobs and increase demand. Employment will still be plentiful because AI will create new businesses and jobs. I’m a tech optimist. But, yes, some people will definitely have to change and adapt.

Arham: It’s more about pushing change than redundancy. That makes sense. Another concern with GenAI is ethics and security. We’ve seen deepfakes emerge. You know, we could have a deepfake Yann saying something on screen. (Chuckling). How do you handle the cybersecurity challenges and potential moral issues?

Yann: Cybersecurity and security concerns aren’t new. AI is powerful, and we must address security with new tools and increased vigilance. Companies need the right tools to protect themselves. Cybersecurity is no longer an option, it’s a must. I’m sure we’ll see AI regulations to address deepfakes and other potential misuse of the technology. We’ll need to adapt.

Arham: One final question, Yann. What’s your vision for Zazmic’s future? And what’s your message to CTOs about navigating the age of AI?

Yann: My message to CTOs is this: AI is now accessible and affordable. You need to build a task force and integrate it throughout your company. It’s not something you can do alone. As for Zazmic, we have 500 employees now. I see us growing to a couple of thousand, while maintaining our focus on quality and excellence.

Arham: Awesome. Thank you for your time, Yann. And thank you to everyone for watching. Until next time!