Forbes diamond: From a Team of Three to 70 Projects: Coderama Shines as a Rising Star

With sales of 10.2 million euros and a net profit of 1.6 million for 2023, Coderama is currently one of the most successful IT outsourcing companies in Slovakia. Most recently, they were also included in the selection of the twelve healthiest growing companies Diamonds of Slovak Business 2024, which is being organized for the sixteenth time by Enterprise Investors.

"A manager at DXC once approached me and asked: 'Mato, do you have any people? Now is the time. So I put together a team of three people for a specific project and we started working for them. We delivered the whole thing." - Matej Štafurik, founder of Coderama

From the point of view of the ownership structure, it is a purely Slovak company with profitable management and unencumbered by loans, with clients mainly in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. They have been cooperating with some of them since the company's inception. Most recently, they have established a joint venture with an Austrian partner in Munich, with which they plan to expand into Western markets and compete more actively for contracts, especially in the German market and the Benelux countries.

In addition, this year they have acquired a smaller IT outsourcing company and intend to continue expanding in this way. Their ambition?

"We want to be the best in providing IT outsourcing and bodyshop leasing in Slovakia, not only for our current clients. We want to be the best and most reliable partner also for the programmers who work with us," says Matej Facuna, CEO of Coderama.

Hub for programmers

The company was founded in 2006 by programmer Matej Štafurik, who registered it under the name SIGP. A few years later he was joined by another programmer, Daniel Beke, who subsequently became a co-owner of the company. In 2022, the company underwent a rebranding and changed its name to Coderama.

Their first major client was Hewlett Packard (now DXC), with whom they still work today. In the meantime, their portfolio of clients has grown to include other big names such as Crif, Uniqa, Slovenská sporiteľňa, Tatra banka, Aviloo, Qinshift, Notino and Telekom. The company specializes in the development of complex solutions in various fields and technologies. The company works with analysts, developers, testers or other technical staff with experience in a wide range of programming technologies.

Matej Štafurik, the founder of the company, says that back in the days when he worked as a programmer himself, he thought about starting his own business.

"I always wanted to have my own company and I always told everyone around me that if they had information about any opportunities for programmers, they should tell me about them. A manager at DXC approached me one day and asked, 'Mato, do you have any people? So I put together a team of three people for a specific project and we started working for them. We delivered it all," recalls Matej Štafurik.

Coderama grew over time, and Daniel Beke joined the company. He had previously worked as a programmer in Sweden and after returning to Slovakia, he was called to SIGP by his former classmates from the University of Žilina. The decision to join SIGP turned out to be the right one, as evidenced by the fact that in 2016 he became a 50 percent co-owner of the company.

"Before I joined SIGP, I changed several IT companies in Slovakia, but I didn't last longer than a year. It was only when I came to SIGP, after two years, that I realised I was still here. That time passed incredibly fast and I understood that SIGP is different, special. Even though I was a programmer, I felt that my true potential was elsewhere - in business, strategic decision making, critical thinking, and evaluating opportunities. I saw SIGP as an opportunity, so I suggested to Mata that we try building it together," he explains. Occasionally, the two co-owners still program. "It's still our hobby," adds Beke.

As the company's COO Ján Tinák adds, their business model is built on building functioning development teams that work on customer assignments. "In addition to teams, we also provide single developer capabilities, of course," says the COO. They currently have over thirty clients in their portfolio and are working on seventy projects.

They also have many projects in the neighbouring Czech Republic, where they have a large client base, although the largest one is, of course, still in Slovakia. "But it's not just Slovak companies. We have clients whose parent companies are based in Sweden, Switzerland or Italy, mostly Czech or Slovak branches of these companies," explains Ján Tinák.

At Home

Coderama representatives say they choose the programmers they work with carefully - all of them have to successfully pass three rounds of interviews before they are accepted into their "family circle".

When recruiting new programmers, they target the most experienced professionals in the market, but they also try to involve young students from universities. They believe there will always be a demand for quality programmers.

"Our developers have a good background at Coderama. We provide them with opportunities for training and self-development. We pride ourselves on open and positive relationships. We have six offices, technical hubs across the country. If they don't want to work strictly from home, they can go and work there," explains CEO Matej Facuna, adding that they have offices in Žilina, Košice, Bratislava, Martin, Banská Bystrica and Nitra.

The plan for the future is clearly defined for the company's co-owners and senior management - the ambition is to grow, either organically or through the acquisition of other IT outsourcing companies, projects or products.

A recent example is the acquisition of a smaller IT outsourcing company with an annual turnover of two million euros, which Coderama integrated with its technical team and client base.

"We have created a system that delivers synergies. We are always looking at other possible acquisitions. We want to replicate the same system there," says Daniel Beke.

The room for growth in this segment is large. According to them, there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of similar smaller IT companies on the Slovak and Czech markets. In terms of clients, Coderama has most of its capacity located in fintech companies, but they also work with clients from other business areas, including automotive, logistics and e-commerce.

"Our proven IT experts can cover all phases of a project for clients - from design and technical specification through implementation to management and maintenance. We focus on long-term partnerships and adapt to market dynamics to meet growing development demands," concludes Matej Štafurik.