Meet the newest startup in town

The startup valley of Krakow continues to produce innovative startups and inspiring tech entrepreneurs. Only recently we shared the news of Krakow startups getting featured in Top 10 EU-Startups ranking and now we would like to introduce you to the latest startup to join the list of over 120 startups in Krakow.

Probe — SaaS Analytics Software

Simply speaking, Probe aims to help Saas companies by delivering the key metrics right at their doorstep ie Slack. It is founded by Aliaksei Kulbei, a former enginner at Base, one of Krakow’s most popular startup was acquired by Zendesk in 2018.

Team OMGKRK got an opportunity to chat with Aliaksei who is originally from Belarus but has spent most of his professional life in Krakow. So, let’s find out more about the Krakow startup…

Tell us about your professional background in detail. How was it like growing up in Belarus and did it have any impact on your career choices?

I studied computer science in my home town university – Baranowichi State University in Belarus. I never thought about becoming a software developer before joining the Uni — I didn’t even know about the job profile. However, I always loved computers. I can recall how my brother and I were trying to code a game on some rudimental PC in the 90s. PC came with a book that had a couple of programs in Basic (programming language), and we spent quite some time typing these strange looking words into the computer. If we manage to do that without the mistakes – the program worked and a couple of pictures would appear on the screen and move around. It was fun.

While still in Uni, I started to take on some freelance projects from the second year of my study. That really helped me to learn fast. After finishing the degree, I joined a Polish company that had an office in Belarus — Ericpol. I had done a couple of months of practice with them a year before, so I already knew some people there.

Ericpol was working closely with Ericsson on the telecommunication projects. So, one day in Brest (Belarus) my boss came up to me and said,  “Alex, there is an opportunity to go to Poland for a couple of weeks – would you like to go?” I said yes and that sort of changed everything. I spent the next 2.5 years living in Krakow and Stockholm, working in telecommunication.

After I quit Ericpol I spent some time on finding the next gig in Europe, but in the end, decided to come back to Krakow. Upon my return to Krakow, I got involved in startup projects, and at the beginning of 2014, I  joined the startup, Base, here in Krakow as a Ruby developer. I have made Krakow my base since then.

I’m not sure if growing up in Belarus impacted my career choices in any way. I believe that there are always opportunities around us. It is just that very often we say ‘no’ to them. I had never thought about living abroad, but then when such an opportunity arose I said ‘yes’ — that’s it. I believe it is pretty important to say ‘yes’. 

How was your experience working with one of Krakow’s most successful startup, Base?

My time at Base was amazing. I met and worked with so many great people, some became my good friends. Base gave me a lot of flexibility. I ended up changing my role quite a few times there which I enjoyed a lot.

Base team and culture was fantastic. Big shout out to founders and all the team for staying committed to core values from the early days.

I was given so many opportunities to grow, do things that I have not done before, and contribute to so many different areas. I think such things happen pretty rarely, and I was lucky to be part of it. 

For example, it doesn’t happen very often for the person who joined as a ruby developer to start working with customers. But because we were a small team in a growing startup, we always had new challenges that had to be solved. It was very easy to take responsibility for solving them. Everyone had a lot of opportunities to grow and define how things should be done in new areas. 

Tell us about your new startup, Probe. What does it do and the problems it aims to solve? How did you come up with the idea?

I was working in the growth team at Base. We were doing a lot of experiments with the goal to get more people using our product. Software as a Service business model (when you sell monthly or yearly subscriptions) and growth are very data-driven areas. Meaning, you could really see in numbers what is going on, what is working and what is not.

We worked with our in-house analytics team to understand user behaviors and different areas of the business.

During that time, I noticed how complex it gets to find answers and relatively simple questions about your business. The thing is that each SaaS company uses tens of different products to run their business daily. It means that data describing business are stored in many different places. But more often than not, they need to be looked at together.

Currently, companies spend a lot of time and money to pull the data from different products, combine them together and present some meaningful analytics.

My startup, Probe, aims to address this problem. We have built a product that makes this much easier. We integrate with the systems that the companies are already using. Then, we collect and analyze data and present customers with ready to use reports. By doing that, we significantly reduce time and cost companies spend on understanding their business. The data then can be automatically delivered to your chosen destination including slack. 

Probe is also listed on Slack’s app store. 

How many members do you have in your team? Are you working on it full-time?

There are three of us at the moment. I am working on it full-time

What’s your market strategy for Probe? Are you planning to participate in accelerator programs?

We have just released a public version of our product. We are now working on validating different marketing channels.

How are you funding Probe?

We are self-funded.

What are your comments on Krakow’s startup ecosystem? How friendly is it to foreign founders?

I’ve never seen or experienced any discrimination. The great thing about IT is that it is much more about what you do and your experience than about where you come from. IT community is also very international. Krakow is a great place to be with many different companies on the map already. I as well as everyone else hopes for more success coming from this region. 

Which blog/website would you recommend to aspiring entrepreneurs? 

There are so many but the one I enjoy reading the most is the blog of intercom, especially their earlier posts. They wrote on many different topics from how to build a product to conducting user research. 

Team OMGKRK wishes the team of Probe the very best for their future. It will be interesting to watch how their startup journey unfolds. If you are looking to try out their platform to simplify the saas analytics for your company, head to their website where they are offering a free trial.