%%2025 Rewind:%% Marketing, People & Everything Between

Although it feels like 2025 flew by in a blink of an eye, a lot happened on the marketing and people side of Labyrinth Labs. Not as a checklist of activities, but as a series of small, deliberate steps toward something bigger.

If you’re curious what that actually looks like in practice, here’s a closer look.

Marketing Updates

[by Laura Emrichová]

Events & Conferences

Two years ago, we realized a shared online calendar wasn’t cutting it anymore. With the number of events we attend and organise, we needed a clearer, more visible way to see what’s happening.

So we put it on a board. Right in the kitchen.

Just a visible, physical overview placed strategically in the kitchen where everyone makes coffee. Because coffee is still the most reliable internal communication channel we have… Everyone can instantly see what’s coming up, where we’ll be, and how often we’re showing up for the community. Judging by how quickly the board fills up, we might actually need a bigger one.

What matters more than the volume, though, is the why. Events are not a marketing checkbox for us. They’re where we meet people we later work with, hire, learn from, or simply exchange experience with.

Every event we joined this year had its own value, but a few stood out in how strongly they reinforced that sense of community: DevOpsDays Prague, TechMeetup Ostrava, and the newly launched AWS Community Days across Slovakia, Czechia, and the Baltics. Thanks to all the organizers for putting their heart into these events and supporting the community! Can't forget Labyrinth Labs even had a premiere in Germany at the AWS Summit Hamburg!

On top of that, we hosted three AWS User Groups in Bratislava and one AWS Stammtisch in Vienna. Different topics, different speakers, same idea: create a space where people can openly talk about what actually works, what doesn’t, and what they’ve learned the hard way.

We were also excited to be part of Girls Day for the first time - an awesome initiative by AjTyvIT. Next generation of DevOps & Cloud Engineers? Maybe! Either way, we had the chance to host 19 curious and motivated high school girls who are exploring what the world of IT has to offer. Whether they end up in DevOps, cybersecurity, UX, or something else entirely, we’re proud to support their journey. Because let’s be real, even if you’re working at a non-tech company, somewhere behind the scenes there’s software, infrastructure, and tech talent keeping things running.

And we didn't forget about the digital events either, in November our CEO & Head of Engineering put together a great webinar on Application Onboarding: The AWS Migration Process Every CTO Needs to Know, where you canlearn why most onboarding projects fail, and how to fix app debt, feature pressure, platform complexity, and burnout. How to align Dev & Ops to prevent chaos. Practical Kubernetes tips for Day-2 operations and why patterns [not exceptions] make systems scalable... among many other things.

New Partnerships

• AceOn Accelerator → This one was really new something new for us. Knowledge sharing is something we do internally on a regular basis, whether it’s new tech stack, tools or sales procedures, so once we were asked by the AceOn Accelerator to join their autumn batch of startups as mentors and main partner, we gladly hopped on board to help startup founders make some sense of the uncertainty that cloud & kubernetes can often feel like. End result? Best decision we’ve could have done. Not only was it the most successful batch of AceOn Accelerator regarding the maturity & originality of the startups, but together we collaborated on newsletters, blog and a meetup to mark down our collaboration in 2025.
• FullTimePR → Going to events and maintaining our social media is great, but we decided to roll our dices in a more traditional way of marketing, public relations. And we wouldn’t look back. Thanks to this collaboration we were able to showcase our #nobullshit culture, cloud & AWS expertise beyond our usual channels, ending up in media outlets like - Forbes, Wired, HN, TouchIT and many more.

Besides that, we're continuing with activities like our monthly newsletter, where we share a bit about us & what we do, but also talk about various Cloud / DevOps events & meetups in our region, sharing open-source tools that might come in handy or just articles and content that caught our attention during the month.

And if you're interested in weekly updates from the DevOps world, just follow the hashtag #ThisWeekInDevOps on LinkedIn where we curate a set of 5 different interesting blogs each Friday or #coolstuff where we share different DevOps tools each Tuesday!

People Updates

[by Zuzka Andel]

2025 at Labyrinth Labs: Chaos, Coffee & Culture (The Good Kind)2025 was one of those years. Dynamic, sometimes messy, occasionally loud but very real. A year of growth, people, experiments, and moments that reminded us why culture is not something you declare, but something you live. Here’s a look back at what made 2025 at Labyrinth Labs… very LabLabs.

