Meet Daniel Acas
Welcome back to our “Meet LoadSys” blog series. In the second installment, we spoke with Daniel Acas, VP of business development at LoadSys. We get a closer look at his background and his approach to growing a software business — read on to learn more about Daniel. He’s got a pretty cool story!
(For Part One of this series, featuring Kris Dockter, please click here.)
Tell us a little more about your role at LoadSys.
I am responsible for new business and partnerships, strategic and tactical planning, as well as market research and analysis. Business development is a multi-step process, which starts from identifying a vision of where the company should go, in what markets it should offer services, etc. Then I do targeted market research, identify opportunities and create an action plan, which will be used throughout the whole process of establishing new partnerships.
What does your day-to-day look like?
Most of my time goes to interaction with potential customers, and it goes through multiple channels, such as email, LinkedIn messaging, phone and Skype calls, join.me sessions, etc. I’m also attending networking events, trade shows, and conferences to engage with new people and get the word out about our company and services. In between, I’m planning and hosting internal and external meetings on sales, marketing, and product development tasks.
Where are you from originally? What made you make the move to the states?
I’m originally from Lithuania, a beautiful small country located in Northern Europe. My education and love for information technologies came from there, as well as love of communication and seeing new places, meeting new people. I moved to the USA mainly because I felt that I achieved everything I wanted in Lithuania and needed a new challenge, and a new opportunity. The USA was an excellent place to establish myself and prove that I can achieve great results on the biggest IT scene in the world.
You speak four languages! That’s pretty cool…What languages are they, and how did you learn them? (And any advice for others trying to learn new languages?)
Actually I have two more, but I can’t communicate that fluently as in Lithuanian, English, Polish or Russian, so I will keep myself practicing and tell you about those two later. Learning a new language is like learning a programming language – once you know one, you can choose another one with a similar structure and learn it more easily. For example Spanish and Portuguese are similar, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Ukrainian, and so on. For native English speakers, I would recommend French or German, as they have a similar structure.
What attracted you to living in the Chicagoland area?
Schools for my kids and opportunities for myself. I actually live in Naperville, a fantastic city 35 miles away from Downtown Chicago where I work. Naperville has one of the best school and education systems nationwide, and since my older son is gifted in math, the choice was simple. I like to take a train to get to work, as I can read a good book or listen to the podcast while travelling.
What are some of your interests outside of work?
I really enjoy cooking. If I will want to get another degree, it would definitely be a professional chef accreditation from Le Cordon Bleu. I started cooking 18 years ago when I realized that my skills in the kitchen were very limited, so I set myself a goal to learn cooking like a pro and work hard to achieve it. Almost 20 years of everyday practice and there is still tons to learn, it is a lifelong journey I guess.
From a sales perspective, what’s been the biggest challenge for you working in custom software development?
It is a cut-throat business, for sure. There are so many players on the market that it is overcrowded, and we have to work hard to prove that we are not just another software development team, but an established company with more than 10 years of successful business. We have to deliver the clear message that we are different, we know our customer’s industries in depth, and can bring the real value and expertise instead of simply being a one-time job.
Being on the sales side, have you had any experience developing software yourself?
Good question, thank you. Not yet, but who knows, maybe one day I will be writing code together with our fantastic team of professional developers. As of today I feel great in my role as I meet new people, have excellent opportunity to hear their concerns, and see how LoadSys is helping them with their solutions.
Stayed tuned as we continue to feature the LoadSys team with our “Meet LoadSys” blog series.