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00:00:00
00:00:01
Alex Patsko
52 Plays6 months ago
We talk about working at SAP in Ukraine to playing drums in Fonty to startups and technology companies in France.
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Transcript
Introduction to Alex Pasco
00:00:01
joewaltman
All right, today we've got Alex Pasco. Alex, thanks so much for making the time.
00:00:05
Alex
Thank you very much for having me, Joe. I'm listening to your podcast and quite learned a lot about the the team, ah the ah the whole crowd, so pretty thrilled to to be here today.
00:00:16
joewaltman
Thank you, thank you. ah First question, refresh your memory. What were you doing before in Seattle? And what have you been up to for the last 21 years?
00:00:25
Alex
Yeah, well, I'll start with that time.
Background and Early Career
00:00:28
Alex
I'm Ukrainian. And well, my my parents didn't, but it I haven't expected to be in INSEAD to start with. So all of my family of my parents and grandparents are help healthcare professionals. So I was supposed to be a doctor, but i've i've I've listened to a couple of doctors that made it to INSEAD. So it's it's also a possible trajectory as well. so But i' ever since I was a kid, i I kind of identified myself with the tinkering and in doing some sort of engineering, so caught up with the always connecting wires and quickly identified myself that the engineering career is something probably it is a better fit ah fit for me, you know, caught up with the computer, computer fever, computer bug since I was 14, started writing code games, stuff like that.
00:01:19
Alex
So my education-wise, I'm an engineer. i'm I'm technologists. And all of my career before in inside was about technology, basically. I started literally at the marketplace, at like a food market converted into the
Journey to SAP and Telecom
00:01:34
Alex
electronics market. And I was literally selling games hacked games, pirated games on the marketplace. That was my first job.
00:01:42
joewaltman
but yeah Hold on, you do you meet do you mean a physical marketplace where you set up a website where it's it's selling?
00:01:43
Alex
you know
00:01:47
Alex
No, no, it was it was physical marketplace. I mean like a butcher's butcher's table like a yeah concrete table when I was at my library of floppy drives for floppy disks if you if you remember this thing and I was
00:01:50
joewaltman
Uh-huh.
00:01:58
joewaltman
Cool. And this this was in Ukraine, still.
00:02:03
Alex
yeah it was ah Yeah, it was in Ukraine, like in early 90s, literally. I was myself with classmate, we were selling these games and I played so many games. I'm not playing games anymore ever since, because I needed too to explain the game but to to the buyer, so I need to kind of play it myself before.
00:02:21
Alex
okay
00:02:22
joewaltman
Cool.
00:02:22
Alex
and Yeah, it was it was pretty rough time. I was like beaten hard at one point when I was converting currency. And I felt like, gee, do I want to do this all my life? And I actually asked my my friend from my ah from ah from my class in in in india ah in the engineering school, can you kind of can I have a real job?
00:02:45
Alex
Can you invite me? Can you you have a real job? And it was quite usual. So the guys of my age were already working like a 21, 22. And basically he introduced me to a real company and I had a real job.
00:02:57
Alex
It was like a systems integrator company. That's like computers, connecting computers with network, selling to the to banks and other 94.
00:03:03
joewaltman
what what what year What year would this have been?
00:03:08
joewaltman
Oh wow, so like pre-netscape, pre-internet stuff, this was...
00:03:08
Alex
Yeah.
00:03:10
Alex
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:11
joewaltman
this was
00:03:13
Alex
and And it was like the first computers that somebody told me like we we were like a reseller of Intel intel chips and intel Intel stuff, you know. And indeed like learning what's internet is and selling the first projects.
00:03:27
Alex
And it was pretty exciting because like, yeah, yeah you you learned everything and it it's like a Swiss army knife. mindset to kind of deliver the solution to. I'm still passionate about this, actually. And at one point, I yeah discovered this enterprise software, you know, SAP and others, they were partnering with SAP. And I thought, wow, that's that thing is deep. It has finance, it has accounting, it has controlling this sort of all this fancy stuff.