• Hackathon: No “Us vs. Them”, Just “Let’s Build”Our hackathon once again proved that the best ideas don’t come from perfectly structured agendas. They come from shared focus, curiosity, and a lot of coffee. Teams spread across rooms, fully immersed in their own challenges. But during breaks? One big mix. Engineers, marketing, sales, HR, ops - same tables, same jokes, same excitement. Different tools, same spark and people building things together.
• League of LARA One of the hackathon highlights had absolutely nothing to do with code. Meet the League of LARA jerseys. What started as a few DevOps engineers playing League of Legends after work (remote-first bonding at its finest) quickly evolved into a Slack channel called #league-of-lara. During one company event, the thought appeared: “All we’re missing is a League of LARA jersey.” Marketing heard it. Marketing remembered it. Marketing delivered. A few months later, the jerseys became hackathon merch. And while not everyone plays League of Legends, everyone is **League of LARA. LARA being our cloud-native platform and core product. So yes, if you spot someone in a League of LARA shirt on a bike, at an event, or on a basketball court - now you know.
• New People Team: Surviving Change, Building Stability 2025 was a demanding year for the People Team and the New People Team was built. A lot of movement, a lot of change, a lot of adaptation. Today, the team is proudly powered by two Zuzkas and a shared belief that calmer, more stable times are ahead. With clearer structure, stronger foundations, and space to focus on what matters most: people. Growth isn’t always comfortable. But it’s always neccessary.
• Saint Nicholas Day: Beautifully Chaotic Saint Nicholas Day at Labyrinth Labs turned the office [ok, not only office but mainly Maker's Space in Cvernovka] into a full-on family craft frenzy - in the best possible way. Kids everywhere. Colours everywhere. Tiny robots came to life, beads became jewelry, succulents found new homes in jars, and the room filled with an energy that made you stop and smile. When Saint Nick [or should we say Miro?] himself arrived with gifts, the whole place lit up. Warm. Real. Beautifully chaotic. A gentle reminder that the best things we create together aren’t always visible on a screen.
• Christmas Party: Workshops, Food & Zero Awkwardness Our Christmas party skipped the formalities and went straight to what we do best: A day of workshops, LAN party, good food, LabLabs quiz, great conversations and even better company. No forced fun. Just real fun.
• Cocuma: Our Culture, Put Into Words In 2025, we partnered with Cocuma, a platform that helps companies share their culture in an honest, human way. Without polishing it into something it’s not. Together, we captured what Labyrinth Labs is really about: how we started as three DevOps engineers, how LARA grew from an internal tool into our core product, and how our #nobullshit, people-first, tech-excellence-driven culture shows up in everyday work. Not a glossy marketing page. A look under the hood. The result reflects who we are. How we think, how we build, how we communicate, and why culture at LabLabs isn’t a slogan, but a lived experience.
• Team Growth: New Faces, Same DNA This year, some new people joined Labyrinth Labs bringing fresh perspectives, new energy, and new ideas [namely Tomáš, Matěj, Hašiš, Ati, Maťa, 2 Zuzkas, Mejdej and Crackie - but sometimes, despite best intentions, the fit is not right mentally, professionally, or in terms of timing, which is why Maťa and Tomáš were only briefly with us]. What stayed the same? Openness. Trust. Humor. And a culture that doesn’t need polishing.

Looking back, the biggest value of 2025 wasn’t any single event, partnership, or initiative on its own. It was how they brought people closer and strengthened the way we work together.

Stepping out of day-to-day routines gave us fresh perspectives we simply wouldn’t find otherwise. It strengthened connections across teams that don’t always cross paths naturally. And it reminded us that some of the best ideas don’t come from working harder, but from creating space to think, talk, and build differently.

But the biggest win?

Us.

The people.

The way it simply works between us.

We genuinely enjoy working together. We trust each other, we are open, and we care. And that is not just about the work, but about the people behind it. There is honesty in how we communicate. and a shared understanding of what really matters.

And that is the mindset and energy we are taking with us into 2026.