Tomáš Havryluk: At Alza we said "fail fast" — act quickly, fix mistakes, and move on

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(the text was transcribed and shortened using ChatGPT)

Ivana Karhanová: Tom, hi!

Tomáš Havryluk: Hi, hi.

Ivana Karhanová: Let's start by unpacking that sentence: “I had to keep making sure I didn't have to do anything.”

Tomáš Havryluk: I realized that if the pyramid of people, mechanisms, and processes growing beneath me was going to keep growing, I had to continuously change what I was doing myself — my daily work. That meant I kept trying to delegate whatever I could hand down and pass along, so I'd have room for whatever was new — innovative topics, strategic topics, or anything else where, for whatever reason, I was the only one who could work on it.

Ivana Karhanová: So what were the things you couldn't delegate, or didn't want to?

Tomáš Havryluk: Things like connecting different departments together, typically.

Ivana Karhanová: What do you mean?

Tomáš Havryluk: The department has a silly name — it's called a “department” because it departs, separates things. And once a company gets bigger, departments really do become separated. It's no longer the case that everyone knows each other — the marketing guy around the corner, the two of us sitting by the couch coding. Those departments end up genuinely far apart. And the moment I'm the only one above them, I'm one of the few people who can connect them in some way — setting the rules for collaboration: who sits where, where one person's responsibility starts and ends, how conflicts get resolved, how evaluation gets set up, and so on.

Ivana Karhanová: What principles did you run Alza by?

Tomáš Havryluk: I tried to make things very transparent. I figured it's better for people to know more rather than less. It's a classic thing — people complain about a lack of information, but at the same time about information overload. So I told myself: “Look, we're in the modern era. Everyone has to be able to absorb a large amount of information. We'd rather send out more than less.” That was one thing. We were always open to change — if we decided to change something, we went and changed it. And we always tried to get the most out of technology — we tried to make technology work for us. But that can be a bit dangerous, because at some point managers can slip into thinking: “Since it isn't programmed, we can't improve anything.” I'd almost call it a dependency on IT, like some kind of drug.

Ivana Karhanová: Did that actually happen to you?

Tomáš Havryluk: Not to me personally.

Ivana Karhanová: I mean at Alza.

Tomáš Havryluk: At Alza? Yes.

Ivana Karhanová: And what was it? What was the case?

Tomáš Havryluk: In logistics, for example. People would just say: “We can't improve how we work, because this isn't finished yet.” Or: “This hasn't been programmed.” But areas like training people, boosting their performance some way other than handing them a better tool, were always unfinished. So I'd tell them: “You can't just keep waiting for something to get programmed. You have to grind without it too.” How did Baťa boost his department's productivity when he basically had no IT at all? I don't know exactly how he did it, but he must have found a way. And we should do something similar.

Ivana Karhanová: How did your principles get communicated down the chain? How did you make sure the company, as you designed it at the top, set the tone at lower levels of management too?

Tomáš Havryluk: This is a hard thing, because as companies grow, describing what I want to live by, and how I think the company should work, gets harder and harder. When a company is small, you lead by example, everyone sees you, and if something's going wrong you can tell them quickly. But sending a targeted truth through a bigger company is more complicated. I tried to use every available channel — writing emails, creating content on the internal wiki, and using creative formats like frames posted in the bathrooms. That was a great marketing channel — one you couldn't hide from, whether in the women's or men's restroom.

Tomáš Havryluk: One example where this showed up was the process of creating corporate values. A lot of companies just do a long brainstorm, write down a few positive words like “speed” or “professionalism,” stick it on the wall, and call it done. Petr Benda and I realized that wasn't enough. We took inspiration from Amazon, which has its Values and Leadership Principles. We tried to formulate our values so they'd be authentic, and some even aspirational — meaning we wanted the company to be guided by these values even before they were fully lived out yet. After that, it was important to lead by example, explain the values, and point out when someone was or wasn't living by them.

Ivana Karhanová: Can you give a concrete example of when values weren't being followed? Because when someone acts in line with the values, that's fine and doesn't need any special reaction. But what about when behavior shows up that clashes with them? And what if it's a key person at the company?

