Welcome to the Innovation Conversation, a podcast
about innovators, both in business and real life.
Hosted by myself, Ricardo Rescual and Harry McCona.
This podcast is sponsored by OpenExperts .com.
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find all the resources you need to learn your
startup. from grants to investors to tips and
tricks and how to be successful when you start.
Today, we are joined by Roman Zomkom, founder
and CEO of ImpressIt .io. Hi, and welcome to
another episode of the Innovation Conversation.
Today we are joined by Roman Zomkom, founder
and CEO of ImpressIt .io, if I'm not mistaken.
Yes, ImpressIt .io. That's right. Roman, welcome
and please tell the audience a little bit about
yourself. Thank you, Carden. Thanks for having
me. So yeah, so I'm the co -founder and CEO of
Compressive. We're a software innovation house
and we help anywhere from early stage startup
founders to large enterprises like Shell, whom
we started working with recently, build their
products anywhere from simple mobile applications,
SaaS platforms, and AI solutions as well. How
do you get started with impressive? Yeah, well,
my journey is quite interesting because even
though I work in tech, my background is not technical.
So I was born and raised in Lviv, Ukraine, where
I'm based right now. So and my background is
international economics. I started here in Lviv,
but also had some possibility to study in Czech
Republic in EU and as I was ready wrapping up
my University times I realized that I'm not that
big fan of the economic side but I'm quite a
big fan of the International side of my background
and that's something that I wanted to associate
my career with to be able to yeah to join a podcast
With you based in London, you know work with
companies across the seas in Europe sounded really
cool for me and I was looking for a career that
could support that goal and tech was an obvious
choice since Ukraine was always well known for
strong, motivated software professionals. Some
of the biggest software development companies
have their offices here. There are a lot of Ukrainian
large companies as well. The product, the startup
ecosystem is now growing fast. But when I was
starting, it was mainly, let's say, service companies,
mainly software development outsourcing companies
that were on the market. And I decided to join
a small software development studio called Acro.
At that time, it was just, I think, seven people
working there. They were just making this shift
from the domestic market to the Western market.
and I joined as their business development manager
to help them onboard new clients. I managed to
make my first sale on the second day after joining
them, which was quite cool, I think, and reassuring,
so it got me motivated to move forward. And in
two or three months, I've helped to bring the
client that basically we had to double our team
in order to fulfill their needs. So yeah, I realized
that, yeah, so I have, let's say, the skills
and, you know, it really motivated me seeing
results and also being involved in the tech industry.
And yeah, over the course of four years, I helped
to grow that business from seven to 70 people.
And that's where I met my technical co -founder,
Andrew. With whom we later go funded in impressive.
It was actually an interesting It's an actually
an interesting story as well because Andrew joined
us to be the largest Project that we were working
on it was a collaboration with a monoco based
company Not a not a usual location for tech businesses,
right? Yeah, you'll understand the values of
dating Monaco for the business that they were
doing so they were building platforms, ticketing
platforms for large sports events, and their
biggest client was Formula One. Later on, they
onboarded Juventus Football Club. They also worked
with a lot of tennis tournaments, Madrid Open,
for example, and other big sports events, but
obviously Formula One was the biggest thing.
So yes, so the team that we set up back at Acro
was helping to rebuild according to the new,
newer architecture principles, the platform for
Formula One, Andrew was leading that effort.
So yeah, so if you ever book a ticket for Formula
One Grand Prix, you'll probably do that through
their official ticketing shop. And that platform
was built by a team here in Lviv and Monaco and
still is being supported by that team and Andrew
was leading that effort okay how how hard was
it to get started i mean i know you you did you
did quite a lot to grow your previous company
but how hard was it actually to to run your own
company because it's a complete shift isn't it
you got a lot of worries on your mind all at
the same time like i'm actually bringing revenue
can i sustain this is this like a business or
is this like a crazy idea so how hard was it
yeah well when you work in a company and think
of starting a new business. Obviously, you feel
about it a bit more optimistic than it actually
is when you get started. So, well, Andrew and
I, we got, let's say, brought together by shared
values. It just happened very naturally. As we
started working together, we realized that both
of us, when we take on any assignment, whether
it's in the work or personal life, we deliver
to the best result. And that's not because of,
you know, some commitment or accountability.
