ICYMI: Why AI Won't Replace All the Coders

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2:04This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. Carol, did you catch this story in the New York Times over the weekend? I might have. The computer science grads, they're having trouble getting jobs. I am amazed at some of the stuff that's going on and how quickly it's changed. So like 10 years ago, we were all told to go learn how to code. You can get these great jobs, entry level jobs in some of the biggest tech firms, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

2:39Yeah. The Times profiled this 25 year old, a computer science major at Oregon State University. He's applied to more than 5 ,700 jobs. He's received 13 interviews and no job offers. He was actually rejected from McDonald's because of a lack of experience. That's amazing. Yeah. So it makes me think that the people who are out there that are all looking have tons of experience. So those people who are just kind of out don't even have a chance. Yeah. I had this conversation with some executives who are involved in AI just in the last couple of days at this Bloomberg event, and they were saying it's entry level right now.

3:13That's really seeing the effect of this. But the thing is, and I don't know whether it's AI or some other things that are going on. If you can't get that entry experience, how can you ever get to be experienced and kind of move up the chain. Hey, we're wondering what our next guest has to say about it. Catherine Kostareva, she thinks about it. She is CEO and managing partner at Creatio. It's a customer relationship management company, sells software that automates workflows using no code and AI tools. Catherine joining us from Boston. Good to have you back with us. How are you?

3:43Katherine Kostereva:It's good to be here back. Hello, Carol. Hello, team. So nice meeting you today again. Yeah, good to see you again. You know, I was thinking of you when we were preparing for the segment and about the way that we've been talking to you for quite a bit of time about no code and low code and AI. You guys were into this really early. I'm wondering if you're seeing, yeah, I'm wondering if you're seeing this, the way that it affects your business and the way it affects your clients, because if you're able to do things that previously coders were able to do with actually having no computer science experience, then how has it played out at Creatio?

4:20Katherine Kostereva:Right. And as you can imagine, it is a phenomenal opportunity here at Creatio and for us as a company, because we've been talking about no code for 10 years now, right? So the company was founded 10 years ago. And every time we connected with both of you, I've been talking about no code and this is the future. So here it is, the future has come. So we can be more excited. But first and foremost, because of the value we deliver to our clients, thanks to no-code and AI. So basically what we do at Creatio, we combine no-code visual design tools and AI together to help them build applications and automate workflows much faster than ever before.

5:01So talk to us about the workflows that you guys are most automating for your customers. What is it that they want automated?

5:12Katherine Kostereva:Absolutely. So, Creatio, as a reminder, is a no-code agentic platform. When I say agentic, meaning that we automate it with applications, but also with agents. And we automate CRM, mostly customer, front office workflows, marketing, sales, service, but also middle office operations and workflows like customer onboarding, employee onboarding, loan origination, all kinds of processes. Okay, time out, time out. All right. CRM, customer relationship management. I understand helping companies deal with their customers, but talk to us about onboarding. Is that means about customer acquisition? Kind of break it down for us so that somebody listening is like, oh, okay, that's what they do for customers.

5:56Katherine Kostereva:Oh, absolutely. Just think about a bank or a credit union when you open a new account, for example, at a credit union or a bank. The whole onboarding process starts, right? QYC, know your client, and all different checks and compliance checks and filling in all the data about clients and then communicating with your clients. So all of that is automated on the workflow platform of Creasia, agentic platform, partially with the help of agents today. and this is what helps, in my example, banks grow the efficiency and partially with traditional applications. When does it help us customers, we customers?

6:35Because man, I am so tired of filling out so much stuff. You just have to remember your password. Well, yeah, that's another thing. But you know what I mean? I feel like I'm constantly filling out wherever I go, the same stuff over and over and over again. I want single sign-on for everything. I will say one thing that's great about working here among many things is we have the single sign-on technology. And I think a lot of companies do, but it's like, it doesn't matter if we're logging into, and I'm not going to name the third-party services, but you know them all. We use the same single sign-on tech.

7:06Why aren't we doing that everywhere? I mean, that's not really within your wheelhouse, but you can give me an answer. It's supposed to make it easier, but it just feels like more complicated, at least from this perspective.

