Maiden Ukraine

About Steve Ives

Steve Ives is a founder and CEO of Jamtap Ltd, a Cambridge, UK-based startup company working in the field of mobile search. Between 2000 and 2004 Steve was founder and CEO at Trigenix Ltd, a pioneer and leading innovator in the field of mobile user interfaces. After its recent acquisition by Qualcomm Inc, Trigenix technology now powers the user interfaces of many of the latest 3G handsets being launched into the consumer market.

After a very successful story of cooperation between Trigenix and QArea, Steve came back to our team with his new ideas for startup company Jamtap Ltd.

One beautiful Ukrainian evening I had a chance to get Steve’s interview in an exotic Kharkiv restaurant of Caucasian cuisine called ‘Bukhara’.

Just imagine, we enter a glass dome and get into the room with concrete sofas and bright cushions… we are served by probably the best waiter in the world, the boy is speaking perfect English and offers really high level of service and attention, so that whatever we wish, comes immediately… These are spicy salads and meat wrapped in grape leaves, Georgian wine and Uzbek desserts… Funny enough, we find it an excellent place to talk about Ukraine and IT industry.

- Steve, everyone is extremely curious to know what is your new business and your current objectives.  

We are creating a new kind of search engine for mobile users. A search engine which finds content which is relevant and actionable from a mobile device. Our long term objective is to build a large community of mobile users who find this service valuable enough to use every day, which will also become an attractive proposition for advertisers.

- What is your background? Can you define the milestones of your life?

Actually I am a biochemist by training, but created my first IT startup business back in London in 1984. This came after a three year period in the US, where I studied for my MBA at Wharton and worked as a management consultant for Strategic Planning Associates in Washington DC. Since I’ve got an experience of serial entrepreneur, either as a founder or non-executive advisor. The last one was Trigenix, a mobile user interface developer based in Cambridge, UK which was acquired by Qualcomm at the end of 2004.

- How did you get in touch with QArea and when did it happen?

One of our developers at Trigenix used to work for QArea, and recommended their testing services to our CTO in late 2002. So we tried them out, and were very pleasantly surprised by their care and attention to detail and of course the very competitive rates.

- How did you start to outsource your projects and what did attract you to do so?

Software testing was always slightly challenging for us to manage because the activity was not constant but had specific peaks as we approached the end of a software release cycle. So once we found a reliable and trusted testing partner, it was natural to build long-term relationship.

- Are there any interesting memories which Trigenix team has after work with QArea?

The partnership really opened my eyes to the efficiencies of outsourcing specific activities! Before, I had always felt it was best to build integrated development teams with everything on a single site, to maximize the bandwidth of human communication within the teams.

- QArea team is very happy to continue with you, what are the strongest sides of QArea testing lab?

My perception is that in Ukraine, some of your most intelligent people are interested in doing testing work and are motivated to do it very well. This is very hard to sustain in the West, where the best and brightest are always looking to get out of testing. This contributes to testing becoming an under-appreciated and under-resourced part of the software development process.

- What did you expect to see in Ukraine before you came here?

I really didn’t know what to expect! I had traveled earlier this year in Estonia, so had some feeling for life in a former Soviet republic, but Estonia is really much closer to Scandinavia than to Russia now.

Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman visited Kiev and Ukraine on their round-the-world bike ride, which I watched on British television. Apart from that my only other background expectations were shaped by spy novels like The Russia House!

- What are your main impressions of Ukraine? Please be frank!

Very warm-hearted and slightly shy people. Terrible roads with many potholes. Beautiful gold-domed churches in Kiev. Soviet-era Volga and Lada taxis where the driver doesn’t always bother to fix a cracked windscreen. Strong female personalities: Ruslana, Julia Tymoschenko… And a great depth of culture and history.

- What has surprised you in Ukraine the most?

The vitality of Kiev. There is a real sense of re-generation and my feeling from looking around me that (some) people are beginning to make and spend a lot of money. So it appears that things are moving on quickly from the Soviet era.

- What do you like about Ukraine the most?

The intelligence, the attitude and the creativity of young people, who will be the future of Ukraine. These features I see in Max Garkavtsev, the founder of QArea as well as in its development team. I think that such people are also founders of new Ukrainian culture.

You have visited many Ukrainian attractions. After this first visit your ideas:

- What is the most beautiful in Ukraine?

St. Michael’s Golden Domed Cathedral, Kiev (See picture on the top!)

- What is the most tasty in Ukraine?

I know this is not an exotic dish, but I love the borsch (beetroot version).

- What is the most stylish in Ukraine?

Bukhara restaurant, Kharkiv.

- What is the most unusual in Ukraine?

- Syadristy Microart exhibition in Kiev.

- What are the main differences between Ukraine and the UK?

In favour of the UK: Personal income and consumption levels, quality of infrastructure (roads, transportation, public areas in buildings),

In favour of Ukraine: Low income combined with high education attainment makes Ukraine highly competitive in certain knowledge-based activities e.g. software development and testing

- Why do you think that Ukraine is the best place for outsourcing?

See above!

- What does differ Ukrainian people from Western Europeans?

I have only visited once, in Kiev and Kharkiv and met people from only one company so I can only claim a surface impression. Ukrainian people have had to live with much less than Western Europeans, so they can achieve great results with what seem to us to be limited resources. It seemed to me that young Ukrainians (most of the people I met were in their mid 20s) are less selfish and more sincere than the average Western Europeans. Perhaps because of all the years of Soviet oppression they sometimes idealise the West, and maybe don’t appreciate some of the negative aspects of our countries and cultures.

- How would you describe the development of business in Ukraine?

The market economy is growing but young. Some skills e.g. marketing, international sales were not needed in Soviet times and have only recently started to develop. There are big gaps and opportunities for entrepreneurs. For example, reasonably priced, good quality hotels are very thin on the ground.

- What kinds of business will be the most successful in our country?

Industrial businesses like car production, because Ukraine has good engineers and can access both Russian and European markets. Knowledge-based businesses like software development, because there is a large talent pool of educated software engineers, combined with relatively cheap Internet connections.

- Soon you will visit us again! What dreams do you have about your next visit? What would you like to do/ see/ experience here next time?

Such a personal question!

Weekend. Independence square – main square in Kiev.

If you ever come to Ukraine – your heart will become a resident of our country.