Slava Kravchuk is CEO of Atwix, a B2B eCommerce agency that has grown from a one-man open-source shop into a fifty-person team across ten countries, implementing platforms and building AI and automation solutions for B2B companies across the US, Canada, and Europe.

Jason Hein sat down with Slava to unpack why choosing an eCommerce platform is only half the decision, and why the implementation partner might matter more. Slava breaks down what actually separates a good SI from a bad one: real experience with your industry, your product, your customers, and your ERP, not just a logo on their website. They dig into why every technology pitch now comes wrapped in AI hype, how to cut through vendor noise that's increasingly AI-generated on both sides of the table, and why the smartest move for most B2B companies isn't a big-bang replatform but a fast, focused release that proves value before you scale.

They also tackle the system nobody wants to touch: the legacy platform kept alive by one person who understands how it's wired, and what happens when that person, or the vendor's support, disappears. Slava makes the case for facing end-of-life risk head-on rather than waiting for a crisis to force the decision.

Key idea: The platform can be perfect and the project can still fail. The partner is the variable that actually determines the outcome.