The Heart of Salsita

A brand is more than just a company’s webpage or its mission statement. It’s a living, breathing entity comprising every aspect of a business. As a company grows and evolves, so does the brand.

When I joined Salsita Software as their marketing manager, one of my first goals was to define our brand. A strong brand should represent the company culture, how teams work together, how projects are managed, and how clients feel and benefit. It needed to be something more than just an extension of the Salsita “About” page. I wanted to find what lies at the heart of Salsita.

Brand Pyramid

A brand pyramid is a marketing team’s home base. It sets and defines the groundwork for everything you do in terms of advertising, sales, and awareness. It’s often defined by experts as a framework that captures all the elements of a brand and how it interacts with the market.

It can be more complicated than that though, especially when the brand is a product itself. In Salsita’s case, it’s a business that offers software services and solutions.

Standard brand pyramid framework

• Brand Essence: The brand’s idea, core, or spirit
• Brand Personality: The brand’s characteristics, described like a real person
• Emotional Benefits: How clients and employees feel about it
• Functional Benefits: The tangible aspects of a product or service
• Unique Selling Propositions (USP): The unique features and attributes

Salsita’s Brand Essence

In my search, I found a three-word phrase from our CEO that best summarizes Salsita’s heart: “Engineering Exceptional Experiences.” It might sound like a hokey marketing catchphrase at first, but there are deeper, more meaningful layers to discover.

It describes what we do (design and development) in one word: engineering. And the outcome, whether it’s a web or mobile app, is an exceptional user experience.

Salsita is an engineering company. What sets us apart is the quality of our engineers, who undergo a rigorous interview process that tests their mastery of software architecture and algorithms as well as their coding skills.The phrase does a great job capturing both of these aspects of our work in a pithy alliterative three-word slogan. Matthew Gertner - Founder and CEO, Salsita Software

When I asked Archie Damman, President, ADCO Circuits, what he thought about working with us, he said, “The quality of what Salsita can do is very, very impressive.”

In that quote, Archie is referring to the app’s user interface, which in my opinion, is exceptional. Another helpful insight was from our latest satisfaction survey. It showed that our happiest team is the one working on this project. It’s a two-way deal: when both the client and team are happy, expect results.

That brings me to my second point: the people of Salsita. This is something I felt as soon as I stepped into our office and was met with cheerful greetings. That may be typical in the West, but for a Czech-based company, it’s pretty special and valuable.

This feeling is clearly shared by our clients. Everyone involved has a problem-solving mindset, which comes in handy when dealing with technical or bureaucratic challenges. There’s no need for finger-pointing, just a focus on solving the problem at hand. Proactivity is the norm here.

Every member of the team has been fun to work with and great at their job. I particularly appreciate how proactive the team has been. David Guerra - IT Director, SCUF Gaming

As for interoffice relationships, you can feel there is no jealousy or resentment between colleagues. There is admiration aplenty and we are constantly trying to inspire and educate each other. The other thing that keeps us happy is having access to our own private space, better known as the Salsita Club. Here we can relax, work, enjoy music lessons, and cut loose during team gatherings. It’s also available to our clients free of charge if they wish to host an event in Prague.

Salsita’s Brand Personality

This was a bit trickier to nail down. Since I was new at Salsita, I asked my colleagues to describe Salsita as if it was a person, and I created this simple word-cloud survey:

Here’s what we settled on:

• Smart: Our thorough hiring process has allowed us to find some of the smartest people around. Salsita makes smart strategic decisions on all other fronts, too, not just recruitment. No wonder it was the most popular word to describe us.
• Friendly: Salsita is a nice, outgoing person who loves to be around people and, in general, has kind relationships with its circle of friends, clients, and vendors.
• Experienced: The experience of 80+ employees covers every aspect of the product development cycle and even goes beyond that to cover advanced technologies like augmented reality and machine learning.
• Creative: Besides our awesome design team, you can see our creativity on display when we’re solving challenging technical problems. Our engineers have come up with extremely elegant software solutions over the years.
• Trustworthy: Just chat with any of my colleagues and you’ll immediately feel confident about the team handling your product.
• Transparent: As for our clients, we provide transparent and regular reporting. Our engineers are put in direct contact with the client and their teams and work alongside product managers who oversee and coordinate the work.
• Reliable: You can count on Salsita to get the job done, but that’s not because we’re superstars. It’s because we try never to make a promise we can’t keep or to take on a project we’re not comfortable with.

