Who is Corina Craescu? How did The Technology Interpreter™ brand come to be :)?
I would define myself as a sum of experiences, someone who knows what she wants and what path to take to get there. Someone for whom it is never enough and who has nothing left to prove to anyone. The few people who know me well will say that I am easy to misunderstand. Sometimes I can be hard to bear because I tell it as it is even if the truth hurts in 99% of the cases.
My parents taught me the meaning of work, dignity, respect, and to always stand my ground in a world where many go wherever the wind takes them.
We created The Technology Interpreter™ because more than a third of IT projects fail due to poor communication. This key person, whose role is to ensure efficient communication between all stakeholders, is missing in most of the cases. Their primary role is to collect and pass forward accurate, clear, concise and complete information. Yet, it is the ability to communicate both with the technical team and the product owner that makes this person essential. The Technology Interpreter™ is fluent in all these languages and plays a key role in obtaining and transmitting information to all those who need it for a successful project.
What did your first days as an entrepreneur look like and what determined you to start your own business?
I started this journey alongside my brother, Daniel Berigoi – who is the co-founder of Wingravity. We complement each other very well professionally, which is why we’ve decided to take up this challenge together. I bring a lot of business experience to the table, and Daniel contributes to his vast software development expertise.
The beginning was hectic because we put in a lot of effort. We struggled with a limited budget and we didn’t get the desired results. Every new day came with a new challenge, and we had to come up with creative coping mechanisms every step of the way.
Making the transition from an employee to an entrepreneur wasn’t easy. We feared that coping with so many responsibilities would be very difficult. But together we worked harder than we ever thought we could.
The hardest thing was to keep going when getting stuck. This required a lot of ambition and a common desire to succeed when no one gave us any chance.
I’ve decided to become an entrepreneur because I’ve always liked to learn from my mistakes without being afraid to make them. I have the courage to compete with the big IT companies. Another reason is that I saw opportunities where others only saw roadblocks. More than that, I like to learn all the time and go beyond my limits.
It’s not easy, but it’s still within reach!
What is Wingravity? What’s the novelty factor that you bring to the IT sector?
Wingravity is an international company providing software development services to European and American companies. To be specific, we do web and mobile application development using AngularJS, ReactJS, and Node.js.
We have a solid understanding of the latest technologies, and we only work with developers who are proficient in them. We focus a lot on communication because the successful completion of any project calls for it. Our work involves Agile methodologies, daily stand-ups, short one-week sprints with feedback and demos. This enables us to accommodate all customer needs and pivot fast when the situation asks for it.
As for our novelty factor, we promote clear and efficient communication. We encourage dialogue, not ‘parallel monologues’ where people would listen more than talk, or would not wait for their turn.
Not only that, as we have also differentiated ourselves from others by promoting transparency in business. This open ‘disclosure’ of information to both colleagues and clients shows that we have nothing to hide.
We do everything together. We ask everyone to speak their mind in every decision that we take. Only this way we can create things that stand the test of time.
Give us some details about the beginnings of the business.
We set out to make Wingravity a company that’s recognized globally. Had it been a local project, we could have lived with it. Yet, It would have been a lot more difficult to transition from a local to a global mindset five years down the road.
The main concern was to manage the time and money we had to move to the next level without either of them running out.
Later we faced difficulties finding the right people that would ensure Wingravity survival and growth. For a startup, the recruitment process requires precious time that we could otherwise spend in other areas of the activity. Yet, not having the right people can lead to severe bottlenecks in the activity.
As the company grew, we began to face another challenge. We realized we had the right people, but in the wrong roles.
Now we have reached the point where we know what we are looking for and how each role can help us reach our goals.
What challenges did you face in creating this product?
There is so much to do, each activity requires more energy than you can give and at one point everything becomes cumbersome. Luck plays an important role sometimes, especially when it comes to knowing the right partners.
Besides financial instability, we’ve been facing the difficult task of finding enough workforce. It takes a will to match our growth potential and to develop oneself alongside us in a startup environment. It’s quite often that each of us does things outside the job description, which means that the opportunities for learning and growth are unlimited.
You have been on the market for almost 3 years. What is the current status of the project and what does the future hold for you?
We are about to make the transition from a service company to a product company. We are currently developing and preparing the launch of our own Wingravity product.
The lack of time has caused this initiative to have a rather timid start, but in the long run, it is the only winning solution. Without innovation and creativity we cannot face real competitiveness in an international environment.
What is your vision for the business environment in Romania?
At the moment we work only with entrepreneurs from abroad. The only thing still keeping us connected to Romania are the dedicated, highly-principled people who helped us get where we are.
All Romanian entrepreneurs seem to have a high degree of insanity and audacity. This makes me somehow appreciate them more than entrepreneurs from abroad, who have well-defined legal frameworks, a coherent tax system and not at last, entrepreneurial education. I admire them for the power to first carry a fight against the state and secondly, against the lack of human resources.
From your experience, what advice would you have for young Romanian entrepreneurs?
Being an entrepreneur means much more than any other role in anyone’s resume. The fact that you launch a successful startup shows that you can do just about anything. I know it’s easy to say that, but doing it takes a lot of effort, a high-energy output and time that you will never get back.
I would advise them to quit their life as an employee if the “What if…?” question is eating at their heart, they are goal-oriented and they want to enjoy:
- Flexible work hours, the freedom to set their own deadlines and to work from anywhere, anytime.
- Ability to follow their passion and do what makes them happy
- A chance to succeed or fail, in which case they can be proud of their newly acquired experience and new skills that they could not have acquired otherwise
- The satisfaction generated by starting something from scratch, leaving something behind and that helping the local economy
- The opportunity to meet new people
- The joy of working on projects that have as ultimate purpose improving the lives of those around
- Financial freedom
- New challenges every day that force them to find creative ways to solve them
- The power to pay it forward, either in the form of knowledge or donations to causes that matter to them
- The feeling of being part of a community where innovations occur overnight
- Having mentors to help them reach their goals, and in turn, becoming mentors later on to others who are just beginning the journey.
The most important thing is to strive to become a source of inspiration for the ones wanting to follow on your footsteps, and to lead them by example.