00:03:59
Alex
And SAP was opening the office, so I kind of raised ah raise my ah my hand and said, like, I would like to work for you. And to my surprise, they recruited me. So I was like one of the first employees of SAP in Ukraine selling this million dollar software, let's say it this way, to the Ukrainian companies, which was overpriced. It was too too too too expensive for them.
00:04:22
Alex
But it was fun. I was roaming Ukraine meeting these enterprises that but they they couldn't figure out why and the software on Earth can you know cost that that amount of money. And yeah, I had to it had like no deals the first year, no deals the second year, and I had like five or six deals the the third year. And with one of the deals, I thought, like hey, I need something else. I would like to to see the other side of the thing. So I sold myself along with the project.
Experience at INSEAD
00:04:50
Alex
to the customer and it was the telecom which I joined and it I was a project manager for implementing the thing which I sold basically which sales people must not do but I did and I think ah at this point I had my friend who told me like hey if you would like to make a career, you should look at this MBA thing.
00:05:10
Alex
I said, like, what's the MBA is about? And I looked it up, and he said, like, hey, there is this school in France. And I thought, like, ah it's it's pretty cool. So basically, when I what i did my project management gig at Telecom, I already applied to insert.
00:05:21
joewaltman
Thank you.
00:05:24
Alex
And I thought, like, I do this project. um I make it clean and I go for my studies in INSEAD. And I applied, by the way, only to INSEAD. I was very naive and very committed. I said, like, I'm rockstar. They must not ah yeah you know pass but by my profile. And i indeed, I was lucky to to get in and happen to clean up, but cleanly ah finish the the the project, even had some time off. and It was like implementing theerm the CRM, the sales piece of SAP, let's say for sales people, and we put a brick of the CRM. It was very trendy at the time, customer relationship management thing. so And I and i yeah and i yeah yeah kind of made this project and went to INSEAD full of ambitions, full of energy and very proud of myself.
00:06:14
Alex
And boy, it was a humbling experience, I tell you.
Mobile Gaming Startup in Bordeaux
00:06:17
Alex
you know So when you when you when you're from behind the Iron Curtain, you know this expression, Iron Curtain, behind the Iron Curtain?
00:06:23
joewaltman
Yes, yes.
00:06:25
Alex
So I felt literally like that. I was like, wow, this these are brilliant people around me. They speak so many languages. And my English was so so so so mediocre compared to this.
00:06:36
Alex
And I was like, ah I was literally struggling with all of the disciplines except for accounting and the cost controlling because I kind of made it an SAP. It was pretty fun and pretty humbling experience form for myself as an individual, as a professional.
00:06:56
Alex
and and Yeah, what to yeah there also i have kind of it was difficult from the culture, from where I am, it's difficult to express yourself. So the thing like class participation, like people were outspoken, you know, the conversation. I was like so sitting sitting still, mouth the mouth shut. yeah It was difficult to me to to say a word in the class until something smart comes to my head and nothing came. ah And Yeah, it was, what what what what what helped me literally to kind of enjoy INSEAD was that there was this mass email when went over from Chris Core of the, of of previous promotion about it, we desperately looking for drama.
00:07:30
joewaltman
Thank you.
00:07:41
Alex
And back in Ukraine I had a small band and I said like, ah and I said a couple of times in the on the drum set so I said I can play drums. And they invited me to a for rehearsal, and they they said like, well, by the way we are playing tonight at the at the party.
00:07:57
Alex
I said, like, come on, guys, you cannot play just now. They said, don't worry. And it was amazing. So yeah Funkin' Blow, the band, was my my second life in INSEAD. So I really enjoyed this part of the experience.
00:08:10
Alex
And I still have like lifetime friends across some grow those who were in the yeah you know promotion before and our promotion. And the promotion after, yeah.
