A BBQ Birth
Zarego was founded by Matías Dominoni, Nicolás Leonoff, and Ignacio Oroná in September 2018. It all began at a BBQ on Nicolás Leonoff’s rooftop in Belgrano (Buenos Aires). Picture the scene: the smell of grilling meat, laughter filling the air, malbec wine flowing. Matías and Ignacio had strong technical backgrounds and years of experience working for major industry players like RSA, Venmo, Cabify, Mobilenik, Avatar, and MakingSense.
Nicolás, on the other hand, had expertise in business organization, sales, and networking. He also brought significant experience from the audiovisual world as a project manager, skills that were crucial for founding Zarego. Project management isn’t all that different across industries, though he had to quickly get up to speed with the intricacies of the IT industry. I’m happy to report that within a year, Nicolás understood IT better than many professionals I’ve met throughout my career.
As a side note, all three partners are musicians—Ignacio and Nicolás play the bandoneon, and Matías the guitar—so Zarego could have easily been a band instead of a software company.
Humble Beginnings
From La Maquinita, a coworking space, the company started offering services to clients the founders had worked with previously. Meanwhile, new clients began to appear. Many of them are still with us today. In a way, you could say we grew up together.
The American Dream
One of Zarego’s early goals, thanks to the founders’ extensive experience, was to work with U.S. companies. These clients typically have high standards for quality, work ethics, and collaboration. With our experience working with them, it was a no-brainer for us to target that market.
Spanning the States
The United States quickly became a key market for us, with projects on both the East and West Coasts, as well as a few in other states. In 2019, we embarked on our first tour, meeting some of our clients in person for the first time. We repeated this after the pandemic in 2023. We visit frequently to align our business strategies.
Building the Team
Initially, the founders wrote all the code. Gradually, we brought in other developers who contributed their talents to creating high-quality software products. The first additions were web and mobile programmers, followed by people specializing in quality assurance (Read about the importance of this role in this other article), design, human resources, marketing, and other areas essential to our current operations.
We’ve transitioned from doing everything ourselves to having specialized professionals in key roles. This shift has enabled us to provide the excellent service we pride ourselves on. Don’t just take our word for it—the 4.9/5 rating on Clutch and 5/5 on GoodFirms speak for themselves.
Technological Evolution
Although it feels like yesterday, technology in 2018 wasn’t as advanced as it is today. Our expertise was also somewhat limited. However, through years of experimenting with different technologies and the contributions of everyone who has worked with us, our main stack now includes Python for the backend, hosted on AWS, Digital Ocean, or Azure. For the front end, we use JavaScript/TypeScript with React. For mobile development, we use Swift/Kotlin for native iOS and Android, and ReactNative with JavaScript/TypeScript for hybrid development.
Culture
At Zarego, we foster a vibrant culture that encourages continuous learning. Every month, we hold sessions where we discuss various technical topics and explore state-of-the-art technologies to keep our team up-to-date. We also offer weekly English classes to improve our language skills. Every Friday, we organize an After-Office event at the office where we talk shop, relax, socialize, and celebrate our achievements.
Our Ongoing Journey
Founding Zarego has been an exciting journey. It’s the kind of company we always dreamed of working for. We’ve brought together all the good practices we’ve learned from various places and companies. Our ambition is to expand our services to more countries and new clients, allowing us to grow and learn even more.
