How did Rade Joksimovic start business with nine dollars - Loyalis Technologies successfully develops system for SMEs which sell through Internet

Today, Serbia has a coherent startup community but at the moment when Rade Joksimovic stepped into IT entrepreneurship, it barely existed. It did not bother him so now he has a successful sale of his first company and today he is a founder and a head at the startup company Loyalis Technologies Inc.

In his interview for eKapija, Rade Joksimovic points out that he started his career when he was 16 as a web designer and attending at the same time high school so already when he was 17m he became pretty good at his work and he got his first job.

- After two years, I acquired extensive experience and was lucky to be a part of incredibly talented team. Then I recognized the potential of a software, new at that time, which enables sellers to initiate their internet shop. I looked for the way to use the expansion of the software solution called Magento. Not long after that, I decided to leave my permanent job, incredible team and excellent salary so that I would head towards my dream and try myself in IT entrepreneurship – our collocutor remembers.

As a 19-year old, he did not have savings so he bought a domain for only USD 9 and developed first three products on his own which enabled companies – users of Magento software solution to change deisgn of their shop in only couple of minutes and thus point out compared to competition.

What is Loyalis?

Not long after sale of the first startup, a collocutor of our portal came to the idea to start EarnCoupon – a service which would enable owners of most diverse businesses to offer a short-term discount to those who write their opinion of their product/service at their own Facebook and Twitter profile through EarnCoupon.

(Rade Joksimovic)

- I met Boban Karisik, my future partner at Loyalis Technologies Inc and after 6 months we had final product. Then we realized something was wrong. Our clients would use EarnCoupon for ashort-term promotion and then stop paying it which is a big problem when your business model is based on monthly subscription. After a lot of thinking, we realized we want to use technology and make something our clients will have a long-term benefit. Then we came to the idea to make Loyalis – a system which makes Internet shopping for loyal customers more attractive and more profitable – Joksimovic says, adding that Dragan Leonidov in charge of customer relations also works in the team, apart from him and Boban Karisik as a co-owner and that they are soon expecting significant team expansion.

Loyalis is a software solution for SMEs which operate in Internet sales. It enables them fast and easy loyalty system set up and is based on customers’ competition for the most loyal customer.

- For any kind of support, a customer gets golden or blue chips (association is casino chip). Golden ones are given to customers for purchase of products and blue ones to customers for a range of activities which point out at their loyalty to the shop. The objective of the system is to support consumers in greater consumption, supporting word-of-mouth marketing through social networks and detailed insight into patterns of bahviour and activities of their consumers – our collocutor outlines.

Loyalis is the second Serbian team which officially entered the program of domestic accelerator of StarLab. This is a joint venture of StartLabs and Jugoslav Petkovic, one of the best known angels-investors from this region who currently lives and works at the heart of technological entrepreneurship, San Francisco. Jugoslav invested in a few startup companies so far.

- We left negotiations on seven-digit investment with investment funds and a few EU countries at the moment when we saw StartLabs is interested in investing. The reason was obvious, money is not the most important thing in this stage but experience and the people from StartLabs definitely have.

Loyalis has until recently been in closed testing stage with selected internet shops so that they would prove the system really works when it comes to expected results. The next step is, as Rade Joksimovic says, opening the door to the entire American market and complete focus on exponential growth in the upcoming period.

There is no reason not to try

As our collocutor says, when he started his first startup, he did not know the meaning of the word startup. It was only later when SEE ICT and StartUp Academy, which he attened in the first generation. Then, the doors of one startup ecosystem opened for him and he did not even know it existed in Belgrade.

- Having in mind that five years ago, word startup entrepreneur did not exist in my environment while today we have dozens of well-visited events promoting startup entrepreneurship, I think that environment is ideal and that obstacles at this moment can be neglected. There is no reason why you should delay implementation of your software idea and step into IT entrepreneurship, especially if there is a network of people who are ready to provide full support – Rade Joksimovic concludes optimistically.

Irina Milosevic