Alexandr Tsimerman – CEO & Founder of stayhome.ai. Serial Entrepreneur. Mentor. Certified Executive Director.
He has extensive practical experience in the development and management of international businesses, strategic planning, and multicultural teams’ management.
Alexandr founded stayhome.ai as a solution for inefficient and costly workforce and facilities management. It is an AI-powered platform to set up and manage hybrid (partly remote/partly office-based) teams and save employee and office-related costs. In the last couple of years, he had conducted over 1000 in-depth surveys with CEO/CFO/COO’s, HR leaders, top managers and confirmed that fully remote work is great but has significant disadvantages and is not for everyone. Obviously, the future of work is hybrid.
With huge expertise in workforce management, Alexandr helps companies to implement a hybrid work approach and prepare organizational culture for the flexible future.
What is stayhome.ai all about?
We help companies transition to hybrid workforce management. Today companies are searching for solutions to provide their employees with the opportunity to work partly from the office, partly from home. We, on the basis of large volumes of the data, can make such a flexible work beneficial for both employee and company. This keeps employees happy and makes companies more productive. We create the future of work, and facilitate its implementation.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
The idea came in 2019. I had to open an office for the future branch of real estate company in Europe. I sat with 2 employees in an 800 sq m (8611 sq feet) office. And it was absolutely clear to me that in the coming year this office will be empty. Not only because I will not have time to recruit all the people, but because some of these people are not going to spend 5 days a week in the office. It simply doesn’t make any sense. So I decided to create a solution which will help optimize workforce and office-related issues.
What was the biggest problem you encountered with your business and how did you overcome it?
The biggest problem is market education. And it is impossible to address people and CEOs with a completely new revolutionary solution. People usually like to buy famous products or rather products that already have some kind of run. They have been used for many years and people are accustomed to them. The purchase of a completely new product that changes the structure of the organization and affects new realities for company leaders, is something very scary. But business is changing extremely rapidly, and leaders need to understand that old tools might not work in new circumstances. And when these used circumstances begin negatively affect the productivity of work and business revenue, company leaders have no choice but to adapt new solutions.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
The main mistakes were made because the market was in the stage of pre-consideration. Instead of trying to persuade and sell our solution as it was, we began to develop a large number of different updates to our product. But we developed them, not because they were necessary for the main product, but because we wanted someone else to start using them. And we considered requirements from different companies which in the end turned out to be frivolous. In other words, they did not seriously influence the decision to adopt a product. Rather, the companies started making decisions about the main product, regardless of the spin-offs. Previously potential clients looked at us as a solution to a problem which had already been solved. And we weren’t the best candidate there.
Another big mistake is trying to persuade a company to use your product before the company is ready to find a real solution. They just won’t use it. That’s what happened with some of our clients.
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
Every day I read a huge amount of information to understand where the market is moving not only in my specific niche of the future of work. There is a lot of information to let you see the whole picture and try to make a certain prediction, or something else of this kind, to always keep abreast.
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
Probably, here I will advise “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future” by Peter Thiel, and “Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive in Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Life” by Gary Hamel. I will be lame, but most people have no idea how to build an elementary plan. So, I recommend any book on how to write business plans. And not in order to write it, but to know what it consists of. Surely, one of the main mistakes is a bad understanding of your strengths in some directions. A book on drawing up a business plan will give some kind of framing.
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
Probably one of the things I’d really like to know is timing. Due to the pandemic and everything that has happened, I would really like to know when companies would stop making excuses like “yes, this is wonderful, but now we are all working remotely”. And when they would move to the stage, which they just start entering these days, looking for certain solutions.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
For our business, the account-based marketing is one of the main directions. But the most important is still direct dialogue. When you, as the owner of a business or a startup, speak directly to another owner, you tell him about how good your project is. No other digital tools, no other solutions will be able to do it the way you do it one-to-one. After all, personal relationships are the main marketing strategy that really works.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new startup, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
I would probably spend it on calls to a huge number of people, on in-mail messages on LinkedIn to those whom I would like to see as my partners. I would start communicating with them and maybe persuade them to go on the path with me not for money, but for the idea. I think so.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Learn from your mistakes. Many people say that it is worth learning from others` mistakes and this is contradictive. But it doesn’t matter how many times you read about another person’s fails. Until you do it yourself, you will not learn anything. Get up this morning and understand that today you definitely face a mistake. But tomorrow when you’ll look at the result, be sure that you will not make this mistake again.
What is your favorite quote?
“The show must go on”
– Freddie Mercury.
First, personal contacts if we are talking about social aspect.
Second, companies employees who help you to convey the message to their boss.
Third, find trends and follow them. You can tell a great number of people what you are doing, and surprisingly, they will be related in some other way to this. It is basically the law of large numbers. The more people know about your business, the more chances the right ones will hear about it.
How is running a tech company different than what you thought it would be?
Actually, I supposed how it would be. But the main problem is that in the field of technology, no matter how many times you have tested your product, in a month or two some error always pops up. And you, as well as all technologists, programmers, don’t understand why. It doesn’t matter at what level, junior, middle or senior. You just need to solve it.
In tech companies error is inevitable. The only thing you can do is minimize it. For example, at a restaurant (de facto it is also a technology company), no matter how many times you cook eggs, but someday they will definitely burn. Because this is also technology. You cook it perfectly, but at some point, a power surge or another problem occurs and spoils it all. Accordingly, in a business that does not belong to technology, you can set the process to be smooth. But in the tech business, the problem is inevitable.
How can readers get in touch with you?
Just find me on Facebook or LinkedIn. I always answer everyone. Contact me via my website. Your letter will be sent to me in a second. This is the culture of our company. I have not built a hierarchy where someone is stronger and someone is weaker. We have a flat and transparent organization. Therefore, if anyone wants to talk to me, then there is a reason for that. You do not need to be a gatekeeper. I will receive your message and respond.
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