Interview With Hugo Messer CEO Of Ekipa.Co
Hi  my name is Sotiris Bassakaropoulos I would just like to thank you for joining me for this short interview 🙂 Â
What is your name?
My name is Hugo MesserÂ
What is your position in the company Hugo?
My position is the co-founder CEO
I would like to ask you 5 short questions Hugo if that will be okay?
That will be fine Sotiris.
Okay then so lets start with No1 🙂
- What would be your companies mission statement Hugo? To democratize remote collaboration.
- If I was to ask you what makes your company stand out from your nearest competitors what would you say?
     We are in between 2 existing businesses: online freelance marketplaces like Upwork and traditional IT firms like Accenture.
     We are different from both on 4 major points:
     – we have expert software teams on our online marketplace. No freelancers
     – all teams are vetted
     – we match projects with teams that have built similar software for clients like you
     – we support the collaboration with personal service.
3.What is the most common request you get generally on your company website.
  Most requests are for full time dedicated teams that work longer term on a software product. Most of our customers are software product firms (sometimes startups, but mostly mature software firms). These teams can work on any      technology, but the most common teams that work for our customers work on the major platforms like .net, php, Java, ios and android.
- Who is your ideal client and how can you help them?
Our ideal customer is a software product firm that has over 100 employees and makes steady turnover. We help them by selecting a dedicated scrum team that has experience working as a team on similar products. Once the team is selected, we support them in the remote collaboration with our Bridge Method. We do a workshop to create a ‘communication roadmap’. This covers everything from the development process, coding standards, meeting rhythm up to a concrete plan on building a real team spirit. Then we assign an Ekipa expert to facilitate the collaboration; he’ll check in through skype every week (or more if needed) to ensure that the collaboration works smooth.
- I used to live in Holland many years ago, but I am just curious as to why you chose to launch your company in Schiphol in Holland. As many companies now operate from India and other countries where operating costs are cheaper.
I am a Dutch guy, living in the Netherlands, that’s why our head office is in the Netherlands. But we have our main office in Cochin, India, where 50 people work. That’s where the development and marketing, the ‘real action’ takes place. I have lived in India for almost 2 years setting up our office. The past years, I have run our service firm from the Netherlands, but as Ekipa is a global platform, I am now considering moving abroad again. Today, it doesn’t matter where I’m doing my work, I can work from any place on earth.
Thank you Hugo for going into more detail on that as it gives us all a much clearer picture about your company. 🙂
Anything else you would like to mention Hugo?
Yes indeed Sotiris. 🙂
If you have any software product you need built, please drop me an email (hugo@ekipa.co) so we can discuss the stage you’re at and how Ekipa could help you build great software. You can also download some free ebooks (http://www.ekipa.co/ebooks) about managing remote teams, which I have personally written.
End Of Interview