Avi Giladi - CTO at Imagineer Technology Group

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:02) This is the Modern CTO Podcast. Hey, buddy. How are you?

(Avi at 00:00:14) Hi.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:15) Are you in Chicago as well?

(Avi at 00:00:17) No, I'm in our headquarters in New York.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:20) Oh, okay. Nice. Do you guys have offices in Chicago too, or is that just where Nicole is?

(Avi at 00:00:26) We have an office in Chicago and in Ukraine.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:30) So what does your day look like today? Like, what are you up to today?

(Avi at 00:00:34) Gonna be on a podcast, and sorry.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:38) I love it. No, that was the best answer ever.

(Avi at 00:00:44) Usual—catching up with the team, making sure things are running smoothly, and seeing where I could lend a hand when needed.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:51) Nice. So how did you get involved with technology at the beginning? Did you play video games when you were young?

(Avi at 00:01:02) Back in the day, my first video game was probably a Game Boy, a black and white one, which I was begging my parents for. I had to pay with my own money, over $100. And my first dab in technology was when we got our computer as a family. Probably, I was in seventh, eighth grade. We had a super high-speed dial-up modem with AOL.

(Avi at 00:01:29) And my first entry into real technology was in high school, where someone mentioned I had to choose between different AP courses, and someone suggested taking computer science, which I didn't even know anything about. So I said, why not? And I took a computer science course in Pascal, and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the algorithm, problem solving, building the programs. And then after that in college, I wasn't sure what I wanted to focus on, and I just fell into computer science.

(Avi at 00:02:05) I enjoyed it, and everything else wasn't really my cup of tea. My uncle was trying to get me to become an actuary, and I told him I wasn't involved. So he told me that I have to take like eight or ten tests in math, and the first one was calculus. And I took calculus to computer science, and I was like, I don't think so. So computer science it was.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:29) But you ended up though in financial software, so...

(Avi at 00:02:34) Yeah, yeah. There you go. Yeah. I still enjoy math, but not to that degree.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:40) So after college, what did you do? Did you immediately start working at Imagineer Technology, or did you have some other jobs?

(Avi at 00:02:49) No, right after college, I started working straight out at Imagineer. You know, the path that led me here is I graduated the year of the Twin Towers. It was a difficult year for everybody in many different levels. But one of the effects of Twin Towers was that there was really hardly any interviews happening.

(Avi at 00:03:11) Many of the big companies just said, we're not capable of handling it right now. So after I graduated, we had nowhere to go really, and it was the same for a lot of people. And an acquaintance said, why don't I speak to Mr. Errol Ducey, who's the founder and president of Imagineer. Speak to Errol and, you know, maybe he has something. At that time, he had just started Imagineer two, three years before that, and Imagineer was doing whatever anybody needed on anything.

(Avi at 00:03:47) More like a consulting—anyone needed a program, just build it. And so I spoke to him, and he said he wasn't looking for anybody at the time, but I could stick around. So I stuck around till today. And, you know, that was my first job and still is.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:08) So at some point in those eighteen years, he hired you.

(Avi at 00:04:11) Yeah, yeah, yeah. He told me that I could stick around for a week or so, see if I liked it. And then after a week or so, he says, okay, looks like it could work. But I wasn't really looking to hire, so here's a minimal salary that he could afford, which was like not even a college graduate. But I spoke to some family members and others. They said there's nothing out there, so just continue. So I went back to him and I said, okay, I'll stick around for a little bit.

(Avi at 00:04:43) He's like, okay, just stick around for at least six months. You know, don't stay for a month and then leave. It's just a waste of everybody's time. So I stuck around for at least six months.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:54) Nice. I was actually reading a book this morning—it was my Audible this morning—about that, as working for free as a tactic. This guy wanted to work at a clothing store, and he was in high school. And it was like his favorite clothing store.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:13) And so what he did is he just walked in, asked the manager if he could start folding some shirts, and then everyone was like, this is kind of weird, but okay. And eventually, like, we better just hire you. Do you want a job? Because you keep coming here every day and doing stuff, and you got the job. So it's kind of interesting.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:31) I like when the worlds connect like that.

(Avi at 00:05:35) Yep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:36) So what are you really excited about today? Like, what are you guys working on?

(Avi at 00:05:41) What are we really excited about? We're really excited about the technology in general. Another thing that we're excited about is increased growth of Imagineer. You know, obviously client wins, the appreciation of clients, our feedback from the clients. That really drives us, you know, all along our growth, especially in the beginning—first ten years, I'd say—has really been word of mouth. One client after another was—each win was a celebration, no matter how small or how large it was.

