Elephant Trumpet The Of f icial Elephant Orchestra Newsletter

In this Issue

Q1 2011 First View 1

Q1 2011 Financial Overiview 1,2

Company Values 2

Hola Bucaneeros ! 3

Poland 4

Redmine Is a Killer 4

Barcelona 2011 5

Mafia Boss Elephant Orchestra 6

New Employees 6

Asian Dinner 7

Elephant Football 7

Fashion Police 8

Calendar 8

... Continued on next page

Q1 2011 First View by Wei-Hai Chu - CEO

So far 2011 has been off to a slow start. We are lagging in revenue in all units as of February. Clearly this is not good news. There are however quite a few reason to stay optimistic:• We know what the reasons are and can thus

address this shortfall• Very clear plans are in place in every unit to

make up the revenue in Q2• The pipeline in every unit is very good• There are quite a few large deals in the mak

ing• It is very early in the year

Most importantly: I believe in the team we have in place at the moment.

We are in the midst of updating our forward strategy and the first indication is thatwhatwehave accomplished in the past forms a very solid foundation for our future strategy. I will address this in more detail soon with all of you.

So in short: We are off to a slow start but the future is very bright!

Q1 2011 Financial Overview by Petr Krajíček - CFO

The Q1 of 2011 brought a slight disillusion-ment after the stunning results of 2010. Unfortu-nately, we were not able to fully hit the ambitious targets set for Q1. It doesn´t mean that we are not doing well – the company is still growing – but the forecasted numbers were simply higher. Domain-ing started off the year with a slight downfall in January and February, but March s performance helped to make up to a large extent for this initial loss – especially couple of great deals. Total Q1 Do-maining revenue is thus 400k USD in contrary to forecasted 430k (-7%).

ElephantTraffic s resultsare showing simi-lar trend – there was a slight decrease in the amount ofmonetized traffic in January and Feb-ruary, March compensated for this decrease to a certain extent, yet the revenue in Q1 is 1,265mil USD in contrast to forecasted 1,6mil. The new deal with DomainSponsor, which already manifested itself to a smaller degree in March should bring dramatically higher revenue increase in the future than was the loss in Q1.

Lead Gen on the other hand hit the target

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Company Valuesby Wei-Hai Chu - CEO

Our 5th and 6th company values are all about execution and teamwork. One of the reasons of our success so far has been our ability to execute quickly and efficiently. Now we have grown sorapidly communication and thus execution has be-comemoredifficultattimes.Thisisinspiteofthefact that we have more resources.

5. We do not question each other un-less face to face

Though this should be common sense this is not always the case in companies. It has been my experience that the larger the company the less this is the case. Research has been done quite a few times on what is crucial to make a project suc-ceed. Among the many factors found was the fact that the less a project was gossiped about in the hallways the greater the chance of success. Most importantly however is the fact that if we chal-lenge each other openly and face to face, we will learn so much more and projects will run so much smoother.

5. We always support each other and are loyal to each other

This is again common sense in my view. What sticks out in this value for me is the level of politics in a company. In the late 1990’s I worked for one of the largest internet startups in Europe. The team was very young and inexperienced (our company reminds me a lot of that time) but very ambitious. One of the manifestations of this ambition was a high level politicking in the hallways. It some-times seemed that you could not take a step in the hallways without people asking you to be disloyal to one person and switch allegiance to another. The result was that we executed everything very poorly and, even worse, we had 6 different Gener-alManagersinthefirstyear.Ioftenwonderhowgreat we could have been if we did execute.

Q1 2011 Financial Overview ... Continued

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Business Page

1. We talk with each other openly and honestly.2. We never hesitate to push back and escalate if necessary.3. We always take initiative and are proactive.4. We do not question decisions once taken but get on with it.5. We do not questions each other unless face to face.6. We always support each other and are loyal to each other.7. To mistake is acceptable, to be inactive is unforgivable.

in January but fell behind expectations in Febru-ary and March – total Q1 revenue is 570k USD in contrary to forecasted 630k (-9%). It should be however noted down that all here stated numbers are only preliminary and thus subject to possible change (but not a dramatic one).

Total company revenue reached 2,2 mil USD in Q1, which is loss of about 18% to the original forecast (2,69mil USD). However, it needs to be pointed out that our revenue is now almost two-fold in comparison to similar period in 2010(in-crease 92% in comparison to Q1 in 2010 and 40% increase in comparison to last year s average quarter revenue).

