Recognition is lovely. Shipping is better. We're trying to keep doing both.
IT.mk named us Startup of the Month, and I want to start by saying, plainly, thank you. Being seen by your own community — the people who understand the context you're building in — means something that's hard to put into words. But I also want to be honest about what an award like this is and isn't, because the gap between those two things is where a lot of young companies quietly lose their way.
What it means
It means people are paying attention. It means the bet we made — building serious commerce software from Skopje, for this market and the ones around it — resonates with people who'd know if it didn't. For a bootstrapped, founder-led team, that kind of validation is genuine fuel. It makes the next conversation with a merchant a little easier to start. It makes a long week feel a little more worth it.
There's also something specific about being recognised here, at home. A lot of the narrative around tech success assumes a certain zip code, a certain accent, a certain set of investors. Being named Startup of the Month by your own local community is a small, stubborn piece of evidence that you can build real software from here. That matters to us, and I suspect it matters to other teams in the region watching.
- Recognition from the local tech community we came up in.
- A bit of momentum for hiring conversations and partnerships.
- Proof that you don't need a Valley zip code to build real software.
- A reason to write more openly about how we actually work.
- A genuinely nice day for a small team that doesn't get many of them.
What it doesn't mean
Now the honest part. An award doesn't ship a single feature. It doesn't fix a single bug. It doesn't onboard a single merchant or make a single customer's day better. It's a lovely photograph of a moment, and the danger with lovely photographs is that you start arranging your life to take more of them.
The failure mode I've watched other companies fall into is performing for the next award instead of doing the work that earned the first one. The press becomes the product. We'd rather stay slightly allergic to our own coverage — grateful for it, but not organised around it. The day after an award is exactly like the day before it: there's still a roadmap, there are still merchants who need help, there's still a changelog to write.
“The day after an award is exactly like the day before it. There's still a roadmap.”
Thank you, and back to work
So, sincerely: to the IT.mk team and to everyone who's supported us along the way, thank you. It genuinely matters to a small company, and we don't take it lightly. And now, if you'll forgive the abrupt ending, there's a changelog to write and a few merchants to help get live. Which, honestly, is the part we like best anyway.