00:08:19
joewaltman
thats great
00:08:20
Alex
So that's that's that's the ah very precious. so And yeah, the but the given my background, i was I started looking for a job and it was like literally hard to to to to to feel a fit.
00:08:32
Alex
Nobody asked me for, even if for interview, no no no consulting company, no, of course, investment banker. I have no clue what it is about. And my assumption was like I find a big company, I will start doing career, making career there.
00:08:43
joewaltman
That's great.
00:08:48
Alex
but nobody was calling me so I said like okay I will be calling them so I organized myself in library and I started calling calling companies and they counted I have like this huge excel sheet of contacts that I made try to reach out to to people to alumni to kind of say like hey I am this Eastern European ambitious guy I can do amazing stuff I'm technologist but I can do business now And yeah surprisingly, I found the job in, ah and it it was actually a job post, and I didn't speak any word of French, by the way. I reacted to this job post, which was about a job in Bordeaux with a startup in the mobile gaming.
00:09:29
Alex
I thought like, wow, that's ah <unk>s pretty cool. So I prepared my motivational letter in French and I sent it over and boom, I have an interview. So I go to Bordeaux and meet i meet the guys. And so I ended up in the in the startup, which is based out of Bordeaux in mobile gaming. So you would not imagine that somebody after INSEAD go to mobile gaming company, but I thought that I kind of won this lottery ticket. i was And yeah,
00:09:58
joewaltman
And that was quite early still for mobile gaming. you know that That was 2003, 2004. That was the different space back then.
00:10:04
Alex
yeah actually, there were no mobile gaming the way we we know it today. It was this feature, what do we call feature phones, black and white, the first color phones, and it was downloadable game.
00:10:10
joewaltman
and
00:10:13
joewaltman
yep
00:10:17
Alex
So when I came to this office in Bordeaux of this company, it's called Infusio,
Founding and Challenges of MyVocal
00:10:21
Alex
It was like yeah ah kind of ah the running figures. And I said, what are these figures?
00:10:27
Alex
It's like these are SMS, the premium SMS of being sent and being received. And every SMS is like one euro.
00:10:33
joewaltman
Mm hmm.
00:10:33
Alex
So it's like a business model was just incredible. And I'm still in touch with the founders and it's in amazing people. in the in the in In Bordeaux, you build this, it was like about 300 people already, they scale up, already raised a couple of rounds of funds. And so my role was like, and then I realized it was like a temporary contract for six months. I haven't even understood that it was six months contract. I said like, boom, go. And it was the role of integrating the company with just the quiet, the American company,
00:11:05
Alex
that had an an engineering and development team in Moscow. So they needed, paradoxically, they needed one who was speaking Russian, you know, which which was my case, and could figure out how to make the people speak, like French speak to Americans, Americans to speak to Russian, and kind of connecting dots.
00:11:15
joewaltman
Mm hmm.
00:11:25
Alex
So I was like this fancy post-merger integration role, but in in reality, I was like trying to get people speak to speak to one another, yeah to discuss like the next game and and and things like this.
00:11:37
Alex
so And there I met great people. you know i By the way, that was the time when I thought like, hey, my career made a full o full circle.
00:11:48
joewaltman
Back to gaming.
00:11:48
Alex
Because remember, i started I started on the marketplace selling games and then boom, I'm back to gaming. And I met the guy who was building his company on his board who was the Nolan Bushnail ah inventor of of Pong, you know, Pong, so Nolan Bushnail who created.
00:12:03
joewaltman
Mm-hmm. Yep.
00:12:06
Alex
Then in the in Russia, there was this guy, Yuchen, who was the friend of Alexei Pazhatnov, the inventor of Tetris, if you if you watch the this Tetris movie recently. i You know, Hank Rogers, who was in this movie as well, I touched the the people who were working with Hank Rogers. So you're kind of touching this subculture, which is which is pretty vast and and interesting. I still have lots of friends in gaming and they're very passionate people.
