Alex Tahanchin (Oleksii in Ukrainian) is the founder of Krock.io, a video review and media collaboration platform that is redefining how creative teams manage complex production workflows. Through his software, Tahanchin has helped animation studios, video production companies, and creative agencies streamline their processes, with some clients reporting up to 30 percent reductions in production time alongside improved communication and faster approvals.
Tahanchin’s entrepreneurial journey stands out for its unusual fusion of business discipline and artistic practice. He holds a master’s degree in economics and management and has also completed extensive training in traditional art and photography. This dual background — analytical and creative — has shaped both the strategic direction of his company and the product philosophy behind Krock.io.
Before entering the SaaS world, Tahanchin founded Hound Studio in 2008, an animation and video production company launched during the global financial crisis. Starting as a freelance 3D artist, he identified an opportunity to build a studio capable of serving clients across both European and U.S. markets. Over the next decade, Hound Studio worked with startups, Fortune 500 companies, and government organizations, developing a reputation for producing high-quality animated content efficiently and at scale.
As the studio grew, however, its internal operations became increasingly difficult to manage. Creative quality remained high, but the systems supporting production began to fracture under the weight of growing client demands.
Discovering the Bottleneck in Creative Work
Running Hound Studio required a patchwork of tools: Asana for coordination, Slack for communication, and Google Sheets for tracking revisions. Client feedback arrived through long email threads and messaging apps, often without clear context. Version control became chaotic. Important details were lost between conversations.
To avoid costly mistakes, teams summarized feedback manually each day. Despite these efforts, miscommunication remained common. When Tahanchin surveyed other creative professionals, the results revealed a consistent pattern: email overload, fragmented communication, and unclear revision requests were among the industry’s most widespread problems.
In 2019, a pivotal insight emerged while observing his CTO working on a mobile game project. Tahanchin realized that feedback could be fundamentally improved if users were able to click directly on an image or video frame and leave comments at precise locations. This seemingly simple idea became the foundation of Krock.io — a platform designed specifically for media production workflows rather than adapted from generic project management tools.
Validation Through Real-World Use
Rather than relying on traditional market research, Tahanchin built the first version of the platform as an internal tool for Hound Studio. The impact was immediate. Feedback became visual and contextual, approval cycles shortened, and confusion declined sharply.
Encouraged by internal success, he shared the tool with fellow creators. Their reaction confirmed the market need.
“People recognized the value instantly because they lived with the same problems every day,” he says. “We did not need to explain the pain point.”
This organic validation shaped the early development of Krock.io as software built specifically for animation, video editing, and design teams. Unlike general project management systems like Asana or Monday.com, the platform was designed around production stages, visual feedback, and version control — core requirements of creative work that traditional tools often fail to address effectively.
A Platform Built for the Entire Production Lifecycle
Today, Krock.io serves animation studios, video production companies, advertising agencies, and distributed creative teams worldwide.
While many professionals initially compare it to Frame.io, Tahanchin sees his platform filling a broader niche: Frame.io excels at final-stage video proofing, but Krock.io manages the entire production lifecycle — from early concepts and storyboards through final delivery.
“Frame.io is excellent at what it does, but it’s designed primarily for post-production review,” Tahanchin explains. “We wanted to support creative teams from the very beginning of a project, not just at the end.”
Clients can leave frame-accurate and time-coded feedback, while teams can build custom pipelines, reuse templates, and automate approval workflows. The platform integrates directly with Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and Final Cut Pro, allowing editors to import comments and timecodes without switching applications. Recent additions include AI-powered storyboard generation and workflow automation features that help teams standardize processes while remaining flexible as project complexity increases.
One of the platform’s most deliberate design choices is how it treats client collaboration.
“Creative work depends on feedback,” Tahanchin notes. “We designed the system so clients can participate easily without being overwhelmed by complexity.”
Clients interact with a clean interface focused solely on reviewing and commenting, eliminating friction and increasing response speed.
Building Through Global Disruption
Tahanchin’s entrepreneurial journey has been shaped by extraordinary external challenges, starting from the COVID-19 pandemic. “When the pandemic began, my greatest concern was protecting the team,” he says. “These were people I had worked with for many years. When the war started, those concerns became even more acute.”
Paradoxically, both crises reinforced demand for the platform. The pandemic accelerated the shift to remote work and distributed teams, while businesses increasingly needed high-quality video content to reach customers online. Krock.io enabled creative teams separated by continents and time zones to work as efficiently as if they were in the same room.
“The pandemic showed us that adaptability is essential,” Tahanchin reflects. “When a product solves a real operational problem, external crises can amplify its value rather than diminish it.”
Despite difficult circumstances, the company continued product development, launched publicly in 2020, and expanded its international user base. Today, Krock.io is used by teams in over 40 countries, with the platform processing thousands of video reviews monthly.
Business Discipline Meets Creative Empathy
Tahanchin’s dual background continues to shape product development. His business education informs decisions around scalability and sustainability, while his artistic training fosters empathy for creative professionals navigating subjective feedback.
“As an artist, I understand how difficult it is to describe visual changes with words,” he explains. “Being able to point directly at an issue is not merely convenient — it changes the entire collaboration process. When a client says ‘make it pop,’ that can mean a hundred different things. But when they click on a specific frame and say ‘this color needs more saturation,’ you know exactly what to do.”
He believes many tools fail because they are designed by individuals unfamiliar with the realities of creative production. Engineers build what makes technical sense, not necessarily what makes creative sense. This disconnect, Tahanchin argues, is why creative teams still rely on fragmented workflows despite decades of project management innovation.
His approach combines systematic thinking with creative intuition — treating software development as both a technical and artistic discipline.
A Vision Centered on Creative Freedom
Tahanchin’s long-term objective is ambitious: to replace the five or six tools creative teams currently juggle with one unified platform.
“Every hour spent clarifying feedback is an hour taken away from creation,” he explains. “Our mission is to remove friction so people can focus on what they do best.”
This vision extends beyond mere convenience. Tahanchin sees operational clarity as fundamentally linked to creative potential. When teams spend less time managing logistics, they have more mental energy for creative problem-solving. When feedback is unambiguous, iteration becomes faster and more confident.
At its core, Krock.io seeks to reduce miscommunication, administrative burden, and workflow fragmentation — restoring attention to creative output rather than operational confusion. The roadmap includes deeper AI integration, expanded file format support, and enhanced analytics to help studios identify bottlenecks before they become critical.
Lessons for Entrepreneurs
Tahanchin’s advice for aspiring founders is rooted in experience:
Solve problems you have personally encountered. “You’ll understand the nuances that market research misses,” he says.
Remain close to users and learn continuously from real workflows. Feature requests often reveal needs users can’t articulate directly.
Avoid scaling before understanding what truly works.
“Success rarely comes from one perfect decision,” he concludes. “It comes from persistence, adaptation, and clarity of purpose. And it helps to have lived the problem you’re trying to solve.”
From a studio owner frustrated by disorganized feedback to the founder of a global platform used by creative teams worldwide, Alex Tahanchin’s journey illustrates how deep industry insight can evolve into a scalable business — and how the right tools can unlock human potential that bureaucracy obscures.
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Source:
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