USC international graduates start new tech company

By Nick McCormac
Edited by Drew Daniels
Date posted: April 22, 2009

It can be hard for a new business like software developer iTekka Inc. to gain solid footing, especially in tough economic times.

But even as it seeks that footing, the young company is planning to draw software developers into the area and help them build their programs while also nurturing ideas for other potential businesses.

The new project, called iTekka Labs, is a nonprofit research and development project that iTekka CEO Alex Abrashkin calls a "pre-incubator" to help to start technology businesses.

Abrashkin said iTekka is negotiating with the University of South Carolina's Moore School of Business so that companies in iLabs can tap into the school's expertise.

Many business incubators, such as the statewide SC Launch that is helping to fund iTekka, require participants to define their business model, understand their competitive landscape and estimate market size and growth potential.

ILabs will help entrepreneurs as early as a concept and connect them with people who can help develop the idea into a proposal that can stand up to more rigorous incubators, Abrashkin said.

And if those developing companies appeal to iTekka, Abrashkin hopes to merge them into his company.

"We want our company to be a sandbox where people can play around and experiment with ideas," he said.

ITekka, formed last year, began as an idea from Jim Byrum, now its chief operations officer and a Latin American studies professor at the University of South Carolina. He wanted to create a program to help law firms track billable time.

"My wife is an attorney, and I saw how much of a hassle it was for her to deal with tracking billable hours for clients," Byrum said.

He pitched the idea to Abrashkin, a 26-year-old Kazakhstan native, at a weekly meeting of international students Byrum hosts at Goatfeathers bar in Five Points.

With over 10,000 attorneys licensed in South Carolina, Abrashkin was sold on the program's benefits and potential.

"If a lawyer spends 20 minutes a day tracking time spent with clients, that adds up to about 86 hours a year of lost time," Abrashkin said. "Our software would help streamline the tracking process and help lawyers be more efficient."

Currently named "tekktoc," it will hook into e-mail and phone lines to help track how much time is spent with clients. A mobile version is also being created.

Five billing and time programs are registered with the American Bar Association for small firms, but Abrashkin said iTekka's is more efficient. He initially plans to sell the program locally.

Byrum said iLabs' goal is to help people who have the same determination toward their product that Abrashkin and others had for their software.

Abrashkin worked with Byrum and Thorben Primke, a student from Germany, to get the company going. They moved into their Millwood Avenue office last summer and began searching for software developers.

"We thought the concept might bring people into the area, and I think we found a good, solid group of developers," Primke said.

The company has nine employees, four full time. The rest work on assigned areas of the program and report their progress at weekly Tuesday night meetings.

Friends and family supplied initial funding for iTekka before development funding came from SC Launch.

"The fact that everyone has so much excitement and enthusiasm toward what we're doing is great for the company, and it'll help us with our next project," Byrum said.

What started out as an idea called "The Goat Project" a couple of years ago has grown into team of "young, dynamic people with a 'can do' spirit," he said.