Twenty years is a significant period, especially in the dynamic tech world where changes occur almost daily.
Today, let's take a trip down memory lane with Nikolay Datsov, co-founder and Managing Director of our
partners,
Intermedia Ltd., to explore the early years of the company and its transformation from a service-based to a product-based business.
During our interview with Nikolay, we discovered his passion for building value, cultivating long-term customer relationships and business partnerships, delivering exceptional customer support, exploring software ventures, and, most importantly, motivating
young talents to unleash their potential.
The early days
Stories of companies that trace their roots back to university and the days of programming languages like Perl 5 and online forums are always fascinating.
"In the late 1990s, while studying Information Technology at the University of Ruse, Krasimir Hristozov and I laid the foundation for what would eventually become Intermedia," explained Nikolay Datsov. He later completed his Master's Degree in Information Technology and transitioned through various roles, starting as a desktop programmer, progressing to a web developer, and eventually becoming a project manager and managing director.
During that time, Nikolay and Krasimir were at the forefront of learning the emerging field of web development using Perl 5 scripts.
"We provided services to customers from the USA that we found on internet forums and early versions of freelancing platforms," recalled Nikolay.
In 2003, after graduating and completing their military service, Krasimir and Nikolay officially
established Intermedia Ltd. and continued to offer consulting services primarily using PHP and JavaScript.
"In 2009, we expanded our presence to the UK by forming Propel IT Ltd., marking our gradual transition from a consulting business to launching our own SaaS (Software as a Service) products through partnerships with long-term clients," explained Nikolay.
Leading products and tech stack
Among Intermedia's leading products are
Landlord Vision, a property management platform for UK landlords, and
On Call Central, a medical answering service for US providers. Additionally, the company has several new products in the pipeline, expected to be launched in the coming months.
"We've upgraded our technology stack through the years, but the core remains the same - recent versions of PHP (Laravel/Symfony frameworks) on the backend, JavaScript (mostly React) on the frontend, deployed to AWS."
Intermedia, a product company
The release of Landlord Vision in 2013 marked
Intermedia's significant milestone, as it represented their first SaaS product and propelled the company's transition from a service-oriented business to a product-focused enterprise.
This ongoing transformation comes with its specific challenges, but it also brings clear benefits. According to Nikolay, having their own product that the entire team cares about enables them to enhance their processes and deliver higher-quality results.
"We always look for new partnerships and try to support young developers or entrepreneurs who have feasible product ideas but lack the funding or the development expertise they need to create and launch their products."
Part of the Intermedia team
Benefits of hiring junior talent
"Finding senior developers with the right skills and attitude toward software development is quite challenging," explained Nikolay.
That's where the importance of junior talent comes into play.
As Nikolay explained, building junior developers takes time and comes with certain risks. Still, there are clear and far more important benefits - "it gives us control over the process, and we've found that the results are well worth the investment," he shared. For him, junior talent can bring passion and fresh ideas that the whole team can benefit from, and mentoring the new talent is also great for senior developers.
"It allows them to inspect their own practices, look for areas of improvement, and understand the technologies better by having to explain them to less experienced colleagues."
Partnering with Telerik Academy
After interviewing numerous developers over the years, Nikolay highly recommends Telerik Academy as a premier
source of talent. He commended the Academy's training program for providing a good balance of practical skills and theoretical knowledge, even preparing individuals with no prior programming experience for junior roles or positions close to that level.
We at the Academy always say that the
Alpha programs are intensive. Still, if someone wants to become a developer, we can help them - no matter their experience- as long as they stay motivated and trust the process.
The rigorous and demanding training also catches Nikolay's attention, but for him, that brings one of the best qualities in junior developers.
"Graduating from the Alpha program guarantees that the new developers are highly motivated and willing to study, which is not true with many University graduates or self-taught programmers we've interviewed. I highly recommend the academy to any aspiring software developer regardless of background."
What's next for Intermedia Ltd.? Here's the answer
"There are two brand new products in the pipeline that are almost ready to launch (details will be available soon), a significant upgrade of Landlord Vision to be launched later this year, and we're working on building a new development team that's fully JavaScript based (node.js on the backend + React on the frontend). We plan to start at least one new product with the new team this year.
We're also experimenting with serverless deployments and microservices architectures, and we constantly work on improving our development methodology and process (achieving high test coverage, automating the deployment pipelines, improving the development environments, etc.)."
Are you looking to jumpstart your career in IT? Find out more about our
Telerik Academy Alpha programs. Are you a company seeking Master Junior talent? Then go through our
business page or
contact us directly.
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