Hostinger Growth Story – Interview With Daugirdas Jankus (Hostinger CMO)

In this interview, we have the privilege of speaking with Daugirdas Jankus, who is the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Hostinger. Mr. Jankus has been working with Hostinger for the past 6 years, making him a valuable source of information about the company’s experiences and future plans. 

As the highest-ranking executive in the company, Mr. Jankus has a comprehensive understanding of Hostinger’s operations, goals, and vision. From an employee’s perspective, Hostinger is definitely an exciting and dynamic workplace.

The interview offers a glimpse into the company’s culture and ethos, providing insights that can only be gained by working at Hostinger.

About Guest

Guest Name: Daugirdas Jankus,

What They Do: Daugirdas Jankus is the CMO of Hostinger.

Company: Hostinger

Known For: Daugirdas Jankus has been working with Hostinger for the past 6 years, making him a valuable source of information about the company’s experiences and future plans. 

Social Media:

Video Interview With Hostinger CMO

Here’s the video interview that we did with Hostinger’s CMO.

Daugirdas Jankus Interview – Hostinger CMO

Q. Can you introduce yourself and your role at Hostinger?

Daugirdas Jankus: My name is Daugirdas Jankus, it’s a Lithuanian name, it’s a real tongue twister, but my foreign friends call me by my initials, so DG is perfectly fine. I have been with Hostinger for almost six years now. 

I started when we were just 70 people worldwide, and now we have more than 1,100 employees globally. My role as CMO is to oversee the marketing department and ensure that we create value for our clients.

Q. How long have you been working with Hostinger?

Daugirdas Jankus: I’m with the company for almost six years, I started when we were 70 people worldwide and three people in the marketing department. Fast forward to now, we are more than 1100 employees worldwide and grew a lot over the past year. 

Our main objective from day one was and still is the same, we want to create value for our clients, and we are really happy that these audiences value us because this is the essence of our growth, and the past year’s growth is not slowing down. So, we are really happy about it.

Q. What do you think was the biggest secret for the success of Hostinger in the last few years?

Daugirdas Jankus: Our biggest secret to success is that there are no secrets. What sets Hostinger apart is that we focus on our clients and their needs, and that has helped us to become successful.

Q. What makes Hostinger special?

Daugirdas Jankus: What we believe works for us is the focus on our clients, but I don’t believe that’s unique just for us. Everyone is doing it, and some are doing it a bit better than others maybe, but we always focus on our clients, and we are very lucky that we are able to grow with them as well. 

So, we develop a lot of features and services for our existing clients because we listen to their feedback, and it helps our existing clients to grow, and it helps us to grow because through that we are able to target more audiences from a new client perspective. This is how it works for us, and yeah, we are very proud of it.

Q. With the advent of AI, where do you think the world is heading?

Daugirdas Jankus: The world is definitely heading towards an interesting time with the advancement of AI. At Hostinger, our focus is on our clients, and we want to help them use AI and other technologies to make their online presence more efficient and successful. 

We try to embed these features in our service offering and provide use cases to our clients on how they can empower themselves to be even more successful. It’s going to be a crazy and exciting time ahead, and we are looking forward to seeing what else the future holds.

Q. How Do You Use AI and ChatGPT?

Daugirdas Jankus: I use AI technology almost daily, mainly for simple tasks like summarizing thoughts or ideas, or paraphrasing.

My main use case for ChatGPT is to craft messages that are simple enough but still powerful enough to resonate within the organization I work for. We communicate in English, and many of us are not English native speakers, so it’s important to craft messages that are clear and easy to understand.

Q. What’s your take on the growing popularity of cryptocurrency?

Daugirdas Jankus: My personal take on crypto is that it’s interesting and exciting, but I see it more as a game than a serious investment. To really do it properly, I would need to spend a lot of time on it, which isn’t feasible for me at the moment. I do invest in it for fun, but it’s not a significant part of my portfolio.

Q. Hostinger is accepting payments in crypto now. What was the reason behind that decision?

Daugirdas Jankus: It was a request from our clients, and we saw that other audiences also appreciate it. We were one of the first movers to implement this, and so far, so good.

