Craft’s Ilya Levtov Never Learned To Code. He Built A Software Company Anyway.

{"heading_1":"The Journey to Craft","paragraph_1":"Ilya Levtov, founder and CEO of Craft, had a non-traditional path into technology. He studied English literature at Columbia University and worked at Goldman Sachs before joining Stanford Business School. His journey to entrepreneurship was influenced by his time at Spot Runner, an ad-tech startup.","paragraph_2":"Levtov's first venture was an enterprise social network project. His team created company profiles by collecting information from corporate websites, which led to the creation of Craft. The company's profiles appeared in 100 million search results per month and attracted about 2.25 million visitors organically.","paragraph_3":"Despite his success, Levtov faced challenges in raising venture funding. Investors preferred technical founders, and Levtov realized he was not one of them. However, he eventually secured funding from Downing Ventures in the UK and later Uncork Capital in Silicon Valley.","paragraph_4":"Levtov believes the preference for technical founders has some logic behind it, as they have a direct line between the business concept and the code. However, he also acknowledges the potential advantages of approaching technology from the business side, as illustrated by Craft's eventual breakthrough."}