Chapter 1: Who is Dmytro Ovcharenko and what is his background?
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Chapter 2: What gap did Dmytro identify in the tech hiring market?
No out-of-pocket costs. They provide non-recourse funding to cover exercise costs and taxes. There's no repayment unless the company has an exit. With Equity Bee, you don't leave your equity behind. Go to codestory.co slash equitybee to learn more. See terms and conditions in the sponsors section of the episode page. That's codestory.co slash equitybee. This episode is sponsored by BrainGrid.
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Chapter 3: How did Dmytro's previous experience influence the creation of Alcor?
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Back in 2016, I was building my startup and went hunting for that perfect .com and found next to nothing.
Chapter 4: What is the unique value proposition of Alcor?
So I did what every founder does, settled. Here's what I wish someone had told me. You're building a tech startup. Just get a .Tech domain. It instantly tells investors and customers what you're about. Don't overthink it. Get a .Tech domain for your startup today.
I mentioned this company, a big company called Locksoft with 15,000 engineers in it. And while I was there, something to me was missing. At least I thought so. They provide access to brilliant engineers, but the pricing about it was foggy. Essentially, they hide salaries of people, right? And when you pay like $100 to this provider... this sort of providers.
Only $50 go to your people as their salary.
Chapter 5: How does Alcor ensure transparency in engineer compensation?
And I thought that maybe we can do pretty much the same, but on a fully transparent plus-plus basis. And we did that. My name is Dmitry Ovcharengo, and I'm founder and CEO at Alcor Company.
This is CodeStory. A podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries. Six months moonlighting.
There's nothing on the back end.
Who share what it takes to change an industry. I don't exactly know what to do next. It took many guys to get right. Who built the teams that have their back.
A company is its people. The teams help each other achieve more.
Most proud of our team. Keeping scalability top of mind.
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Chapter 6: What challenges did Dmytro face while building Alcor?
All that infrastructure was a pain. Yes, we've been fighting it as we grow. Total waste of time. The stories you don't read in the headlines. It's not an easy thing to achieve, mind you. Took it off the shelf and dusted it off and tried it again. To ride the ups and downs of the startup life. You need to really want it. It's not just about technology. All this and more on CodeStory.
I'm your host, Noah Labpart. And today, how Dmitry Ovcharenko is offering you a disruptive alternative to tech outsourcing and the employer of record. Dmytro Ovcharenko lives in Palo Alto, California. He graduated from Berkeley in 2015, not as an engineer, but as a lawyer. His first connection to tech was in his first role, as an attorney at a tech company.
Chapter 7: What strategies does Alcor use to recruit top talent?
But outside of technology, he loves good sushi and burgers. In addition, he does a bit of hiking, some for fun, but also some for business. He's been known to take a meeting or two on the hiking trail. Demetrio very much enjoyed working at his prior company, but he noticed the large gap between what his business was charging and what the engineers themselves received.
He thought he could close this gap to provide a better wage for the workers while saving businesses money. This is the creation story of Alcor.
I mentioned this company, a big company called Locksoft, with 15,000 engineers in it. And this was my job before Alper, actually. And while I was there, the company was great, and I enjoyed a lot working there. Something to me was missing, at least I thought so. They provide access to brilliant engineers, but the pricing about it was foggy.
Maybe you heard about those rate cards, or, you know, time and material kind of approach. So, essentially, they high salaries of people, right? And when you pay like $100 to this provider, this sort of providers, so you only $50 go to your people as their salary.
Chapter 8: What advice does Dmytro have for new entrepreneurs in tech?
And I thought that maybe we can do pretty much the same, but on a fully transparent plus plus basis. And we did that. So now when you pay $100 to Alcor, so $85 go to your people as salary. So it's three times more cost efficient approach. So while working at Luxor, as I mentioned, so I came up with that idea to create something on a fully transparent basis.
And I invited two of my ex-colleagues, ex-at Luxor. So we, it was like just three of us at the very beginning. And so we've got just one U.S. client at that moment. But again, we ended up hiring for that client. I mean, Silicon Valley caliber of a talent in Ukraine. And for very decent pricing comparing to the US one, right? And the client was happy.
And we realized, okay, probably we should start from there and grow.
So let's dive into that starting point. Maybe it's right there or maybe it's after, but I'm curious about what you would consider the MVP for Alcor, right? As I talk about MVPs a lot on this show and I realized that this is about the workers and the actual engineers themselves and that's the business you're building.
But I'm curious about what that MVP might be for Alcor and how long it took you to bring it to life and what you were using to do so.
We can think of MVP of Alcor when we secured, landed the very first Unicorn plant. And we hired for them like 50 engineers in Ukraine within just the first year. It was amazing. So after that, we realized that, oh my God, it works and we can really... help US companies to navigate the brand new locations out there and jump, really jump from zero to 50 within just a very short period of time.
So after that, I realized that we are ready to scale.
So in that time frame, though, before you were ready to scale, tell me about a decision or a tradeoff you had to make and how you approached what you were offering with Alcor. And that could be around, you know, how you approach the problem, how you organized your team, really all the things. I'm curious about those decisions and tradeoffs you had to make and how you coped with them.
So this is essentially two blocks. So the first one is what we propose to a client. It's essentially two services. First of all, it's recruiting, right? So first, you've got to find, identify those, let's say, top 10% in the market of the best talent possible. Second service is EOR, meaning that we... So the client doesn't need to register their own legal entity and hire people themselves.
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