7 Questions with Boris Vangelov — the CTO of 15toGO
Boris is leading the technology engine in 15toGO. He studied Computer Sciences and Technology. He has an extensive experience in the IT industry working in the sphere for more than 9+ years and 5+ years mainly working with startups.
Check his LinkedIn profile
1.What is your background and why did you join 15toGO?
Well, my career in the software development started just like with most others kids at my time — I really enjoyed gaming and I decided that I want to make games and become a software developer. I even applied and got enrolled in Technology School Electronic Systems (TUES), associated with Technical University, the largest technical school in Bulgaria. When I was in the technology school I realized that I am pretty much wrong with my initial thinking that playing games and making them is the same thing. However, I really enjoyed all the activities and classes related to the software development and architecture, app development, coding etc. — it develops analytical skills and, in some way, a different, deeper perspective about how things work. After school, I got accepted at the Technical University of Sofia, studied Computer systems and technologies and at the same time found a job. In the beginning I was doing basic things such as developing websites, afterwards my performance improved so I started working on higher level projects. In the next company I worked for, I did mostly web portals and worked in more complex systems for bigger clients and for 6 years of work experience I got promoted from Junior Developer to Senior Software Developer. I was part of the decision-making process on how to proceed with something or what we need to change so it works properly. During this time, I worked mainly with startups and I came to realize that it is important not only to have excellent programming skills, but it is also essential to establish a productive, collaborative team that work efficiently, a team where everyone know his role, and everyone is a team player. And I believe I managed to do all of these, setting up a well-organized team environment.
It is really important for a technical lead to understand what a project is aiming to achieve from a business standpoint, so to direct the development team’s efforts in a way so to facilitate meeting those business goals. This is one of the strengths I possess and used it in the next company I worked for. I was leading two major projects — an assignments related to UK’s healthcare sector — a crowdsourcing platform which helps managers run their companies better by crowdsourcing ideas on how to improve their own organization from within. The platform had thousands of users and was acclaimed as innovative and hugely successful. The second project aimed to help any business that uses contractors. It was a software that automated a big part of the hiring process, shrinking the process length from 3 months to 1–2 weeks.
Both projects were a great example of technology solving business issues and allowing organization to advance in their field. Having already been quite comfortable on the technology side of projects, the intersection point where business and technology meet to solve user-facing issues was my new challenge. And eventually I got to blockchain technology, which looked like it’s going to change the game for some, effectively solving challenges, technology tried to deal with for quite some time.
At that time some of my friends were already exploiting the uprising trend — mining and collecting more coins, but I wasn’t much into that. Then Ethereum came with its smart contract and people started to realize the real potential of blockchain. I started to play around more seriously with Solidity, making some basic smart contracts just to see how things are done. And then I digged some more and some more. Fast forward, and now I’m working with some very experienced blockchain engineers. And together, we want to bring travel to the next level.
Which leads me to how I actually joined 15toGO’s team… As most of the people I also love to travel and many times I’ve had problem to find people to travel with. I met Todor — one of the co-founders of 15toGO (here you can read the interview with him) when I joined a trip organized by Tripsy, a travel club for group tours bringing people together to share new experiences, the precursor of 15toGO. I actually found out about Tripsy through the last company I worked for — Tripsy was organizing personalized trips with curated itinerary according to the group’s interests. At that time, we had an internal bonus system so I took the opportunity to use my bonuses and to travel with Tripsy. I still remember the first trips I booked to the Alps — great memories with a group which consisted of more than 50 people. There were so many unforgettable moments such as gathering every night in front of the fireplace, playing board games and having fun. I really enjoyed it and got convinced that’s the proper way to travel, with like-minded people that you share common interests with and that after a trip you can easily call friends. Another trip that followed and I eagerly joined was to Lefkada, together with my wife. It was again a great big group of passionate travelers and party people. That was the only time I almost got drunk (I usually don’t drink). Good try, George! [Laughing] There I met Peter (the CEO of the project) and George (one of the co-founders) on that trip. We worked also on a project together afterwards, that’s how we also had the chance to know each other on a professional level. Not long after that, they offered me to become a part of the team in Tripsy club. They (Peter, Todor and George) wanted to use what they’ve learnt for the tourist service business with Trip club to develop a platform where Local Tour Operators can provide their services straight to the travelers, with no middleman. I liked what they envisioned, and I was totally in. So was blockchain, which would allow us to fulfil this vision.