00:12:32
Alex
So it was and as well as like booming business, like ah growing 40, 50%, up, up, up, started, you know, stumbling and then losing revenue. And the company was started like looking for a buyer, didn't find a buyer, ah fire sale. And basically it was it was clear that I spent about three years there.
00:12:55
Alex
ah four Four years there, yeah, three ah three and a half, and i clearly it was three other digital works, so I started thinking about what the next step would be and what ah what I was surprised realizing that my original career ah inspiration aspiration about like going to a large company,
00:13:15
Alex
getting to a a kind of projected career, climbing the ladder was no more fun for me. I met so many interesting guys who build their companies. They're so passionate about what they do. So I said, like, yeah let me let me try myself as well. So I had an idea of basically the podcasting service on the cell phone. It's called MyVocal.
00:13:37
Alex
it It still exists like a landing page, but we we shut down the service eventually. But then I was like, hey, I was so convinced that it can work on the mobile phone because they the only technology, it was prior iPhone, by the way, ah that worked on universally on all of the phones,
00:13:56
Alex
was actually ah voice. So I said like, hey, why won't we use voice as a technology to bring content? So my idea was creating the service for people in the traffic jam.
00:14:07
Alex
Okay. So you can take any content like ah article from the magazine, any webpage, you push it to the service and you can listen to this. Okay.
00:14:15
joewaltman
Oh, like i get like a text-to-audio sort of thing that you can...
00:14:19
Alex
text to audio, any audio, so you would aggregate the different content into your, so let's say, like a stream, and you dial in into the number, the short number, and you would listen to this, to your content, okay?
00:14:28
joewaltman
here
00:14:36
Alex
And we put, I found money, I found funding, put together the technology, created del a little team. My co-founder, myfounder tech technology co-founder went to China. I was doing, in my enthusiasm, I was doing between India and China and Russia. this So I had new engineers. So we set up the team, the technology.
00:14:59
Alex
launched it and never learned how to earn money with this basically. so you know how it goes The assumption was that we'll find some traction. I was on this demo dot.com launchpad in San Diego. I was interviewed by Jason Kalakanis for another launchpad. I was at Reshma's seat camp and I was spotted by the ah Newsmakers, they put me on French TV.
00:15:28
Alex
So I was barely speaking French and they put me and people were calling me like, hey, Alex, I so i saw you on French TV.
00:15:30
joewaltman
Amazing.
00:15:35
Alex
How come that you're in the les channons? Yeah, it's it's it's pretty fun because you're in the studio, you get you get the the makeup even. It was was great. The only problem, you I didn't know how to to earn money with this.
00:15:47
Alex
still yeah At some point, I decided that probably it won't fly and I started looking for a normal job, ah kind of in parallel to to still running it.
00:15:59
joewaltman
Well, let's talk about that it's it that.
00:16:02
Alex
yeah
00:16:02
joewaltman
That's a very interesting decision to make, you know whether to keep going at it or or whether to shut it down. sort of what what what what um What was the impetus that that ah that that you know caused you to actually shut it down or move on?
00:16:17
Alex
Yeah, it's like ah revenue. if you If you don't have a revenue and if you don't have a traction to get to to some sort of reasonable revenue, you kind of, we grown up. I haven't had funds, you know, so, and I had actually returned the rest of the funds.
00:16:31
Alex
Technically I sold the company, but it was like liquidation rather than than the sale. And I gave back the remaining to the investor because I i didn't see how we can get to reasonable traction from revenue wise.
00:16:44
Alex
So again, my my learning from this is like,
00:16:45
joewaltman
Yeah.
00:16:48
Alex
We have nobody from the content world in the within the founding team. And if you start business, ideally you have somebody who is who is very strong in the content piece of it in subject matter. okay And for me, I wasn't there. My co-founders were not there. We were more technology side of people, but never never figure out how to make it route to market. so And it's tough decision because like it's your baby. yeah For two years, more than two years, you're with this baby and you wanted to fly and it's ah it's a very tough decision. But then when you decide, so that's it, you know you you just move over.