We now need to use all our forces in order to makeupforthelossinrevenueinthefirstquartertohitthe2011target.Itwon’tbeeasy,butdefinite-ly achievable.

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Hola Bucaneeros ! by Otto Gross

In the age of modern technology three fear-less warriors emerged in the dark freezing waste-land of Finland led by "Boromir" (Otto) supported by "Sauron" (WHC) and accompanied by "Arwen" (PetraP.) to fight for thegloryof theCzechLeadGen market. They visited one of the biggest partner in Helsinki, Ferratum. EO and their co-belligerent are operating in 4 countries and battling together against other loan providers and are prepared to seize another markets for the glory of the kingdom of Czech Republic and Finland.

The meeting was to maintain our relation-ship and also establish the strategy for future ex-pansion to other markets. Also we have agreed to cooperate together as partners in product devel-opment. The initial step is to align with a colony of Crazy Tomato led by king Arthur (Pavel M.) and his wizardMerlin(MarianN.)asamobileproviderfornew products and services.

Business Page

Apart from the business part of the trip we alsowentforsightseeinginHelsinki.Thefirstonour journey was a taxi driver who listened to a classical music which was a killer for us, eehhr!! Then we tasted Finish coffee which was actually nice compared to Finish girls. The next on our tour was the statue of Alexander III. who ruled in the cold and freezing darkness in 19th century.

Then we moved to a wooden boat where the captain (elder Finish lady non speaking English) offered to taste Koskenkorva and some salmon snacks. In the evening we met our ex-domainer Janne Hainari and he took us for a wild nite ride in Helsinki!!! The last stop I remember was at a night club in the heart of Helsinky where were played 80-90 music šlágrs, Oldies but Goldies!!! Sauron and Arwen ruled the dance floorwhile Boromirand Janne were observing the potential threat from Finish Bucaneeros.

One thing is for certain, Czech and Slovak girlsaretopclasscomparedtoFinishflaffies!!!

Issue 7 | March/ April 2011

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Redmine Is a Killer by Vladimír Sedlák

Redmine is a flexible project managementweb application. Redmine also offers usable fea-tures for improving communication in the com-pany.

I just pick up few killer features: • for developers: connector to CVS, browsing app

code, viewing diffs • for project and product managers: issue track-

ing, time tracking, watching activities, voting system

• for teams: own wikipages, documents, discus-sion forums, news

Any change can be noticed by email and for Redmine exist a lot of plugins which adding new functionality. Redmine should be used as main platform for making tasks in the company because of register, nothing can be forgotten and every-thing can be managed and prioritized easily

Poland by Jaroslav Šícha

On March 3rd and 4th we attended Internet Standard conference at Warsaw, Poland.

We arrived on Wednesday in early after-noon, so we had rest of the day to explore the city. Warsaw was unfortunately almost completely de-stroyed during WWII, so there s not much left of historical downtown to see. We visited some huge building at Centre square that looks like Empire State building. Although on the outside of this building is a massive bigboard – poster, which totally disrespects historical status and in the evening whole building is lit up, sadly the lights are not white but rather multicoloured, therefore this building looks like rainbow. Otherwise Warsaw is a nice city, with good-looking chicks and pretty tasty beer.

On second day we attended conference. It was about polish internet market, new ideas and topics. Many important people delivered their speech, including mr. Kowalczyk - IAB ceo, mr. Sokolowski – online business development direc-tor at Internet Standard and mr. Bartkowiak – di-rector of business division at Agora PL.

Intheeveningwasofficialpartyatpopularclub and we met a lot of people there. We drank vodka with them and was discussing how come,

Issue 7 | March/ April 2011

that two czech aliens arrived to Polish conference. There was interesting discussion about compari-son between Czech and Polish online market.

The next day second part of the conference was held. During the brakes there was a lot of pos-sibility for networking. So we discuss new trends in Poland online marketing, meet new potential clients and found new Polish friends.

We met a lot of people, learned new ideas and understanded polish market. Based on our obser-vations, we are able to set up a business plan and sucessfully expand on their market.

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Barcelona 2011 by Yancy Naughton

Its just another 'Work Hard-Play Hard' sto-ry.

Q4 2010 was a game changer for Elephant Trafficintermsofrevenueandperformance.Salestopped $1.5 million which produced many positive results including sustainable growth, investors jumpinginthefrozenVltava,andthefinalrewardof a team building trip to Barcelona for the entire division.

