How Ideals brought its global sales team together in Prague

We sat down with Alexandra Kodjabachi, Learning Experience Designer at Ideals, who played a key role in shaping and delivering the company’s 2026 Sales Kick-Off. With a strong focus on learning design, engagement, and team alignment, Alexandra helped transform Ideals’ strategic objectives into an immersive, high-impact in-person experience for a global, fully remote team.

1. About Your Company

Ideals VDR provides a secure data room that combines best-in-class functionality and fortress-like security, bringing unrivaled efficiency to the most important transactions in high-stakes environments. We also offer Ideals Board, a board platform that automates and streamlines governance, meeting preparation, and board management.

Is your company fully remote?

Yes. We're spread across 30 countries. 🌍

What is your company size?

500+

2. Offsite Planning Background

What prompted you to organize an offsite event? Who initiated it?

Ideals organised Sales Kick-Offs in the past when the team was a bit smaller. But this time we went big, as the number of attendees increased by 60%. And so, in January 2026, we gathered 190+ participants from 26 countries in Prague.

As a fully remote company, we needed that "jolt" of in-person experience as a strategic launchpad for the future of Ideals and as a space to nurture alignment, weave connections and strengthen teambuilding 🤝

The decision was initiated by the CEO with the support of the Sales Enablement team who organised the event.

How long / how many months did you spend planning it?

We worked with a very tight timeline: we had about 3 months for the execution period once the agreement with the hotel was settled. It was quite an intense quarter as we wanted to ensure the experience was memorable, useful and impactful. We also had to work around extended end-of-year holidays. So a hard-earned lesson and a tip for anyone organising an SKO: start early!

3. Destination & Venue Choice

Why did you choose Prague and Don Giovanni Hotel?

Located in Central Europe, Prague was ideal to host our global team (26+ countries) and because a considerable number of attendees joined from different parts of Europe, Prague also provided a rich cultural backdrop to the SKO experience.

Finding a hotel in the city with enough rooms to accommodate 200+ potential attendees and multiple conference rooms for departmental breakout sessions turned out to be quite the challenge. But the Don Giovanni hotel offered a balance of practicality (closeness to the airport, availability of conference spaces and accommodation options) and accessibility to the city center (for rich informal moments).

Can you please provide me with an overview your off-site?

The Sales Kick-Off started with a welcome reception on Monday evening 🥂.

Over the next three days, we hosted:

1. Plenary and breakout sessions 🎤
2. Sales workshops & product trainings 📚
3. Panels & fireside chats 🔥
4. Teambuilding activities & energisers 🎯
5. Games and interactive sessions 🎲
6. Professional headshots and LinkedIn Spa sessions 📸
7. An external speaker and specialized 1:1 consultations

On Thursday evening, we celebrated success together on the Vltava (and had a wonderful time!).

Then on Friday, we closed the event with a Dragon's Den type of competition (demo edition) and a commitment to pursuing SKO-inspired goals over the next few months.

4. Objectives & Success Metrics

What was the primary goal of the retreat, and how successful were you in achieving it?

This year, we gathered around a theme that speaks to a core value of our product and go-to-market strategy: "challenging the status quo". Indeed, Ideals disrupts traditional practices in the VDR market, especially with its one clear, transparent pricing model.

At this SKO, we wanted to ensure alignment with that spirit and alignment between the teams, particularly as our community of sellers expands globally and rapidly.

We also wanted to create an environment where people feel energised and encouraged to achieve their ambitious goals, where Idealers feel more strongly connected to their own team as well as other teams.

Did we achieve that? Well, here's the type of feedback we received:

"I feel motivated by seeing our diverse group, listening to the history and vision, learning about the elite performance principles"

"Such a motivating event with clear vision"

"Seeing the bigger picture/getting more insights from other departments really helps to be even more aligned and be even more ambitious."

On the last day, we asked attendees to describe their SKO experience in one word. They chose words like "inspiring", "energising", "connection", " collaboration", and my favourite, "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious". Perhaps it's this last one that says it all? ✨

We also ran a little experiment to see if the SKO managed to create new in-person connections and 80% managed to meet more than 30 "zoom faces" in person 👥

In a nutshell, based on the collected feedback and the shared stories, it seems like we achieved what we set out to accomplish ✅

As a plus, Ideals SKO boasts a 4.75/5 satisfaction score ⭐

5. Experience with Retreat

In what ways has Retreat supported or enhanced your planning and experience?

Retreat has been instrumental in helping us navigate the planning and implementation of the SKO.

In the lead up to the event, our main point of contact at Retreat, Zeineb Kamoun, handled the coordination with 15+ vendors and partners, from the search phase to the invoicing stage.

Having an event expert with us before and during the SKO was critical to its success, given the size of the event and its logistical complexity.

Together with Zeineb, we solved one logistical challenge after another so fast and so effectively that attendees got to experience a smooth and energizing retreat, unaffected by the plot twists that typically lurk behind the scenes of any event.