Tomáš Havryluk: I don't think there's any answer here other than to take that person aside and tell them directly. Don't make it a public matter — usually. Of course it depends on the situation, whether to address it in front of the whole team or one-on-one. Either way, the key is consistency. Repeat it, explain it, and repeat it again. Values need to be constantly reinforced to become a genuine part of the culture.

Ivana Karhanová: And what values did you end up formulating at Alza? What drove you forward?

Tomáš Havryluk: I don't remember them exactly anymore, but roughly, they were things around the ability to execute — an emphasis on seeing things through to the end. There was also scarcity — not wasting where we couldn't afford to. And of course, we emphasized that leaders had to lead by example and live what they preached. That was essential for the company's overall direction.

Ivana Karhanová: Looking back at Alza — because the company grew quite significantly under your hands — what were your most striking aha moments? Those moments where you thought: “Hey, I thought this was supposed to be different,” or you discovered the opposite was true?

Tomáš Havryluk: Well, there were plenty of aha moments. The first was when Aleš showed me the company's financial statements, and as an IT guy, I finally understood what it was all actually about.

Ivana Karhanová: Aleš Zavoral, the owner of Alza.

Tomáš Havryluk: Yes, exactly. He showed me the real numbers, and I thought: “Ah, that's why he pushes logistics so hard. That's why he cares so much about margins.” Until then, I'd only seen it from the perspective of an IT guy from CTU, but this really opened my eyes.

Tomáš Havryluk: Another big moment came when I was once overwhelmed and Aleš texted me: “Tomáš, I get the feeling you're doing everything there yourself.” And I thought: “You idiot, why are you doing all of this yourself? Why isn't this delegated already?” That really changed how I saw management.

Tomáš Havryluk: And then there was the first round of hiring. I thought hiring people meant running a brutal test, picking whoever I liked best out of the top five, and that was it. But then I hit reality. I'd get, say, one person applying without fingers, another without a leg — people who were “spiky,” missing something or having something extra.

Ivana Karhanová: Were you looking for unicorns?

Tomáš Havryluk: At first, yes. But gradually I understood that a good manager is someone who builds a company out of “stones” they find on the street. Every person has a different shape, and when you're building a wall out of stones, not bricks, you have to fit them together so they lock into a solid structure. Managers are basically like the mortar between those stones — either filling the gaps or making sure the stones don't crash into each other too hard.

Ivana Karhanová: Let's go back to when Aleš texted you that you were doing everything yourself. What clicked for you in that moment?

Tomáš Havryluk: I realized I should have delegated things long ago. I understood the value of a manager's time. That's key — we each only have 24 hours a day, that's a physical constant, and even if I sacrificed all my time to work, I'd still hit a limit. Realistically, it's the eight to twelve hours a person can prescribe themselves. And that doesn't change, even as responsibility or position grows.

Tomáš Havryluk: So the management game is about how you fill your ten hours a day so they have maximum impact. One of our trainers gave us an interesting definition of a boss during a training session: a boss is someone who gets things back completely done. And that hit me. If people hand tasks back to me finished, I'm a boss. If not, I'm not — I'm just handing out tasks, but the system isn't working.

Ivana Karhanová: That's a very visual example. Do you have another one that influenced you?

Tomáš Havryluk: Yes. He showed us the example of a felt-tip pen factory. Imagine you're making pens, but the cap isn't snapped shut. The product isn't finished, and if you put it in your pocket, it'll leave a stain. I still use this today. When someone hands me an unfinished task, I say: “That's like putting a capless pen in your pocket.” We need it done — the mailing launched, the ad live, the code ready. Otherwise it just doesn't work.

Tomáš Havryluk: And yes, once, as a kid in fifth grade, I ran around for half a year with a red felt-tip stain on my shirt. That's the kind of thing you remember.

Ivana Karhanová: How did people react to your methods?

Tomáš Havryluk: Hmm, it varied, depending on their attitude. If I had to split it into two groups: the first says, “I want to learn something, I want to understand what Havryluk is telling me.” Those people are great to discuss things with — they think it through, give feedback, and we move forward together. And then there's the second group, who react like: “That's not possible, you think everything's easy, blah blah blah.” Those are the classic management situations.

Ivana Karhanová: What did you do with that second group?

Tomáš Havryluk: People used to say that under me, people die a long, painful death. (laughs) I just can't fire people — that's my weakness. Over my whole time at Alza, I didn't fire many people. Usually I had endless patience and hours and hours of explaining. I'd try to teach them until they gave up on their own — if we're talking about that second group, of course.