Q. What’s your future vision for Hostinger?

Daugirdas Jankus: Our vision is to continue to be client-focused and to help people use technology to make their online presence more efficient and successful. We’re already working on embedding AI and other technologies into our service offerings, and we want to continue to provide our clients with use cases and tips on how to empower themselves to be even more successful.

In the next five years, I see Hostinger as a leader in the industry, helping individuals and businesses alike to achieve their goals online.

Q. How did COVID-19 impact your business? Was it a positive experience?

Daugirdas Jankus: I have very mixed feelings about it. First of all, it was a big disaster for the world in general. As a company, we were in a lucky position because we saw a huge shift towards online. 

This was happening all the time, but COVID-19 accelerated that and we saw a huge increase in demand for the services that we offer. So, it was great, but on the other side, it was also very challenging.

Q. Challenges you faced in COVID-19?

Daugirdas Jankus: Sure. We had so many new users that it was overwhelming. The team that used to work offline had to adjust to remote working. Major shifts were happening at the same time, but we were lucky because we were always distributed. 

We had half of our team somewhere away from the headquarters, so that was not a big challenge for us. However, it was still challenging, and I can imagine how difficult it was for regular companies that were used to office-based work.

Q. How did you cope with the challenge of adjusting to fully remote work and dealing with a huge inflow of new clients?

Daugirdas Jankus: We had to ensure a high level of service that everyone was used to, and we had to keep up with the demand. Our customer success department suddenly had so many more clients to attend to, so we had to hire heavily. We grew by a couple of hundred people over two to four COVID-19 months. 

By that time, it was a huge growth for us because we were around three to four hundred people before COVID-19. After COVID-19, we are now above 1000. As you can imagine, it was crazy, and the majority of this growth happened during the first stages of COVID-19.

Q. What would you say was the biggest lesson you learned during this experience?

Daugirdas Jankus: The biggest lesson was that we have to be prepared for anything. We were lucky to be in a good position to handle the situation, but we had to adapt quickly. 

We had to learn how to communicate effectively with remote teams, and we had to learn how to provide the same level of service to our clients, even with the increased demand. We also learned that we have to be flexible and adaptable in order to survive in the business world.

Q. Could you share with our audience what your goals are for Hostinger in 2023?

Daugirdas Jankus: Our goals for Hostinger in 2023 are centered around growth, as always. We are pleased with the progress we’ve made so far in gaining more attraction in global markets, and we intend to continue at this pace. 

Our plan is to achieve this growth by getting closer to specific countries and markets, and by providing better service to our clients.

Q. Could you tell us a little more about how you plan to get closer to your clients?

Daugirdas Jankus: Although we already have a global presence, we are experimenting with ways to connect more deeply with clients in specific countries and markets. 

We want to provide a more localized service, while still maintaining our global reach. So, we will be working to get closer to our clients throughout the year.

Q. You mentioned the balance between global reach and local service. Could you tell us more about that?

Daugirdas Jankus: Hostinger is proud to be a global player, but we also recognize the importance of being a local service provider. We believe that by getting closer to our clients, we can better understand their needs and provide more personalized solutions. This is something that we will be focusing on in the upcoming year.

Q. Before we wrap up, could you tell us a little bit about your experience so far with Hostinger?

Daugirdas Jankus: It’s been a challenging and rewarding experience leading Hostinger. We have a great team, and I am proud of what we have accomplished so far. I am excited about the future and what we will achieve in the coming years.

Q. Can you tell us a little bit about your recent experience in WordCamp Bangkok?

Daugirdas Jankus: Sure, it was a great experience overall. Bangkok is just great. It’s a vibrant and dynamic city, and it really added to the positive experience of the event. The WordCamps that we attended were all different from each other, and this one was particularly good. The venue was great and the attendees were very intense, which added to the overall atmosphere.

Conclusion

This interview provided a plethora of valuable insights. One of the standout qualities of Mr. Jankus was his ability to explain everything in detail, relating to the queries asked. He displayed great humility and drew upon his vast experience gained from working in one of the most popular companies in the digital world.

The insights gained from this interview offer a unique perspective on Hostinger. One can learn about the company’s past, present, and future plans in detail, which can be an incredibly valuable learning experience.

I loved the experience. If you have any questions or suggestions please leave them in the comment section below. I’ll try to cover the in my next interviews.

You can follow Daugirdas Jankus on Twitter.