Businessman and lover of healthy lifestyle - Karel Dytrych

We had an interview with Karel Dytrych - an entrepreneur, traveler, athlete and yogi, who founded Váš-hosting and Freelo. Related to this are his other projects, which you will learn about in the article below. 

Karel, can you introduce yourself briefly?

Yes, of course. My name is Karel Dytrych and with the help of my projects I try to save others time and simplify their business. I'm crazy about a healthy lifestyle, so I like to run, do yoga and travel.

How do you manage to combine work and personal life?

Having time for yourself is the most important thing. So time is simply always, at least on the basics like sports, quality food, exercise and rest. It is more about health hygiene.
At the same time, I do not separate my work and personal life so much. I try to really enjoy the work itself. Whether it's working with technology, programming or attending conferences or filming podcasts. I also have a very friendly relationship with many of our users and partners.

Your values are joy, health, freedom at work and ecology. Are you trying to apply these values in business? Can you tell us how?

Clearly. If I behaved differently in business and differently outside of it, it wouldn't be me. I made a lot of friends from business and vice versa. As part of Váš Hosting, we support non-profit projects and startups that make sense to us. 

Freelo and I go to "hackathons" regularly. To the mountains or to the sea, where we are closed, we work on heavy things and play sports, cook healthy meals and the like.

I know that work takes up a large part of an active life, so we do everything we can to make everyone feel good at work.

We know you have a lot of projects to work on. How many are there currently?

At the moment I only deal with hosting and Freelo. They are quite technologically interconnected and at the same time have common users of both services. Even so, switching is relatively psychologically demanding. 

Everything else is just such side projects. I take care of the community of people around SaaS - SaaSkaři, where I hold regular meetings. I make podcast and try to teach people to work effectively using videos on youtube, so I'm also a youtuber via Freelo.tv. In the past, I ran a digital agency for many years, also I tried my own e-shop, but it's gone.

How did you come up with the podcast „Z podpalubí”? What was the motivation behind that?

I've been listening to podcasts for some time. I was very interested in it and I wanted to try it. So, one Christmas, I made a commitment to start, and last at least a year to release at least once a month. And so far it has been holding me for almost 2 years. A few people enjoy it and maybe educate them. I also lectured on podcasts at Barcamp.

The fact that I meet a large number of very interesting people in my work certainly played a role. I wanted to share theirs and my experiences and it occurred to me to connect it. I managed to start with that at a time when there were only a few Czech podcasts, so I think it worked quite well for me.

Listen to one of the Karel's podcasts on Apple Podcasts or also on Spotify.

What episode of your podcast would you recommend to us and who was your most interesting guest?

This is a very difficult question. I really like to remember the first or zero episode with Janka Chudlíková. I didn't record a podcast, I just recorded the conversation on my iPhone so I could transcribe it later. In fact, I released it later as a normal podcast. It helped me a lot and motivated me for the next episodes.

There is great info in this episode about how not to get burnout, how to stay healthy and productive, etc. The episodes that have stayed in my head a lot are the ones with Dan Gamrot or Petr Koukal, but it's hard to name anyone. Everyone in the podcast is great and I'm so glad they gave me an hour of their lives. :-)

What question do you like to ask your guests during the interviews? And what about the final set of questions? How did you come up with that?

A few people have told me that I always ask things about health routines and habits. I also like to discuss the story of each guest, how he got to where he is, what helped him and what was difficult. But I also try to ask questions that could help the audience in their business.

If you could be born again, where would it be?

Of course in the Czech Republic. We have a wonderful time here. Standard of living, opportunities ... It's actually one of the safest places on earth. We also have great nature with lots of greenery. Even if such a Barcelona is probably on its heels. :) Barcelona charmed me this summer. It's great that there are hills and mountains around the whole city and at the same time the sea with the beach, super clean streets, nice atmosphere. But I was a tourist, so who knows if I would appreciate it after a longer time.

How long does the company Váš Hosting work and how many people work for you?

Váš Hosting was established in 2006, when I primarily created websites with the Webový servis. Of course, we needed to host it somewhere. The interface of all the hostings seemed completely insane, complicated and expensive to me. When I finally got through it, I realized I could handle it better.

We do the whole Váš Hosting internally in four people. Plus, of course, we have long-term cooperation with a number of professionals in marketing, programming, accounting, we outsource services in a great data center, etc. We put it together quite cleverly.

By the way another member of the party would come in handy. Specifically some Linux admin. :-)

In four people? That's pretty little.

Every time I tell someone, they're pretty surprised, but it's true. It's about doing nothing unnecessarily and having as many things as possible automated. This will save a huge amount of time later and we will handle all clients. So the key is automation, a narrow focus on just one type of server or product, and a clear user interface that users don't have to ask unnecessarily. If this were not the case, then I believe we have at least 10 extra people on support. We also take good care of the servers and prevent a lot of problems.

How has Váš hosting changed since its inception in 2006? 

The biggest change was when my colleague Luboš and I went to Norway for a year, where we decided to differentiate ourselves in the market and focus on virtual servers with excellent management, which will be pre-prepared, secure and will be updated. The initial development took almost a year. I think it paid off and now the VPS center is our family silver and the reason why customers are looking for us.

In my opinion, the trend in hosting and servers in the future will be either specialized SaaS platforms for creating websites or simple e-shops such as Shoptet, SolidPixels, etc. In addition, there will be space for more complex things tailored to your own server and infrastructure. This part of the people will appreciate the configured and smart server, which will not need so much care. A server that alerts itself to suspicious activity, lack of resources, etc. The third major segment will be the largest applications, which will be highly scaled. They will go to AWS, Azure, etc..

What do you plan for your Hosting in the future? What can clients look forward to?

We have no big revolution on the table. We want to deliver the friendliest servers on the market. We gradually listen to users, collect feedback and improve, extend the API, allow installation, stop and reinstall of servers on click. We try to adopt new technologies as they come out. And most importantly we try to help users manage the server. Just save time and nerves.

Tell us about your next project Freelo. How did it come about and what problem does it solve?

Freelo is a tool that allows easy communication over tasks. You will organize any project or daily work in it. We emphasize simplicity and time savings. We compete with Trella, Basecamp and similar giants. Quite successfully in the Czech Republic. We are already used by teams such as Nikon, Olympus, Bushman, Karcher, Fotoškoda and many others.

Freelo typically solves problems so that the team knows what to do and also collects documents in one place, so that the assignment and the result are easily passed on, etc. It's almost unbelievable how many companies still use emails to solve tasks. I also often train project management, so I know that the level in companies is not very good even today. 

Who was your biggest / best client?

Every client is important to us. We make no difference whether we have one domain or ten servers. I hope it doesn't sound like a big cliché. What I enjoy a lot is the diversity of clients. We have e-shops, athletes, artists, agencies and educational institutions. Of course, we are happy when, for example, one of the best Czech programmers or a lovebrand such as Rohlík or the Tereza Maxová Foundation can use us.

What are your personal plans for the future? Do you want to continue solving multiple projects at once or do you plan to shift your attention to something completely different over time?

Time will show. At the moment, I do not plan any expansion of projects at all. Rather, I want what I am signed under to work as well as possible and to develop further. It is also necessary to remember that life is not just about work, so I will only be happy if I have more time for myself, family and free time in the future.

Milan a Karel at Barcamp Brno 2019