Ivana Karhanová: Looking back on this now, would you do it differently today?

Tomáš Havryluk: Sure. I'd cut it off faster. But that's easy to say. After ten years, you look back and everything's clear. I think a good manager should practice continuous self-reflection. They should ask themselves: “What did I do wrong today? What did I say wrong five minutes ago?” And if possible, they should try to save it — say something like: “Hey, I went overboard at that meeting, I didn't mean it that way.” I think self-reflection matters on a daily basis, not just occasionally.

Ivana Karhanová: How would you define Alza's corporate culture during your time there?

Tomáš Havryluk: It was definitely a company focused on innovation and technology. We tried to get the most out of them and use their full potential. At the same time, it was a trading company in the truest sense of the word. The rule always held: buy cheap, sell high, and delay payments. Those are the basic rules of trade we followed.

Tomáš Havryluk: The company was always profitable. We had a clear rule: if something is profitable, we do it. If it isn't, we don't. Because when you're burning money without at least a basic compass — a black zero, or something in the green — you navigate badly.

Tomáš Havryluk: Another principle was fail fast. We just threw things out into the world as fast as possible and learned from our mistakes. I also pushed hard on educating people. There was a photo on the office wall that read: What if we train them and they leave? And what if we don't train them and they stay? I chose the second path, because I think education gives large companies enormous potential.

Tomáš Havryluk: If a company can get its educational processes going, it can hire juniors and quickly move them into senior positions. It's an investment that pays back. A manager from Deloitte once told me: “That chimney needs a draft.” A company “draws” juniors in from the bottom, takes care of them, they enjoy it, and they want to grow themselves. That's the key.

Tomáš Havryluk: That worked well at Alza. People enjoyed growing — both personally, and watching the company grow. The fact that the company was growing was a huge motivating factor.

Ivana Karhanová: Do you think that's what drove Alza upward?

Tomáš Havryluk: I think definitely. Constant growth was our mantra. My main KPI was the year-over-year increase in operating profit, which I think is a great indicator. Every year the game reset, and I had to think again about what to do more efficiently, what to change, what to improve so that growth would come. That constantly forced me to keep moving. I could never become that kind of “rentier.”

Ivana Karhanová: When you say growth in operating profit, do you mean the absolute value, or the percentage?

Tomáš Havryluk: Absolute, definitely absolute.

Ivana Karhanová: So even if you grew revenue and the percentage operating margin was lower, but the absolute value was higher, that was fine, as long as it built a foundation for future growth?

Tomáš Havryluk: Exactly. But at an e-shop that size, you have to keep in mind you're running on very thin margins. It's like a thin sheet of ice — if it starts to sink, it can get very dangerous. So we tried to gradually grow our margins. Historically, there was a big gap between retail margins and e-commerce margins, and that was room where we could grow.

Ivana Karhanová: What do you think set Alza apart the most from the competition — say, from the number two player on the market, CZC?

Tomáš Havryluk: I think CZC was a similar company, just on a smaller scale. If you look at other players, like Mall, there was a big difference in approach. Mall was chronically unprofitable and struggled with efficiency. When I had people from Mall in job interviews, I often saw they couldn't really do the math on money. They were more marketing-oriented, while we leaned more toward IT and operations.

Tomáš Havryluk: Innovation was another key thing. I think Mall's move to SAP hurt them a lot. If you look at their revenue figures, you can probably spot the year they switched to SAP — it shows. It limited their ability to innovate, both on the customer side and on the operations side.

Tomáš Havryluk: Another thing is that Mall got sold several times over its history. That meant “dressing up the bride” — steps that made sense short-term, but damaged the company long-term.

Ivana Karhanová: So from that, I gather Alza never ran on SAP.

Tomáš Havryluk: No, Alza never ran on SAP. It doesn't now, and I think it never will.

Ivana Karhanová: What was valued at Alza in terms of employees' values and attitudes? What did you personally value most?

Tomáš Havryluk: Ideas and innovation mattered, but even ahead of that, I'd put the ability to execute. Because everyone has a drawer full of ideas. But seeing things through to the end — that's the real challenge. In interviews, I ran into people who'd say: “I'm more of a playmaker.” I usually thanked those people for their time, because we needed people who followed through.

