Stanislav Bakhariev, my story

Stanislav Bakhariev, my story: from a bartender to cargo transportation, then to the founding of an IT company

There are real people behind every successful business project. The stereotype that money and connections decide everything is outdated. Today I will tell you about the real components of successful projects, using my career path as an example.

How it all began

It took me a long time to get into the IT sphere. Before trying my hand at development, I tried other areas of business. I didn't get into the world of IT until later in life. I experimented with other businesses before.

I got my education in Kharkiv, and during my college days, I was employed at the “Saltov” eatery in one of the city's residential areas. My first job was that of a bartender, a typical salaried worker.

I was given a set rate and a percentage of the sales for working, which averaged about 200-300 dollars per day. This was good money for a student, but the work hours were often long and extended until the last customer left, which made it difficult to balance work with the school.

For many people, a stable salary is enough, but I always wanted to develop and grow. Therefore my new position in this niche was already more “prestigious” — the administrator of the restaurant. While a stable salary may be enough for some people, I have always.

After working as a bartender for about a year, I was offered the position of administrator. The management must have noticed my responsible attitude, discipline, and ability to get along with both the staff and guests.

I also tried my hand at another industry at the same time. I started as a hired employee at a firm that did cargo transportation. This direction seemed interesting enough to me, so I set up my own business and started to organize logistics and cargo transportation in Ukraine and abroad. There were around 10 employees in my company. I actively worked in this business for about five years.

In my last year of university, I started to study programming. I have always been interested in how programs and applications are created. Besides, a friend of mine was already working in this field.

When I started learning about the aspects of development and different programming languages, I realized that I enjoyed it immensely. However, because I had to balance it with my work, it didn't work out in the beginning. So I soon quit my job as a restaurant administrator and started trying to make a career in IT.

I began everything from the beginning. Incredible desire and hard work allowed me to get my first job in a new area within a month. It was a $500 junior PHP developer position at "NitraLabs" web studio in Kharkiv.

All of my past jobs have given me experiences that have helped me further my career.

Promodex: how the foundation of our own company was built

I often thought about starting my own business during my previous career. As an employee, I felt dependent on other people and circumstances that I couldn't influence. The restaurant where I worked as an administrator closed down, and the rupture of relations with Russia made trucking uninteresting and unprofitable.

I always wanted the ability to be in control and take full responsibility. So I studied the different stages of development on my own and gathered a team of like-minded people. I always dreamed of being able to call all the shots and take full responsibility. So I studied.

In 2012, I founded my own IT company with a team of six: a project manager, two programmers, a front-end developer, a tester, and an SEO specialist.

Our main motivator at the beginning was confidence in our abilities, but there were no financial resources for the startup.

The first steps of our agency:

1. Created a name — Promodex (PRO — professional, MO — marketing & optimization, DEX — dexterity, speed, accuracy
2. We rented an office so that we could work together. Although it is a large space, it is only enough room for six people. We bought used tables and chairs, and everyone worked on their laptops.
3. Created accounts on various platforms and initially worked as a freelance team.
4. The staff was successfully expanded by completing various tasks. The staff was successfully increased by completing various tasks.

I started working with no clear responsibilities or positions, so I could work as a developer, marketer, HR, Sales & PM, or in any other capacity. This helped me to understand all these processes deeply and apply my knowledge to further management.

When our company was just starting and we only had 10 employees, we went through our first crisis. The IT market was tough to navigate, few orders were coming in, and our team was falling apart. Some employees wanted a larger share of the workload, while others threatened to take the team with them if they left. We had to fight for the future of Promodex.

Through difficult and lengthy negotiations, we were able to keep all of our groundwork because it was based on my ideas. Promodex only lost one employee and a profile on the trade exchange as a result.

Inclusion in "IT Rating"

At one of Promodex's formation stages, I was also introduced to my colleagues' "IT Rating" website. The service wasn't well known then and was only used by SEO specialists to post links.

This is how it was “before me”:

We were originally partners. In the process of cooperation, my old idea of creating a multifunctional platform that would bring together the Ukrainian IT industry came up.
So in the meantime running my studio, I became involved in the promotion of “IT Rating”. The development vector of the site was completely changed: from an ordinary point counter to the first digital ecosystem.

At first, I had to juggle work on two projects at once. And frankly speaking, it was not very easy, because I had to oversee all the processes in both companies. Therefore, after some time, my main partner at Promodex and I decided to divide responsibilities to optimize our work and increase efficiency.
I took over full management in “IT Rating” and have already occupied the position of CEO here. My partner took over the operational management of Promodex. We didn’t manage to completely separate our areas of responsibility right away, it took me practically a year. I remain the co-owner of the company and the generator of new ideas. I devote most of my time to the “IT Rating”

What makes IT Rating unique

 I want to create a common space on this platform that would help solve most problems in the IT segment. The most common problems are:

• Difficulty finding customers
• Difficulty finding suitable employees
• Tenders on other websites are complicated and not focused on the IT-sphere
• Rating systems being divided into different areas and being on separate platforms
• Customers having difficulty finding a good service provider because of a lack of confidence in the quality of work and reliability.

We are now introducing many new sections that will help optimize the work of all participants. We have succeeded in creating a rating methodology that takes into account non-standard but objective parameters.

Web Awards UA

When I started working with "IT Rating", the idea of creating a national contest for websites and apps also came up. After all, there is an international contest for web designers and developers called Awwwards, which not everyone knows about or can afford to take part in, as it is expensive. So we wanted to create our own, Ukrainian contest!
The contest is an annual event, and anyone can participate. The uniqueness of the contest is that both a professional jury and ordinary users are involved in the evaluation of sites. This guarantees impartiality. The jury evaluates aspects such as design, content, adaptive design, exclusivity, and usability.
This platform is another example of how a good idea, backed by a lot of work and effort, can produce.

Other projects

I am also involved in several other startups at the moment, including one of my favorite topics: automating and optimizing a company's business processes. For this purpose, we are developing products related to CRM and ERP systems with new partners.

In conclusion

Many talented IT specialists are working in our country who could take the domestic digital industry to a higher level and make it competitive. I also was once a beginner and wanted to achieve more.
Now I have 12 years of experience under my belt and I can say that if you are passionate about your business, everything will work out. But you have to put in a lot of hard work to achieve your goals.