That's because of our personal accountability
to ourselves and the desire to feel, to be proud
of the results that you achieved. And that just
made comparable us working together because we
knew that we will put in equal efforts. And most
importantly, we realized that That's the values,
that's the principles that we want to build our
team around. We want to bring like -minded people
that will embrace the same principles and will
build a strong team culture. And yeah, that's
pretty much how we laid the foundation for Impressive.
We realized that within the previous company,
those values were not as strongly shared. And
that's why eventually we decided to leave and
start Impressive. I was let's say waiting for
a good moment to leave obviously you know trying
to build up let's say some financial reserves
to sustain my family at that time I already was
married we had at that time my son Danny I think
he was two years old so had a lot of personal
responsibilities to sustain and support the family.
So yeah, it was quite a hard decision to leave
a well -paid job and start something from scratch
is obviously hard. And I thought that I will
find that best moment, but actually it happened
in a different way, which turned out to be not
good. So at some point I just felt really burned
out on the previous role. I just started hating
what I was doing and I was really getting frustrated
with the person I'm becoming because I didn't
want to come back home so frustrated, so stressed.
One evening, I just realized that I can't keep,
yeah, continue like that. Came back home, had
a chat with Sandra, with my wife, and decided
to give a notice the next day. So it wasn't the
best moment. It was just after Christmas and
New Year holidays. So yeah, but I realized that
it's enough and I need to focus my energy. on
our shared venture with Andrew. So yeah, obviously
the first year is the hardest. It was pretty
much survival because as I mentioned, when you
work in the company... you don't you take as
granted the let's say the infrastructure that
you have around you the team that you can always
ask someone you know ask for support you already
have materials that you can use for some outreach
campaigns when you're doing a demo when starting
something new you start from scratch and yeah
so that was the initial let's say uh realization
that uh yeah you're on your own you have a co
-founder but still like you both you're on your
own and you need to start from scratch that that
was quite a hard pill to swallow and how how
do you manage all that stress because it's a
lot of things happening all at the same time
right you got your responsibilities as as a father
and a husband but you're also running a company
which means you're also responsible for making
sure that it takes off and it goes well so how
do you handle all that Yeah well one of the values
one of the principles that we also share is that
we tend to try to find joy in what we're doing
and obviously starting your business it's a journey
and it's an adventure so obviously not as romantic
as it might seem from from the outside. So, but
still building something new is very exciting.
It's stressful. Obviously, there's a lot of sleepless
nights and so on. Deadlines to meet, really tight
financials to fit in, but it's very rewarding.
So, the first year, as I mentioned, was hard,
but as we... Let's say reflect on on this first
year together with Andrew from time to time.
It was filled with so many cool activities We
were so invested as a service company. So we
were trying to get our first Clients and land
our first deals. So for example We we saw that
some teams are especially interesting for us
and have large huge potential We didn't even
think for too long, but just booked flights and
went to the clients to have on -site meetings.
So we, for example, traveled to Belgium to present
the vision and proposal for the development of
an internal management tool for a company in
the construction and manufacturing business.
So we, at that time, Since Andrew and I, we have
complementary skill sets. Andrew has absolutely
extraordinary technical background. He has full
stack experience. He as one person can take any
project, whether it's a SaaS tool, mobile application,
AI enabled platform delivered from A to Z on
his own. So two of us, at that time we were competing
against you know other service providers with
tens or even hundreds of people and staff so
and we're competing for these same projects with
them and some we managed to win some some didn't
but yeah that was that was interesting this this
first year and yeah very challenging and to be
honest yeah your surroundings your family is
the biggest supporter i clearly remember how
like at one time at the beginning when this you
know hard pill came to realization that you're
on your own i was trying i was small step by
step just losing momentum and my wife gave me
the best let's say motivation so instead of you
know feeling sorry about me or you know uh trying
you know just to you know hard to explain anyway
so she just said me the absolute you know brutal
truth like why are you whining like get your
sorry for my french shit together and and do
your job you can do that i know that you're doing
that before you'll do it do it again so and yeah
that was a really strong motivation like just
get get everything together and keep keep moving
A little bit of tough love, but much needed.
