"You don't Need to Rush Through Stages in Life" Hattrick IT Co-Founder Martin Zuniga

HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background.

I studied Computer Science at the Universidad de la República in Uruguay and worked for three years building software for the banking industry until I decided to create my own company along with my two co-founders.

What's your company called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do?

Our company is called Hattrick IT. We build mobile-first products for companies in the Health, well-being, and Fitness industry. We don't just code, we help companies tackle some of the most complex technical aspects of bringing a product to life – from Product Design, Development, and QA to R+D and prototyping.

What is the origin story?

Hattrick started out as three college friends freelancing on Upwork and it evolved into the Product Studio we are now. Since 2014 we've worked on more than 65 mobile projects worldwide.

What do you love about your team?

I love how we're always enriching each other with what other teammates are working on. Though we work on multiple projects at the same time there's a very special collaborative energy going on where everyone relies on the team for help when they need it. I think that's one of our most important assets.

If you weren’t working at your company, what would you be doing?

If I wasn't working at Hattrick I think I would work as a Product Manager for a tech startup. I love being part of a team that takes a product and continually tries to take it to the next level. I also love trying to figure out what a product's users will want and how they will react to the features we introduce.

At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics?

When it comes to growth and sales we measure success using KPIs, but when it comes to grasping the level of satisfaction from our clients we use a more qualitative approach. We are more of a boutique studio, so we don't have lots of projects going on at the same time, but one thing that's very important for us is client retention, and there we have been improving steadily. The majority of our clients are ongoing and with some, we've been working for 3 years or more. That's our greatest measure of success.

What’s most exciting about your company traction to date?

I think there is an aspect in which we have evolved the most, and it is the value we are able to add to our client's products. When we started, we just built mobile apps, but our experience working with several clients in the same industry and our experience integrating with Wearables, Custom Hardware, and IoT devices allows us to add real value to our clients, helping them lower the risk of building a tech product.

What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why?

I'm very interested in wearables and IoT. There's a lot of hype around other stuff nowadays, but I think products in these spaces are shaping how we will interact with the tech in the following years.

What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform?

I think what I enjoy the most about HackerNoon is the quality of the content and the variety of the topics covered. That combination is hard to beat.

What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself?

Honestly… none. I think at 21 I did what I could with the experience available at the time, and I think that's the way it should be. In my opinion, you don't need to rush through stages in life, so I wouldn't like making my younger self worry about things not important at the time.

What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing?

It's not something in particular, but I read a book that I think everyone should read. It’s Atomic Habits, by James Clear, and in my case, it has helped me realize there are lots of ways our minds play tricks on us, but if we know them we can leverage them to improve our daily habits. it's a really great read.