#vleadersTECH 2017: Meet Alexei Kounine from TasteHit

You can see the whole campaign on twitter.com/venturelab_ch searching the hashtag #vleadersTECH.

TasteHit is a Software-as-a-Service user engagement platform for modernizing existing online shops. We met its co-founder and CEO talking about his upcoming trip to Silicon Valley:

Why do you choose Silicon Valley as your business development destination?
Since the beginning of TasteHit, our goal has been to make an impact on online shopping on a global scale and have merchants use our product around the globe. We started putting more focus on our international expansion in November 2016 by hiring business developers and negotiating reseller partnerships in countries where we did not have any presence. The USA is the first country on the list because of the size of the e-commerce market (roughly one third of the global market) and the interest of online merchants for innovative data-driven technologies. Silicon Valley is the birthplace of several successful startups, which bring together e-commerce, data and SaaS. This drives a lot of attention to our industry from both online merchants and investors, making it the perfect spot for building our US presence.

What do you want to achieve from the trip?
We believe that this trip is a way for us to kick-start sales in the US and make connections with people in our industry (partners and investors). We would like this week with the venture leaders Technology team to be the first of several trips to the US, which will help us grow our presence and business there.

Why is venture leaders Technology really beneficial for your company?
The initial step of building a presence in a new market is always a challenge. The US is particularly tricky as the number of tech companies working in the e-commerce space is very large. Moreover, it is difficult to build relationships with customers, partners and investors without the right contacts and a local presence. We are preparing for the venture leaders program very seriously to make the best out of this week and accelerate our growth.

In addition, meeting and spending time with other startups, which are in a similar stage, has always made a positive effect on TasteHit. Therefore I am very much looking forward to sharing our knowledge on data, predictive algorithms, e-commerce, with the rest of the TECH team and contributing to the Swiss startup ecosystem.