(Avi at 00:06:15) And regarding technology, it used to change every two, three years. We started off in Visual Basic over here at Imagineer, and, you know, every two years, Microsoft would release another version—Visual Basic 4, 5, 6—and that was it. There was really not much going on besides that. But today it changes daily. There's another platform, another tool, another widget that just never ends, and it's getting faster and faster.

(Avi at 00:06:46) I wish they had cloud hosting fifteen years ago. It just makes things so much easier than the servers and all the headaches that go with it. But, you know, we have a great partnership with Microsoft. All our hosted things are with Microsoft, so they're blazing the way in terms of tech, in terms of compliance, in terms of security. And, you know, what excites us is that technology nowadays—a whole ocean of knowledge.

(Avi at 00:07:22) And that technology is trickling into Imagineer. We're getting a little bit of it, and we're able to offer it to our clients via our software, our services, to help them improve their processes and help them get where they need to be. You know, believe it or not, we still have prospects that use Outlook and Excel to manage things, and they're mesmerized by what's out there. So it's really exciting.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:51) So I like that you've been there a long time. Like, what makes you want to stay?

(Avi at 00:07:57) Mainly, I would say the team. Well, there's two things. There's the team and what we actually do. As I mentioned before, one of the things that I found love with computer science was the fact that I could problem solve and write algorithms and figure things out. And throughout college, I started to see the power behind it. I had a professor that said, here, write code that would emulate a Mastermind game.

(Avi at 00:08:29) And you had to build Mastermind in essence. And within X moves, you had to make sure that the computer could win. And that was exciting. You know, it was interesting to figure that out even though you could win within X moves, and it was just exciting to figure out the algorithm and implement it and see it work and let others try it. So, you know, that's very exciting.

(Avi at 00:09:00) I'm sorry, what was the other part of the question?

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:03) I don't even remember myself. But how has your role evolved, like, over the past, you know, almost two decades?

(Avi at 00:09:12) Right. So in the beginning when I joined, I was helping somebody else. We were just building random stuff, as I mentioned before. And then we had—Imagineer right now is in the asset management industry and investment management industry solely. That's what we do.

(Avi at 00:09:32) That's where our products shine. We have a website portal platform that our clients use for their investors and prospects, and we have a CRM for them to help manage their clients. So in the beginning, we had one of these random people that came to us—it was a fund to fund, which is in this industry. And they asked us to help build some product and do things for them. And we were building it, and, you know, we said, hey, if it works for one of them, it could work for more than one. So through word of mouth and through introductions and whatnot, slowly, we started building it out and getting to where we are today.

(Avi at 00:10:06) You know, it was, as you mentioned, that I was here from the beginning, which is very interesting. It's interesting to see how it evolved. You know, the name Imagineer—the tagline in the beginning was, if you could imagine it, we could engineer it. So that's how Imagineer came to play. So it was interesting to see how we evolved from VB 6, and then we rewrote our platforms to .NET. And then recently, about a year or two ago, we rolled out our modern web application as well, and that was in Angular.

(Avi at 00:10:30) And now that we have APIs and we have a host of databases, the whole thing is just fascinating to see, you know, from what it was to where it is today.

(Avi at 00:11:10) Yeah, it's just—I'm lucky to see that and have that appreciation. You know, people that are graduating now, they expect everything to be instant. They expect everything to just work. They expect everything to be fascinating.

(Avi at 00:11:25) But to see where we have gone—I don't even, I can't even imagine what we used to do fifteen years ago, before the days of Google being able to find the problem. We actually had to break our heads and figure things out. It took days, and it's just fascinating to see the change and the shift.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:44) So is most of your team remote, or do you have people in New York too?

(Avi at 00:11:50) We have—our primary development team is remote in Ukraine. We have our product managers and project managers and support and client service in New York. And we have some guys in Chicago for also support, sales, CEO. So we're—and we have some people scattered around. Our main focus is the team.

(Avi at 00:12:19) So therefore, we had some situations where people said, hey, you know, we would like to move for personal reasons, whatever it may be, they wanted to move to other places. We said no problem. Our main focus is keeping the team together and making sure that we're going all in the same direction. So we have people that moved to Poland, Jordan. We have people in Israel.

(Avi at 00:12:44) We have, you know, around random places. So it works.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:49) That's pretty great. What are some of the things that you've learned as far as managing a remote team?

(Avi at 00:12:58) It's a challenge. You know, over the years, what I've come to appreciate is the cultural difference. You know, what I may think or what people think here in, let's say, New York, is different what people think in other places, other countries, and other cultures. What may mean something to me may not mean anything to them. And what I might say might be totally understood differently to them.

(Avi at 00:13:32) Priorities—you know, what's a priority for us might not be a priority for them. What is not a priority is a priority for them. So it's interesting to see how to get two teams together to work and to make sure that everybody's focused at the end game with a clear understanding of where we need to get to and what's a priority, what's not a priority, and how to get there. So it's—on one hand, it's fantastic. The team there is zero complaints.

