This month we catch up with founder and CEO, Ivan Stanojevic to get the inside scoop on the behind the scenes work he does to keep MerchantOS software ahead of the competition.
First off, what hats do you wear when it comes to software development?
IVAN: My two main roles with the product are making sure it’s always available to our customers, and keeping each new release in line with our vision. I don’t spend any time writing code directly used in our software.
We have a growing infrastructure of servers that provide our web based service to our customers. I keep that infrastructure healthy and get our content delivered to our customers reliably and fast. Most recently I have been working on adding in a new data center and preparing to use some newer technologies to speed up our systems. We’re also scaling up our infrastructure with more capacity.
When working on the actual point of sale system, I spend a lot of time reviewing support requests to see where our software can improve, help the developers decide what to do next, test out new features and fixes, and make sure those changes both meet our customer’s needs and are simple to use.
What have you got going on right now?
IVAN: Right now I’m working on adding in a new data center with Amazon Web Services. This will allow us to scale our infrastructure much more quickly and save us the hassle of managing our own hardware.
This change should have no effect on our customers at first, but will allow us to speed some things up later.
What’s your big idea for the future?
IVAN: I don’t really have any one big idea. There are tons of changes we have to make to keep our system innovative and further improve it’s simplicity. We’re going to just keep rolling out the improvements.
“I don’t think our software will ever reach a point where it couldn’t be better.”
There are many new technologies coming along that can change how retailers are able to serve their customers. Two active areas I see are with mobile and payment processing.
We’re definitely going to be spending more time on mobile devices and you’ll be seeing those changes coming along.
We’re also watching the payments industry closely. I am hoping for some disruptive technologies that can compete with and change the traditional credit card industry into something that better serves retailers. As we see great ideas emerge we want to be ready to jump in and use those technologies in our product.
Before we go, what is the one thing you want every customer to know about you?
IVAN: I’m willing to talk to any customer. Email me at ivan@merchantos.com or call at 866 554 2453 ext. 91. I can’t promise a quick response but I do eventually get to everyone.