Yeah. Okay. I think the first person to actually
say that, that you got a little bit of tough
love from someone else and that actually pushed
you forward. What was the hardest? Yep. I mean,
but it's a good motivator, especially if it's
coming from someone you love and trust, right?
What was the hardest moment in that first year?
What was the moment you said, oh my, I want to
quit. What was that moment you said, you know,
it's not turning out okay. We got a lot of nos.
How was that like? Yeah I don't think at this
first year we ever had this moment to really
think about quitting like Andrew and I we haven't
considered that as an option. So when we When
we left the previous company and and started
impressive so everyone was asking like where
are you going? What's your next company? Everyone
was super was very Surprised to hear that we
were actually starting something our own So so
yeah, and you know this motivation of not Just
not going back. No, you know not a lot of people
who had some doubts whether we'll succeed or
not to Make them, you know feel that they were
right. So we had didn't have any thoughts like
that The hardest moment was actually sometime
later. So after this first year we managed to
land our let's say first significant enterprise
project because all of all the projects before
that were more like smaller MVPs smaller like
proof concepts for startups and in December 2019
2019 yes in December 2019 we started working
with one of the fastest growing internet providers
in London called G -Network. So we joined as
their key technology partner and we were fully
covering all of their internal software development
needs. So for business automation needs, for
custom buildings, custom portals and so on. And
then the, let's say, the dynamic really went
up. We started actively hiring our team. So before
working with them, we were mainly a team of about
six or seven people. So six months from then,
we were already a team of almost 20. So it was
really fast growth. And that's when COVID started.
So that's obviously another interesting chapter
in our history. Let me reframe that. I'm always
curious because you build all these software
for these many companies and some of them are
actually startups. Do you ever tell them and
say this is the wrong way to go? Like, I can
build you this, but this is not what you should
do. You should actually do something else. Does
that actually ever happen or you just build them
whatever they want? Yeah, that's a really good
question. And that's, let's say, a hard decision
to make as a business owner, as a service provider,
because obviously you're open to possibility
for additional risk of losing the deal. because
you're honest, fully honest with the startup
founders, with pretty much your partners, because
you're joining in the same boat. And we are always
looking to the, you know, in the broader picture.
So we are not interested, you know, in lending
a lot of these small short -term deals. We are
interested in building a long partnership. And
if we see that some of the decisions that the
founders are planning to do or making right now
are likely to affect their likelihood of growing
and succeeding, we always openly say about that
and we'll share all of our experience in order
to help them succeed. That's by the way how we
eventually Build up a portfolio of solutions
now that we use to fast -track the development
of new products We'll get to that later. So but
pretty much we share our technology with startups
in order to set them for success so that's that's
you know, it takes a lot of courage and To do
that because you understand that well, they might
like let's say take it that well So they will
might go in, you know in a more comparable direction
for them but we believe in shared values and
we believe that those who will actually appreciate
our openness and willingness to share our experience
as an advantage, as a sign of a true partnership,
and we want to work with those kind of startup
founders. You had a couple of interesting events
happening in since you started the company because
you did have covid right and that impacted the
company a lot but then unlike most people that
launch a company you also have something else
you also had an invasion in your country is actually
at war at this moment so how do you manage all
this stress because it's a lot of i can imagine
being extremely stressful like you don't know
what's gonna happen so how do you manage that
Yeah, well, it's indeed challenging and I was
thinking about this the other day and realized
that we pretty much worked in normal conditions,
maybe about a year. And then COVID happened and
we didn't even manage to recover from COVID.
when Russia invaded Ukraine, and that obviously
changed the whole world. Not only the lives of
us, but it has a huge effect on the whole world,
even despite whether people realize that or not.
