Meet Tanya Kobzar – Founder and CEO of Diversido

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Today we have selected Tanya Kobzar to take her interview. She is the Founder and CEO of Diversity.

First of all, how are you and your team doing in these COVID-19 times?

Thankfully, our business passes these turbulent times more or less stable, but, of course, like the rest of the world, we have changed a lot to adjust to the current situation – set up effective remote work, and adopt new requests and communication styles. The processes work well, but everybody misses face-to-face communication and opportunities to see our clients.

Tell us about your career and how you founded or joined this company?

I have been in Technology for more than 15 years, got a Master’s degree in Computer Science, and tried different roles – QA Engineer, Developer, Project and Product Manager, Team Leader, Scrum Master, etc. Finally, in 2013 I founded Diversido – my own software development studio.

How does your company innovate?

We always keep an eye on the latest technologies and best practices, applying them to our projects. We also have an effective knowledge-sharing system in the company that allows us to get the best solutions quickly.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

We have not been affected much by the pandemic business-wise, as most of our clients are in the healthcare and Education industries, so they did not suffer much from the lockdown. We even see some increasing activities and requests in Healthcare and Education digitalization areas. But some of our clients, who were closely related to offline events, transportation, and travel, have paused the contracts, of course, and we try to support them as much as we can, giving discounts, accepting postponed payments, etc.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

Of course, life and business bring us difficult choices from time to time, and I would say that the main lessons I have learned are:

If you feel that you need to fire somebody, you better do it sooner rather than later.
Trust your instincts.
The most important things a leader can bring are energy and confidence in success.

What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?

We used to work remotely with our clients before, so we did not change our toolset much during these times – the regular set of video-conferencing tools (Google Hangouts and Zoom), task tracking systems (Trello and JIRA), communication tools (Slack and emails), documentation resources (Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Confluence), etc.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

I believe in cooperation rather than competition. We are a small company, and I think learning, growing, constant improvement, honesty, transparency, and communication are the keys to success.

Your Final Thoughts

We live in a very fast-changing world, and you never know what will happen next, so it is important to keep an open mind positive attitude and remember that every crisis is an opportunity too.