Backstory

I’m Marko. Founder, designer, engineer.

I grew up with computers and paper manuals, learned by taking things apart, and I still prefer small teams and clear ideas. This page is for context, not pitching. If you read my blog, this fills in the backstory.

Beginnings

Age 10. My parents bought me a Commodore 64 with a datasette and a couple of books, even though money was tight. I’m grateful they noticed how much I cared. BASIC and machine routines came first. Curiosity never really stopped.

First builds

PC XT with a Hercules graphics card and monitor. I worked in DOS, later moved to Windows 3.1. I built a font for ChiWriter and wrote a payroll calculator for a local firm.

On a 386 I discovered CorelDRAW 5, Office 4.3 and Access 2.0. I also built a small app to track students for private schools.

On a 486 I was already doing DTP and early web work: hand-coded HTML in Notepad, made GIF animations in early graphics tools, and embedded them into pages.

Later I moved to a Pentium with my first NVIDIA 3D card. Software rendering felt ancient overnight.

Internet

I first got online in 1997. It was dial-up and patience: Arachne in DOS, then Netscape. FTP uploads to early hosts. Forums and IRC. I learned to keep pages light, slice layouts, and make GIFs behave on slow lines.

Experiments

In high school I wrote a tiny 3D engine in Pascal and assembly, learned QuarkXPress and other design tools of the time, and used an AWE64 for MIDI while experimenting with FastTracker. I once waited a whole night for a single MP3 to compress. I lost weekends to Doom II, Unreal Tournament ’99 and Rise of Nations. Mobile came early too: Symbian on a Nokia 6600, then the first HTC Desire on Android 2.1.

Education

I finished a mathematics-track high school. Earlier, during primary school, I completed music school with guitar as my main instrument. I played in a band and kept practicing. Music and product work use the same muscle for structure and timing.

Studied Computer Science at the University of Belgrade, earning a Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.).

Today

I focus on building my own products. I design and code for my startups and write to capture what I learn. I’m available as an advisor to founders when the story is interesting, and I’m always up for a coffee.

Behind the scenes I work with a small, sharp team of designers and engineers. We don’t do generic or ‘just pretty’. We care about clarity, rhythm and hierarchy. They help me turn ideas into systems and ship fast. If you follow the blog, you’ll see their fingerprints in the work.

Selected collaborations

A few places my work shipped: Novak Đoković, Huawei, Schneider Electric. I’ve worked with many others across finance, health, media and tech. If you’re curious, ask over coffee.