So coming back to COVID, probably there was a
mix of luck and hard work, because the main projects
that we were working on at that time were not
that heavily affected by COVID. Some actually
got even some, let's say, advantage out of it,
how, let's say, strange it might sound. But,
for example, with GNetwork, due to the lockdown,
they had the possibility to accelerate their...
development of their network because suddenly
the whole London was empty. There were no one
on the streets and the city officials became
much more open to granting permissions to do
the groundworks and lay the networks on streets.
So that accelerated and our relationship with
G -Network carried on and we grew throughout
that period. we also worked quite a lot in health
tech and obviously health tech in general obviously
had a significant influx of financing as well
due to development of the vaccine but also like
in generally the attention of the business was
focused on the on the healthcare industry significantly
and yeah and carries on from from there so yeah
so we got pretty much COVID hadn't affected us
that much. In terms of our internal process,
how we worked, we were, let's say, flexible even
before COVID. Working in a hybrid environment
wasn't something new to us. Since, you know,
just the start of impressive, we just set a rule
that will provide all of our teammates with MacBooks.
We are quite, let's say, comfortable with Apple
ecosystem, so I'd say we even are Apple evangelists.
It was quite an easy transition for us and since
we worked with our clients based in US and UK
all the time, so it didn't that much change our
relationship with them. So yeah, COVID was more
or less fine. And I know that not all were as
lucky as we are. We were. But then the war happened.
So obviously, February 24th was a shock to everyone.
I mean, February 24th, 2022. Well, I don't know
whether it was the right decision of, let's say,
of our local authorities and government to, you
know, to not emphasize on the likelihood of the
invasion so yeah the whole let's say the narrative
which was shared here was like well calm down
Russia was flexing their muscles even before
we don't think they they will invade well actually
the military knew that that the invasion is preparing
and I think they were already preparing how we
will respond to that we as a company we were
as well quite lucky to be based in western part
of Ukraine so we are headquartered in Lviv which
is in the very western part of Ukraine just 60
or 70 kilometers from the Polish border we had
a couple of remote team members in other cities
but again mainly in the western region we just
had our first team member based in Kiev who was
starting on March 1st So he was a senior DevOps
engineer, still works with us. And yeah, so he
was about to start. So yeah, so on February 24th,
when in the morning we woke up from the news
and well, sounds of air raid alarms, that was
obviously a shock. And first and foremost, we
thought about our loved ones and our close ones.
So my first decision were just to reach out to
my co -founder, our HR manager, going to coordinate
with them, just send out the message to everyone
that today we're focused on helping our loved
ones, making sure that everyone's safe. Because
for me, for example, most of my family is base
year, but we had team members who moved to Lviv
from other Ukraine, regions of Ukraine, and they
had to take care of their families. So yes, February
24th obviously was, let's say, a day off for
us. We're very stressful and strange. They focus
on just taking care of our families and coordinating.
We immediately helped arrange accommodation for
our team member from Kiev and encouraged him
to move with his family to Lviv. And fortunately,
he did that because the next day, it was really
unsafe leaving Kiev at least like directly on
the main highway going from Kiev to Lviv so people
had to take much longer routes so because Russia
got to that highway and was killing civilians
just like that so I'm pretty sure everyone knows
and remembers the atrocities that they did in
Russia and European outside of Kiev and Unfortunately,
it still continues now and there are many many
more these tragic stories like that Coming back
like from you know, how business responded to
that to be honest It was it was happening very
organically. So I think at that point everyone
just realized Nathan like, you know naturally
Realized what they should do me as a leader.
