А Bulgarian Software Company 2021 In Review
It’s safe to say 2021 was the most dynamic and positive year for Melon. Riding on the wave of global rush towards digital transformation fuelled by the all-encompassing pandemic, our company proved to be ready for the change. Investing several years into stabilizing processes, empowering the team and growing the satisfied clients base abruptly started bearing fruits. Melon’s revenue grew by 40%+ maintaining a strong profit margin and the team increased by close to 30%. On a highly competitive market at that.
Melon and Frakton Join Forces
The key event must be the strategic investment Melon made in Frakton, a software development company based in Kosovo. By a stroke of luck, but not unexpectedly, we were able to find a partner whose culture and approach made joining forces seem like a natural move, rather than an upset. With the integration process still in the works and the pandemic in the way of more face-to-face meetings, we’re yet to run into some challenges, but with regular and transparent communication, both companies expect to gain from the synergy. For Frakton it’s a step forward gaining access to the knowledge and client base of a larger partner. For Melon it represents becoming a truly regional company with access to smart, nice developers who make things happen in three talent markets, proving that organic growth and people-first strategy is a key strength. Together, the Melon and Frakton joint venture now counts 300+ software developers, overshooting the targeted number of 250 we originally set for a few years further down the road.
Growing Client Base
On top of expanding the volume of work with existing clients, a number of new key partners started working with Melon on exciting and scalable software development projects. With the organic increase in capacity, we are prepared to meet the growing demand for larger and diverse teams. Even conservative forecasts are showing that the trend will continue and Melon plans to stick to what it does best – building teams and providing meaningful solutions.
Success in People Management
What gives us further confidence for long-term consistent success is the mix of software development veterans and a new framework for effectively guiding junior colleagues towards mid and higher level technical and soft skills. As are all companies, we’re struggling with the challenges of the pandemic in terms of onboarding new colleagues and amalgamating the ever-larger community. Still, our structure of relatively small technical teams acting as family-like units each with their idiosyncrasies, but aligned with the general Melon culture, proved resilient and successful. In the highly competitive market, we’re managing retaining, but also identifying new talent across all offices. We’re extremely proud that on our group meetings with newcomers the overwhelming feedback points to how welcoming and helpful people are at Melon.
International Recognition
We’re most proud of our 23rd place in the Top 1000 B2B companies on Clutch for 2021. That’s out of over 32’000 companies. And we’re the best ranked Bulgarian company. Moreover, Software World included us in the Top 10 mobile development companies in both Bulgaria and North Macedonia. More sweet triumph came as one of our long-term clients, Turnpike, received Microsoft’s award for Swedish Start-Up of the Year.
Giving Back to the Community
Melon continued its commitment to support education, development for disadvantaged children, and environment preservation initiatives. We helped some amazing organizations like The Kids’ Mathematics Olympic Team in North Macedonia, Telerik School Academy and the Rusalya School in Veliko Tarnovo, and in Sofia: Health Activity and Technologies Institute, Technokrati, Our Premature Children, ParaKids, Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, Bulgarian Fund for Women, Bike & Run for Chepan and Gorata.bg.
All the organizations we’ve supported sent us deeply touching and inspiring appreciation videos illustrating the importance of giving and strengthening our commitment to the causes both as a business, and as a group of individuals. And we’ll continue to do so in 2022, you can count on that!
Another proud moment is our joint venture together with the Sofia University’s Faculty Mathematics and Informatics – FMI. We were able to renovate the entire (and very long) faculty’s top floor corridor and brightened it up with our colorful designs. The feedback from students and staff is overwhelmingly positive, and we couldn’t be happier with the result and the reactions.
We told you it was a dynamic year. There’s no reason to think 2022 will be any different. We’re working at the same pace, continuing our strategy for growth and impact. The to-do list is full of ideas for improvement and we’re ready to approach all known and unknown with confidence as we’re closing in on Melon’s 20th birthday due in 2023.