Rustem, tell us about yourself. How did the idea of creating a business “tuning” company come about? Is it related to personal “pain”, the solution of which could not be found?

- I come from Almaty, I am 30 years old. He graduated from Turan University with a degree in Computer Engineering, Software and Automated Systems, after which he worked for 10 years as an engineer in private companies.  Indeed, during this time I have felt all the "pains" and pitfalls of business for myself. Based on my experience, I decided to create a project focused on both small and medium-sized and large businesses.

Are there any analogues of CORE24/7 in Kazakhstan? What is the uniqueness of your development?

- There are several small companies in Kazakhstan that provide classical outsourcing services, but we try to look up to our colleagues from the CIS, for example flant.com , itsumma.ru , southbridge.io . The uniqueness of our project is that, unlike competitors, we are building a platform where DevOps from anywhere in the world can monetize their skills, and an entrepreneur will be able to receive high-quality service thanks to a team of professionals, modern technologies and well-structured business processes. 

How many clients do you have today? What kind of companies are they – start-ups, medium-sized, large?

- Today we have about 35 clients around the world, most of them belong to the category of SMEs, but we also work with large clients: Beeline, Naimi, Relog, Kaspi, Jusan Invest, Froot, Freedom Finance and Chocofamily groups of companies, and others.

Tell us about the most striking cases when it was possible to significantly improve the company's business processes.

- This is the second year we have been working with Beeline. Initially, we were faced with the task of rebuilding and speeding up development processes, rebuilding the application infrastructure, and modernizing business processes. On average, it takes from a month to six months to implement one project, a team of 4 people is working on it: three engineers and a project manager. First, an audit is conducted - it takes about 2 weeks, after which a plan for “pumping" the company is developed. In addition, we provide round-the-clock technical support in chats with the client's team, work in the task tracking system. We also work in the direction of information security - for example, we help to pass PCI DSS certification, as well as in the direction of cloud technologies. 

Your story with Astana Hub. How did you find out about the technopark, what programs did you go through, what do you get as a hub participant?

- We learned about Astana Hub from colleagues in the workshop - other startups. Since 2019, we have been participating in the technopark. Our office is located in Almaty, so we pass the programs remotely in an online format, which is very convenient. To date, we have passed the Scalerator acceleration program in the direction of Southeast Asia, thanks to which the conclusion of new foreign contracts is now in full swing. Among the new partners are companies from Singapore. 

How many people are on your team? What roles do they perform?

- There are three key players in our team. In addition to me, these are the co-founder of the company Ivan Kondratiev, who is responsible for R&D and customer service, and Konstantin Shcherbakov, who is engaged in marketing and development of the platform. In addition, about 20 specialists are involved in our company: mainly engineers, as well as accountants, lawyers and HR.

How open is CORE24/7 for young professionals? How can I get into your team? What kind of experience case is needed for this?

- Today we are focused on cooperation with Senior-level specialists. As a manager, I primarily pay attention not to the resume, but to the burning eyes and willingness to work tirelessly.

What is the peculiarity of startup management? Give advice to aspiring IT entrepreneurs.

- Being CEO of a startup means constantly working on mistakes and exploring new things, not being afraid to test hypotheses and regularly implement changes. Startup development is a permanent process that should never be limited to the results achieved. In my opinion, the key to the success of any project is the perseverance and hard work of the whole team.

If you are interested in working at CORE 24/7, you can send your resume to ruspanov@core247.io .