Meet #Noonies2021 Nominee Pavel Demeshchik: Ex-Engineer, Founder CEO, & Amateur Carpenter

Hey Hackers! I’m Pavel and I’m the CEO and founder of datarockets.

First of all, huge thanks to the HackerNoon community and staff for nominating me for a 2021 Noonies award! I’ve been nominated in the following categories please do check out these award pages and vote:

1. FUNDING: https://noonies.tech/award/2021-hackernoon-contributor-of-the-year-funding
2. FUNDRAISING: https://noonies.tech/award/2021-hackernoon-contributor-of-the-year-fundraising

To give you a better picture of who I am and what I’m doing, I made this a light and short interview. Hope you enjoy it!

1. What do you do and why do you do it? (tell us your story)

Funny thing, I have very little to do with fundraising in particular. I run a software development company datarockets where we build apps for North America startups and businesses. Personally, I try helping our client startups to survive and find their product-market fit making pivots as fast as possible. I do this because it’s fun. Most of the time. Maybe not most, but like 30%.

Working with startups also means dealing with funding. Besides, years ago I was inspired by Peter Thiel’s philosophy and his Zero to One book that made me write a couple of articles about fundraising to help my clients.

2. Tell us more about the things you create / write / manage / build!

At datarockets, we work on a capital-raising platform Dealmaker.tech, community-driven bartering app Bunz, smart typewriters for Astohaus, who actually raised money for their product on a crowdfunding platform, and a few other projects. In my free time, I’m trying to tackle real estate problems in Ontario, Canada (I live there) with Openbids.

3. How did you end up on your current career path? Do you like it?

I thought I was going to be a software developer for the rest of my life but at some point, I realized that I couldn’t build really complex/great things alone. At some point, I discovered that I brought more value managing a project, then, multiple projects, then, I quit daily management and started product strategy advising. I like what I do because it allows me to meet and work with different entrepreneurs, solve high-level business problems and see the impact of my work in real life.

4. What tech are you most excited or passionate about right now and why?

Right now I’m really interested in wearable technology. Maybe it’s because I’ve just seen Mark Zukenberg’s promo video of new Ray-Ban smart glasses with a camera. It was a little disappointing though, not to mention entrusting any kind of personal data to our old friend Mark.

But putting jokes aside, I believe that alternative user interfaces could take over mobile phones and tablets in the future. Smart glasses integrating technology into real-world experiences seem to be a good step in that direction.

5. What tech are you most worried about right now and why?

Definitely blockchain. The decentralization concept lying in the foundation of blockchain is simply beautiful. Cryptocurrencies are just one of the use cases, blockchain can be utilized in many more areas of our lives. As an ex-engineer, I see so much potential in the technology itself, but I feel like it’s one of the most misunderstood technologies these days.

6. If we gave you 10 million dollars to invest in something today, what would you invest in and why?

The most financially-educated response would be real estate (at least these days). But it’s pretty boring, so I’d invest in myself first of all - I’d take a year off to think about it. Then most likely I’d break down whatever is left from the 10 million after a year of partying hard into multiple brackets and define risk tolerance for each of them. The lowest risk bracket would go into bonds, the next one into stocks. Then I’d assign multiple brackets for angel investments into startups depending on their stage and my personal belief in the ideas behind them.

7. What are you currently learning?

Woodworking. Yeah, it has very little to do with tech, but at some point, I realized that I needed a hobby that could help me relax. Creating something useful out of raw wood makes me feel better, even though it often ends up like this:

8. What’s the best advice you’ve ever given someone?

I’m not big on giving advice, but I always offer people I work with to stop for a minute and think if they really enjoy whatever they do. I strongly believe that you can’t achieve success in something you do because you have to pay the bills.

9. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Back when I was a kid and something bad happened to me my father used to say that things could’ve been worse. I know it sounds a little depressing, but it actually helped me to pull myself together and overcome whatever it was. And even now in my adult life, I feel that it helps me a lot - when things don’t go in accordance with my plan it doesn’t throw me off balance.

10. Please give us the links to all your relevant social media profiles so we can use them to promote this interview! (Twitter and LinkedIn would be a huge plus)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavel-demeshchik-88b89362/

https://www.facebook.com/demeshchik.pavel/

Thanks all for reading this interview and your votes!

About HackerNoon’s 2021 Noonie Awards

The annual Noonie Awards celebrate the best and brightest of the tech industry, bringing together all who are making the Internet and the world of tech what it is today. Please be sure to check out our award categories, nominate, and vote for the people and companies who you think are making the biggest impact on the tech industry today.

The 2021 Noonies are sponsored by: bybit, Dottech Domains, and Avast. Thank you so much to these sponsors who are helping us celebrate the accomplishments of all our nominees.