Our Story
Everything we do, everything we know and practice in helping software product companies, is based on what we've learned through long experience of successfully running such companies for many years. If we suggest a particular approach to solving a particular problem, it will be because we've used that approach ourselves to solve a very similar problem in the past, not because we just read about it somewhere, or because it's part of a set approach, as is often the case with consultants.
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You've probably noticed that we talk about experience a lot! The fact is that it is very difficult indeed for start-up, small, and even medium sized companies to get access to, and affordable advice and guidance from, people who are truly experienced, successful professionals in the software product business; people who have gone through everything you're going through, and who have gone on to repeated successes. Most of these people do not choose to eventually provide the kind of service that we provide, hence the difficulty of access. Throughout our careers we have seen a distinct lack of quality help for software product companies up to medium size.
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The big consultancy and advisory firms are usually far too expensive for start-ups and small companies, and they mostly have formulaic approaches, delivered by people who have never actually practiced what they're preaching! The end result of all of this, is that there is really very little
help available for the kinds of companies we're addressing, and we believe that this is the fundamental reason the failure rate of such companies has remained consistently high.
In recent years the challenges for software product companies have become greater still. Funding is hard to get; good people with the right skill-set are hard to find, recruit and remunerate; software development costs keep on increasing, and the delta between off-shore and on/near-shore development costs has narrowed; technologies change and advance at a rapid pace; AI is both an opportunity and a threat, and leading smart, talented people does not get any easier.​
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We've both been lucky enough to have good, satisfying careers in this industry, and we formed SoProCo to use what we've learned, what we know, to help as many software product companies as we can to be successful. If you are reading this, and you are part of a software product company that you feel could be doing better, please write to us. We can help.
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The SoProCo Founders are:
Martin Hill
Joint CEO and Co-Founder
I am a pioneering technologist, business leader and entrepreneur. I have forty years of experience in the IT, Telecoms and Software Product industries and have managed several major developments in the mobile/cellular industry; GPS/Media systems integration, and I’ve been the CPO for several major software product/system projects around the world. Early in my career I held senior positions with British Aerospace and then Racal Electronics/Vodafone. After this I founded my own first business, a technology management and licensing company, which originated and sourced technologies for the mobile and telecoms industries.
In 1998, I was the first Product Manager recruited by Symbian, the joint venture between most of the major mobile handset manufacturers, and where the first ever smartphone OS and UIs were developed. I established best-practices in Product Management at Symbian, and I also became Product Officer at Symbian AB in Sweden, responsible for the management of the Quartz (later UIQ) user interface, the world’s first touch screen smart-phone UI, as originally used by Sony Ericsson and Motorola.
On leaving Symbian, I further developed my entrepreneurial activities. I did technical and commercial diligence work for a number of VCs and private equity groups, including Accel Partners and Index Ventures, in Europe and the US. I did pioneering work concerning Location Based technologies on mobile devices, and then location tagging of media, jointly coining the term “Location Based Media” in 2004. A particular interest of mine over the years has been the development of techniques to increase the success rate of software development projects, based on the use of best-practices in product management, together with the training and development of truly cross-discipline Product Managers. I developed a range of services used by mobile network operators in Ukraine between 2005 and 2010. Between 2011 and 2013, I was the Chief Product Officer for a multi-million dollar IT platform development project for the US insurance industry. The resulting platform, with both industry and consumer (www.trustedchoice.com) portals, is one of the most used online consumer/industry insurance products in the world.
In 2023, I was Global Technology Leader for the software development company Eleks (www.eleks.com), a company with over 1,500 employees.
I have a particular interest in the uses and applications of non-smart-contract based blockchain/DLT technology. I am also co-founder and joint CEO of a company which is developing an AI accountability/compliance platform. My deep involvement in, and passion for, the software product industry, led to my co-founding SoProCo with Sergiy, whom I have known as a great friend and eminent colleague for almost 20 years.
Sergiy Khandogin
Joint CEO and Co-Founder
I have been a part of the IT industry since December
1997. Since 2000, I have worked for international
software development companies, starting from pure
engineering roles and evolving into business and
technology management, integrating them together.
All of this is grounded in a solid academic and
professional background in numerous business areas
and technologies.
In 2011, I joined Innovecs from the launch in the
position of COO/CTO and co-founder. I was
responsible for software development services,
business planning, financial operations, IT
infrastructure, process implementation, budgeting,
and cash flow management. Since 2015, I fully
focused on the role of CTO, establishing a
technological vision for Innovecs, leading the
company's technological development, and
overseeing all technical aspects and technological
resources of the company for organizational growth. I
left the company in 2020 by which time it had grown to a
size of over 850 employees.
From 2020 to 2022, which happened to be the COVID
time, I worked for a product company in the Cyber
Threat Intelligence space in the role of CTO. My
responsibilities included helping to restructure and
optimize the technology division to prepare for a
merger transaction that was successfully executed at
the end of 2021.
Over the 14 years before I co-founded Innovecs, I worked for service providers and product
development companies of different scales and
managed up to 100+ people programs distributed
across various locations, including Ukraine, the United
States, Argentina, and the UK. I participated in
technical sales cycles and launched projects for
companies of all types, from start-ups to enterprises.
I earned my Master's degree in Telecommunication
Systems from the National University of Ukraine Kyiv
Polytechnic Institute.