Behind the screens of Sleek Tech
What a great year it was as we transition into 2024!
Reflecting on last year, it’s inspiring to see how Sleek has evolved from its early startup days. We’ve seen remarkable growth, developing robust processes and policies, and witnessing the extraordinary dedication of our team, especially in challenging times. This year, we’ve not only continued to innovate but also strengthened our core operations. It’s very humbling to see A-star qualities in people we’ve hired. In this new age I’m also having to raise the bar and make strategic shifts in the way we work.
- Keeping an eye out for next-gen leaders, who voice out their own views no matter how small. Challenge the norm, as what works yesterday might not be the best way.
- Keeping the employees motivated is very important to me. Rewards and building rapport are a small part of this. All leaders should encourage mentorship and recognition, especially self-initiated improvements for the greater good.
- Keeping a product-based mindset. Everything has to be measured or you cannot claim the mountain. Maybe less so for a corporate, but at a startup we need this at all levels.
- Keeping watch of shifts in new tech that could disrupt parts or your entire business, and at the same time quickly prove value and strike while the iron is hot. Don’t follow the hype train too long and wait to be disrupted.
- Keeping up engineering excellence. It’s easy to keep building features, but it’s hard to build long-lasting features. If your code cannot withstand the test of time, don’t write it.
What we achieved
At Sleek I am fortunate that Technology is at the forefront of what we stand for. We want to revolutionize business efficiency with next-gen tech. Here’s a peek at what Sleek’s product and technology team was able to accomplish.
- 🚀 Running not only our first ever hackathon, but a successful GenAI-themed hackathon!
- 🤖 Launched internal chatbots to categorise customer tickets and provide company advice
- 🛡️ Attaining and retaining our ISO27001 and SOC2 certifications
- 💳 Launching our virtual corporate cards
- 🔢 Launching accounting productivity tools for our teams to better serve our customers
- 🔧 Optimising our payments flow codebase through domain-driven design
- 🌐 Greater adoption of microservices in our core product, e.g., authorisation layer to support more login methods
- 🎨 Launched our custom-built design system to promote site consistency
With what we’ve accomplished, we want to ensure we continue innovating while also keeping service levels high.
Innovation: The Hackathon
We wanted to give the teams an exciting introduction to the world of generative AI, and what better way than a 24-hour hackathon! Over 30 engineers were split into teams of 4 to 6, with the goal to propose and implement an AI-initiated product that Sleek can take to market to benefit our customers.
All the teams were tremendously committed — they generated names for their teams, stacked up food to last the full stretch, and we could see so much dedication and teamwork! Every single team did a full presentation and demo of a working MVP, but ultimately it was team Hermes with their Sleek Assistant, which incorporated with our platform to retrieve & process company data, as well as speed up the process of signing documents!
What this means for us
I believe that in the new year, our technology strategy will revolve around the following:
Future-proofing staff
The future is already here — in fact it always was. We speak of the impending revolution 4.0 but I believe we’ll see more frequent revolutions — Web3, AI, screen-less mobile phones, quantum computing? Employees need to know how to use technology to enhance their work, not work against it. And we need to educate and build an expert legion.
World class service and platform
The customer is king. Sleek prides itself on taking the fuss out of boring operations for entrepreneurs, that also means leveraging tech to get to the customer quickly and accurately, at all times. And our SaaS platform has to meet the high demands of the customer of any cloud platform or app.
Data at our fingertips
It goes without saying that a solid data strategy is key to leverage AI for any aspect of the business. From observability to feedback loops, this space is evolving day by day, and we need to think about tomorrow in everything we are building.
Personally I wake up everyday energised by the shared purpose that unites our team — a team I’ve grown with and evolved alongside Sleek. Together we enter 2024 not just with positive energy but a shared commitment to further elevating our tech powerhouse!
Share your learnings and opportunities you foresee in the new year!
