Economica.net, 2021: clients abroad first, the first HR hire and 648 Group

Profile of Tremend and its three partners, November 2021: Ioan Cocan, me, then co-founder and managing partner of Tremend, and Bogdan Nițulescu, the company’s CTO. The direct quotes are Ioan Cocan’s; none is attributed to me. Topics: a start with US clients, from technical work to management, 648 Group and Mellanox, products during the pandemic.

§A start abroad, then Romania

Tremend’s story, “a reverse story”: clients across the border first, local clients only after. Ioan Cocan: the first client was from New York. For it, Tremend developed a document management product, sold in the United States with a three-year maintenance period, which gave the company capital for those years. After the first American clients, Romania: Tremend built and launched the HotNews news portal, then came Orange. The first IoT project, from the early years: a Bluetooth solution for Qwikker that connected brands with potential customers based on their physical location.

Elsewhere. Business Magazin, 2017: a friend from New York contacted Ioan Cocan and me for a series of projects; once we told our American colleagues we were starting something of our own, those colleagues contracted us for other projects too.

§Politehnica, Silicon Valley and a third partner

Ioan Cocan: he and I met in the Computer Science section of the Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers at Politehnica Bucharest. Until 2004 we worked at different companies. Then the chance to work for a Silicon Valley start-up, among its first employees. While in the US we decided to start a consultancy and work on projects together. A year later, in 2005, Tremend. The name comes from “tremendous”. Bogdan Nițulescu joined in 2006 as Chief Technology Officer and became a partner in 2009. Editor’s note: I was the one “actively involved in the company’s operations and development” („cel care acum se implică activ în zona de operațiuni și dezvoltare a companiei”).

Elsewhere. 2004 and what struck me in Silicon Valley, in my own words: Recorder, 2018.

§The first HR hire

We, the three founders, crossed from technical work into management and entrepreneurship by hiring their first HR person. After it, learning to delegate responsibilities. In the early years we did almost everything ourselves: we wrote code, advised clients, recruited and sold. Then the departments, HR, sales and marketing, as natural steps in the company’s growth, from six colleagues in the first year to 403 IT specialists. Ioan Cocan: “went from technician to manager and entrepreneur, working on the business, not only in the business” („am trecut de la tehnician spre manager și antreprenor, lucrând la afacere, nu doar în afacere”). Also from Ioan Cocan: experienced outside consultants, as an alternative to learning from our own mistakes.

Elsewhere. Business Magazin, 2017: “Our background is in software. But in managing a company you have to wear several hats: manager, entrepreneur. We had to learn them along the way.” („Pregătirea noastră este în software. Or în managementul unei companii trebuie să ai mai multe pălării: de manager, de antreprenor. A trebuit să le învăţăm pe parcurs”)

§648 Group and Mellanox

2018: the purchase of 648 Group, a US web and mobile development company, a decision of the three entrepreneurs. Tremend already had clients in 14 US states. Ioan Cocan: the acquisition was a step in consolidating on that market and a first step towards global growth, beside regions such as the UK and the Nordic countries. The partnership with Mellanox, for microchip design and verification. Mellanox, by then part of Nvidia, supplied end-to-end connectivity for servers and data storage. Through this collaboration Tremend’s team worked on the next generation of processors and network switches, used by most Top 500 supercomputers.

Elsewhere. Adevărul, 2018, when the deal was announced: “648 shares the same client focus and the same engineering culture with us, and we are convinced the transition will be an easy one.” („648 împărtăşeşte aceeaşi orientare către client şi aceeaşi cultură de inginerie cu noi şi suntem convinşi că tranziţia va fi una uşoară”)

§Products for the pandemic

The 2020 plans, postponed: growth in the automotive industry and larger offices in Bucharest and Brașov. A full move to working from home. To build and launch digital transformation solutions quickly: Tremend Application Foundation, a set of modules that can be adapted to each platform. From it: TORP, for digital onboarding; observED, for remote exams; HumanoID, a research project with the University of Bucharest; and Graphomaly, built with Politehnica Bucharest and the University of Bucharest to detect risk in financial transactions. Tremend was selected as a technology partner of the European Commission and joined the EBRD’s Blue Ribbon programme, the second Romanian company in it. Figures: a business of EUR 20 million and 403 employees, with plans to expand in the US, the UK and Germany.