Interview with Oleg Cherevatyy of devActivity

Meet Oleg

Hey, I’m Oleg Cherevatyy, CEO/Founder @ devActivity. I’m 40yo, started in 16 as webdesigner, experienced in marketing, development, management with a passion for product management. Working on devActivity with a small dev team, trying to build fast and listen to the market.

What inspired the creation of devActivity?

Once I realized I’d work on multiple software products and probably with multiple teams I decided to start with tools that would make dev process more transparent and efficient. devActivity first value was to bring transparency with quantitative and qualitative metrics. Then more features came up based on gathered data: individual performance review, gamification, retro insights etc.

How does devActivity leverage AI to enhance software development experience?

It allows you to get AI insights about metrics in 2 clicks. This speeds up the preparation for Performance Review and Retrospective Meetings. Also helpful in bottleneck identification.

What kind of alerts does devActivity provide, and how do they benefit team productivity?

IMO, Cycle Time / Review Time alerts are the most handy way to push created pull requests further. Also, Work in Progress alerts on a number of opened PRs and assigned Code Reviews. Reminders for manager to do a retrospective/performance review, and assign Peer Recognition Award. 15+ customizable alerts in total.

How does the gamification aspect work within devActivity?

Each contribution is rewarded with specific XP (experience points): comment – 1XP, opened PR – 5XP, merged PR – 10XP etc. The more you contribute – the more XP you get. Levels assigned to Contributor on certain XP numbers. Also, the number of one-time, recurring, and accumulative challenges available to earn more XP and higher levels. Running gamification doesn’t require any maintenance from a manager, it goes on autopilot. Everyone may check their progress on the Leaderboard.

How does devActivity differentiate itself from other similar tools on the market?

Proactivity with alerts, efficiency with performance reviews and retrospective insights and definitely engagement with gamification.

What do you see as the biggest challenges facing SaaS products today?

Depends on SaaS stage, but the most general answer is expanding the MRR 🙂 For devActivity I guess the biggest challenge is credibility to convince dev team to start with the app.

What advice would you give to new founders in the SaaS space?

Talk to your potential customers before you start building. Run a couple of hundred dollars PPC campaign to gather feedback with some quickly designed landing page.

How do you see the SaaS industry evolving over the next five years?

I’m pretty sure there will be more small (up to 5 people) SaaS startups in the coming months as AI automates MVP development and lowers the start point. So, lot of niche SaaS coming soon.