They understand how hard it is to lock in clients. Now their product takes up that fight

Proov’s Toby Olshanetsky (left) and Alexey Sapozhnikov (right). Photo credit: Proov.

Building a startup is tough. You’re handling multiple roles – whether it’s fine tuning code, hiring a team, locking in sales, or perfecting a marketing strategy. At the same time, you’re constantly nervous about whether there’s product-market fit.

For those startups that want to cater to enterprise needs, the process of snaring paying clients can be even tougher. Large corporates usually have a gargantuan amount of red tape, with several layers of approvals before even a preliminary deal can see the light of day.

Toby Olshanetsky and Alexey Sapozhnikov understand the trials and tribulations aspiring founders go through, with decades of experience being entrepreneurs themselves.

Their current project is Proov, a “pilot-as-a-service” company, that’s tearing down the barriers between slow-moving corporate behemoths and agile startups.

Think of it as a marketplace where enterprise customers looking to inject speed and dynamism into their existing systems can hook up with founders working on disruptive solutions.

“The majority of our prior startups provided enterprise software solutions […] The struggles, triumphs, and experiences developing each of those companies collectively led us to the idea for Proov,” explains Toby.

The coding whiz adds that approaching enterprises was a pain – convincing them to run a proof-of-concept (PoC), basically a pilot program where the client can determine if the solution matches its problem – was an immensely challenging endeavor.

“[It wasn’t easy] to convince enterprises to run the PoC and get them to open testing environments […] Working closely with enterprises gave us insight into the pain points on that side of the equation as well. We understood the software testing process was too complex,” says Toby.

They spent three months traveling the world to perfect the business plan.

How it works is that an existing corporate can outline a problem that they’re facing – could be in logistics, big data, or HR. Startups that have solutions for this problem pitch their ideas. If all goes well, Proov will set up a secure testing environment that is an exact representation of the production environment – meaning what it would be like if the tech was deployed throughout the organization.

There’s no limit to the time that a pilot could run, but the client contracting the opportunity is supposed to define parameters before beginning. Corporates can also test multiple companies at the same time – and Toby claims the process of completing the pilot is much quicker on Proov as opposed to the alternative of direct engagement.

Proov launched for the general public in September 2016, and recently came out of stealth mode with a US$7 million funding round led by OurCrowd and Mangrove Capital Partners. But before Toby and Alexey even wrote down a comprehensive business plan, they spent three months traveling around the world, speaking with both corporates and startups. That was in 2015.

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