Martin Kupka welcomes us to his house with a view of the South Moravian vineyards. By living among the vineyards, the owner of the Brno marketing agency fulfilled his dream. With hindsight, however, he admits that he made mistakes during the business that almost cost him his career, and the employees wanted to deprive him of the company because of his managerial approach. The lesson came at the bottom. “It’s important to be honest, not always to be the king of the situation,” he says today.
As soon as Martin Kupka graduated from grammar school, in 2001 he headed from the Moravian-Silesian region to Brno for further studies. As he himself points out, he wanted to bring his dream of living among the vineyards closer to him. “But after a few months of school, I understood that if I didn’t want to starve to death with five people in a small apartment, I had to find a full-time job instead of part-time jobs,” he says.
In the newly formed Internet Trading company, he created the first advertisements for various Internet search engines and online advertising campaigns. “I think back to the business owners patting me on the forehead if I was normal if I thought kitchens or windows were going to sell over the internet,” he laughs. After several years of experience, he also tried to establish a network of online stores. But when he had to start dealing with logistics, warehousing or opening a retail store, it was a Spanish village for Martin, so he quickly left the business.
“The company grew and so did the turnover. Only my nose grew,” admits Kupka. | Photo: Tomáš Škoda
Nevertheless, he decided to stay in the field of online advertising, and later created an agency that at that time offered a new form of advertising to other companies. Within two months, he managed to build a company with nine permanent employees-friends he met in previous jobs and a representative headquarters. Better Marketing was born.
At first, it seemed like the perfect story for a marketing startup. “The company grew and with it the turnover. Only my nose grew. I was the big boss who felt that I could not be completely honest with managers, moreover, with friends,” he says, adding that he therefore pushed for changes in the company that were necessary, but poorly communicated among other employees. But it was too late to reflect on the missteps, the fundamental problem that was supposed to turn his business upside down was already bubbling to the surface. Something strange started happening in the company’s systems.
Up down
Martin was alerted by the IT service provider to the fact that something was wrong. Kupka’s company began to lose records about clients. “At the same time, the then sales director warned me that key people wanted to leave the company. That’s when it dawned on me – they are trying to dismantle the company from under my hands! Moreover, all the time I thought that everything was insured by contracts and clauses, but I found out that when they were on the way to my storage room for a few days, a colleague managed to deface the last page of each of them. So all I had to do was close the company temporarily and find out who was against me,” he recalls.
“Justice takes longer in the Czech Republic,” Kupka thinks. | Photo: Tomáš Škoda
In the meantime, the aforementioned sales director managed to found his own agency and with the promise of higher wages and lower prices began to attract employees and current customers of Better Marketing. Thus began the fight for the remaining clients.
“A business where you charge clients less and give employees significantly more, but it cannot work forever. They went bankrupt within a year and I waited years for the court because I believed in justice. It came, but in the Czech Republic it takes longer than is healthy,” he says Martin Kupka.
Self-reflection touched him “to the core”, as he admits in retrospect. “You sit and keep asking yourself where you went wrong. It’s only when you fall flat on your face that you realize you’re not infallible and not all decisions are right. In times like these, I was grateful for my friends and my wife, who always he can give feedback without any packaging, tell the important truth that people don’t like to hear.”
With a few employees remaining with him, Martin Kupka rebuilt Better and everything seemed to be running smoothly. Until one company partner came up with the idea to open a branch in Ostrava. “The advertising business is of course in Prague and much smaller in Brno, Ostrava was too small for the plan to work.” Nevertheless, Kupka decided to comply with the person in question.
After two years, however, the Moravian-Silesian branch’s earnings were meager, despite this the partner decided to found his own agency. “Although he informed us about this and tried for a mutual symbiosis, it was clear to me that it would not be possible to work side by side. Shortly after that I understood that the company within the company was only beneficial for one party in this case, and when the partner left for a long time outside the Czech Republic, skeletons started jumping out of the closet. As soon as he returned, we ended cooperation and struggled for another year with attempts to fraudulently obtain hundreds of thousands of crowns from us. Fortunately, the courts have already worked here. However, we closed the branch with a large financial loss,” says the entrepreneur .
From the pulpit among the grapes
While we are sitting in Martin Kupka’s house, behind the large French windows stretch the vast vineyards with a view of the nearby Pavlov. As Martin recalls, the last trouble with the Ostrava branch left him feeling burnt out and exhausted. After 12 years in the position of manager, he handed over the leadership of his agency to an ambitious colleague and began to fulfill the dream he had once set out for in South Moravia.
“I took a sommelier course and tried to make wine as an amateur, I tried to avoid managerial work and I also returned to my lifelong hobby, motorcycles.” But as he points out, he doesn’t make wine anymore. “Unfortunately, the gentleman who introduced me to winemaking died during the covid. I will probably not return to grapes until I retire,” he thinks. For the time being, they can do with the reconstructed wine cellar, where we are going from the other side of the South Moravian village.
“I try not to enter into relationships with mistrust,” the business owner explains his new approach. | Photo: Tomáš Škoda
Despite the betrayals that Martin experienced during his professional career, he did not lose trust in people and did not hold a grudge against them. Less than a year ago, he also returned to the management of his company Better. “I had the feeling that the company was managed in an excessively tabular and hard way. Even I, in the role of owner, would not look forward to such a job. And what about the others?” he asks rhetorically. He prepared for several months to take over the company, during which time he tried to establish a more confidential environment among the employees.
Common table and values
“How have I learned from my troubles? It’s important to be honest. I’ve learned that it’s important to say things the way I feel and not let them get out of hand. I also try not to enter into relationships with mistrust. And after all, it helped me to realize, that I don’t always have to have a poker-faced manager who needs to be the king of the situation at all costs,” he clarifies.
After returning to the head of the company, Kupka abolished the position of director. “Even though I should be careful with people after all these experiences, I do the exact opposite, friendship is important to me throughout my life. At work, we all touch each other, I don’t even have my own office, I sit at a desk that is free. From previous experiences, I stopped treating people like a mechanical manager, that’s why I talk to everyone honestly and directly. Of course, my company is not a punk without a managerial approach, but I raised it more to a human level.”
He admits that only over time, after miscommunication with previous employees, did he realize that the money earned was secondary. It is more important if a person’s work gives meaning and he is among people who share common values. The numbers confirm that he succeeded. “We have stopped the turnover of employees, our turnover is growing by tens of percent, the demand for work exceeds the number of open positions and this year alone we have won 6 prizes in marketing competitions,” highlights Martin.
Series It will be good
If someone likes bad news, he is living in a happy time. Lately, however, there have been a bit too many of them. Even in the blackest darkness, there is a phosphorescent firefly flying somewhere that will lead us out of the darkness. In the series It will be good, we decided to bring stories of people who at some stage in their lives found themselves at the bottom, but did not give up, persevered and got back on their feet, or on the one left after an injury. Their carom in life then became a pillar of their resilience, an invaluable experience that pushed them forward. We hope that similar stories will become a positive point that will light a new path for you too.
Common values within the company also transfer to work with clients. “We refuse to cooperate with many businessmen because we do not identify with their approach or product. I can say frankly that it is more important for me to have a satisfied colleague than a client. Because if the employees are not satisfied, the clients will not be either. I dare to say that the successes that are now I’ve only achieved through trying to treat people the way I want them to treat me. Out of all my troubles, I’m only happy that they didn’t affect me,” he concludes.
