Founding an International Software Agency—The Story of BEON’s Founders

When we learn about successful startups, we rarely hear about the obstacles and pitfalls the founders faced as these businesses grew. So, it can be tempting to assume that successful founders possess some magic ingredient, that they, from the start, know something that founders of less successful enterprises don’t, or that they have a special set of skills or experiences that gives them an advantage.

However, the reality is that there aren’t shortcuts to success, and we all have to work hard, overcome failure, and remember the lessons learned to find the right path. But the blood, sweat, and tears are worth it.

Taking a project from idea to successful completion  provides an irreplaceable feeling of satisfaction that rewards every sleepless night. But how many of those nights did the founders of BEON Tech Studio sacrifice? Here, the founders tell us what motivated them to work so hard to grow their business and how it came to be the thriving international software agency we know today.

Michel, what led you to become a developer? 

Sometimes it seems that I was born to work in this area. For as long as I can remember, I have loved math. When I was just four years old, my parents and the rest of my relatives asked me to solve multiplication problems, which I found extremely funny. When I was twelve years old, I started attending a school that offered all the students various programming perks. As I got involved in those classes and learned more about computer science, it became my passion.

Additionally, there was someone in my life who inspired me from the beginning to follow this path, my cousin. He was my hero, and I’ve always admired him a lot. He pursued a computer science major at the same school, and I followed his path. From the time I started at the school, I knew that’s what I would study, and I never deviated from that goal. I continued my studies in this specialty until college.

I spent the first years of my adulthood in Israel, studying computer science at the University of Bar Ilan, where I gained the skills to become the professional I am today. Then, I began to work as an expert in mobile technologies at different companies.

Damian, what led you to become a developer?

From a very young age, my passion for technology led me to discover how things worked. The first step was the hardware. I took a PC repair course, which allowed me to interact with the parts and understand a computer’s physical architecture. My passion for the subject also prompted me to go beyond hardware, to focus on understanding operating systems. Finally, I dedicated time to studying programming and creating web applications.

Even before I finished high school, I was producing websites. In 2002, I could register domains and enable any business to offer its services to the world. At the time, having a professional digital presence was a unique opportunity for many companies, and the businesses in my area received me like a guru who brought commercial possibilities that no company had ever had.

How and when did you meet the co-founder? 

Michel: Damian and I met at the prestigious ORT High School, which is Number 1 in the country for computer science. There I knew him by sight and he was in the same specialty as me, but he was in another class and never spoke. The last time we saw each other on that campus was in December 2002, the year we graduated. In 2011, Damian saw a Citibank app that I had made and he had heard many good things about my career. Thanks to a mutual friend, he contacted me and we agreed to get together to chat. The situation was funny because, although we had known each other for a long time and we had attended the same school for six years, we had never talked. We met in a coffee shop in Palermo Soho and, that very day, we decided to start a company together.

Damian: In 2011, I was working on web solutions for various companies in Buenos Aires, as well as finishing my final project at the University of Buenos Aires. I was busy but also felt that I had exhausted a stage of my professional career. From a very young age, I had focused on producing websites and operating e-commerce sites. I already had years of experience in these areas and wanted to do new things, to go further. I noticed that Michel was an expert in mobile and thought integrating the web and mobile worlds would be an excellent opportunity to work on new projects. I agree with Michel that it was funny how we had often seen each other but had never spoken, especially given that we had many things in common, including our ambition to start new software-oriented businesses.

Tell us about the journey from meeting up to founding BEON. 

Michel: It has been a long journey full of exciting and sobering situations. Although Damian and I started working together in 2011, we didn’t found BEON until 2018. In the beginning, our team emerged because we wanted to meet the demand for web and mobile app development.

In 2011, I co-founded an online marketing agency called Diractive with Damian. We partnered with DDM, a local interactive marketing company that had more than 200 employees. The agency failed because we couldn’t sell a single project. However, we learned a lot from the experience, and that business laid the foundation for our first dev shop, Moobile, a fun and challenging experience filled with lessons and moments that left an everlasting impression on our careers.

One life-changing lesson we learned from Mobile is that the key to a successful software service isn’t hiring good developers, it’s hiring exceptional developers. In May 2018, we used everything we learned over the years to found BEON, the pride of my career, and the place where I have worked every day for the past two years.

Damian: Working on something that you are passionate about makes the effort worth it, but it was by no means easy to get where we are. Since we started working together, we have learned a lot about the market and have made appropriate changes. Putting quality above all else was the key factor in all our decisions. First, by hiring exceptional developers, we created a best-practice recruiting process. Second, by leaving fixed-price projects behind and working with dynamic scopes, we enabled ourselves to focus on product quality.

Since we founded BEON, we have worked hard to establish it as an international company capable of bringing the best engineering talent from Latin America in a matter of days and with flexible contracts to U.S. companies. However, this ability has come after much experience, and many achievements and failures. 

From a young age, we put our hearts into the software industry, and we grew slowly but steadily. Even now that we are established in the market and have excellent reviews from our clients, we aren’t free from difficulties. But giving our best while maintaining a sense of commitment and leading the team to do the same is what makes our clients trust us and recommend us to others.

How have these experiences changed you?

Michel: The projects we have undertaken and the years of experience have given me much more confidence in myself when taking on new challenges. Looking back and seeing all that we have accomplished and how we have carried BEON from its inception to the international company it is today in such a short time makes me proud of my work. I am also proud of the dedicated team that has worked hard with us to make it a reality. Now I consider myself a much more solid leader who doesn’t hesitate to make changes and accept new projects and ideas to continue growing.

Damian: I’m a much more resilient person — that is, much more adaptable to adverse circumstances — and I feel prepared to face the challenges of a business that’s growing as rapidly as ours. Having a solid understanding of how to build and lead a team, communicate successfully with clients, and expand the company makes me feel better equipped to take BEON to new levels.

Is there something you want to tell those who are trying to grow their business?

Michel: Success doesn’t come from not making mistakes, but from not making the same mistake twice. So, if you want to be successful, work hard, and don’t think that if your projects fail, you have failed as an entrepreneur. It’s a matter of perseverance. Offering a quality service that’s recommended by others is never an accident; it’s always the result of intention, sincere effort, the intelligent direction of a good leader, and skillful execution; it represents making wise choices when faced with many alternatives. So keep trying.

Damian: Fear can be useful when you walk through an alley at night or when you use it to make yourself safer by checking the locks on your doors before going to bed, but it isn’t good when you have a goal and fear that you’ll fail. We are often trapped by our fears, but anyone who has succeeded has failed before. For me, courage is the most important virtue of all because, without it, you can’t do anything consistently. The fear of failure, of shame, of poverty are all real, but being brave is not being without fear, but triumphing over it.

A question for you

Now we want to know more about you, what did you think of this post? Are you thinking of launching a startup or want to implement new ideas in your business? At BEON Tech Studio, we can help you get your projects up and running by providing you with the best developers in the software industry in a matter of days. So, drop us a line! We love making new connections, and it would be great to learn more about you.