A.Y. Technologies Turns Two!

Today  is the last working day of 2017. It’s that time of the year were you look back and reflect on the year that has passed. It’s also A.Y. Technologies 2nd birthday today!

Last year, I shared our journey at A.Y. Technologies in 2016 with you, and I’d like to do the same for 2017.

We started 2017 a successful company, excited from our success in 2016 with a few projects on hand and a good pipeline of potential customers. Our expectations were high, which was a lot different from how we started 2016. We did not plan accordingly for when our projects end as we were too focused on finishing multiple projects that we had on hand at the time. Early in the year, we went from a being a company with too many projects and saying no to new projects, to one with too few project.

This was a scary moment for me. As a leader, I had to lead the company out of the situation we were in, or it was going to be the end for us. This was the first time I had to deal with a situation like this.

Dealing with the situation, we learned a lot as a team and came to the following conclusions:

1. Transparency is Key: Transparency was very important for me from the day 1, but our situation shed a new light on the value of transparency. When everyone knows what’s happening in the company, they can think of innovative ways to help. My team came to my rescue when I was running out of ideas on how to defuse the situation. They came in with suggestions on how we can change some of our processes to be more efficient and how we can improve our marketing.
2. You need to have a clear understanding of who you are: Being under pressure forced us to better understand who we are, and why we do what we do. We were able to communicate what we do in one sentence: “We make software development uncomplicated.” Understanding who you are as a company, what you do and why you do it, will give you a sense of purpose.
3. Learn from your mistakes: From the first time we realized the issue, it was important for me to find the underlying reason for it. This wasn’t because I wanted to blame something or someone – in fact I was the person to blame if anyone, but I wanted us to learn from our mistake and not repeat it. We believe in iterations and continuous learning, so this was a great opportunity for us to learn.
4. Ask for guidance: As a new entrepreneur, I have had a lot of struggles and one of them is that my ideas might seem genius to myself but I need someone with more experience to hear them and tell me their opinion. Sometime you need to bounce off ideas of someone who has “been there and done that”. I realized the value of mentorship during our struggles more than before.

Today I’m here and writing this post, which means that, that wasn’t the end for A.Y. Technologies! We powered through and we came out of it stronger and more focused than before.

But 2017 wasn’t just a year of struggles for us. We had many successes and I’d like to share those with you as well.

In February we started organizing Meetups for two topics that was very close to our hearts: React Native and Google Cloud Platform. Currently, these Meetups have close to 1300 members combined. Our Meetups have brought together communities of people who are interested in learning new things and helping each other out. We value these communities and are proud to have been a part of their growth. We have organized 15 Meetups to this date with the help and generosity of many sponsors. I would like to thank: IT Glue, 7 Gate Ventures, Grow, Scalar, Beanworks, Bench, BuildDirect, Clio, RED, BuddyBuild, InvoiceSimple and Google Cloud.

Early in the year we started our partnerships and we were able to partner with a lot of great companies. We have partnered up with Google Cloud, Datadog, Kong, Speedline, and a few more companies that we will announce in early 2018. These are valuable relationships that have been very fruitful for us and we plan to make them stronger in the upcoming year.

In March we moved to our new office in Gastown. This was a huge move for us and we love it here. Gastown is the hub for startups in Vancouver and being closer to them was one of our incentives to move here. It’s also a very lively part of the city which me and my team love.  You can read more about our move to Gastown here.

While we were dealing with our lack of work struggles, we realized that we can put our energy on a project of our own. That’s when Craver was born: A Platform for building mobile apps for restaurants,  pizzerias, cafes and more.  Since November, Craver has released 3 apps, and 2 more are in the makes as I’m writing this post and many more in our pipeline to come. We are looking forward to 2018 which is going to be a great year for Craver.

Last but not least, in November we were selected as the Top 10 Canadian App Development Companies by Clutch. We are so happy to be recognized for the all the hard work that we’ve been doing and the struggles that we have powered through. I would like to thank all our clients for helping us achieve this by putting the time to write reviews for us on Clutch.

2017 was a year full of ups and downs. We started the year with a high expectation of ourselves and I’m glad to say that we have exceeded those expectations despite our struggles. I’m filled with joy when I reflect back on what we have achieved this year from being selected as the top 10 app developers in Canada, releasing Craver to finishing many other projects. We have learned a lot about dealing with issues and I believe that has made us stronger. 2017 was not an easy year, but it was a great year nonetheless. I would like to thank my team, our clients and partners for making it such a great year!

I am looking forward to a new year full of opportunities and challenges ahead of us.

To my team, our clients, and all of you Happy New Year!

Yours,

Amin
Founder of A. Y. Technologies