In the latest episode of the Rethink IT podcast, we have the opportunity to meet Roman Arcea, Senior Product Manager at Google, who shares his valuable insights on product management with us. In our discussion, we’ll explore not only the role of a product manager, but also how to transition from selling hours of work to developing your own ideas into scalable products, as well as how to build successful teams in product management. We’ll also learn more about Roman and how he maintains a balance between his personal and professional life while working at Google, a company that faces major challenges, such as burnout. Listen to or watch the new episode of Rethink IT on all platforms to find out more.

Andrei Gradinari - engineer, game designer și fondatorul studioului de jocuri mobile Spooky House, este un startup care creează jocuri. A revenit din Sua ca să-și înceapă propria afacere. Spooky House sunt printre primii dezvoltatori de jocuri iOS din Moldova și se bucură de apreciere și succes la nivel global. Episodul #13 al podcastului Rethink IT vorbim despre industria jocurilor mobile, potențialul industriei globale de gaming și situația curentă a industriei de gaming din Moldova. Care sunt provocările inițiale ale unui startup de gaming, dar și despre noul concept de co-working sau co-housing pe care îl aplică Spooky House, puteți afla din acest episod.

Join us as we speak to Darren Wooding, CEO of KeyIVR, a company that offers automated payment services/payment collection solutions. Darren brings us a perspective on the differences in working in a product vs a service company, and the difficulties in transitioning from outsourcing to product mindset and culture. KeyIVR has a unique business model as well, where they are integrating the concept of augmented teams, using technology to bridge the distance between offices and people. As we seek to learn more about how this concept is applied, we also analyze the evolution of the workplace in the context of a more digitally immersive world.

“Don’t compromise! If you’re not 100% sure, it’s better not to hire—the cost of a bad hire involves too many expenses.” Sergiu Matei is an entrepreneur with an impressive track record of success, yet he has managed to learn from his failures, treating them as life lessons. Sergiu is an Oxford University graduate who went on to become a co-founder of Index and Travod, an angel investor, and a mentor at various international tech startup accelerators. He commutes between San Francisco, London, and Moldova. In episode #11 of Rethink IT, we discuss scaling a business in Moldova, recruiting software engineering and IT specialists, remote work, and what the daily routine of a successful entrepreneur looks like.

“If I were to briefly describe EBS Integrator, it’s a company founded locally by me and my colleagues, where we didn’t import a culture from outside, and no one came to tell us how to do things. Step by step, we developed every aspect ourselves—from our processes to the organizational culture we’ve built.” Vitalie Aremescu tells us about his two biggest projects: EBS Integrator and Global Database, about the healthy scaling of a business, attracting and managing investments in a tech startup, setting the right mindset, and how he manages to serve as a consultant for over 250 companies.

In the new #RethinkIT podcast, Elena Ivanova tells us about her career journey from human resources specialist to Managing Director at Crunchyroll Moldova—an anime platform that offers fans the world’s largest anime library. The team in Chișinău, consisting of around 200 people, handles product development, design, engineering, and marketing to bring together a community of passionate anime and manga fans. Elena shares the strategies she uses to manage her team, how she manages to work across two time zones simultaneously, and even maintain a balance in her personal life. “Even though a few years ago I was thinking about leaving Moldova, now I think it’s good here too, because when I first started working in IT, there were certain conditions and taxes, and it was pretty hard to attract investors. Now, though, thanks to MITP, things are much simpler, and some great projects have been developed for the local tech community.”

Vasili Braga, co-founder of Sonacom, CEO of COR, and founder of Moldova’s first game development conference, “Game Factory Conference,” is passionate about the world at the intersection of the IT and creative industries. Listen to a comprehensive podcast focused on the creative industry and find out why you should invest in books, why the gaming market is larger than the film market, what its potential is both nationally and internationally, and where you can study game development in Moldova.

“We want to become the go-to tool that all marketers use.” Even though it’s a challenge to find talented tech specialists these days, Planable has managed to build a team of 28 people who share the company’s mission and values. The company has offices in two countries and a portfolio of world-class clients such as Jaguar, Land Rover, Viber, the United Nations, Christian Louboutin, BMW, and more. The team participated in the Techstars and Spherik accelerators and was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in the Media & Marketing category. Planable is a collaboration and digital content planning tool for social media that helps marketers save 30% of the time spent on content planning and approval. Listen to the podcast with Nicu Gudumac, co-founder and CTO of Planable. Find out the journey from the initial idea to $1 million in investments and 300% annual growth.

“The fact that Moldova is a small country shouldn’t be seen as a disadvantage, but rather as an advantage with many benefits, especially for the country’s IT ecosystem. Find out what Moldova looks like through the eyes of a man from Brașov who was educated in the United States and decided to settle in Chișinău. Discover the story behind Mixbook, how their old-school products are adapting to the digital age, how they find talent in Moldova, what the legislative gaps are, and the benefits Moldova offers to businesses in the IT ecosystem.

“Modesty aside, I can say that we have the best optimization product on the (global) market right now.” Noction is a software product that optimizes internet traffic based on the BGP protocol and enables companies to fully leverage their network’s maximum performance. An analogy would be Google Maps or Waze for road traffic—Noction serves the same purpose in the field of networking for large companies. Founded in 2011 in Moldova, Noction continues to enjoy rapid growth in the global market.

“We’re revolutionizing the traditional investment market.” Today we’re speaking with Corneliu Maftuleac, VP of Engineering at Big Data Federation—a startup specializing in processing massive datasets for the U.S. stock market. Big Data Federation uses innovative technologies such as AI and machine learning in its data analysis process. Corneliu shared details about investment funds and offered advice for investors taking their first steps in the financial world.

‘’No code tools are the next generation of programming languages.’’ In this episode of Rethink IT, we have the co-founder of Zeroqode, Vlad Larin. Vlad's company develops a suite of no-code products that enables entrepreneurs to build apps - one of the first of its kind in the world, Zeroqode being among the pioneers of the no-code movement. Vlad's employees are also the biggest team of no code developers, put together one of the biggest conferences in the no-code world - all of that in Moldova.

Invitatul episodului #2 de Rethink IT este Anton Perkin, co-fondatorul companiei Fusion Works. Vorbim despre istoria dezvoltării companiei sale, tranziția de la servicii de outsource la dezvoltarea propriilor produse IT, tactici de promovare și planuri de dezvoltare. Problema insuficienței talentelor în tech a fost un subiect important din episodul #2, dar și importanța culturii corporative pentru a reține talentele acasă.

“Everyone complains that they don’t have the money to solve a problem, but in fact, solving the problem doesn’t require money.”—that’s what our first guest, Mihail Cernei, tells us. Mihail is the CEO and co-founder of Qoobus, a company that develops technologies for the logistics industry. The company connects transport demand with supply, while also enabling the management of all logistics workflows within a single application. Qoobus started as a direct solution for the transportation business when the team developed the platform to solve internal problems their company had encountered in their day-to-day work: issues with team communication, communication with partners, and matchmaking. In the first episode of Rethink IT, you’ll learn more about the startup experience, the solutions offered, and the obstacles they had to overcome to achieve success. This podcast was produced with the support of the “Economic Policy Advisory Services to the Government of the Republic of Moldova” project, implemented by GIZ Moldova with financial support from the governments of Germany and Switzerland.