How does a small-town boy become the founder & CEO of an international company like primehammer? Well, that’s David’s story.
Backpacking in Guatemala.Young David’s Early Calling
David’s story has fewer plot twists and more of a direct calling than Daniel’s, with a similar amount of travel and adventure. Born in the small town of Frenstat, Czech Republic, David developed an early interest in programming, together with 3ds Max and gaming, already as a kid. He soon started building websites for friends and family, mostly in PHP, on his first computer, a Pentium 90 with a 3GB disk drive.
He delved deeper into his passion during High School, when he learnt to program in Pascal — the best easy language to teach programming principles at the time. He learnt the old-school way, with Turbo Pascal IDE in MS-DOS, with its fast compiler and integrated debugger. The good ol’ days!
While studying Computer Science at Masaryk University in Brno, he fell in love with Ruby and started his first paid internship for the French company Leadformance. He even spent a few months in Chambery, France, with the team, where he learnt to appreciate the cheese from local markets, and hiked the French Alps with his boss.
From Student to Founder
Still at university, David spent a semester abroad in Saarland, Germany, then came back to the Czech Republic to co-found Hlidacky.cz with his friend Petr Sigut. A Startup Yard (the oldest private accelerator in the CEE region) alumnus, the babysitting marketplace went on to become the largest home care portal in the Czech Republic, and even expanded to four other countries in the EU. The project is a perfect showcase for the Ruby on Rails majestic monolith powering web and mobile apps.
Per Aspera ad Astra: the Rise of primehammer
After a bit of freelancing for US startups, he took a more passive stance in Hlidacky to focus solely on primehammer, born in 2014 with the goal of pairing clients with vetted top-quality engineers.
With Daniel’s help, he turned primehammer into a remote-first company with engineers located from Europe to LATAM, and clients ranging from innovative startups to Fortune 500 companies, from Helsinki and London to Toronto and Austin. Read more about primehammer’s first 10 years of life.
David Beyond the Job
David also somehow manages to find time for hobbies, between founding companies and acting as an extra on shows and movies (yes, you read it right, and I bring evidence). He loves backpacking across the world, collects 16-bit games for Sega Megadrive he played as a kid, and enjoys sports, particularly calisthenics and outdoor activities. Believe it or not, there is still something left on his bucket list: a visit to Japan and a road trip through the USA.
What will his next feat be? Founding another company, or guest-starring in a Hollywood movie? Follow closely and don’t miss a step!