Role at Alstom
00:17:26
Alex
And for me, I didn't have any path forward.
00:17:29
Alex
And I was married, by the way, I was to get married even in Ukraine. So I was together with my partner thinking about having kids and needed a normal job.
00:17:39
Alex
So I started looking around and and I had this call from the recruiter who proposed me the role of the business developer, which kind of, okay, and in the technology or what they call the transport information systems.
00:17:40
joewaltman
Thank you.
00:17:54
Alex
And I thought like, okay, information systems, I'm okay with this and transport, I will learn what it is about. But the, actually the job was with a company called Alstom. It's a railway engineering company, the TGV, these sort of fast trains and the urban transport, the metro. And transport information systems in their language means signaling those systems which that is along the lines and there to make you you know run the trains, run the without accidents. you know And I took the job. And even if I interview you, you need to put this this suit and the tie
00:18:33
Alex
I put this on, I came to that office in Northern Paris, basically. And I said like, gee, like I don't see myself there. And I ended up almost four years, more than four years in this job.
00:18:48
Alex
I was like, okay, any job is good and you you need to love your job. And I kind of looked into this, into details of the technology.
00:18:54
joewaltman
Mm hmm.
00:18:57
Alex
I started reading books, literally handbooks of the signaling engineers. I but learned my my role, my territory was more on the former Soviet Union.
00:19:09
Alex
There is this, all these countries, including Russia, I needed to to build the business for Alstom there in the signaling in the signal space. So the benefit of the job.
00:19:18
joewaltman
it so you're let me Let me understand what so what what you're doing or this company is doing is sort of upgrading this rail infrastructure to use slightly more sophisticated technology for the signaling on on the railroads.
00:19:30
Alex
yeah Also, 60% of what it does is the is what they call rolling stock, okay? So these trains. Second thing is this signaling infrastructure, which is say um ah signaling along the line, like making the spacing of the train, the train station.
00:19:46
joewaltman
To make sure the trains don't run into each other basically. right
00:19:48
Alex
Exactly, exactly, yeah. And so I was supposed to be the business development of this technology proposition. And all of the these railways of former Soviet Union are very old and outdated.
00:20:02
Alex
And the idea was that we we developed business, we created the joint venture there. and But again, by by by starting doing yeah this job, I realized that Alstom
00:20:12
joewaltman
Mm hmm.
00:20:13
Alex
is not really associated in the bias in these old railways, like and Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan. They're not associated with signaling, it's associated with rolling stock. So by speaking to chief engineer of Kazakhstan Railways, I realized that they would like to speak to me about rolling stock. So I started learning things about rolling stock. I have so many anecdotes about that that part of my life.
00:20:41
Alex
And ah it was it was really interesting because you see that with the size of the deals, because we're speaking about like hundreds of millions, sometimes billions of projects, it's become very political.
00:20:50
joewaltman
Mm hmm.
00:20:54
Alex
And yeah I saw how France works to kind of lobby this thing, how these old those years are being constructed, how the political agenda being aligned to economical agenda and all these ah it's kind of what happened because behind the the the stage is ah the you see from within what's very interesting and I worked with the you know the the banks that financed these deals and with the politicians that were lobbying for France against Germany for example or against Spain because it's again it's economical deals but then in the political agenda
00:21:35
Alex
so ah And with one of the deals I was working in Azerbaijan. no Nobody cared about Azerbaijan. You probably, not not so many people know where Azerbaijan is, but it's it's a beautiful country actually. So on the side of Caspian and you feel like you are in south of France while going to Baku.
Move to San Francisco
00:21:53
Alex
and you feel it smells some oil when you when you land in Baku and i was and I was flying there like back and forth and I was preparing this deal and when it worked out it was about 300 million of locomotives for renewal of one of the main transport line. Alstom said like, hey Alexei, go there and be the country the country had.
