What was your first entrepreneurial moment as a kid or teen?

I actually joined the entrepreneurial scene later in life. I've always been an engineering/science fan. Won my first robotics competition at around 15yr. First place in an international knowledge bowl tournament in High School. Dual-degree in engineering, masters and then PhD.  At some point during my PhD,  in my mid-twenties, I started my first company which I bootstrapped to a team of 50+ and a good profitability. A few years later, after my PhD, I co-founded Avantsoft and we are now 100+ strong, clients in 10 countries and the growing.

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When do you feel most energized at work?

As a hands-on leader, I follow a maker-manager schedule. In the mornings, I focus on meetings often ending with a lunch meeting with a client. Early afternoon, I usually finish small tasks since there are frequent interruptions and evenings are reserved for deep work that requires hours of contiguous attention.

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What’s a personal ritual or habit you credit for your success?

Focus. To really succeed in something, especially something as hard as entrepreneurship you need be ready to give your all for extended period of times. This is much harder said then done. Things will get in the way and you will need to push them aside. I would say that the first year of a company is often easy. Few co-workers, slow cash-burn, not too many responsibilities. Its also the easiest to give up. Its the finding yourself moment. By year 2, you will scale a bit and your time commitment will increase since you don't yet have all the roles filled in. That means 12+ hour days 6+ days a week. Year 3 will be just as hard as you hire and train different positions in the company. Year 4-5 things get a bit easier if you executed well in the previous years. After the 5th year, if the company still exists, you tend to have found your groove and have a team in place to keep the company operating without you. So you move to a more strategic role trying to figure out: What comes next? How do we keep growing?

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What’s your definition of “success” right now?

To build things that outlast me. What most early entrepreneurs fail to understand, is that owning a company should not just be a job where you are your own boss. The idea is to replace yourself at every step of the way. Better processes. Better hires. Better training. The goal is to have the company operate without you. If you've done that, you've succeeded.

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What makes your agency different from others in your space?

We measure our success based on the growth of our clients. This makes our team go above and beyond to help our client's business and build great software in the process.

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What type of clients or projects are a 'no' for you?

Throw-aways. Our team devotes their everything to build great projects. We want to be a part of something that grows and building software that is just meant to be used once or irrelevant to the core business does not align with our ethos.

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What’s something you’d do differently if you were starting from scratch?

Nothing. Our trajectory provided us with the learnings to become who we are today. We have an awesome company with great colleagues who believe in our mission. So I wouldn't change what led us here.