Currently, AMC Bridge has almost passed the mark of 800 employees. However, everything started from a small team of enthusiasts who were entrusted with the development of a web application for a banking system. Very soon, when the company signed its first engineering project, its founders gained a valuable insight that specialization and expertise in a domain field is a competitive advantage that stands out the company from competitors.

Igor Tsinman, President of AMC Bridge, and Vadym Synakh, AMC Bridge COO, explained why it is more difficult to sell a service than a product, whether it’s beneficial to take projects overlooked by others, and how a terminated contract positively impacted the company’s future.

The first project solution was developed by a team of three

At the outset of the 2000s, the idea of outsourcing jobs overseas spread throughout the industry. Particularly, the USA started to hire developers from India. At the time, Igor Tsinman, who immigrated to the USA in 1992, has convinced the CEO of one of the American companies to implement a part of their product in Ukraine. Recalling those days, Igor says: “I called Vadym Synakh, the person I knew from my childhood and the one I worked with in the Institute of Mineral Resources, and offered him a new job. That was a starting point. Out first team consisted of three people: Vadym, his wife, and me as a technical leader.”

The developed prototype was really innovative. Now, it would be called a cloud application, but in 2020, it was considered a web application developed for the investment department of a banking system. It’s noteworthy that it is used even nowadays. However, the AMC Bridge team stopped supporting it in 2013. According to Igor, the company has outgrown that project.

“When I moved to the USA in 2012, I discovered that we worked with one of the biggest American banks! While working in Ukraine, we concentrated on product development and support. I only knew that it was intended for one or two dozens of clients. I didn’t wonder what banks existed in the USA. We just did our job. As it turned out, we dealt with a powerful institution,” recalls Vadym Synakh.

At the very beginning, the AMC Bridge team consisted of people who knew each other very well. The first ten coworkers were either friends or relatives. At that time, Vadym Synakh was responsible for hiring employees. When the company hit the 20 employee range, it was necessary to organize a formal recruitment process.

In 2001, the AMC Bridge team got its first engineering project from SolidWorks. The team started small. In fact, it was a hot engineering task nobody wanted to complete considering it too trivial for developers. In those days, 3D modeling was highly demanded and recognized as a powerful tool to innovate the industry. And, of course, everyone wanted to get such kind of projects. Moreover, SolidWorks needed to support 2D drawings, but nobody took much interest in it.

“One of the work acquaintances of mine, Boris Shoov, now the company partner and Vice President, had been working at SolidWorks those days. Boris contacted me with a question: “We have a project for specialists in this field. Are you in?” Of course, we agreed! We did our best and showed the result to the client. Then, we continued to do so for 10 years, if not longer. Hence, our partnership with SolidWorks has expanded,” remembers Igor Tsinman.

“When the contract with our biggest client was ended, we were given free rein.”

In 2010-2011, the company had nearly 100 employees, one major client—SolidWorks, and several smaller ones, mainly from the finance field. When SolidWorks ended the contract, AMC Bridge lost 40% of its revenue. Nevertheless, the company found new clients quite soon. And that’s where our specialization has come into play. We realized that to compete against other vendors, we had to excel. The immense experience and expertise in engineering software helped AMC Bridge occupy the niche on the engineering market.

“We signed an exclusive contract with SolidWorks. It meant that we could not work for its competitors for the contract duration. When the contract was ended, we were given free rein. At the time, I considered myself a tech person, but under that circumstances, I had to stop coding and switch to professional sales. Firstly, I went to the clients we knew and showcased them our expertise. Without a doubt, the experience we gained on the SolidWorks project was extremely valuable. That’s why we significantly broadened it and started to propose our services to other market players. As it turned out, such services were of great demand”, says Igor Tsinman.

In the beginning, the company had not so big projects from small or average companies and startups. Although, they allowed us to acquire a solid reputation, find new connections, and, finally, reach out to major industry vendors.

We built the sales process from scratch

At that stage, we’ve realized the importance of a well-established sales process. The new contracts were gained due to personal recommendations rather than professional sales activities until that time. Thus, the company had to adapt to new circumstances and, according to Vadym Synakh’s words, make sales not even from scratch but from nothing. While making the first sales themselves, the company cofounders were searching for professional sales representatives who knew how to sell a service but not a product.

A specialized service that a company provides couldn’t be demonstrated to a prospective client. Selling a product is much easier as it can be demonstrated with the help of a demo video or a presentation. A service is an abstract thing. That’s why it’s necessary to grasp people’s attention to present it, and thus it takes a lot of effort.

“One of the sales representatives we’ve collaborated with once said: “When you sell a product, everything ends up with signing an agreement; in case of selling a service—everything starts with it.” And that’s true. The next step was to convince clients that the service we provided could fulfill particular requirements and be tailored to their needs”, explains Igor Tsinman.

When the COVID-19 crisis hit, the digitalization process boosted. In manufacture, it started a bit earlier; in construction, it’s in full swing. “Particularly, we speak about engineering software development, improvement of modeling processes, and so on. In this field, equipment is ahead of software,” says Igor Tsinman. That’s why the companies with a particular specialization and expertise in a domain field have a lot of open opportunities and challenging projects to bid for.

Furthermore, Igor Tsinman is convinced that the industry segment AMC Bridge has entered is quite stable: “Currently, we are experienced to work with major vendors, and we have lots of contracts that prove it. Along with that, we are not that large and sluggish to refuse routine projects.”