00:22:17
Alex
So my plan was to be become the country the country manager. So I i but i just had kids, so we picked my little daughter, my wife, we flew to Baku to select an apartment. And on the way back from from there, because the plan was like to from 2014 about, is to settle in Baku for several years.
00:22:39
Alex
And on the way back, I i yeah i always stopped ah to see what my friends from from previous life was doing. it My friends from Ukraine who started the company in IT about like consulting, CRM consulting, that sort of thing.
00:22:53
Alex
into implementing SAP and then now Salesforce as a project in Russia. okay So I was all stopping by and they said, like, Alex, do you seriously think of moving to Baku? I said, yeah, why not? It this sounds like a good proposition. I said, like, well, before signing up, ah fly with us ah to to San Francisco, to this Dreamforce Salesforce conference there.
00:23:21
Alex
Yeah, it's like, yeah, let's let's go. So I took it took a week off and they literally flew me in to... ah to San Francisco. And there I said like, wow, I i completely forgot for for these whole four and a half years in Alstom, I completely forgot the technology world, you know, because they are you and you're in the tunnel of selling railway projects, basically.
00:23:40
joewaltman
Mm hmm.
00:23:43
Alex
And I met my boss from Bordeaux time, the French guy who said like, Alex, I know you, what you do in Alstom? And I said, like, wow, what do I do in Alstom?
00:23:58
Alex
And I came back and I resigned,
Entrepreneurship in Technology
00:24:00
Alex
basically. So I said, like, I have a fork. I was 40, I believe. And I was like, big fork. Either I would go for for the rest of my life in railway engineering, or I would do something which is dear to my heart, which is technology, enterprise software, that sort of thing.
00:24:16
Alex
So I
00:24:17
joewaltman
that's actually that's I'm going to tell that story of some of my Silicon Valley friends that's inspiring because they will find it very amusing that somebody went to Dreamforce and fell back in love with with technology because the the the joke is the Dreamforce is like hell on earth.
00:24:31
Alex
Yeah, today it is and i'm it's it's it's a different story. but But then it was like, boom, it was a super growing ecosystem. It was like ah lots of fun.
00:24:39
joewaltman
Yeah, that's true.
00:24:41
Alex
Yeah. And that that that made me literally kind of result. But, you know, I was in France and resigning. Nobody does it in France.
00:24:52
Alex
Okay. So you ask to be fired.
00:24:54
joewaltman
yeah
00:24:56
Alex
ah And they looked at me ah like I was crazy. And they said, like literally, Alex, yo you're on the track to be a general manager. Why would so I want to fire you? I don't have a reason. And there's still, I'm still very good relationship with awesome folks. And I said, okay, if there is no way, I'll resign. So I resigned with but zero pay, a paycheck, whatever.
00:25:20
Alex
And I went to, because in France there is also a ability, if you create a company, because I wanted to to join these, my friends of technology guys in the in the that the way at that time and in in Moscow build them their business to to join them to build something cool in this ecosystem.
00:25:34
joewaltman
Mm hmm.
00:25:37
Alex
And yeah when i when I came to this unemployment an employment office to say, I would like to declare unemployment to touch some some what benefits later as as in the form of a tax reduction. They looked at me as I'm crazy. They say, why have you resigned? I said, like well, I tried to negotiate. They didn't want to fire me. They say, like but there is a solution.
00:26:03
Alex
Listen, I love France because even like in an employment bureau, they gave me an advice how to unlock the benefit to be able to start the company, to finance the stock. Seriously, i am i'm umm i'm I'm so grateful to to the
Impact of Ukraine Conflict on Business
00:26:18
Alex
place where I live. So that allows me to start the company where I'm now since 10 years basically. It was the time when Basically, yeah the the the the team what I've joined, the people I knew, the associates in in my, the shareholders, and I was the first employee outside of Russia. But Russia was misbehaving, already ah understood that it will it will be a mess. 2014, the Crimea.
00:26:46
joewaltman
Yeah.
00:26:47
Alex
And so my, ah my, my partners, they started saying like, okay, forget this country. So they went to the US. I started in Paris and gradually we started to like looking.
