SteelTrace in Chernivtsi

Last week we were happy to welcome Tom Meulendijks and Yanick Dols – our partners from the Dutch startup SteelTrace. It was a great mix of fruitful work, amusing chats and fun.

We were engaged in interesting discussions, conducted meetings with team members, and brainstormed for creative ideas. Our guests got acquainted with the city during our evening walking-outs. Also we had a very agreeable conversation and got to know more about Tom, Yanick and their product.

SteelTrace is a young startup, launched to eliminate all the difficulties of the manual work. Steel is used in many petrol and chemical companies. To ensure safety and eliminate frauds, the material must be of the highest quality. For that purpose, there exist various certificates and it takes a lot of time and effort to sort through the necessary data. With the help of blockchain, Steeltrace transforms loads of manual paperwork into digital certificates and makes the tracing of steel origin less complicated and much more convenient.

For ambitious SteelTrace founders, a key to success lies in persistence; it is a result of a step-by-step, profound work. You have to put a lot of effort to achieve something. “Work hard and never stop trying, you never know how close to the success you are”, says Tom, showing his favorite motivational image.

When asked what do they love the most in their job, Tom smiled: “it’s what we are doing now : travelling, interaction with people, getting to know new cultures and sharing the experience.” Yanick agrees, it is connecting all the dots that makes doing their business so diverse.

Tom, how do you know what is right and what is wrong? “I just feel it in my belly. I can feel it when someone has bad intentions. I also felt it would be beneficial for us to come to Ukraine now, and again – I felt right about this. It was a great idea to come to Chernivtsi and discuss affairs in person.

“Ukraine actually is more European than people think”, Tom shares his impressions. Of course, the cultures are different, but it didn’t cause any difficulties and communication with Ukrainians proved to be smooth. As for Yanick, he says that due to his work he spends 50% of  his time now in Ukraine, and he also has no trouble with interaction. They also pointed out that a lot of Ukrainians can easily speak English, which in its way eliminates language barriers.

Tom says, “Our cooperation with SapientPro is not all about money. “, Ukraine has a rich pool of tech talents, much bigger than in the Netherlands. The country is also located in a very convenient time zone; just one-hour difference does not obstruct cooperation.