This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Pasha Romanovski, CEO and Co-Founder of Solomoto. Originally from Moscow, now living in Tel Aviv with his family. Pasha is very well received in the startup scene not only for his innovation prowess, but for his genuine friendliness and down-to-earth attitude. It is common to see Pasha offering to help people around the office. This is the kind of helpful attitude that is the foundation of his business models.

I find that when professionals in positions of power offer knowledge and wisdom to their employees and new hires, it provides them with all the more incentive and drive to exceed their manager's expectations whenever possible. It shows them that to their managers, they are more than just a tool they are paying to use, but rather fellow professionals with their very own goals and aspirations. This ends up creating an upward cycle of positivity, where the employees strive to be like their managerial role models, leading those past new hires and now managers to continue in the tradition of kindness and generosity.

We start our interview with one such role model, sitting in an undisclosed boardroom at Solomoto HQ:

Ari Newman: How are you Pasha?

Pasha Romanovski: Great, Thank you.

AN: You were in Miami recently, how was your trip?

PR: It was a nice and busy trip. The general idea was these days we are looking to enter the US market, and I was invited to be a speaker at the Start-Up Nation Conference in Miami. It was a really good opportunity to speak both about Israeli innovation and Solomoto in detail. How, we at Solomoto are helping small businesses run all of their digital presence (functions) from one place. So they can grow, survive and compete with much larger companies.

AN: You initially got the idea for Solomoto when you were running your other business Socialist…

PR: Yes, it’s true. I actually always say the story of how we built Solomoto by mistake. We never thought about Solomoto as a business idea. The problem was that in Socialist, a company that works with much larger corporations like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble, small and medium sized businesses were coming to ask for assistance, and all we could do was apologize (because we were not suited to their budgets). At that point I understood there is a huge demand. 300 million small businesses suffer and don’t have solutions. I traveled around the world to understand if there are companies we could work with, invest in or just take a license to use their technologies. I met a lot of really great companies and people. All these companies, they were trying to sell small businesses THEIR product. They didn’t really answer a simple question; How can one run all digital presence for a small business by oneself, in half an hour per day?

AN: Have you faced any adversity so far, since you launched Solomoto?

PR:  You know, (laughs) that’s a tricky question. I think what we actually found from the first day, the first version, which was pretty ugly, was that Solomoto helps. Solomoto helps small businesses. We saw different companies and different opportunities on the market, but no one was doing what we do. We try to bring everything together so the small business can be concentrated on their product, on their pizza, on their store, on their spa or whatever, and to do everything they need digitally in one place. There are other great solutions, but other solutions that you need to combine from a few different products, which can be difficult for small businesses.

AN: What makes the culture of Solomoto different from Socialist and your other endeavours?

PR: I think the uniqueness of Solomoto, is that it is really global. We are still a small company, I think we have about 60, 65 people in the company. But we already run 4 offices, we are headquartered in Tel Aviv, with offices in Sao Paulo, Moscow and New York. Our teammates are from all around the world; the States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Israel of course, Ukraine, Russia, Italy and...I hope I’m not in trouble now if I forgot someone. You know, all these guys come from different cultures, different mentality, different energy. This is pretty unique to have all these superstars in one place and create one voice, one vibe. It’s not that easy, because people are working in different places, but I think Solomoto is a place that helps to get 1 plus 1 to create much more than 2. Much more than 2.

AN: What’s your plan for the summer?

PR: Personally, I will be in the united states to help Solomoto enter the US market. This is a very important stage for us as we see how huge the demand is; US small businesses want to grow. And (we want them) to do it with the Solomoto solution. We will continue to develop our product. This is not a static product as you know. Every day we try to bring new solutions to better help small businesses. For example, previously, we did a very important integration of Instagram into the Solomoto platform. There are few new surprises we hope to tell our clients about very soon!

Editor's Note: He also loves tennis.