xtype is a venture backed startup with a unique product targeting enterprises using the ServiceNow platform. We provide products exclusively to ServiceNow customers to support the development of new software features and releases. Native to the platform, our products allow those using ServiceNow to meet any level of demand from the platform with speed, reliability, and compliance. Our goal is to reduce the off-hours workload of software development teams, and deliver the impactful bottom-line values that enterprises need.
Built by seasoned software technology professionals, with experience in the large-scale enterprise and DevOps (software development operations) marketplace, we are serving some of the largest organisations in the world.
How has the business evolved since its launch? When was this?
xtype was founded in 2020 and we launched officially in April this year. Over the years, we have experienced remarkable growth and development in various aspects of our business. Since our launch, our products have been eagerly adopted by notable organisations across the world, including prestigious international banks and cutting-edge technology companies.
Our debut product xtype View was also formally announced at ServiceNow’s flagship conference Knowledge 2023 in May.
Tell us about the working culture at xtype.
It’s a lot of fun and a very open environment. We are a remote first company and our team mates work across the US, Europe, Israel and Asia. We have a very connected culture and make it a point to meet whenever we can. Zoom calls are video on by design and our slack channel is always humming whether we are working on tech stuff or just mucking about in the #random channel. We care about people above all - our people, our customers and our partners. We are also an inherent part of the ServiceNow community and do our best to blend in and help as much as we can. When we interview new people, we focus less on prior experience and more on how they would culturally fit in.
How are you funded?
xtype is supported by venture capital investments. In 2022, we raised $5.8M in Seed funding. We have used this to grow our development team and increase our presence in the US market.
What has been your biggest challenge so far and how have you overcome this?
We are building xtype to scale and our ambition is to become the de facto standard product for platform engineering in ServiceNow. Our biggest challenge is always about how to be ready right now for the scale of tomorrow. That translates into a work hard mentality and more that one job per person. We make up for it instrong internal collaboration and an open communication culture.
How does xtype answer an unmet need?
My two cofounders and I observed that enterprises really struggle to meet the expected pace of development and innovation on the ServiceNow platform. We quickly identified how ServiceNow instances become inconsistent with each other due to scaled up development. With our extensive experience in enterprise DevOps, we understand the pressures on software development teams to develop and launch new features and updates. So we’ve created products that fight those inconsistencies and enable companies to automate their software development processes and deploy quickly to prevent backlogs.
We empower our customers to accelerate their digital transformation with ServiceNow at unprecedented scale and velocity.
For example, our debut product xtype View is the world’s very first multi-instance viewer. In everyday language, we basically make it easier for software developers using ServiceNow to see issues across different software versions in one place. Until now, developers have only had the option of tracking issues manually, in multiple places and with spreadsheets that need to be kept up to date. Of course, you can imagine the headache with this, on top of tackling an ever growing pile of new development requests. But this doesn’t have to be the case anymore, with issues in one place and easy to see, teams can resolve them faster.
What’s in store for the future?
We plan to deepen our relationship with our customers and enhance their capabilities with features that fuse together intelligent automation and new use cases. Our collaboration with ServiceNow is important to us and as a business, we have embraced a culture of continuous learning to enable us to expand our products on the ServiceNow platform.
We also intend to broaden our partnership program with key players in the ecosystem to increase growth in the coming years.
What one piece of advice would you give other founders or future founders?
Every journey is unique and so your conviction and determination are key. If you are convinced and determined to bring your idea to life, then just keep at it. Experiment and learn and most importantly make sure you are more in love with the problem you are solving than with your solution or product. Listen to your users!
And finally, a more personal question! What’s your daily routine and the rules you’re living by at the moment?
As a father of three girls aged 5, 12 and 17 and navigating up to 10 hours of time zone differences between employees and customers my working days are long and full. I make sure to take a break on the weekends and focus entirely on family and personal time. I love the outdoors and trails so whenever I get a chance, I am outside running or hiking.
Ron Gidron is the cofounder and CEO. of xtype.io.
