Low Code High Reward: StayShure

Alex Pezutto was two years into a tech startup when his CTO stepped down, taking his two lead developers with him. The company, Rentbridge, was in the middle of entering an accelerator with a barely working MVP and things were looking like they couldn’t get any worse. A few weeks later… Covid hit. The situation seemed to be almost insurmountable for Alex and his company, but in the midst of the struggle, he began learning low-code. At this point, Alex had already perfected the ideas behind value propositions, branding, and raising funds, but couldn't seem to figure out the product. In just one month, Alex employed his new low-coding abilities to completely rebuild Rentbridge's entire platform, putting the company in a better place than it had ever been before. Seeing the potential for how much low-code could help startups, Alex started a development agency, StayShure, by rehiring his Rentbridge developers. They quickly went to work building apps for startup clients. Within a year, the company had grown to a team of 12 and had saved their clients over $1,000,000 in developer work. You could call it quite the rollercoaster. While the pandemic presented unwelcome obstacles to countless startups over the past two years, StayShure faced challenges that were far different than most. Covid-19 did not hinder, but in fact, resulted in StayShure’s particular niche tripling in size within just an 18-month period. According to Alex, the company’s primary struggle was building a team to keep up with the demand and align with their goal to consistently output quality and care. StayShure’s claim to fame is their promise of app development speeds that are 5x faster than the competition. When asked how they accomplish such a feat, Alex pointed to the company’s utilization of low-code. StayShure uses low-code wherever they can - which is about 90% of the time. With low-code operating 10x faster than regular code, and in combination with innovative processes that are unique to the company, Alex and his team are able to offer development speeds that you won’t find anywhere else. Three out of four members of StayShure’s leadership team had actually run painting franchises in the past, resulting in an abundance of talent and experience related to service business models. As student painters, Alex and his colleagues learned to prioritize high NPS and quality rating scores in order to make up for lack of experience in the field. Their common exposure to such a model allowed StayShure to build a service-focused experience that has helped to deliver exceptional experiences every step of the way for the customer. Alex describes the diverse culture at StayShure as being similar to that of a sports team. The team created a bond around their common efforts and fun projects, with an atmosphere of trust and helping one another in the pursuit of constant learning.

“I've been honored to have many staff refer to it as being like a family, which I didn't think would be possible remotely, but somehow it is.” - Alex Pezutto, CEO at StayShure

StayShure has come a long way already, but they are far from finished. The team is still growing, and having recently moved to Nova Scotia himself, Alex is now focused on hiring locally and has been conducting interviews for recent graduates here in the HRM. This is certainly an exciting prospect considering there is no school that teaches StayShure’s low-code languages, meaning new hires are all trained internally in their first month. Alex is eager to meet new people, and would also love to connect with local entrepreneurs, visionaries, and more! Interested in helping welcome Alex to our beautiful Nova Scotia? Connect on LinkedIn, or visit their website to learn more about StayShure!