Category: Team

PredictLeads Hackathon: Creating Space for Innovation

June 2, 2025 /

At PredictLeads, we spend most of our days helping others find the right companies to connect with through data, signals, and integrations. But last week, we took a break from business as usual to focus on something a little different.

We packed our laptops (and swimsuits) and headed to Rezidenca Ortus in Ankaran, Slovenia for a 3-day offsite. The agenda? A mix of team building and a focused hackathon – designed not just to build features, but to challenge how we think, collaborate, and create.

Why a Hackathon?

The goal wasn’t just to ship code. It was to pause, zoom out, and give space to ideas that don’t fit into normal sprint cycles. Some projects were technical experiments, others aimed to improve our workflows, and many explored new ways we could bring more value to customers.

But beneath it all, there was a shared purpose:

  • To ask ourselves: What could PredictLeads look like in 6–12 months if we reimagined parts of our product, infrastructure, and sales approach from scratch?
  • To surface real problems – whether hidden in data pipelines, user flows, or feedback loops and prototype better ways forward.
  • To give every team member the freedom to explore, pitch, and test ideas, regardless of their role or domain.

🌿Nature, Focus & Team🌿

We started with a team day at Škocjanski Zatok, a peaceful nature reserve not far from the hotel. It gave us the mental reset we needed to approach the next two days with intention and clarity.

From Thursday morning onward, the rooms filled with quiet intensity – whiteboards scribbled with flowcharts, spontaneous stand-ups with a sea view, design mockups being debated over coffee, and engineers debugging in pairs. In between: football matches, sauna sessions, late-night brainstorms, and lots of laughter.

Building Together

Not every project will be production-ready tomorrow. But that wasn’t the point. The point was to tap into the full potential of our team and to explore directions that could shape PredictLeads in the quarters ahead.

We’re already taking some of these explorations further, integrating them into our roadmap. Others are helping us rethink how we prioritize, design, and ship.

Above all, the hackathon reminded us that growth isn’t just about velocity but about creating space for good thinking to happen. And sometimes, the best way to do that… is to leave the office, go offline, and just build together.

If you’re curious about where we’re headed next, check out our datasets, reach out, or simply stay tuned – we’re just getting started.

Sweet Moments with PredictLeads: A Teambuilding Day at Radolška Čokolada 🍫💜🍫

March 31, 2025 /

Working remotely has its perks – flexibility, focus time, and the ability to work from just about anywhere. But every now and then, it’s refreshing to step away from screens and come together in person. That’s exactly what we did this last Thursday at PredictLeads.

For our monthly team meetup, we traded keyboards for cocoa beans and visited Radolška Čokolada, a charming, family-run chocolate shop nestled in the heart of Radovljica. Surrounded by the rich aroma of chocolate and the buzz of creativity, we dove into the delicious world of sweets.

Our hosts welcomed us with a behind-the-scenes look at how their handcrafted creations are made—from tempering and molding to the final artistic touches.

Along the way, we picked up some surprising trivia (did you know that properly tempered chocolate makes a satisfying snap when broken🫰? If it crumbles or bends, something’s gone awry!).

But the real fun began when it was our turn to get hands-on. Aprons on, gloves ready—we rolled up our sleeves and created our own chocolate masterpieces. There were laughs, a bit of friendly competition, and plenty of taste-testing along the way.

Aside from the chocolate, this was a chance to reconnect, recharge, and strengthen the bonds that make our team tick. Whether we were decorating pralines or just sharing a laugh, the day reminded us how important it is to take time to celebrate the people behind the work.

Until the next meetup – sweet memories like this one will keep us smiling. 💜🍫

Visiting Local Brevery Loo-Blah-Nah!🍻

October 25, 2024 /

Since we’re a default remote first company majority of us work most of the time from home.

That is why we have monthly informal “meetups” as we call them so that we get some much needed face time 😅.

This month we’ve visited local brevery that gets its name from Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana, pronounced “Loo-Blah-Nah” 🐉.

We’ve learned how the beer gets made and a fact or two.

One of the two facts we’ve learned: India Pale Ale beer (IPA) got its name from the British colonial era. When Brits were taking their Pale Ale beer to India it very often turned bad due to long travels. So they’ve learned to add more hops and alcohol to it to last the long journey on the ships. And that is why it’s called IPA.

How the beer gets made:

1. Malting: Barley is soaked, germinated, and dried to produce malt. Slovenia does not produce it locally so the visited brevery imports it from Germany.

Barley (slo: ječmen)

2. Mashing: Malt is mixed with hot water, converting starches to sugars, forming wort. It was explained to us this is basically “sweet water”.

3. Boiling: Wort is boiled, and hops are added for bitterness and aroma.

Hops (slo: hmelj)

4. Fermentation: Yeast is added to the cooled wort, converting sugars to alcohol and CO₂. Each of the steps till now takes place in a different stainless steel barrels. No air should get in these barrels otherwise the beer gets bad.

Interesting fact #2: Per the 500 galons (2000 liters) of beer being made some
1,000 pounds (500kg) of Barley is needed and only some 10 pounds (5kg) of hops.

5. Conditioning: Beer is aged to develop flavors. In our case the guy said it takes some 3-4 weeks for the beer to develop. 

As the beer develops our evening also developed quite nicely with every new type of beer we tried along the evening 😅. Cheers! 🍻

Thank you for having us Loo-Blah-Nah!

Partnering up with Clay :)

September 3, 2024 /

As PredictLeads partnered up with clay.com it seemed only natural to then go work with clay in the literal sense.

As much as we try it’s really challenging for all of us to look at the camera at the same time 😀

Jokes aside, it was an interesting coincidence though not planned to happen :). Eva booked us for a nice evening of working with clay (literally).

Screenshot

When working with clay to create a finished ceramic product, two primary steps are needed when heating / firing the clay:

There were also two types of “tables” we were working at. This was the “Pottery Mill”.
  1. Bisque Firing (First Firing): The purpose is to transform the raw clay into a hard ceramic state. This firing removes moisture from the clay and drives out organic materials. The temperature for bisque firing in our case was 950°C (1,750°F).
  2. Glaze Firing (Second Firing): After bisque firing, the piece is coated with glaze, a glass-like coating that provides a smooth, glossy finish. The glazed piece is then subjected to a second firing, known as glaze firing. This firing melts the glaze and forms a glassy, non-porous surface on the ceramic piece. In our case Glaze firing temperature was 1,250°C (2,345°F).
Till the next team meetup! 🙂

We’re still waiting for the clay shop to go through these two steps and we can’t wait to see what we produced :).

Cheers, PredictLeads

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