So in the second week of February, a single plane carrying the entire braintrust of ET, includ-ing product support, management, sales, market-ing and IT took off from Prague. 2 hours later we landed in Barcelona for a two night jaunt featuring temperate climates, surreal architecture, exciting food, nightlife, camaraderie and debauchery.

Friday started with a team dinner reserva-tion at a tapas and sangria joint. The large dining room was empty at 8pm, causing us suspicion. But

Issue 7 | March/ April 2011

after 3 hours of excellent food, wine and sangria, weexited thenowoverflowing facility in searchof night life. And after a mishmash of random cab rides, misplaced colleagues and aimless wander-ing,we finally arrived at ClubOpium for a nightfilledwith the requisiteWine,Womenand Song.Sparingthedetails,sufficetosaythatwereunitedwith the missing, mingled with masses, met the lo-cals and hobnobbed with Arab royalty. Our table was in perfect position to watch the performers, laugh at stage dives and even to observe a pointed moment of Russian revelation for those who were paying attention. So at about 7 am, (too early for Drela) we went back to the hotel for a seminar on karmic business ethics presented by two enlight-ened Swedish gurus.

The rest of the weekend featured sight see-ing, team building and more exploration of the seven deadly sins. We returned to Prague late Sun-day a little tired, but a bit the wiser, closer heard of Elephants.

So, where are we going next quarter, Jeremy?

New Employees

Jan SmržTitlePHP programmerNationalityCzechFactInterested in photogra-phy, acoustic guitar and parachute jumping!

Raúl Calvo MartínTitle PHP ProgrammerNationalitySpanishFact "I´m interested either in computer graphics and 3D sculpting.''

Kristýna MusilováTitle HR AssistantNationalityCzechFact "Every year I organize a competition in orienta-tion running. Join us!"

Darja SucháTitleHTML/CSS coderNationality CzechFact Studied half a year in Austria - Graz.

Celestýna ChaunováTitleReceptionistNationality CzechFact Enjoys metal music, con-certs with friends, tattoos and movie make-up.

Denis HavránekTitleHTM coderNationality CzechFact Considers number 5 to be his lucky one.

Mafia Boss Elephant Orchestra

by Lenka DobrohruškováDuring last weeks, many of us had a great

chancetoseePetrKrajíčekastheheadofNewYorkmafia inoneofPraguesmall theatres,wheretheLASO company performed its play called “Broad-way”. I can’t bring you the feelings from the play, but I can try to tell you something about great ac-tors and singers who we saw there.

Well,therewasaman,headofmafia.Hewascalled Don Valenti, but he really looked like Petr Krajicek. But compared to Petr, this man was very angry, little bit cruel and – hi did not hesitate to kill people! This man had a girlfriend – well, let’s say he bought a girlfriend- called Dolly. This silly Dolly (who actually looked like a twin of our clever and nice Vanda ) wanted to became a famous ac-tress.

Don Valenti loved this little goose and also had a lot of money, so he promised to pay for a new play written by a young author, and decided that Dolly will act some role in this play.

New play and unknown author need a bigstar. Do you know Jana, that blond woman with smallbabywhocomestoouroffice fromtimetotime to give some HR advices? Well, she looks ab-solutely the same as this big star, Helen Sinclair.

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Entertainment Page

Issue 7 | March/ April 2011

Don’t have enough place for all story, just can tellyoutherewasonetalentedMafiosowhohelpedthe author with the story and one killed Dolly, who wasdestroyingtheplaybyherterribleacting.No-bodyisallowedtodestroymofioso’splay.Andno-body is allowed to kill the lover of boss, so that’s why talentedMafioso has to die too. In the endthere is very successful play at Broadway. And also the end of love because of author’s decision not to continue in writing plays. Helen needs a success and man which brings it to her. One successful play and many sad people around. But not people in au-ditorium. Some were crying, but with laughter.

Whatwealldid findout is, thatPetrwouldbe a very handsome and uncompromising gang-ster and attentive lover (he can get black pearls for you, ladies!), Vanda can pretend to be a very silly girl and can die very effectively (and doesn’t know the black pearls), Jana os very charming, loved by many men and has a GREAT voice. And the last thing – you all should come to see next play.

All of us, who were there have to give Petr big clap on the back, because it was big fun, he wrote very good scenario, funny texts and also played his Don Valenti very well.

Thanks to all actors for great evening and looking forward to next theatre meeting !

