ARMENIA (iTel.am)—Founded by Armenians, ServiceTitan, the world’s leading all-in-one, cloud-based software for residential home service businesses, has opened an office in Armenia.

ServiceTitan now has more than 600 employees in two of the largest American metropolitan areas, Los Angeles and Atlanta. Founded in 2012 by Ara Mahdessian and Vahe Kuzoyan, ServiceTitan is a platform helping home services businesses manage and optimize their work, improve customer service, and develop business.

“Our roots are in Armenia and it’s really important for us to not only have a presence here, but to invest in the community. Our intention is to contribute to the education of the labor force and provide opportunities so the best talent doesn’t have to leave the country,” ServiceTitan Kuzoyan said.

The company has 2,500 customers in the U.S. and Canada, representing 50,000 technicians who carry out over 10 billion contracts annually in home service industry.

“Initially it’s going to be an engineering office with a handful of senior employees, primarily for extending our team, which is working on product development. If that’s successful, I can see our employee numbers growing exponentially. It depends on how effectively and fast we can scale,” Vahe Kuzoyan noted.

“We want everyone from university students to senior engineers to know that if they come and work for us they can become world class. It’s not going to be a place where you’ll be bored in a few years and then want to leave for a better opportunity,” said Ara Mahdessian, co-founder and CEO of ServiceTitan.

In March of 2018, ServiceTitan announced it had secured USD 62 million in Series C funding, led by Battery Ventures. In November the company secured U SD 165 million in Series D funding at a USD 1.65 billion post-money valuation. The round was led by Index Ventures. During the same month, ServiceTitan opened its first Glendale office.

Director of the new office Ashot Tonoyan has told Itel.am that ServiceTitan Armenia has resumed its active hiring.

According to Tonoyan, ServiceTitan has set a high bar.

“We are getting a large number of applications, but most of the candidates are having difficulties passing our tests and interviews. We can either go back and lower the bar or help the candidates reach the bar. We’ve decided to go with the second,” he pointed out.

Soon ServiceTitan will be organizing a four-week long, in-depth, .NET training for experienced engineers. According to Tonoyan this will be the company’s first step towards contributing to the education of highly qualified talent in Armenia.

“Not only do we have high expectations from our candidates, but we also offer very competitive compensation and perks like stock options, world-class healthcare package, free lunch every day and many more.

We have engineers who used to work as freelancers for companies abroad for many years and usually their next step is to move abroad altogether, but they decided to join ServiceTitan as full-time employees instead. We are happy to contribute to talent staying in Armenia,” concluded Ashot Tonoyan.

Itel.am spoke with Kuzoyan at the HIVE Summit held in Yerevan recently.

Narine Daneghyan: ServiceTitan is opening an office in Yerevan soon. Can you reveal any details?

Vahe Kuzoyan: It’s going to be an engineering office, primarily for extending our team which is working on product development. We are looking to start from 10 engineers and then see how fast we can scale. If it is successful, I can see it grow to be maybe 100 next year. It depends on how effectively we can find great engineers.

N.D.: Why do you think now is the best time to open an office in Armenia?

V.K.: To be honest, my co-founder and I saw what’s happening here in Armenia, how kids in the streets were putting their lives on the line, and we asked ourselves what we were doing to contribute. We thought that by opening an office we would create a way for ourselves to potentially be a part of the story.Ultimately, first priority is to make business. This is not a charity. We need experts and we’ll get them in Armenia. Seemingly, the environment here is potentially a good fit for us to both solve our business need and have a further contribution to what’s happening in the country.

N.D.: Besides opening the office, how has ServiceTitan been contributing to the development of Armenian tech?

V.K.: I make investments in local startups, and I do some mentorship and advising personally. If we are able to make the office work, we will create an open environment and invite other startups to see how we work. We would like to share practice. We will also encourage our team here to engage with Tumo center and universities. We intend to bring what we have in U.S. over here and share it with Armenia.

N.D.: What would be your advice to Armenian startup planning to go to U.S. market?

V.K.: The main focus should be on solving the problem that’s relevant. There are a lot of things that people can spend their time on, but the world of today is going to be different from the world of tomorrow. The key is to figure out how you can be part of that change and whether the timing is right. I see a lot of issues with Armenian startups here. They are trying to solve a problem that’s not really a problem that needs to be solved, or they focus on the technology but not on the user or the customer. They don’t think about how to bring the technology to the market. You can build everything as an engineer, but it is typically hard to sell it. I would like to advise them to make sure that the market they are going after is ready to accept that product, which is hard if you are here in Armenia’s small market. Understanding where the next big step will lead is the main challenge.

N.D.: What are the short-term plans for ServiceTitan?

V.K.: We started the company in 2007 and it was just me and my co-founder for the first 5 years. We hired around 500 people in the next 5 years. We are basically in growth phase now. Our plan is to maintain our growth projector in terms of winning new markets. We would like to find one or two additional markets to go to, launch one or two products within the next year. However, the most important task is just maintaining the growth.

http://asbarez.com/179914/with-offices-in-armenia-sevicetitan-look-to-the-homeland/