(Avi at 00:14:02) They're really great. Many of them have been with us for ten-plus years. Some came to New York and relocated in New York. We have people here that are living in the United States now. They've been with us for ten-plus years, and it's fantastic.

(Avi at 00:14:21) But on the other hand, it's, you know, for anybody that wants to have remote teams and stuff, it's a challenge. It's great that we have the tools that we have now, such as Skype and video and things like that. But back in the day, it was just AIM, and it was much more difficult. But still there are challenges in terms of making sure that the teams could click. Because if they don't, then it's a big problem.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:50) I remember the AIM days. Yeah. So do you just—how do you handle that specific issue of prioritization? Do you—is it just communication, repeated communication? Do you do stand-ups? Like, how do you organize the work?

(Avi at 00:15:06) Yep. So one, our head of development is here in New York. Her name is Elena. She moved from Ukraine to New York. So that's been tremendous help.

(Avi at 00:15:21) She moved here a few years ago. Tremendous, tremendous help that she was here. Before that, I used to speak with her, and she would help in terms of managing the team, break out the work that needs to be done with the developers and QA and whatnot. But now that she's here, it's more us meeting here in New York, and then she has the stand-up with the wider team in terms of breaking out on a daily schedule of what's to be done for the week and what we're behind on, and then we just catch up afterwards.

(Avi at 00:16:01) I do get involved when necessary if there's something a little bit more complicated or questions or whatever it may be. We might have a session or one-on-ones with the developers, but that's how we operate currently.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:09) Do you get to spend a lot of time with the customers?

(Avi at 00:16:12) Back in the day, when we were much smaller, it was just Errol and I. We would go to clients' offices, hear them out, help them do whatever they need to do, which was fantastic because they really helped drive innovation. It helped drive an understanding of their business. Understanding a client's business is critical. Without it, it's almost impossible to do anything. And you could have a beautiful product, but if you don't understand the client's business, it doesn't work.

(Avi at 00:16:46) That's another challenge also about the remote teams. The remote teams have an understanding of the business on a slightly less level than the people actually working with the clients on a day-to-day basis.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:58) Yeah. Have you done any, like, writing or speaking at conferences?

(Avi at 00:17:04) Currently, no. It was mentioned—people mentioned internally that, you know, I should speak about some of the things that we've done, how we migrated, some of the things that we built, how we built it. We've done some very interesting things, but just focused on the day to day, making sure that we're all moving in the same direction.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:24) I think if you put some time on that, like, you just carved out some time to work on that, that you would find it very rewarding personally.

(Avi at 00:17:34) I would agree. I used to teach at Brooklyn College in New York, different couple of courses here and there part-time. They got rid of all their part-timers, so there goes that. They only kept their full-time because they were cutting whatever. But it was rewarding.

(Avi at 00:17:52) So I do see that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:55) Well, I encourage you. I don't know why I'm encouraged. Well, I guess I do know why. Because it's like I didn't—there was like two, three, four years ago, I hadn't done any writing really or any speaking really.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:07) And when I started to do this regularly, I found it surprisingly rewarding because it's like you share a story or you share something, and you just think it's like, oh, this is just what happened. But then people will come out of the audience or out of the group and say, oh, thank you so much for sharing that. I was—it is—I'm currently in a similar situation. I found some very useful tidbits.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:36) Just, it's a good piece of life. Maybe that's why you're on the show today.

(Avi at 00:18:43) Maybe. Maybe.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:45) Just a little reminder. So, you know.

(Avi at 00:18:48) Get tuned.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:50) I love it. I look forward, like, in LinkedIn next year, it's like most popular speaker of 2021, and it's you. That'd be great to see.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:01) So, you know, as we start to wrap up here today, you mentioned you got a remote team. Talked a little bit about, you know, how you keep them focused and rowing in the right direction, that you're spending a lot of time on that. But if you could go back to yourself seventeen years ago when you were first getting that free job, what sort of advice would you give your past self?

(Avi at 00:19:26) That's a good one. You know, I think, well, one thing for sure I would say if I was able to go back was to learn—maybe take courses, maybe speak to people about people, people themselves, psychology, how to deal with people, how to interact with people, how to work with them. Because, you know, at the end of the day, without the team, without being able to work with somebody, it's impossible. If one person is missing on the ship, the ship sinks, at least here in Imagineer. And that's true everywhere.

(Avi at 00:20:09) And to be able to pick up those people skills—yeah, you could read a book here and there, somebody gives you a book. Oh, read the seven effective things or whatever it may be. You know, to pick that up early on in the career is invaluable. It helps not just with work, but it helps in general in life.