Salsita works in the interest of the client in mind and if something is not working, I know that they’re going to tell me that. Even though that means not doing any more work. To me that is invaluable. Alfredo Sciascia - Founder, Legazey

Salsita’s Emotional Benefits

This topic is split into two categories: how our clients and how our employees feel about Salsita. I also used a word-cloud survey for some visual assistance.

So, how do people feel about Salsita?

• Happy: Well, it’s self-explanatory, but yes, the main goal of every project is to keep our clients satisfied.
• Cared for: I can’t find a way to explain this without sounding like a salesman, so here it goes: Our people genuinely care about what they do, and our clients sense this.
• Safe: We have a deep well of knowledge to draw from, so you can feel confident that our team can handle the toughest challenges.
• Confident: Entrusting your software development to Salsita means you will be able to proceed uninterrupted with your business plans.
• Involved: The clients are involved every step of the way: design sprints, regular reporting and client reviews. We work together and the client plays a vital role as a member of the project team.

But don’t just take my word cloud for it. Feel free to read what our clients have said about working with us on Clutch.

And how do employees feel about Salsita?

• Educated: We hire the best engineers and train them in the latest web and mobile technologies. We have weekly brown bags with thought-provoking talks and also offer weekly language and music lessons.
• Dedicated: This is what makes our clients feel cared for; our people are deeply invested in the projects they work on.
• Fun: It’s tough to choose where to begin for this one. Everyone can find something fun to do at Salsita other than work, whether it’s music lessons, parties, brown bag lunches, or just a great cup of coffee.
• Positive: I mentioned this earlier and, apparently, it’s not just my feeling that the majority of the team feels the positive vibes at Salsita.
• Friendly: When the environment is this positive it’s easy to see why so many of us are friends outside of work, too.

Salsita’s Functional Benefits

This may sound like a Services webpage, but it is what it is. Are you curious about what you get when you hire Salsita as your digital product partner? Take a look:

• English-First: Salsita is an English-first company, but our diversity means that most people are fluent in a second, third or even fourth language.
• Complete Multidisciplinary Teams: We provide a complete range of skills on every team: project managers, product and marketing strategists, researchers, UX and graphic designers, UI and full-stack developers, QA testers, and DevOps.
• Close Collaboration with Clients: We employ an agile methodology based on Scrum or Shape Up that organizes work into fixed-length sprints. Our clients are involved at every stage of development. We hold planning meetings via video conference at the beginning of each sprint and demo the results of the sprint when it is completed.
• Continuous Improvement: Continuous improvement is part of our DNA and we focus on areas where we can fine-tune our process on each project to achieve optimal results.

I've never experienced the high level of professionalism the Salsita team brought to the table. Jan Paul Koning - Co-Founder, KILO

Check out the Salsita website for more info about our services and solutions. But, if you would like to see all the gory details, download the following PDFs:

• Salsita’s Info Pack (Company Overview)
• Web and Mobile Development Services
• Product Discovery, Design, and MVP Development
• Product Configurator Handbook
• Marketing Support and Growth-Hacking Services

Salsita’s Unique Selling Propositions

At this point you might still be asking yourself, “So, what makes Salsita so special?” The short answer is: we deliver.

I’ve never experienced the delivery team living up to the sales team’s hype, but in Salsita’s case, they actually exceeded it. - Ricardo Moraes, L’Atelier Paris

In short, we are a full-cycle web and mobile product partner, from discovery to delivery. With Salsita you don’t need to coordinate between a UX agency, a development agency and a digital marketing agency. You’ve got a true product partner, who can support you during every stage of the product and beyond! Do not hesitate to contact us for consultation. We will be happy to hear your story, answer any questions, or give you expert advice.