7:15Katherine Kostereva:And this is a wonderful question, actually, because now we dive into the security and compliance and governance questions, which are critical for all the enterprises globally. And if we take regional specificity as well, like for example, we have many, many clients in Europe and in Europe, it's going to be GDPR compliance, right? Because of all the compliance and regulations and layers and layers of that. And that is why Creatio as an enterprise software exists to help you simplify all these processes as much as we potentially can. And GDPR, of course, is the General Data Protection Regulation.

7:53That's the European Union law that's focusing on protecting personal data of individuals within the EU. And many say it's really setting the standards for the world. Like that is kind of becoming the gold standard because they are super, super focused on protecting individual data. Hey, Catherine, one thing I want to talk to you about, because it's been quite a while since we spoke, is just where you are as a business. Last I found, a bit over a year ago, a$200 million round raised from venture capitalists, including Sapphire Ventures and others, Horizon Capital as well, that was valuing the company at$1.2 billion.

8:32How is that? Give us an update. Do you need to raise more money or are you going to IPO?

8:37Katherine Kostereva:Oh, we absolutely are not raising more money because we are a capital efficient company. But Tim, you remember when we spoke last time, it was around a year ago, I shared with you that we raised this fund actually to invest in AI. So that's exactly what we have been doing. And the revenues of the company has grown since then, since this capital raise, by 46%. So 46 % capital efficient growth. So this is what we live our friendship. So you never have to go back to venture capitalists to raise more money? Oh, we're absolutely not. We actually, even a year ago when we had a conversation, we were not in the situation that we needed this money.

9:16Katherine Kostereva:We just wanted to clearly articulate to the market that Croatia is unicorn and continues to grow very, very fast. So next stop IPO? We'll see how it goes. Well, I mean, this environment seems to be pretty good for IPOing. What would a timeline be? What needs to happen at the company before it IPOs? We need to keep up this growth rate. And from what we're seeing right now, the demand is there and the technology we deliver because, again, it is a gigantic platform and we raise efficiency of our clients significantly. The demand is there. So we need to deliver this growth rate that we've been delivering over the last several years.

9:56How long do you need to continue this growth rate in order to be comfortable tapping the capital market? So we're not going to be talking to you about an IPO until 2027?

10:07Katherine Kostereva:Maybe, maybe 2026. We'll see how it goes. Okay. We got somewhere. I love, I love. Catherine, one thing I want to ask you, who are your customers? And I'm curious, based on the business flow that you are seeing from them, what does it tell you about the global economy? What does it tell you about the U.S. economy? Okay, brilliant. So we operate in 100 countries, and we mostly serve mid-sized and large organizations, organizations who have at least$100 million in revenues. Why? because they already get into this complexity with workflows and customer relationships, and they have very complex infrastructures.

10:47Katherine Kostereva:So to make their life easier and, again, to automate their work with AI agents, that's who we target, that's who we mostly work with mid-sized and large organizations globally. We have clients in the Middle East, in Australia. In fact, today, just today in Jakarta, in Indonesia, we had a big no-code day. 600 people came, our clients from the region, not only Indonesia, but APEC region. So yes, this is a global operations that we provide to our clients. So what does it tell you with that perspective and vantage point about what's going on in the global economy and what's going on? How much of your business is to the US?

11:29Katherine Kostereva:Oh, that's our biggest market by far, of course. The company is headquartered and was founded here in Boston. So tell me what your perspective is, just briefly, the global economy and the U.S. economy. How would you describe it? Listen, with all the recent changes in the economy, it's not the easiest time for our clients, I can tell you that. And again, this is another reason what we're seeing on the market, what we're seeing in terms of budgets for technology. Everyone is cutting costs and everyone is looking for the most efficient solution, something that will immediately provide the ROI. So time to value, like clients today, organizations today, because of the global economy, they have to be very, very efficient in all their operations.

12:13Katherine Kostereva:That is why on our market, our buyers, they are very, very kind of cautious about time to value. if we purchase and when we implement your software, how fast we will be getting this ROI, we will be getting the efficiency from your software. And this is our primary focus in all our collaboration with clients. All right. We're going to leave it on that note. Catherine, thank you so much. Good to check in with you. Stay well. Catherine Kostareva, she is the CEO and managing partner at Creatio, joining us from Boston.

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