COFFICE STORY: Ashant Chalasani, CEO of Euroblaze, Germany
If you’re working for a company that deals with IT services, chances that you’ve heard of Macedonia are very big. Somehow, this land of ours has turned to be a very appealing heaven for foreigners. The talent for developing software seems to be huge here and it’s not just the talent. There’s also a high demand for these types of professionals. It seems like we’ve become a hot and very attractive destination for IT companies. Over this one and a half year in Coffice alone there has been more than 10 companies which were looking to hire software and web developers, UX/UI designers, data science engineers and project managers. So, it’s safe to assume that developers are on fire.
One such company is Nebiz, daughter company of Euroblaze, a software enterprise based in Stutgard, Germany. Founded in 2002, company’s primary focus is developing software for e-commerce. Ashant Chalasani, the founder of Euroblaze has based its team in Coffice for three months, so we sat down to talk about what they do and what he thinks of the Macedonia IT industry, as well as the talent we have here.
COFFICE: Tell us a bit about Euroblaze
Euroblaze is a software company focusing on e-commerce. Our goal is to develop excellent e-commerce applications that are fun for the user, but at the same time profitable for the online operator.
We offer comprehensive programming services for online agencies and software companies through our expertise in the e-commerce environment. We are also researching new technologies and are always investing in the development of standard solutions that help our customers realize their projects more innovatively, more efficiently and profitably.
Our business model is based on long-term partnerships with our customers. As a technology and expertise provider, we provide our customers with development capacities as well as marketable innovations.
COFFICE: How big is your team and where are you based currently?
Euroblaze has 25 employees. Four of them fulfill the role of customer interfaces from our office in Stuttgart-DE and the rest of our development team is based in India and Macedonia.
Being a tech-company is super-exciting. But we have to plan the future of our business carefully, so that we are still around 2–3 years, maybe pave way for even more. Most exciting is to plan our future, relative to how our industry is changing. In 2–3 years, technologies will for sure have changed, and keep changing. The question is, if we can keep up with the change, as an organisation.
Our business is very people-centered, and we, as I imagine most companies in our industry, are facing a number of people-related challenges. And there’s a lot to say about the team that makes it all happen. As an entrepreneur, the thing I’m most proud of is my team. It’s way up there, next to family. It’s a melting-pot of backgrounds, talent and human energy in all it’s forms, into some common professional goals. I actually think you should do a piece on each of these guys.
COFFICE: Was it difficult to find and attract talent in Macedonia?
Over the last 4 weeks, I have personally been recruiting a team of interns for our office in Skopje, Macedonia, and we are close to having 4 recruits onboard. Equipped with a wonderfully efficient new ERP that facilitated scoring over 2000 social-media contacts generated over 3 months, I managed without the help of an assistant, to schedule 10 interviews and zero down on 4 hires. For me this is a minor success, given how hard it has become to hire motivated and qualified IT talent world over, particularly in markets we operate — India, Macedonia and Germany.
Along the way, I came to appreciate talking to a crop of Macedonian Millennials, perhaps all the way enjoying the contact with the “kids” (as I like to call them), who clearly lie outside my own professional demography.
I was impressed with the honesty of the young women and men. I cannot remember of an instance when I felt the interviewees exaggerated their credentials and abilities. Or even consciously concealed information. One girl told me that her passion is social work, helping underprivileged children obtain access to computers and connect to the Internet; and that she was a nature lover. When asked how these noble passions connected to the E-Commerce programmer-job she was interviewing, she did draw a blank for an awkward moment, but seemed to remain in comfort about her answers from a minute ago.
I was impressed with the professionalism. I didn’t hear back from Martin a very strong candidate whom I was compelled to make an immediate offer at the end of the interview on a Friday evening to consider over the weekend and write back to me on Monday. A bit concerned at the prospect of losing a future performer, I sent out one of those canned message to the effect of “if you have decided otherwise, please inform us the same, so that the position can be freed up for other candidates by … (2 days later)”. On the date of the deadline, Martin replied saying he just wanted to make sure that I received his reply from Monday that he had written after intensely weighing his options over the weekend. Unfortunately this mail had gone down somehow in all the mailboxes I use; to be found of course in a minute of searching.
I am impressed with the zeal. Richard was the first intern we recruited and has already been at the job for a month. Both I and our General Manager in Skopje were shocked to receive a call one evening from him, that he was quitting! I immediately called him to find out what happened, and what Richard said surprised me as it was something that happened for the first time in my career as a manager. He said he’s quitting because he wasn’t convinced that he was adding value to the company he expected of himself, because he wasn’t closing the tasks assigned by his manager, solving problems, and the whole thing was making him feel useless. True to his word, he had a tough job coping with the stresses of being a part of a new company. The sense of commitment I saw in this Millennial that evening was a pure delight. He of course would go back to rejoin his duties after a day’s break for clearing up his mind.
In all the interviews I scheduled, there was not a single no-show, a different experience than we have in another part of the world.
Needless to say, I am proud of these young people, and rest assured that our future is in good hands.
COFFICE: You experience with Coffice
I liked how Coffice made my employees feel. It made them feel like they were working from home and you know what they say when your employees are happy, the whole company’s a happy place. They even included neck massages in our monthly packages which was an uber cool move. The community manager was super helpful and friendly. We loved the time spent in Coffice.
What we’re most proud of this past year is that Coffice has become this amazing international hub, where you get to meet truly inspiring individuals who come from almost every corner of the world. We love meeting strangers and if they stick around we love turning them into our friends. At the end of the day, it all feels like we’re one big happy family.
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