Factory39 – Embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution 

Martin Zarian is Co-Founder & Brand Strategist at Factory39 in Limassol

Back in 2016 London, Martin Zarian and Zen Kyprianou were working for the big players. The goal and vision was mutual; to solve complex problems, help businesses create and develop their brands and digital products, and make sure they connect with the right audience. Tired of the big city life, in 2017 they moved to sunny Cyprus, a few metres by the sea to build their startup idea. 

MISSION: Tell us what your company’s mission is, and describe the strategy that implements that mission?

“Factory39’s mission is to help businesses scale, evolve and get ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We all come from different backgrounds and experiences , but what really drives us all is our passion for new technologies. We merge our brand, strategy, design, and software development skills to build the brands and digital products of tomorrow; our desire is to foster innovations that support the human race.

We are witnessing the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – see 5G rollout on the island – and although the general vibe is positive and exciting, companies still don’t have the software, the supporting infrastructure or the human centric brands they need. There’s definitely still a lot of work to be done to get us to that point, we at Factory39 are simply the enablers!” Zarian explains.

TECHNOLOGY: How does technology fit into the strategy?

“Our story started four years ago with a product called Anyscript, a tool that uses scripts to automate mundane tasks. We created this tool to be a bridge between the software developer writing a script, and the end user utilising the output of the script. It’s a little automation tool to make repetitive tasks much faster and easier,” he continues.

In fact, bridging the gap between software development, User Experience and Brand is what Factory39 is all about.

Sometimes, innovation and technology is as simple as doing something better, more efficiently and fun. We’re always on the lookout for how we can automate processes and make the full journey and collaboration effective for all parties involved. That’s why we also built our own Content Management System.” Zarian points out.

“There are times when something just doesn’t work the way we want it to, so we have a standing joke: Why don’t we just build it ourselves?” he adds.

INNOVATION AND STRATEGY: What is your philosophy of innovation and strategy?

“Creating automations, and trying to understand how to do things better without reinventing the wheel are values that guide everything we do. Sometimes our clients are super excited and eager to start building the next big thing, even though that route could be achieved with existing functionalities. We are trying to balance the desire of building things from scratch with the functionality and the ability to use existing tools.

The user journey is our target. The user is always our hero. We create the connection between brand and user, and then build the software – that is the basis of our approach. Our strategy is all about having a deep and fundamental understanding of who the end user is and how we can build a strong and emotional connection.

“The end user is the real owner of a business’s brand, therefore the more data and knowledge we have, the higher the chance of success. For us a successful business is a combination of brand, strategy, technology, and people, with a particular focus on understanding and empowering the end user, whether it is for a brand or a digital product.

“Most companies have teams of extremely smart and talented people, but they usually ignore the other side of the coin; the human side. That’s where we step in, to help them build their brands, better understand their user persona (aka their client) and to bridge that gap.”

THE FUTURE: What does the future look like for Factory39?

“We anticipated the remote working trend a while back. We said: Forget London, let’s go to Cyprus and build our startup in a place that we love, a beautiful island that has crazy potential, but let’s keep working with the big impact people,” Zarian explains.

This is driving the fast growth.

“Four years ago, we were only two, today we are 15 and currently hiring.  We want to grow sustainably, ensuring we maintain our culture. So we’ll just keep building cool products along with a diverse and dynamic team. The future is almost here, and we want to be part of it.”