What It Actually Takes to Build in Yerevan in 2026

Host: You've been building in Yerevan for three years now. What surprised you most?

Ani: Honestly, the talent density. People outside Armenia imagine it's hard to hire engineers here. It's the opposite — we have one of the highest per-capita concentrations of engineers in the world, and salaries are still below London or Berlin. The challenge isn't talent. The challenge is that every good engineer gets three offers the week they graduate, so you're competing against remote jobs from European companies paying in euros.

Host: How do you win that competition?

Ani: We stopped trying to compete on salary and started competing on mission and equity. Armenian engineers who stayed in Yerevan — not the ones who left — they want to build something that matters here. We're building infrastructure for the Caucasus logistics market. That story resonates. A developer who wants to work for a German e-commerce company takes that job. The ones who want to see what they built actually running in a truck on the Yerevan-Gyumri highway — those are our people.

Host: What about the regulatory environment?

Ani: It's improving. The government is genuinely trying to attract tech companies — tax incentives, the Innovative Solutions and Technologies Hub, the FAST Foundation. But it's still early. Regulation moves slower than entrepreneurship, which is both a feature and a bug depending on your business model.