Let’s Talk About The Elephant In The Room: Thinslices!

BERLIN, Germany - This week, Pangea is thrilled to introduce the “elephants” at Thinslices. Part of the Pangea universe since 2016, the Romanian software development titans specialize in zero to one digital project development for startups. We’ve had a fruitful collaboration with their team so far, and can’t wait to see what the next five years hold in store!

One Slice At A Time

There’s an old axiom that states: “When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.” No matter how large the task, it can be achieved by breaking it into small pieces (or thin slices, if you will). This was the advice given—along with a cheese slicer—to Ilie Ghiciuc as a graduation present from his former business partners, and the inspiration for founding his own company in 2010. Fast forward eleven years, and the whimsically named Thinslices has fully embraced the ethos (and image) of the elephant—as one of the most sought after software development companies in Romania, Ilie won’t stop until he’s helped other startups come out and join the fun:

“Our long-term vision is to be the catalyst of the tech movement in our city, Iasi, also referred to as the Silicon Valley of Europe. We want to drive the force that will kick start the formation of 100 startups in Iasi by creating highly performant, autonomous engineering teams.”

Talk about an ambitious (and egalitarian) goal! And yet, looking at the numbers, this dream appears to be very achievable. Back in 2016 when we engaged with Thinslices, the company had been enjoying steady growth of 20% revenue for several years running with no signs of slowing down! In addition to their main headquarters in Romania, they also have established a satellite office in the German city of Berlin. All these factors contributed to Thinslices earning a formidable overall Pangea Score of 8.4/10.0

“Serious apps. Fun people.”

That is the mantra that Thinslices’ over 70 employees, or “elephants”, are greeted with every morning when they walk through the doors of their office… but that’s most certainly not all! Headquartered in one of the most interesting workplaces we’ve ever seen, Thinslices is located in the former Museum of Theatre and childhood home of famed Romanian poet, politician, and playwright Vasile Alecsandri.

In addition to being an homage to their national history—an elephant never forgets, after all—the iconic 150-year-old building won a 2015 regional architecture award for its beautifully renovated interior design. A funky blend of old-school spaciousness and quirky modernist decor, the “Museum” of Thinslices is a comfortable, flexible, and interactive space that is the perfect place for their team of elephants to thrive.

Team members relaxing with a yoga session at the office

But a badass office isn’t the only perk Thinslices’ programming pachyderms get to enjoy: with open salaries, yoga classes, and a hands-off management style where “teams are encouraged to function autonomously”, it’s no wonder the company earned an impressive Team Health Score of 8.0/10.0! Of the individual metrics analyzed, Thinslices was evaluated particularly well for advocacy and management rapport (8.5/10.0), followed closely by peers rapport (8.3/10.0). Plus, thanks to their flat hierarchies and transparent internal metrics, anyone can become a leader within the company, translating to a 90% overall retention rate! Returning briefly to the words of their CEO:

“The fabric that keeps everything together is trust in our colleagues and honest communication.”​

An Elephant’s Faithful 100%

Thinslices specializes in getting new startups off the ground, helping to clarify and facilitate the plans of upcoming entrepreneurs (even those ideas are written down on half a napkin). They have completed over 100 projects across seven different industries including retail, real estate, tourism, telecom, and financial services. Their clients, who are primarily based in the US, UK, and Europe, include Deutsche Finance Solution, Finleap, Allcal, Hindawi, and TB Guide, to name just a few.

We surveyed some of these satisfied customers in 2016 and based on their feedback awarded Thinslices an eye-opening Client Score of 8.8/10.0. Breaking this down a little, their top three scores were a 9.2/10.0 in Customer Journey, a 9.1/10 in UI/UX Design, and a 9.0 in Process Maturity. Clearly some very impressive numbers, but why not hear some praise directly from the horse’s mouth:

“I highly recommend Thinslices, as the team does great work, delivers to plan and is a delightful group of folks to work with. Working remotely can be a challenge for most. With your use of agile, good communication and the personalities we work with, this is better than almost all I have worked with in the past.”

- Dan Hughes, COO @ Allcal

“Thinslices is very reliable and can be recommended without hesitation. There is nothing to change in the future and the cooperation works very well.”

- Manager @ SME

“Thinslices has been a great partner throughout our journey: from development to alpha, beta and launch. Their work ethic is unparalleled and when challenges arise they go above and beyond to resolve them as soon as possible.”

- CEO @ SME

The latest HQ's of Thinslices

Elephants On Parade

Thinslices is well-versed in the full spectrum of product engineering from UX/UI design, web and mobile development, front-end and back-end, cloud, DevOps, testing, and infrastructure services. Their tech stack is quite robust, albeit with a primary focus on Javascript-based languages and frameworks like Node.js and React.js. That said, the list of tools they’ve used past and present is impressively long including industry stalwarts like Python, Java, Swift, and Docker.

Perhaps most impressively, they’ve built their own serverless development acceleration framework Ivory using microservices-based technologies provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), to automate the most common functionalities of an app, thereby reducing operational cost, complexity, and engineering lead time. Indeed, thanks to their technical know-how and custom framework, Thinslices promises a live MVP in just three to six months.

Moreover, each of the company’s elephants is well-trained to deliver clean code, simple design, and continuous integration, grounded in Thinslices’ core set of values: Entrepreneurial Attitude, Engineering Mindset, Team Player, Openness and Diligence. To close, we return once more to the words of their Founder Ilie Ghiciuc:

“Our team is stable and delivers the same value proposition in a repeatable fashion and has, therefore, developed economies of scale which translate in higher quality, more scope delivered,​ and great communication.”

If that sounds appealing to you, jump over to their Engagement Page and let us know if you’d like to contact some of the elephants at Thinslices to turn your idea into a product, or handover a project to get you from 0 to 1. We’re certain you won’t be disappointed with the team!