Tomáš Havryluk: That's the hardest part. The last lines of code, the last tweaks, the last steps before launch — that's always where most of the grind is. You see it on projects: half the resources get burned on the first 90% of the work, and just as much again on the last 10%. And for half the time, the project looks unfinished.

Ivana Karhanová: That's very precise. What led you to place such emphasis on following through?

Tomáš Havryluk: Because I saw that companies that don't do this never really stand out. They can have great ideas, but if they don't turn them into reality, they stay halfway there. At Alza, we understood this, and I think it was one of the main reasons we grew.

Ivana Karhanová: Something just occurred to me — from idea to execution, were you there as CEO the whole way?

Tomáš Havryluk: I tried to make sure everyone was there from the idea stage. Because why should it just be the CEO? I wanted ideas to come from the whole team. Everyone has a different perspective, a different angle, and can bring something new because of it.

Ivana Karhanová: What was a no-go, on the other hand? What behavior did you not tolerate at all?

Tomáš Havryluk: Theft, or anything like that. At a big company, sooner or later, you'll get chancers trying to game the system or exploit it somehow. We gave second chances twice, and twice it didn't work out. Those people didn't change. Since then, it's been one strike and you're out.

Ivana Karhanová: And that's it.

Tomáš Havryluk: Exactly. One strike and out. I once even called a colleague who wanted to hire someone and told him: “Watch out for that person.”

Ivana Karhanová: What did the transformation into a very large company mean for you, in terms of corporate culture? Because you lived through that growth and drove it.

Tomáš Havryluk: It feels to me like moving from a village to a city.

Ivana Karhanová: Let's make that a bit more concrete.

Tomáš Havryluk: It's similar in a lot of ways. When a company is small, everyone knows each other. The company party fits in one restaurant. Then it has to split into two parts, and eventually it grows to a scale where people lose their personal ties.

Tomáš Havryluk: At that point, it's essential to have capable leadership holding the company together. That means the company has to be able to create small, self-sufficient units that function a bit like mini-companies. These units should think in terms of: We have some revenue, we have some costs, and that's the game we play. It doesn't matter if it's five people in IT, fifty in the call center, or 500 in purchasing.

Ivana Karhanová: What else, in your view, is part of this transformation?

Tomáš Havryluk: The sheer volume of information. Suddenly there's an enormous amount of it, and it needs to be managed efficiently. That's tied to communication too — where information is stored, how it gets passed along, who has access to it, and so on.

Tomáš Havryluk: In 2011, we introduced a wiki. Luděk Wheeler brought it to us and said: “Let's write everything on the wiki.” I think that was a pivotal step. A wiki is like a company's modern Library of Alexandria. A company without some kind of wiki engine, in my view, hasn't invented writing yet. Without a wiki, information gets passed on by oral tradition — from father to son, or colleague to colleague. That's not an advanced society.

Ivana Karhanová: What else, besides the wiki, played a role in the transformation into a large company?

Tomáš Havryluk: Professionalizing recruitment, setting up processes, developing leadership… There are so many things, and it's hard to put quickly into words. Every difference between a small and a large company has its own nuances. But I'd say the main difference is how quickly and effectively a company can adapt processes to match its size.

Ivana Karhanová: What does that mean, say, from the perspective of trust and control?

Tomáš Havryluk: Trust starts to — I don't want to say disappear entirely, but it thins out. When people stop being connected by personal ties, it's no longer “that girl from HR we've known for ages and worked with.” Suddenly it's someone who just showed up, someone I don't really know. So trust decreases, which increases caution. And caution then often leads to things grinding to a halt. People start treading very carefully.

Ivana Karhanová: And then people just cover themselves, in case something goes wrong.

Tomáš Havryluk: Exactly. So that nobody loses out on something important, or has to re-prove something that should be obvious.

Ivana Karhanová: That's probably why you introduced the rotation rule?

Tomáš Havryluk: Yes, exactly. The rotation rule worked like this: anyone who wanted to do a stint in another department — say, for a month, two, or six — could. If that department accepted them, their own manager couldn't block it with the usual line: “Once you've got everything finished, you can go.”

Ivana Karhanová: Because everything is never finished.

