Who are the founders of ServiceTitan?
ServiceTitan was founded by Ara Mahdessian (CEO) and Vahe Kuzoyan (President).
How did the founders meet before starting the company?
Ara Mahdessian and Vahe Kuzoyan met as teenagers in Southern California through the local Armenian-American community. They discovered that both of their fathers were self-employed trade contractors—Mahdessian's father was a plumber and Kuzoyan's father was an HVAC contractor.
What were the founders' educational and career backgrounds?
Ara Mahdessian studied Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Vahe Kuzoyan studied Computer Science and Neuroscience at the University of Southern California (USC). Both turned down lucrative Wall Street and Silicon Valley job offers to build software for their fathers.
How did the founders build the first version of ServiceTitan?
Starting in 2007, the founders spent years working inside their fathers' contracting offices and riding in service vans, writing software that solved real daily problems: lost paper work orders, missed dispatch calls, and inaccurate pricing estimates.
Why did other contractors start asking for their software?
When word spread across Southern California trade associations that Mahdessian and Kuzoyan's software had doubled their fathers' business revenues and eliminated administrative chaos, neighboring contractors pleaded to buy the software, prompting the founders to incorporate ServiceTitan in 2012.
How did the founders bootstrap the company in its early days?
For several years, Mahdessian and Kuzoyan bootstrapped ServiceTitan with no outside funding, living frugally and reinvesting every dollar of software revenue back into engineering and customer support before raising their Series A in 2015.
Who was the first institutional venture capitalist to back the founders?
Byron Deeter, a renowned cloud investor at Bessemer Venture Partners, met the founders in 2015 and led their $18 million Series A round, identifying ServiceTitan as the archetype of vertical software excellence.
What role did Vahe Kuzoyan play in early product development?
Vahe Kuzoyan personally architected and wrote the early codebase of ServiceTitan. His deep understanding of field mechanics, inventory tracking, and technician dispatch logic ensured the software resonated with blue-collar workers who were not tech-savvy.
How did the founders build their engineering hub in Armenia?
Passionate about their Armenian heritage, the founders opened a major technology engineering center in Yerevan, Armenia, in 2018, hiring hundreds of local software engineers, data scientists, and mathematicians to build platform infrastructure.
What is the founders' mission statement for ServiceTitan?
The founders established ServiceTitan with the mission to "champion the contractor"—delivering enterprise-grade technology to hardworking tradespeople so they can achieve financial freedom, create generational wealth, and deliver extraordinary customer service.
What challenges did the founders face when pitching venture capitalists?
Early on, venture capitalists told the founders that plumbers and HVAC technicians would never use iPads or pay monthly SaaS fees. The founders proved them wrong by showing that contractors were hungry for modern tools that made them more profitable.
How is the founding story commemorated at ServiceTitan today?
The company's Glendale headquarters features displays honoring the founders' fathers and their original plumbing and HVAC service trucks, reminding employees that the software exists to serve hardworking trade families.