I obviously Realized that I need to be very close
to my team, meaning that frequent communication
was absolutely important so that no one is left
behind. Everyone feels that they have someone
besides them and can always ask for help. I was
very fortunate to read before that a book called
Extreme Ownership. Jocko Williams and an odd
author. So they are ex -Navy SEALs and they set
up a consultancy sharing the principles that
US Navy SEALs use in warfare and how these principles
can be adopted in business in order to make businesses
more resilient and more efficient. And one of
the main principles I clearly remember is distributed
command. So instead of trying to keep everything
very, let's say, under my control, I just distributed
the management of the projects that we were working
on, on different initiatives to my team as much
as possible, and just clearly emphasize on their
accountability, on their, let's say, On their
then the importance of their role. So Yeah, I
think at that moment we were the most organized
software development company in the world So
everyone was very responsive. Everyone was giving
daily updates on how it's going on on the on
their projects I was doing daily emails across
of the whole client sharing the updates on what's
going on the ground in Ukraine how we're responding
how the team is feeling so that our clients are
fully aware of what's happening because we then
realized that there are pretty much three main
duties that everyone has is to provide for their
families make sure that they they're safe take
care of them contribute to Ukraine in every way
possible on our let's say in our roles and then
well the best value that we can also bring to
Ukraine is to continue working to have the resources
to then channel to all of the important initiatives
that there were at that time helping buy ammunition
for for soldiers helping evacuate people from
from affected areas buying humanitarian support
for those displaced people who just were surviving
in thousands to live in other cities and obviously
they had some needs for the basic, let's say,
day -to -day needs. So yeah, so that was three
goals, three missions that everyone we had. So
we pretty much worked. And if we didn't work,
then we did something for Ukraine, some volunteering
and so on. There was no other way to spend time.
And none of our clients, none of the projects
we worked on had, let's say, any bad, negative
effects. From that, we carried on 100 % service
delivery throughout the whole of the time. Later,
there were blackouts because Russia was targeting
Ukrainian energy system. But we found solutions
for that, made our office fully autonomous with
power. uh batteries with our generator we have
starlink on our office so yeah and and besides
that two more internet uh lines so yes so we
came over all the challenges because we we clearly
realized that well that's that's our duty to
keep the uh to support ukrainian economy at the
level that we can considering our science i'm
just thinking because this You know you told
your story and you make it sound super easy,
but I can't imagine it was not even remotely
easy or close to being easy so Because you know
most entrepreneurs face a lot of challenges and
stuff like that but none face That being of a
challenge like you just did right where you have
your country being invaded People are you know
trying to fight for their lives and trying to
survive and you don't know what's gonna happen
the next day, right? Because there was a moment
in the war where we didn't know how far the Russians
would go. Thankfully, they didn't go that far,
but you had no idea what was happening. So as
a leader, what do you say to yourself in those
moments? What's that message that comes across?
What is that? How do you keep yourself sharp
and able to deliver all the stuff you've done?
How does that look like? Yeah. To be fair, you
don't think too much in these situations. You
just act. You don't think whether to feel bad
about yourself or just go and do the things that
you have to. Adrenaline definitely does its job.
You have less fear to do some things that you
are not that comfortable with. I started doing
more videos sharing bandwidth with our clients,
with our team to keep them informed and again
keep that feeling of closeness as much as possible.
Before that I was quite shy of filming myself.
So the barrier just... gets significantly lower
to the things that you were not very comfortable
doing before and And yeah, and well what what
to lose like you either Work it out or not. So
the choices become very simple. It's just one
choice and no other other options So yeah, so
I, at that time, and still now, I made a clear
decision that I will dedicate myself to growing
Impressor, innovating and bringing, let's say,
new opportunities. And we'll get to that as well,
because besides Impressor, we have launched our
own AI product. And that's also an interesting
topic how... in the circumstances of a full -scale
war, which the European continent didn't experience
since World War II. So how founders are launching
new products, because I think now the activity
of the startup ecosystem in Ukraine is higher
than ever before. A lot of that is also driven
by the demands of our country. So that means
a lot of military tech, startups, a lot of alternative
energy sources being developed and so on. So
the needs of our country drive for innovation
because obviously we are in a significantly disadvantaged
position compared to Russia. Russia has more
of every possible resource. more human resources,
more financial resources, more natural resources.
