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Alex ️🧠
Founded RELAYTO to unleash your important ideas, documents & decks💡 How? We auto-magically turn your PDFs & slides into winning experiences... in a few clicks 👉 rla.to/pitch OR 🗓️ rla.to/book-relayto
Alex Shevelenko is the founder and CEO of RELAYTO/ Content Experience Platform, a company he established in 2016.3 RELAYTO is an AI-powered platform that transforms conventional documents like PDFs and PowerPoint presentations into interactive, engaging digital experiences.12
Shevelenko has a diverse background in technology and business:
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Education: He holds an MBA from Stanford University and degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, including a BS in Economics from The Wharton School.1
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Professional Experience:
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Other Ventures:
Shevelenko is passionate about improving business communication and content experiences. He's currently writing a book titled "The Experience Is The Message: How To Turn Ideas Into Conversations & Actions".1
Under his leadership, RELAYTO has grown significantly, reaching $5.7M in revenue in 2023 with a 130% year-over-year growth.3
Highlights
All right, let's get real about what's happening with software stocks this week. We're talking about a serious bloodbath across the board:
- UiPath dropped a brutal 34% (with founder Daniel Dines coming back as CEO)
- Salesforce took 20% hit
- MongoDB got slammed 25%
- Workday down 15%
- ServiceNow (a success story - only down 12%)
This isn't just a bad week; it's one of the worst I've seen and I'm no spring chicken. And here's the kicker: there wasn't some extinction-level event like the global financial crisis driving this. These are top-tier names, and their plummeting stocks are a clear sign of what the market currently thinks about software companies. Not much. Investors are spooked by declining growth rates.
So, why is this happening?
The conventional wisdom is the 'AI disruption' theory. Pundits claim that buyers are hesitant, trying to wrap their heads around AI, and that IT budgets are shifting towards the cloud and infrastructure layers rather than the application layer.
This smells like a fart in an elevator.
The truth?
The enterprise software industry is maturing. We've been selling software like hotcakes for the past 15 years, COVID-19 accelerated that demand even further. Now, there's simply not as much demand left esp. for top-heavy enterprise deployment.
So where does this AI narrative come from? It's pretty straightforward. Analysts and pundits are echoing what they're hearing from CEOs and CFOs during earnings calls. No executive wants to admit that demand is drying up. They point to AI as the scapegoat.
By the way, I still believe #SaaS is one of the best business models out there. These fluctuations are just part of the game. Industries and companies go through cycles, and right now, we're seeing one of those inevitable downturns. Stay sharp, stay focused on the customer, and ride out the storm.
Much of the world is watching Real Madrid C.F. and Borussia Dortmund football clubs battle in the UEFA Champions League final. I'm rooting on the side of Borussia Dortmund - mainly because of the awesome RELAYTO-powered presentation about the club here :)
