Telepin was started a dozen years ago by a couple guys that, after a few twists and turns, built the mobile money software “product” (very loose and generous term) based purely on customer requests. Its couple dozen customers are mobile operators, mostly in developing countries in Africa and Asia. The software was not properly architected and has resulted in a large code base that only a few key people understand how it all fits together. Telepin lacks methodologies for software development, release management, project management, etc. It continues to rely on the heroic efforts of a few key people. That usually results in customer implementations going excessively over budget and over schedule and often not meeting the customer’s expectations. CSAT is extremely low and there is a general dislike among many at Telepin for its customers. Sales are up and down and Telepin is either in feast or famine mode. In 2017, the three main owners exited when Telepin was sold to Volaris Group, which is an operating group of Constellation Software. Volaris Group “acquires, strengthens and grows vertical market technology companies.” The CEO of Telepin is more of a GM than a true CEO. Key decisions are made by Volaris in Toronto. Volaris owns 70+ companies like Telepin and is extremely data-driven. It runs Telepin from a set of spreadsheets just like its other companies. The folks at Volaris can be very hostile and believe that the only way to get results is regular beatings. The rest of the leadership team at Telepin lacks the experience and skills necessary to scale and grow a company. They have all primarily worked at small companies, run things from the seat of their pants and spend most of their time fighting fires. There are some nice and smart people working at Telepin, just like at any company. However, overall, I would strongly discourage anyone from joining Telepin. There are very easily much better companies out there with better leadership, product(s), culture, work environment, etc.