2. What is your role in the 15toGO team?
In my role as а CTO of 15toGO, I coordinate the Dev team — internal and technical advisors, as well as work on product development and code alongside the others. In other words I make sure that everything in the product roadmap happens correct and on time, while ensuring that everyone understands their role in the process. But most importantly I lead the company’s technology strategy, in a way that it serves its business strategy as well.
3. What gets you most excited about the project?
There are two main things that really enthuse me about the project.
The first one is that we are indeed solving a major issue of the modern young active professional — to find the right people to travel with to all kinds of amazing destinations. Likeminded people that you can easily call friends after several trips together.
The second reason I love working on the project is that everyone who is part of 15toGO’s team is super determined and well-motivated. When I decide to engage in a project two things are essential for me — an amazing idea and a remarkable team. Personally, what I consider closely related is that if one of those things is not present, the project will not succeed. And in 15toGO I definitely saw both of those.
Moreover, 15toGO solves problems I’ve experienced myself. I found out that it is hard to organize my friends even for a short trip. I feel like Joe (the guy from the animation of 15toGO — Joe is the one finding the trip, organizing everything and at the end when he shares the trip everyone is like “Oh, sorry I can’t make it on these dates”, “Can we find another place/activity?”, “It’s too expensive”, “But we are only two left”. It’s like a screenshot of my conversations with friends when we are planning a trip, totally the story of my [holiday] life.
4. Where do you see the project in the next few years?
I believe that the project has a great market fit and in the next few years will flourish and its ecosystem will develop really expansively. I know once we release the 15toGO app, we will build a passionate travel community for a short period of time and everyone will love to use it on a daily basis, including me. 15toGO deploys an easy to use off-chain web interface and native mobile apps for both iOS and Android, that interact with the blockchain and smart contracts system seamlessly, so for the normal user even though we use blockchain it’s going to be business as usual.
The platform will solve problems for both users and suppliers and at the same time everyone will be incentivized to contribute to growing that community together. Also, for people that do not have the opportunity to explore the world it will give them the chance to travel for less or even for free. For example you can ask the community to fundraise your trip and in return you can give free lessons for scuba diving on the trip. What we are developing combines functionalities and benefits that complement each other in one platform, which is unique and no one is actually doing it. What I see is one community that is happy to use the platform and share their travel experiences with their friends. And once we open API access to our services layer, I’m sure we’ll see so much more in form of apps build by the community on our layered ecosystem.
5. Which do you think are the main challenges that the project and the team will face?
As a CTO, I believe one of the main challenges from the beginning was to build an exceptional, professional and skilled team formed by great individuals that are passionate about the idea and we actually made it easier than we thought! I am really happy about it, so far everyone is really excited and the teamwork and flow are in synchrony. We are integrating a complicated set of smart contracts that will run the platform and I have confidence that what our team is doing is truly remarkable. One challenge that I can see is to persuade the mass consumer that blockchain is not something to be afraid of or to stay away from. We, as many others convey the message that blockchain is the future and sooner or later everyone will start using it and understanding its benefits and implications. We want to bring blockchain technology to more people and helping them understand the benefits of decentralization, but we realize that’s not an easy task. So our approach is to build the project in a way that the average user will not really need to know it’s a blockchain project and use it as they would use Instagram or Booking.com. It’s a big part of why most of the hyped projects until now are infrastructure ones. But now, having a good foundation on the infrastructure level comes the time for user-centric Dapps to organically emerge and grow.
6. How would you describe the atmosphere around 15toGO?
Overall, as I said many times I am really impressed by and happy to work with all these people. The spirit, the enthusiasm and the potential of the team are amazing. Working with experienced software engineers on building a product that can change the whole group travel industry is an inspiring personal challenge for each one of us. Everyone is proactive and I love hearing phrases such as “Yeah, that is best way to go. Let’s do it.” All of my colleagues are professionals and eager about the idea, most of them were working in big business and left to join the startup that 15toGO is. But really, we’re like a family, the culture is great.
7. Tell us one interesting thing about yourself?
I have a sea captain license, I can sail with a yacht of up to 17 meters! I’ve done 3 sailing expeditions in the last 2 years, and everyone got home safe and sound J. Not too bad for a software engineer, right! I used to do a lot of kayaking, motorboating, and other around the Greek islands for some time, so going big looked like a logical thing to me. The next step I suppose would be to get a pilot license, so I can conquer earth, water and air. But that will have to wait a bit as all of us are focused on changing the way we travel first. :)
