Success leaves clues. Finance Strategists sat down with Nick Nagatkin, founder of Digis. He shared his thoughts on the past, present, and future of the company, as well as the insight he has gained from running the business. Q: Who are you and what's your background? My name is Nick, I'm 25 years old, more than 6 years ago I opened an IT company Digis. My background is technical, I have a master's degree in software engineering, but I started working as a programmer in my first year of university. And I am also Ukrainian and I am proud of it. Our country is the birthplace of a huge number of talents, including technical ones. Q: Who has been your biggest influence, and why did they have such a significant effect on you? My brother helped me in opening the company. We did it together, although over time he stepped aside from management. I would like to mention my business mentor, JT Augustin. He has an amazing business background and was a director of Eurosport and a top manager of the Discovery group. For us, a company of only 160 people, his experience in global international operations is simply invaluable. My wife, Katerina, supports me in everything and helps me cope with problems in the dark times, so my eternal thanks to her. But most importantly, I would like to highlight every Digis employee. These people inspire me. They are not only damn smart but also with an inflexible unrealistic character. Of course, you know that on February 24th Russia invaded Ukraine, and the war started. For your understanding, even on this dark day, the 24th, the company worked at 50 percent. Now, as I write this, on March 1st, the company is operating at 85 percent. So many people have continued to do their job in the intervals between shelling and supporting our army. They are true heroes. Q: Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your younger self? To be ready for anything. Now that the war has begun, many families have been destroyed. Some people have nothing left. Our business, thank God, continues to operate, because we have always prepared for the worst - we thought. There was no way to prepare for the worst-case scenario of war and death. In war conditions, developing a business, hiring people, finding new projects is difficult, primarily psychologically. And if we didn’t have such a clear structure in place, procedures on how to act in each individual case, such a well-coordinated team of professionals in which we invested tons of resources, we would have perished. And so I'm sure that we will break through and grow when it's all over. So my advice to my younger self would be: be prepared for anything, you never know what will happen. Q: What is Digis? Digis is an IT company that develops software for its clients and recruits dedicated teams of IT specialists. Our clients are large international businesses, You know many of them: BlaBlaCar, PwC, HubSpot, governmental companies, and others. When they need to professionally and quickly develop some part of their software, we help. Q: What makes Digis different from its competitors? First, people. People are our everything. We love our team and are proud of them. We are doing everything in our power to invest in their education and now, in times of war, in their safety. Many say that people are their main value, but this is hypocrisy, not confirmed by real actions. When you grow a team year after year, when you treat them like a brother and help them develop professionally, then a real result appears. Second, processes. We communicate with many other IT companies, even mentor them, and we can say that a great number of them simply do not know how to work. This affects the speed of hiring, it affects the quality of delivery, and the final cost for customers. We are streamlined, we are fast, and we work clearly, despite any crisis. Third, business model. After many years of working with our clients, we have been able to determine which scenario is the most positive for both the client and us. So, we usually start with a small job to show ourselves, and after some time, from three months to several years, we grow this cooperation into a team of 15-20 people. Often, we remain the main or even the only R&D center for our customers. This is possible only because of our approach that we call Smart Outstaffing. In analogy with Smart Investments, where funds provide not only cash, but their expertise in relative questions, we provide our customers not with only development, but with our expertise in how to raise investments, how to develop a technical product, what are the current technologic trends, etc. Q: What led you to start Digiscorp.com? I have always wanted to create, share knowledge, make history. This remains my motivation now, six years later. Our mission is to Grow Unicorns from Startups. And it really turns us on, makes us wake up in the morning because this is our way to make a global impact. Q: What has the experience of building the business taught you? Growth in the business is directly related to the growth of the founder. The level of problems that you solve, the way you do it, is invariably transferred to your character, and vice versa. Therefore, the answer is very simple - business taught me everything. Q: Where do you see things headed for you and the company in the next 5 years? We will go to IPO with a company of 1500-2000 people. For more information, please contact Nick personally at [email protected].
Introduction
Who is Nick Nigatkin?
Business
True Tamplin is a published author, public speaker, CEO of UpDigital, and founder of Finance Strategists.
True is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance (CEPF®), author of The Handy Financial Ratios Guide, a member of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, contributes to his financial education site, Finance Strategists, and has spoken to various financial communities such as the CFA Institute, as well as university students like his Alma mater, Biola University, where he received a bachelor of science in business and data analytics.
To learn more about True, visit his personal website or view his author profiles on Amazon, Nasdaq and Forbes.