We have fewer of everything and we need to find
ways how to be more efficient with less of the
resources that we have. And that obviously creates
an environment for innovation. So I would encourage
all investors, all accelerators to pay a special
attention to start us from Ukraine. because if
well those founders they're creating new services
new products and the environment which is hardly
which is really hard to find anywhere else in
the world right now with well with constant with
almost daily aid rate alarms depending on the
region again we're in leviv we are sort of in
the let's say ukrainian resort we can say because
we have air raid alarms maybe you know a couple
of times a week sometimes even fewer and actual
let's say missile and drone strikes are happening
not that frequent and most of the targets are
being taken down because well any missiles any
drone has to travel almost across the whole of
the country so it's very likely that they were
taken down whilst Kiev, other central, central
Ukrainian cities like Dnipro, Cyprus. Kharkiv
is a completely different story because they're
30 or 40 kilometers from Russian borders. Pretty
much any weapon, any mid -range or long -range
weapon is reaching them. But still, Kiev is obviously
targeted more frequently. And there are a lot
of startups like there. So and I think that given
that those founders get, let's say, the conditions
of their peers in London or in the US, they can
achieve way, way more. I think if you were to
do a pitch deck and you put in the founding team
and you just told, oh yeah, we've just been surviving
in the worst scenario for the last two years.
Oh, okay. Yeah, definitely. They have what it
takes, right? They can deal with anything. We
need to add unstoppable, let's say unstoppable
startups or, you know, waterproof startups as
let's say as strange as it sounds, but you know
that and same for service providers actually
right now. We are onboarding a new client and
they were looking for a service provider out
of Ukraine for purpose because they shared the
same vision and same thinking that people who
are delivering great results maintain professional
service in these circumstances. They nothing
can... stop them so and be they understand that
that's the way how you can actually support Ukraine
in the very direct very effective manner because
here pretty much with your projects you're creating
additional job opportunities in Ukrainian market
all of the hundred percent of your spending will
go into Ukrainian economy because people obviously
the company will make some profit pay tax out
of that team the professionals will make their
salaries pay tax from there but they will also
spend in Ukraine donate in Ukraine and so pretty
much hundred percent of that will go into really
available valuable So yeah, I encourage to think
about from that perspective as well. And a lot
of startups, to be honest, are open to that.
Enterprises are a bit more reserved. So yeah,
I would love to see more enterprise leaders sharing
that vision and being courageous to fight, let's
say, their internal, let's say, discussions.
and make their teams consider working with Ukraine.
I was just wondering, you mentioned that you
launched a new AI product. Can you tell us a
bit more about that? Sure, absolutely. So the
product is called AssistMe AI, and it does what
the name says, so it assists professionals in
their work. So it's an AI -based tool that helps
automate workflows in larger organizations. So
our target audience right now are customer support
companies who are providing either voice or text
customer support, and we provide the possibility
for their quality assurance teams. to validate
how effective their customer support agents are.
Let's say how closely are they following their
principles, their playbooks. So conventional
way is that a customer support company has their
own QA team who are manually looking through
the conversations of their customer support agents
and validating whether they follow the best practices
or not. And that's the ideal use case to be automated
by AI. So what our platform does, it screens,
it listens to all of the conversations or analyzes
all of the text, chat conversations of customer
support. And by combining, by just we train the
model with all of the documentation that the
customer support company provides us with. So
it invalidates those conversations against all
of the rules, all the principles they have to
follow. So the expected improvement of efficiency
of their QA team is at least five times. So we
are running a trial with the first paying customer
right now. So we'll have all of the data on the
results of their usage of our platform and then
we'll go out to other uh similar companies already
showing them what the value assist me ai provides
there you go this that's uh it's an impressive
story isn't it when you think about all these
diversity you faced and you see launching your
products you still creating new things um if
people want to reach out to you how can you do
so all these amazing things you're doing i'm
pretty accessible on linkedin and funny enough
i'm the only ramon zamker on linkedin as of So
latest data so I should be fairly easy To find
there and yeah, I'm very responsive there. I
try to post quite frequently So the best way
to reach out would be through it through LinkedIn
Wonderful. Come on. Thank you so much for your
time. It's been an absolute pleasure Thank You,
Ricardo. Thanks for having me This podcast is
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