Tomáš Havryluk: Exactly. This rule seemed great to me for two reasons. First, if talent only moves to a neighboring department, that's a lot better than losing them to another company entirely. And second, when a rotation leaves a hole in the original department, it forces the team to grow and find a new solution. Plus, that person brings know-how into the new department. And if they stay there — as happened with a few IT people who ended up in the call center — that's great. Thanks to that, the call center had its own IT support, which was a huge benefit.

Ivana Karhanová: That probably also leads to a healthy, natural kind of decentralization, doesn't it?

Tomáš Havryluk: Exactly. That kind of model lets individual departments operate independently while also naturally collaborating. And the best part is, when someone returns to their original department after a rotation, they bring back not just new skills, but a new perspective too. It often eases that “they're the bad guys” feeling between departments. It's like when Honzík from our village marries Anička from the village next door — suddenly we're not just neighbors anymore, we're connected people.

Ivana Karhanová: You've now left the environment of a huge company you helped build to CZK 45 billion in revenue, for a startup called Medevio, whose goal is making communication between patients and doctors easier. What's Medevio's culture like?

Tomáš Havryluk: I wonder if you can even talk about “culture” yet here. Medevio is a tiny company. At smaller companies, I feel like the culture is similar to other small companies. The word “culture,” in my view, only really starts to make sense at a larger scale. It's similar to when we talk about national cultures — what culture do Germans have, or Japanese, or Czechs. At small companies, it's more about individuals than a broader culture as such.

Ivana Karhanová: Different culturally, then. What are Medevio's values? What pulls it forward?

Tomáš Havryluk: I think the word “values” hasn't really been explicitly spelled out there yet. But what pulls Medevio forward is definitely that the product has a clear mission. People who join us often say: “I want to work on this product, because it makes sense to me. I want to be part of something like this.” That's reason number one. Reason number two is the team. People say: “I want to do this with you.”

Tomáš Havryluk: That's maybe actually the culture — not a vision of becoming the biggest company in the world, or making the most money, but the conviction that what we're doing matters. You could call that a feature of the culture.

Ivana Karhanová: You say the goal isn't to be the best in the world. Alza presumably did have that goal, because I can't imagine how you become the number one player without wanting to be number one. Isn't digitalizing communication between doctor and patient a bit of a modest goal?

Tomáš Havryluk: It's not about a modest goal. Maybe I didn't phrase it quite right. Our goal isn't to be the biggest company in the world, but to have the biggest impact. That's a slightly different lens.

Tomáš Havryluk: The potential in healthcare digitalization is enormous. We definitely don't want to stop at patients and doctors just sending each other PDF files. That's just the beginning. I think companies that want to grow and change have to stay constantly in motion. Otherwise they die out. Growth forces us into that naturally.

Ivana Karhanová: What's the “carrot” for Medevio? What drives you forward?

Tomáš Havryluk: I think the “carrot” is growth itself. I don't see it as some big finish line at the end where we get to say we're done. We focus more on whatever moves us forward right now, in this moment.

Tomáš Havryluk: For example, we're redoing calendars so they're easier to use. We're improving the payment system. We're improving other features. Those are our current priorities. Every so often we switch on the “high beams” and look further into the future — how this could work abroad, what else we could digitalize. But most of our focus is on what we can do right now.

Ivana Karhanová: So what drives you forward, from your own point of view? What principles pull you along? Is it similar to Alza — innovation and drive?

Tomáš Havryluk: I think so, yes. What drives us forward is the effort to get as many doctors as possible using Medevio. What makes us happiest is when that leads to as many patients as possible using Medevio too.

Tomáš Havryluk: We already have more than 600,000 active patients. Doctors and patients write us glowing comments, which is a huge motivator. The app holds a 4.9 rating, which also motivates us to keep going.

Tomáš Havryluk: And then we're driven by seeing how many things could and should have been digitalized long ago, but haven't been yet. That's a challenge for us — finishing what should already be done.

Ivana Karhanová: The industry you're in, or the segment you're selling Medevio's services to, is healthcare — a segment with a completely different culture. How is it doing business in that world? Doesn't it clash with what you're used to?

Tomáš Havryluk: I had to adapt to it. Healthcare really is a different world. It's a very relationship-driven segment — people know each other, they have built-up ties. And that's harder for us tech people. We usually operate best in an environment with clear data, algorithms, and processes.

