Toni TrivkovićIt is a pleasure to work with clients who enjoy giving back. Emma left a real trace in our community, and this is the story of how it happened.
Every now and then, a tech.coffee edition stands out from the rest. Not because of the venue or the format – those have been consistent for 144 editions – but because of the person who steps up to share their story. The latest edition was exactly that kind of evening.
We had the pleasure of bringing Emma Arfelt to Split all the way from Copenhagen. Emma is the kind of professional who has genuinely seen both worlds: she has worked on business strategy at McKinsey, and she has rolled up her sleeves as CTO of Jagger, Otto & Ritta, building and shipping a real product. That combination is rare, and it shows when she talks.
Why we brought Emma
At Agilo, we are lucky to work with clients who are not only great at what they do. They are also generous with their knowledge. Emma is one of those people. When we extended the invitation to speak at tech.coffee, she said yes without hesitation. That spirit of giving back is something we deeply appreciate, and it is what makes these evenings possible.
We wanted the Split tech community to experience a perspective that is both commercially sharp and grounded in real product-building. Emma delivered exactly that.
The talk: stop copying, start building
Emma’s central message hit the room immediately: the most decisive moment in any product journey is not a funding round or a big launch. It is the moment when a team stops asking what competitors are doing and starts asking how their product should truly work.
“The instinct to benchmark competitors is understandable, but it keeps you one step behind by definition. Real breakthroughs come from questioning everything from scratch.”
Through practical examples from her own experience, Emma walked the audience through first-principles thinking in a way that felt immediately actionable, not abstract. She talked about bold early decisions, fast experimentation, and how modern tools give even small teams the power to move with real confidence.
One of the most memorable moments was her advice on measurement: change one thing at a time, track results before and after, and only then can you be confident about what actually moved the needle. Her example about knowing whether it was a product change or a new burger sauce that drove conversions drew genuine laughter and nods from across the room.
Key takeaways from the evening
- First-principles thinking beats benchmarking competitors. Copying keeps your ceiling low from day one.
- Bold early decisions combined with fast experimentation is a winning formula for any product team.
- Change one thing at a time, then measure. Otherwise you will never know what actually drove results.
- Trust your intuition even when users resist change. Not every pushback is a signal to stop.
- Bold thinking and commercial clarity are not opposites. Strong product ideas still need clear business value.
The room did not want it to end
Emma was warm, spontaneous, and genuinely engaging. She is the kind of speaker who makes the Q&A run almost as long as the talk itself. The conversations that followed during networking were exactly what tech.coffee is built for: developers, founders, product professionals, and students swapping ideas, exchanging contacts, and leaving with more than they came in with.
This is what 144 editions of tech.coffee have been about. Great people, real conversations, and a community that keeps showing up. We are proud to have played a role in making this evening happen, and even prouder that clients like Emma choose to give something back to the community that supports us all.
The full talk is available on YouTube.
Thank you, Emma. Split remembers 🙂
