AIKIT’s second year of successful NYC expansion

AIKIT is a full service software studio that creates products and delivers innovative solutions. We spent the last several months in NYC again and it was a crazy and difficult experience, but great at the same time. We decided to expand our business to NYC in 2018 as we saw a need for our services in that market. We knew it would be challenging since the density and level of competition is super high, but we took the plunge. A year later we are still thriving and continue to grow our presence in NYC and fulfill our clients’ requirements every single day.

NYC—the most famous city in the world, the place where everybody wants to be, the most popular city from American movies. A city where everything is possible. As Brian Frumberg says, “talent is distributed, opportunity not,” and that belongs exactly in NYC. You find opportunities in the city that never sleeps, moves forward and fast, and has more than 15 million people. It has the largest amount of diversity in the world, with an energy that I started to feel after my sixth visit.  

Many people think that you can expand your businesss from your laptop while in Europe, Asia, South America or anywhere else. You send some emails, make some calls, and win the jackpot. It can happen, especially for super scalable businesses, but for our business we have to be onsite and talk to people face to face. We need to create connections, build our network, learn from our mistakes and most importantly, be seen. If your presence is just online your bounce rate will be high and you won’t get many responses. You will be in the group of people that are just fishing for clients and sending emails. It’s frustrating after a while; no traction and minimal opportunities and clients who want you to deliver for a very small budget. If you are onsite, all the terms and conditions can be different. At the end of the day, deliverables and communication are the most important things when building a relationship as in every other country.

When AIKIT decided to take this step we sacrificed a lot. We gave up our personal lives, put on risk our relationships with local business connections, and the comfort zone we built . Even though our company was growing, I wanted to take this chance and prove to myself that AIKIT could scale our business in America.

I learned to not be afraid to fail, as it is part of the game. You must know that losing is possible, but I believe that whatever you put your mind to you can do it. The drive becomes part of your DNA, your business, and your personal life. If you are going through hard times you just need to work and practice harder. It’s not comfortable or easy but once you experience it you start to realize that all the failures or things that happened to you have brought you closer to other opportunities, partnerships or clients which have the potential to be even better and stronger. 

I don’t know what the future holds for AIKIT, but as a team we are working hard and want to be the best company in the field of software development! I want our clients to think of us when they have a lack of developers or teams, lack of digital assets or low engagement rates.

In our case, we have to move in person. We travel back and forth so I can have those experiences face to face. If I don’t make the move, it’s just a waste of time and money. We have to work hard as individuals and as a team. We work during the European time zone, the US time zone and sometimes I participate in two or three events a day from various networking events, meet ups, pitch nights, and pitch contests (which I love the most, the more expensive is the ticket, the better connection you meet). Our clients in the Czech Republic and Europe are just as important as bringing on new clients, so all the work needs to be distributed efficiently amongst the team and communication has to be at its strongest. Our process has to have a proper workflow and the chaos has to be kept to a minimum.  

Being a part of the New York ecosystem and tech community inspires me. I find motivation to move forward as a person and as a company when I meet people with different experiences, from different industries. I have created great connections and partnerships and have support from the mentors we chose—consultants who are showing us the way and introduced me to their network. They introduced me not just to partners, but to investors who are hungry to work with new companies, no matter what stage they are at. As it brought be there, I’m also helping companies to get closer to sometimes their first capital.

Right now I am in Europe for the next several weeks but AIKIT is working on two new projects in the USA. We are bringing a new colleague into our NYC office and together with my team in the  Czech Republic, we are implementing news, redesigning our digital assets, working on creating a new product. This product is already implemented as a pilot at a corporate company in the Czech Republic and we are looking forward to rolling it out in the US. We look forward to the future with a product that is easier to scale than just software development services and our AI powered tool. We are hiring, continuing expansion of our business and we expect to grow more in both market! If you want to know more or connect with us, just get in touch with me through a message or an email.

Here are my takeaways from this amazing experience: Be ready and always sell, keep doing what you love to do, share your ideas and thoughts that keep you motivated. If you lose track, ask for help and listen. Don’t ignore customers, treat your team well and have your pricing policy ready. Don’t work for free, but remember, it’s not all about profit.

Thanks to my NYC friends, fam, Czechinvest, VentureOut and the team at AIKIT Digital.

Matej