Tomáš Havryluk: But you can't win over healthcare with online marketing. We had to go to conferences, approach doctors directly, call them, and fight however we could. We're learning a lot of things completely from scratch, because this market is new to us.

Ivana Karhanová: What was an aha moment for you in healthcare, besides it being a relationship-driven segment?

Tomáš Havryluk: The biggest aha moment for me was how few mechanisms there are in healthcare to check how much “good” gets created for the money invested.

Tomáš Havryluk: If I go to a pub and pay a hundred crowns for coffee, I taste that coffee and immediately know if it was good or not. The transaction is quickly verifiable, and I decide based on that whether to go there again. In healthcare, it's not that simple.

Tomáš Havryluk: First, that's because of how the market itself works. People often don't even know they're paying health insurance. They just see their net pay on their payslip and have no idea how much of their money goes toward healthcare. Money moves through the state, insurers, and other intermediaries before it ever reaches doctors.

Tomáš Havryluk: Second, patients usually can't objectively judge whether they received good care. Sure, they can say: “It hurts, it doesn't hurt.” But how am I supposed to know, as a patient, if my gallbladder surgery was done well? I shouldn't be the one judging that.

Ivana Karhanová: So evaluating healthcare is more complicated than it seems?

Tomáš Havryluk: Exactly. That's why I'm not a fan of, say, star-rating doctors or hospitals. Most patients don't have enough specialized knowledge to judge whether the care was genuinely good quality. There are exceptions and edge cases where you can tell, sure, but most of us aren't able to evaluate it objectively.

Tomáš Havryluk: This lack of direct feedback makes the market less flexible. There's no quick elasticity — something works badly, we immediately stop using it; something works well, we immediately start using it. Healthcare has more viscosity, it responds to change more slowly.

Ivana Karhanová: That must be quite a challenge for you as a startup.

Tomáš Havryluk: It's a challenge, but also a huge opportunity. That very slowness of change means that when you digitalize and improve something, it can have a massive impact on the whole system.

Ivana Karhanová: You're currently focused on the communication side. Doctors, generally speaking, are probably a category of people who don't typically have empathy and communication down at a high level — at least in my experience. Are you trying to educate them in this direction too, to make them nicer and more likeable in how they communicate with patients? Because they also communicate through your app, where — and I'm speaking from my own experience — if a message pops up saying “Please book an appointment immediately,” it completely terrifies me.

Tomáš Havryluk: Let's not be too unfair to doctors.

Ivana Karhanová: Sure, I don't want to generalize, but generally speaking, that segment just isn't at the same level as, say, the service industry.

Tomáš Havryluk: That's true, but I'd also like to defend doctors a bit. It's not easy to be under continuous strain, under stress, and still keep a smile on your face and say: “Hello, please come back again.” Doctors are only human too, and I completely respect that.

Tomáš Havryluk: Of course, then there's definitely a group of doctors with an ego the size of a house. I've had a few things said to me too, like: “What do you want here, sonny?” But I'm well past 25, so I've learned to handle it. (laughs)

Tomáš Havryluk: As for Medevio, we don't teach doctors soft skills. We try more to create content for them. Yes, we prepare templates like “Please come in for your mammogram” and so on, but we don't tell them how to communicate. We know far too little about their field for that.

Tomáš Havryluk: There are initiatives that focus on this, though. Like Bára Mechúrová, a psychiatrist who teaches doctors how to communicate. Or various trainings like “How to properly deliver difficult news.” Something like: “Hello, unfortunately you have cancer.” Those are important things, but we don't get into that.

Ivana Karhanová: That's probably not a message that should show up in your app like that, though.

Tomáš Havryluk: Exactly. And that's precisely why we respect that there are voices saying healthcare shouldn't be digitalized across the board. But that doesn't mean we stop digitalizing altogether. We just have to be careful, and make sure a message like that is never sent by mistake.

Ivana Karhanová: That's Tomáš Havryluk, former CEO of Alza. And what role are you in now, exactly?

Tomáš Havryluk: Now I'm the CEO of Medevio.

Ivana Karhanová: Tom, thanks for a great conversation. See you around sometime.

Tomáš Havryluk: Thanks for having me. Bye.

Ivana Karhanová: And that's Ivana Karhanová, signing off.