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Asian Dinnerby Luboš Dvořák

OnFebruary17,2011wehadthefirstNation-2Nationparty.Sinceitwasonlyatrial, theeventplanners chose Asian as the motif even though we do not a native Asian in our crew. Becuase it was a "plus 1" party, we did it outside of our premises and hired a newly opened restaurant Modrý Zub in Prague 1. The waiting staff of the place were very friendly.

They kept on re-arranging the tables and chairs till 2AM the night before, so we can sit to-gether at big tables and there is still enough space to move. The interior of Modrý Zub is obviously brand new and red and gold colours dominate in the rooms and together with traditional thai sculp-tures and pictures create a unique atmosphere.

The guest were welcome by a glass of spar-kling wine with strawberry and it was the last "usual" F&B served that evening. As soon as most of the invited arrived, waiters started serving thai hot soup Tom Kha Kai with coconut milk in it and spring rolls were offered. Main dishes consisted of 3differentkindsofcurry(KaengKhaiWhanNeua,Kaeng Phed and Kaeng Kari Kai) with various meat andsidedishesservedasabuffet.Afterfillingtheirstomacheverybodyexpectedadessertbutfirstasurprice arrived.

Elephants in Action

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Elephant Football

by Roman Dobiáš What does the Elephant football team have

incommonwiththese2footballchampions?Youdon ´t have to be a football fan to recognize, with no confusion, that all three of these teams have themost AWESOMEPLAYERS, PERFECT STRAT-EGY, PRECISE TACTICS, FIGHTING SPIRIT, END-LESSENTHUSIASM,ASKILLEDCOACH,ALUXURYBACKGROUND, GENEROUS DONORS, BEAUTIFULandCHARMINGCHEERLEADERS,THEBESTFANSetc.. Watching each of these three teams playing is always an astonishing experience.

Some of you may say that there must be a dif-ference after all. Indeed, we can say that there is one very small, unimportant and inconsiderable difference. For you sticklers - the only difference is that the EO team has lost 21 games out of ....ehm, I think.... I can´t remeber now ......how to calculate it exactly ...recalled - out of all 21 games played in the last 2 seasons, I assume. BUT Chelsea lost 17 games in the last 2 seasons so the difference is re-allynotsosignificant,isit?

EpilogueNo,wehaveneitherwonnortiedanymatch-

esyet.Butwe´llkeepfighting,soit sonlyaques-tion of time !

A young thai student dressed in traditional thai costume appeared and showed a little dance performance to the rythms of old-fashioned thai music. As dessert the restaurant offered exotic-tasted ice-cream, fruit plates and Mekhong whisky for digestive. Although the event ended at 10PM which is quite early for Elephants, the feedbacks were good.

Thereforethebackofficeislookingforwardtoprepare the first realN2N that shall be intro-ducing the cuisine and culture of our colleagues Ivana (representing Slovakia) and Mateusz (repre-senting Poland).

Movie Night

Thursday 14th April, 7pmBig Meeting Room

Free Popcorn & Beer!

"Casablanca is the movie on just about every "top ten" list in the known

galaxy!"

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Elephants in Action

Calendar

April 5Interdept. Workshop - FinanceApril 10LG_Světreklamy,PragueApril 11-13ET_Ad Tech, San Francisco April 13LG_Marketing Live, Bratislava April 20Interdept. Workshop - IT April 20Company LunchMay 4Interdept. Workshop - ET SalesMay 5N2NParty-HollandMay 9Shareholders' Meeting

FASHION POLICE: Paul "The Sweet" Rocker

by Lenka DobrohruškováToday we are going to evalu-

ate this young man.Youcanseethereisnoway

to do anything wrong with his outfit.Paveljustdressedupdarkjeans and dark T-shirt with col-oured crazy picture. Everything fits verywell together., becauseas other hard rockers do, Pavel choosefittingaccessories–lotsoffood and some kind of very hard liquor. That’s why Pavel Sladký Kosina is that kind of guy you should not introduce to your chil-dren. His unrestrained drinking and neverending parties are not a good example for other people at all.

Pavel’s dress is little bit bor-ing, but he rescued it by acces-sories. Fashion police gives him 80%.

Elephant TrumpetThe Of f icial Elephant OrchestraNewsletter

© 2011 Elephant Orchestra

Editor Celestýna ChaunováLayout & Design Peter Marenčík

Poker Night21.4 Advanced players, 8pm19.5 Beginners, 7pm

Place: Big Meeting Room

Food & Beverages

Good Luck!

8 Issue 7 | March/ April 2011