The problem of decision automation systems’ inaccessibility for SMEs and startups is critical but often underestimated. Working with over 100 companies through Movadex, I saw a paradox: small and medium-sized businesses make significantly more operational decisions per employee than corporations, but they don’t have the tools to automate them.
We recently consulted a fintech startup that processes payments for freelancers. Their CTO personally coded the payment rules every time a new country was added — different banking requirements, commissions, processing times. When they scaled from 5 to 25 countries, the system turned into spaghetti code that they were afraid to touch. One bug cost them the trust of an entire market. Traditional BRMS systems required investments comparable to this startup’s annual budget — it was a dead end.
At the same time, it’s SMEs that could benefit most from automation, as they don’t have an army of analysts for manual processing. When evaluating startups at international competitions, I see brilliant teams losing not because of a bad idea, but because of their inability to scale operations quickly. The mentioned fintech startup, after implementing the right tools, was able to update its rules in hours rather than weeks. The result? Entering Asian markets that previously seemed unattainable due to the complexity of local requirements. New-generation platforms such as DecisionRules understand the reality of SMEs: visual builders instead of code, real-time testing, the price of a coffee at Starbucks instead of the price of a car. This is a fundamental shift — from a world where automation is only available to giants to a world where a Prague team can outperform an international corporation simply because it adapts faster.
Salome Mikadze is a Stanford-trained Knight-Hennessy Scholar, award-winning entrepreneur, and global product strategist. She is the co-founder of Movadex, where she helps startups across the U.S., Europe, and Ukraine build sustainable and adaptive digital technologies. Her expertise spans modern product architecture, MVP development, and strategic innovation for startup growth. Salome is passionate about guiding teams from rapid experimentation to building world-class products.
