At a time when high turnover is commonplace, the Tryolabs team (www.tryolabs.com) has maintained almost no defections since its beginnings. What is their secret? Prioritizing the team and keeping them motivated.
In the Uruguayan startup -which specializes in the development of internet products with artificial intelligence components- they understand that if workers feel happy with what they do, they work in a better way and, therefore, the customer will be happy with the results. This is the philosophy of this company that also intends to increase at least 50% its work team, which today consists of 26 people if you include its spin off - a project born from another existing one - MonkeyLearn(www.monkeylearn.com), a platform that aims to democratize the use of artificial intelligence.
2015 was a year of changes for Tryolabs. On the one hand, the firm opened a commercial office in the United States and, on the other, MonkeyLearn became part of the 500 Startups program in Silicon Valley, one of the accelerators and investment funds with the greatest global reach. This innovative tool has been of interest to Twitter for some time now, and now oDesk, Amazon and Airbnb have joined it. Its results translate into numbers: its revenues are increasing 40% month by month.
Physical versus virtual presence
Desde su fundación, la empresa trabaja con compañías de EEUU y Europa, entre otros. Hasta el año pasado, su labor entera se realizó desde Uruguay reuniéndose con actuales o potenciales clientes en el exterior. Pero meses atrás decidieron instalar como experiencia piloto una oficina comercial en San Francisco. Esto les permitió aumentar su cartera de clientes y posicionarse en el mercado en el que compiten gigantes tecnológicos. «Hace tiempo que venimos trabajando allá, pero notamos que la calidad de los clientes a los que podíamos acceder, o la confianza con la que se iniciaban los proyectos, cambió. Eso es algo muy positivo», precisó el director de Tecnología de Tryolabs, Alan Descoins.
For his part, the vice president of Customer Development, Alejandro Martinez, pointed out that the physical presence in the U.S. had a positive influence when looking for new business. They stopped being a face on Skype; they became people of flesh and blood. They intend to set up their commercial office definitively in the first quarter of each year, which is the time to do business. The development of the projects will continue in Uruguay. However, it is possible that they will send developers at the beginning of a project to work with clients, in order to generate a closer relationship.
Success stories
A few months ago they started working with the online platform MercadoLibre. Although they preferred not to give details, they said that these are specialized artificial intelligence projects to complement the platform.
Among its clients, Tryolabs counts 21.co, an enigmatic startup that, before going public, obtained funding of US$ 116 million in 2015 - among the investors who bet on this firm are the co-founders of Paypal, Peter Thiel and Max Levchin. 21.co set out to break the barrier of bitcoins (digital currency) to buy products for everyday use. Last year it announced the launch of the 21 Bitcoin Computer, the first computer that enables bitcoins to be used to buy and sell digital goods. Through publications on the web, they met Tryolabs and turned to them to work on the software platform for the Bitcoin Computer and examples of use. That project culminated but they are in talks to define other works together.
Currently, there is a lack of personnel in San Francisco, which is an advantage for Uruguayan technology companies. Descoins pointed out that in the U.S. city, capable engineers are in their own startups or hired by Google, Facebook or other giants. Another pro for Uruguay is that it is only four hours ahead of San Francisco and two hours ahead of Washington. In addition, technically Uruguay is on par with the U.S., according to the director of Technology.
The base of the pyramid
For Martínez and Descoins it is very important to continue to maintain quality in the development of solutions and that the projects they choose to carry out are attractive. Both share that, sometimes, national software factories are voracious and take on many projects for which they have to hire more people. As a result, they grow very fast. But the projects become boring, as they are often maintenance projects without any innovative challenges. This causes workers to become demotivated.
«Repercute la calidad de tu trabajo en cómo te sentís. Si mantenés al equipo motivado, va a trabajar mejor. Si uno está aburrido se irá y la compañía perderá una persona valiosa que acumuló conocimientos y experiencia», aseguró Descoins. Si en Tryolabs detectan que alguien no está conforme, se evalúa cambiarlo de proyecto. Martínez agregó que el vínculo laboral trasciende a lo personal: el equipo está primero y después los clientes, pues de un empleado contento derivan clientes contentos.
Good English, a must for Uruguayans
Tryolabs representatives, Alejandro Martinez and Alan Descoins, identified how well trained the college students are, but they have difficulty finding employees who, in addition to their technical knowledge, have a good level of English. For this company, it is necessary to be able to converse fluently in English with clients; they have to communicate on a daily basis to discuss a project and they have to understand and communicate without difficulty. In fact, they have even discarded promising candidates because of their low level of English. They expect this to change quickly.
Source: By Elisa Tuyaré for portal El Observador
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