Alexey Khursevich Of Solvd On 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App, SaaS or Software Business
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Always exceed expectations: turn it into a core value that your company gives to partners.
As a part of our series about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Alexey Khursevich.
Alexey Khursevich (https://www.linkedin.com/in/akhursevich/), CEO at Solvd, worked as a freelancer and then gathered a group of like-minded software developers who later became his colleagues in a newly-established firm. In 12 years it has grown from just a small group of freelancers into a 700 associate strong world-wide business whose client list includes Fortune 500 clients.
Thank you so much for joining us. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I started my career as a Software Developer in a huge service company while I was a third-year university student. Financial independence was my main motivation to start earning money as soon as possible. The mix of having a full-time job and university studies was a pretty tough period in my life, I must say. Fortunately, I was introduced to my future partner in the US and I started working as a freelancer. Right after graduating from university, I decided to start my own business. Most of my friends and university mates that I recruited when we got our feet off the ground are still with the company and are now working in managerial positions at Solvd.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though the conditions were so challenging?
It was pretty hard for the first 4 to 5 years when I was deeply engaged in most of the software solutions that we were delivering. We worked with our west coast customers under wide time zone differences: that meant our working days ending late after midnight (our time). Most of all, my decision to leave the safety and security of being at a huge service company where I started, to do a startup created a lot of uncertainty that made me feel a bit nervous.
So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?
I strongly believe that successful businesses are based on the ability to take calculated risks and their ability to do the same routines perfectly, which, over time, will grow the business.
My most important career decision was the one I made at the beginning when I chose to leave a huge corporation to launch my own IT business. I wasn’t fully confident in my future success but was motivated to stay the course with the choice I made.
I’m convinced that when we make mistakes it’s an opportunity for us to learn new approaches and skills, and to develop more refined solutions. Back in 2015–16, I worked as an engineer and later as a CTO for an Ukrainian startup that was trying to create an Uber-killer app. We planned this out as a turn-key project, so we were beta-testing too many features that we considered critical, but ultimately didn’t allow the app to get to the market. We were mistaken, as we didn’t factor in the importance of getting early user feedback to potentially save the project from failure. Now, I know that the most efficient and rational way in terms of time and resources is to first create a Minimum Viable Project, which comprises minimum functionality, release it to the market, let early adopters test it and then enhance it based on the resulting feedback. Nonetheless, I think this experience was a valuable part of my success on my journey from being a software engineer to CEO of a global company.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
At the very first stage I hosted a mobile device farm at my home-based office. Over time, I noticed that some of the devices were starting to inflate (as a result of battery degradation). I was trying to repair them by myself and I started a small fire at my home! Since then, we utilize the services of a third-party provider to audit and repair batteries for our device farms. And of course we’re keeping them on metal shelves in air-conditioned rooms.
What do you think makes your company stand out?
I see our QA and Test Automation expertise, embodied in the products we develop, as a powerful differentiator and advantage we have in the market. Another strong point of ours is Solvd Laba (our proprietary training course) which helps boost company growth by attracting talented and loyal engineers who do an excellent job for our customers and on our internal projects.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
It is hard to recommend something in this regard, but I would say it’s important not to be afraid to ask for help if you need it. Communication with others and alternative ideas can make your life easier and less stressful. Getting and sharing experiences is often the best way to improve.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful towards that helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Yes, there is a “supervisor” who helped me all the way through, but it’s best if he stays unnamed. I’m grateful to the original team we started this business with and they’re still looking in the same direction as I am. They motivate me to go forward, both in business and personal life.
Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. How do you evaluate the company’s growth, and which parameters are key for you?
While running Solvd Inc. as a global technology consultancy and software engineering company, it’s better to measure the amount of the spheres we partner with and the team that is growing daily across the world, including Latin America, North America and Europe. Our company is proud to service Fortune 500 clients. 320+ completed projects celebrate the results of working with clients across fintech, retail, media and entertainment, software, and health and wellness industries.
This means that today Solvd has become a global reliable IT partner that is trusted to resolve different tasks, no matter their technical complexity, to exceed the expectations of our clients and create win-win values.
How do you measure the results, which Solvd is delivering to clients?
The amount of successful projects and satisfied clients are the best KPI for our business. By now, over 200M users across the world are using our software and mobile solutions, created by our engineers for Under Armor, Starbucks, Stanford Medical School, Nerdwallet and other tier-1 partners.
Thank you. Here is the main question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a successful business delivering best software solutions?
First of all, you need to understand the business of each client as your own. In Solvd we are continuously searching for how every client can do business better with our solutions. Building long-term partnerships with customers is a top priority of our management. We choose quality instead of quantity.
- Invest in talents. We engage in our proprietary educational initiative called Solvd.Laba. Our best tutors teach quality assurance, test automation and JavaScript development in these courses. They share knowledge and train in skills applicable to real-life projects. 80% of students become Solvd’s employees after course graduation. You need to be for people and about people.
- Work with the best engineers. Our clients appreciate the competence of Solvd’s people, their high professionalism, productivity and motivation to create best software solutions.
- Be proactive: responsive project management and top-notch daily communication with clients is a must.
- Carry about the product: our clients really treat a team from Solvd as an integral part of their teams. So partners and clients recognize us as a reliable partner who can consistently meet deadlines and commitments.
- Always exceed expectations: turn it into a core value that your company gives to partners.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Alexey Khursevich Of Solvd On 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App, SaaS or… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