(Avi at 00:20:32) You know, people are always surrounded with people. We have families, friends, colleagues, coworkers, and there are many difficult situations that come up whether in business or in personal. How to talk to somebody, how to listen to somebody, how to understand the other person—it's, you know, I can't stress it enough that it's absolutely of great importance to have that skill. So that would be one skill. The second thing I'll probably say is, you know, try to get experience as much as possible.

(Avi at 00:21:11) Yeah, going to school is very nice and having the graduate degrees and all the other degrees is very nice. But having the experience of working in the actual field, you know, the textbooks can't teach you every scenario. You know, they can't teach you when the market crashes in 2008, 2009, and it was very rough for us, how to stick together, how to overcome it. They can't teach you when, you know, the server blows up and you're down and nobody knows where anything is and it's chaotic.

(Avi at 00:21:46) You know, there's no textbook. Or you have somebody that's going through difficult moments personally, or he has difficult things that he's trying to struggle with and he can't work effectively. You know, how do you stay next to him and help him? You know, you mentioned mentors. And, you know, one of the critical things that I learned in the past—and I think that anybody could do it even seventeen years back and just look out for these types of things—is, you know, I realized early on when we were working late nights, Sundays very frequently, you know, I would be working, coding, doing something, and Errol would come to me and say, hey, you're staying late? Alright, I'll stay late. And many times, I don't know what he was doing for like two hours when he wanted to go home, but he would always stay late. Very rarely did he ever leave. And even when he did leave, he would always say, hey, Avi, I have to leave. I'm so sorry. Is it okay? As if he had to ask me.

(Avi at 00:22:44) And many times he would stay until I was ready to go. Or he would just pull up a chair next to me and say, okay, just let me watch. Let me maybe give some tidbits if he understood what was going on, or just ask questions. Just kept it going. And that goes a long way to know that someone's next to you, and, you know, to look for those types of people while you're working, to stick to them and to learn from it. Because, you know, as the team grows, we started from a handful of people and now we're sixty, seventy plus. It's easy on a day-to-day basis to lose sight of things. It's easy to get lost in the fire drills that happen, and it's just gonna happen and every company has it. It's easy to get lost. But if you stick with the guy and say, you know what? No job is too small. Everybody's relying on me and I'm relying on them. And how do we just make sure we row in the same direction?

(Avi at 00:23:35) If two people, let's say, are shooting an arrow and they're inches apart—you know, they're aiming in two different directions, but inches apart makes no difference at that point. But when the arrow lands 100 yards away, it does make a difference where the arrow lands. So if everybody just makes sure and watches that for each other, it goes a long way to make sure that everyone's going in the same direction.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:04) Boom. You nailed it, man. That's awesome. You've definitely gotta go out and speak more. People wanna hear what you've gotta say, especially like how you wrapped up there answering that question. That was like such good information. It's just like you could just tell that that insight was backed with raw experience. So, I mean, I really appreciate it, and I'm so grateful that you took time to come hang out with us today and be on the show.

(Avi at 00:24:27) Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:29) Yeah. Is there anything else we didn't get out that you wanted to cover?

(Avi at 00:24:34) Yeah, just maybe one more thing, maybe just as a suggestion for folks.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:38) Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

(Avi at 00:24:45) You know, one suggestion that I would have probably is, you know, especially for software development firms, is to use their own software internally. We use our platforms internally both for our website and for our CRM and such, and it's critical. It drives a ton of innovation. You get to see a little bit of what the client feels, you know.

(Avi at 00:25:11) Yeah, that button there does make a difference, and it does, you know, save headaches. And how come they cannot do it this way the way they want it? And to really understand it through the eyes of the user. And as firms get larger, it's easier to get stuck in the mud. It's easier to just get stuck on, you know, fighting the fire and getting stuck. And subconsciously, I would say, the firm just goes on cruise control. You know, they're like, okay, let's—what do we have to do today? And, you know, to make sure that the team is focused on the bigger picture—yeah, the daily things are important, which is make sure that the team is focused on the bigger picture—and brainstorming and trying to come up with innovative ideas and saying where are we headed? Where is the industry headed to and where do we wanna be when that industry gets there? That is critical.

(Avi at 00:26:11) So try not to get lost in the small details, which are important, but there are other things also that we should focus on.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:19) Dude, I love it. You're awesome. Hey, next time I'm out in your area, I've got a lot of friends that I visit. That area quite a bit up in New York, like between New York City and Manhattan and then like Westchester. I've got family all around there. But next time I'm out there, I'll let you know and maybe we'll meet up, grab a tea or coffee or something to say hello.

(Avi at 00:26:37) Sounds fantastic.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:38) Awesome. Thank you so much, man.

(Avi at 00:26:40) Thank you for having me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:41) Have a great day. Thank you.

(Avi at 00:26:41) Thank you.