Interview with Stefan Chekanov – Founder, Brosix [2023]

My name is Stefan Chekanov and I am co-founder and CEO of Brosix Instant    Messenger, an IM service focused on providing businesses with secure private IM networks.

I started as a Software Engineer building solutions in different areas. After a while, I was in a position where I worked with teams spread across different countries and continents. Through this experience, I noticed a gap in the market. We saw the need for a communication tool that would make it easier to be in touch with colleagues.

At that time the only options were consumer-oriented chat applications, which come with risks for the company data exchanged through them. Other options were corporate packages that needed heavy servers and complex installation and maintenance plans.

So we decided to build a service that combined all the benefits of consumer chat applications, security of data, and easy deployment. We actually started to offer a cloud service years before the term “cloud” was even invented.

Since day one of Brosix we wanted a tool that keeps teammates just a click away. We wanted to make an application that is so easy to use that people focus on their tasks, as opposed to how to connect to a colleague.

For example, when you work on your computer, you just click on the app and you are connected with a colleague – send them a text message, or send a file, or if you need you can open a video session and talk face-to-face.

If your entire team is working in one office, the benefits of the app might not be so easy to perceive. However, if you’re working in different buildings, different cities, or even different continents, how else are you supposed to be in touch?

The power of Brosix is that it works the same way no matter the distance between you and your colleagues. This makes it appropriate for teams of any size. Once you make it part of your team’s toolset, you’ll find how easily and quickly you’re able to communicate with everyone. The end result being a more productive team.

We’re constantly building innovation in the area of Chat, Instant Messaging, and Team collaboration. To be able to do so we need to be creative every day. When we plan new features, we always ask ourselves “How will this benefit our users? What’s the best way for them to execute this task?”.This helps us to be creative because we focus on the customers, not just on the technology.

I love my work therefore I don’t consider it as “work” or “a job” and I don’t need to do anything special to balance it with family life. I just make sure that the family gets all the attention they need and also that my work gets all the attention it needs.

We are working on improving our Web App. This will allow our users to use the service conveniently from their web browser on more devices. Of course, native apps on all supported platforms are still preferred as a communication tool. But we just want to give users more options for being in touch with their teams.

We are also preparing a new video-call service that will work on new infrastructure. This is to meet the increasing demand of video-call sessions over the Internet.

We’ve spent many years building the service and have won over thousands of customers all around the world. We are currently launching an affiliate program. This will open Brosix’s success to be shared with promoters who want to join us.

At the same time, this strategy will reach more businesses that are looking for a tool to improve their business communication.

Focus on customers’ needs, not on the technology. Technology is only a tool to meet a user’s needs. As a young engineer, it was always tempting to experiment with all the new technologies that emerge every day. Each one looks better than the last. But after a while, I understood that technology is just a tool and I needed to focus on solving users’ issues.

Serving customers all around the globe by helping them to be in touch with their colleagues. The real challenge is adapting the tools to people’s ever-changing needs, and I see Brosix properly adapting to meet all of these needs.