20 minutes on stage, 40 people in a room, and 1 honest talk about selling

Our co-founder, Senad Šantić was invited to speak at tech.coffee in Split, Croatia earlier this week.

The topic: how zendev grew to 100+ people through social selling.

tech.coffee is part of Split Tech City, the first formal association of Split's tech community. 

Toni Trivković, founder of Slicejack & Agilo, started the meetup back in 2008 with one simple goal: get people working in tech into the same room.

Today, it's the most active tech meetup in the Mediterranean, capped at 40 people per event, intentionally personal. 

Since 2010, Split Tech City has run 150+ events and connected 1,000+ members and companies across the region.
 

The audience was mostly IT professionals. Senad opened on sales anyway:

Building visibility through content so buyers already know who you are before they start looking. 

According to a Bain & Company and Google survey of 1,208 B2B buyers, 86% already have a vendor shortlist before they start buying.

92% choose from that list.

If buyers don't know you when they start looking, you usually don't win.

The talk ran about 20 minutes.

The Q&A ran longer. Which is always a good sign.

After the session, everyone in the room introduced themselves. 

That kind of thing doesn't happen at most events. It made the whole thing feel more personal.

One of the first myths he tackled:
 

You have to be an extrovert to do well on LinkedIn.

Senad considers himself an introvert. His point was that personality matters less than showing up consistently over time.

He walked through a 3-type content model. Posts that reach new audiences. Posts that build trust with the right people. Case study posts that help close deals.

And he was honest about the downsides. 

Inbound doesn't give you full pipeline control. You'll attract meetings that aren't the right fit. Dry spells happen.
 

This isn't just Senad's approach anymore. Our whole team posts now.

In February 2026, 9 team members generated 611,000 LinkedIn impressions combined.

For that reason, we’ve founded Linkbound, a tool that tracks who engages with your LinkedIn content and helps you reach out to them before they go cold. 

The two approaches are connected by design.
 

Toni gave Senad a t-shirt on the way out. It reads: "Ka i uvik gledam more" - Dalmatian for "I always look at the sea." 

He didn’t have to say it, but you can see on his face it's already a favourite.

He's coming back for the Split Tech City Festival this summer.

Thanks to Split Tech City and tech.coffee for having us. 💚

We'll definitely be back.