Interview with Competera CEO Alex Galkin for the podcast “Made in Ukraine Tech Startup Edition’ by Michael Buryk, technology writer and the producer.
CEO and co-founder Alex Galkin shares learnings and facts about Competera, founded in 2014 in Ukraine, which offers a cloud-native platform for brick&click retailers to make optimal price and promo decisions.
Here are some facts, insights and ideas of the interview:
- Alex background: Kyiv polytech university – computer and Medtech science, audit education. Run businesses: a billing system for cyber cafes, a web-development outsourcing company.
- Competera was founded in 2014: spin-off from the first startup, which runs as Groupon mechanic but it failed, team lost money, but got the experience.
- Competera team – 85 people, primarily based in Kyiv, have offices in USA, London, Singapore, Russia.
Ukraine is brilliant for engineering talents and experts.
- Major competitors – the Big Four (consulting agencies), but Competera has better price and technology more effective.
- Alexandr Galkin is a member of the Forbes Technology Council, an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives.
The main challenge now is the trust. It’s easy to become a part of Forbes Technology Council if you solve the real problem.
- Bootstrapping deal $1 billion for build the product (machine learning, econometrics mix). After 4 years took funding 2,5 million.
Entrepreneurship is always like sinusoid: one day you feel super cool, next day you feel like you will die tomorrow. The most crucial point: hire the right people and at the right time.
Listen to more in the podcast “Made in Ukraine Tech Startup Edition” by Mike Buryk – here.
Read more about Competera in our showcase article – here.