00:26:58
Alex
the
00:27:02
joewaltman
Hey, Lesky, you've gone mute. yeah I can't hear you. I don't know if maybe you've you've you've disconnected your your headset or you've, you've, uh, okay, you're back.
00:27:09
Alex
Yeah. ah said Yeah.
00:27:11
joewaltman
You're back.
00:27:13
Alex
Sorry about this, it wasn't in technical. The premise for building the business was this piece of software that two we developed on Salesforce. So it's still the biggest driver of us. So it is kind of a mobile.
00:27:28
Alex
CRM for mad reps, trade reps. And to my surprise, I found a lot of interest to this piece of technology. So we sold it to a pharmaceutical company, then to a bigger big yet you know consumer goods company. Then to my surprise, we were associated a bit to L'Oreal.
00:27:51
Alex
So we are with L'Oréal, we are with Pernorica, we are with Danone, we just won the Orangina Schweppes, which is the second biggest soft drink company in France. So we were growing like that until about 2022.
00:28:11
Alex
And then the things started getting less less bright with the with the war. in Ukraine and because like most of our engineering resources were between Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, so we ended up like and literally in a mess with with the when when the war has started and had to take some decisions like moving people around, closing in the office of in in Russia and Belarus.
Promoting Tech Services and Support for Ukraine
00:28:38
Alex
supporting yeah ukrainians because ukrainians were busy saving families saving lives you know of of the close ones and we were just trying to serve our clients on the on the on the enterprise software side which were quite panicking And so today we are about 1300 people team between the US s and in Europe, our self-funded profitable company, IT two services, a little bit of software. So we serve these brands and and ah
00:29:10
Alex
pharmaceutical companies, we run our own events, still big partners of Salesforce, but also look in the other ah like data play and other, so very much technology, technology play about like business benefits. So I'm kind of quite often, you know, knocking doors of other alumni say, Hey guys, you are building business, probably you need help with the with enterprise software. ah we are We are the guys, we do it better than Accenture Deloitte of the world.
00:29:40
Alex
And yeah, we've been recognized in some by some analysts as the as a leader in the in our space, which is pretty outstanding for the company of our size that put us next to Accenture to Deloitte, to TCS, the companies that are hundreds of times bigger than then our shop.
00:29:58
joewaltman
Yeah.
00:29:59
Alex
Yeah. and
00:29:59
joewaltman
Well, that's a great segue for for the wrap up question. I think you've kind of already answered it. Maybe you can elaborate on what, what are there any things that ah that that we can do to help you and and vice versa?
00:30:11
joewaltman
what what are What are you potentially able to do to to help the the community?
00:30:16
Alex
ah ah selfishly ah offering the services to those who are building companies. you know If you think of like customer relationship management, whether it is customer, B2B customers, B2C engagement, this is what we do for living and to have some software assets, this is where it definitely can help. We'll appreciate any introductions so to of those who are in the kind of leadership sales or technology leadership positions in the enterprise sector. what can i that's ah That's what I can provide for the community. What I would like to ask the community is, of course, like ah being being Ukrainian and this this whole war ah tragic,
00:31:03
Alex
is it it gets a little bit... ah emotionally emotionally yeah you know, there there there's a bit of a dec decrease of attention to the ah to the to the topic. And there was an upcoming election, so everybody hopes that it will end up soon. So my my ask is to, if there is a way you can can this help Ukraine, keep on keeping believing into Ukraine, you
Closing Remarks
00:31:30
Alex
know, into Ukrainians. And that's that's the ask, yeah, to the community.
00:31:36
joewaltman
Yeah, yeah, i got that's yeah.
00:31:36
Alex
I hope I was clear on this. yeah
00:31:39
joewaltman
Yeah, yeah, definitely. um ah Alex, thank you. Thank you so, so much for your time. It was really nice to catch up.
00:31:48
Alex
Yo, thank you so much for having me.