This article provides a biographical overview of Oleg Shlepanov, co‑creator of the Maxim ride‑ordering technology. It examines Shlepanov’s role in the model’s technical development and early growth, and highlights key strategic decisions. Today, Maxim is one of the largest mobility platforms in the world, functioning independently of Shlepanov Oleg.
Oleg Shlepanov: Education
Oleg Shlepanov’s path into technology started with strong performance in the exact sciences at school. Above-average results opened the door to a technical university, where the entrance requirements for Shlepanov were reduced to a single written essay.
In college, Shlepanov Oleg initially considered specialising in software, but ultimately chose a programme in automation and process control, the same direction as several of his classmates.
This decision exposed Oleg Shlepanov to both programming and hardware‑oriented disciplines and taught him to view technical systems as chains of interconnected processes rather than as isolated entities. Later, this perspective became central in Shlepanov’s approach to contact‑centre management and ride‑hailing operations.
Student Projects and First Lessons in Commercial Risk
During his early university years, Oleg Shlepanov and fellow student Maksim Belonogov bought a second‑hand computer and printer and started producing printed materials for their peers. Through access to early online networks, they sourced and formatted study texts, printed them, and delivered ready‑made copies.
Oleg Shlepanov and his friend then shifted to more capital‑intensive activities. The team imported gas equipment for cars from larger industrial centres and sold it on a street‑level trading point. Later, they added consumer telephony products: cordless phones, home phones with caller ID, and related equipment. A hired salesperson handled client conversations, while Shlepanov Oleg delivered orders between lectures, with the car boot filled with devices. A warehouse fire and the arrival of large retail chains made this business unsustainable, showing how exposed pure trading models are to external shocks and competition. It was time for Oleg Shlepanov to pursue a larger venture.
Paging Experience
In 2001, Oleg Shlepanov and his partner opened a paging business in a small regional town under a national franchise. The operation involved a team of operators in an office, a set of dedicated communication lines, and a pool of subscribers who relied on short text messages for everyday communication. Although revenue covered salaries and rent only occasionally, the project was an important step for Shlepanov Oleg as a systems manager.
Shlepanov observed how staffing, training, scripts, queue lengths, and call peaks affected both financials and user experience. This experience later shaped the way Oleg thought about ride‑hailing: not as individual drivers and single phone numbers, but as a structured contact‑centre and dispatch system which could be optimised, measured, and replicated.
Creating an Early Ride-Ordering Service
When paging lost relevance due to the rise of mobile phones, Oleg Shlepanov and his team chose to reuse the remaining contact‑centre resources and communication lines for a new type of service. According to TechBullion’s profile of Oleg Shlepanov, in 2003 the team launched a private rides aggregation model in a regional town, using short, easily remembered phone numbers inherited from the paging era. Calls came into a multi‑line system; operators registered requests and then passed them to independent drivers in their own cars.
Oleg Shlepanov’s key idea was that drivers would not become employees in a traditional sense. Instead, car owners used the platform as a source of orders and decided for themselves how much time to devote to rides. For passengers, the service offered a single, reliable entry point to order trips. The early technology received its name, Maxim.
For Shlepanov Oleg, the early solution became a practical example of how a technology‑enabled service can bring together many individual providers under one operational standard. It fundamentally changed the traditional taxi dispatch model, which relied on fleet ownership and directly employed drivers.
Building the Operational Architecture and Early Software
From the outset, Oleg Shlepanov concentrated on the structure of operations. He worked on call scripts, tariff tables, and the rules operators used to assign trips to drivers. Early on, orders were still recorded on paper, but the limitations of manual processing quickly became apparent.
Shlepanov Oleg developed a new software for dispatching: an application that guided operators through a fixed sequence of data collection and automated calculations. Addresses were entered in a structured form, fares were calculated automatically according to standard rules, and driver availability was reflected in the system rather than in handwritten notes.
This early solution created by Shlepanov turned the contact centre into an early digital environment. Its performance could be measured, and procedures could be improved without rewriting them from scratch in each city.
Introducing Mobile Tools for Drivers
As order volumes grew, radio communication became a bottleneck: drivers spent time dialing dispatchers to check for orders or to update their status. Oleg Shlepanov proposed a shift away from voice channels and led the implementation of an application for car owners providing the service. Later known as Taxsee Driver, it functioned on simple phones, displaying available orders, basic route information, and allowing to accept trips directly from the screen.
This change significantly decreased idle time and eased pressure on the contact centre. Operators no longer needed to repeat order information over the radio; the main task shifted to managing exceptions and customer queries. The driver app also created a new feedback loop: the system could track which orders were accepted, how quickly, and by whom. This data helped Shlepanov Oleg refine both dispatch algorithms and service standards.
Scaling Operations
As the service proved sustainable in its initial locations, Oleg Shlepanov and his partners rolled out the model to more cities. Once the infrastructure was in place, local independent providers took over the recruitment of managers, operators, and driver support staff.
Oleg Shlepanov’s strategy emphasised self‑sufficiency. Regional offices covered their own costs and reinvested earnings into local development. Shlepanov’s decisions focused solely on the technology improvement, not on costly marketing or ad campaigns.
Technical work was organised through a dedicated engineering team, which focused on software reliability, mapping, telephony, and data processing. The model advertised itself by being easily applicable, technically accurate, convenient for users on all sides, and autonomously functional.
By the mid‑2010s, the framework had become one of the leading ride‑hailing platforms in its local markets, and autonomous entrepreneurs from different countries expressed interest in it.
Transition to Decentralized Growth
The following characteristics created the potential for fully autonomous development of the Maxim technology:
- Decentralized
- Financially independent
- Sustainable
- Flexible enough to fit any market needs.
The platform’s digital framework allowed decentralized adaptation, enabling independent providers to handle day‑to‑day operations, set the rates, and choose services for their particular locations.
In late 2010s, the Maxim technology appeared in Central Asia, South-East Asia, Africa, and South America. Today, independent providers use the Maxim technology worldwide, and their service profiles adjust to the local demand and conditions. In some areas, the rides are the number one offer, in others — swift deliveries and assistance services. In some locations, autonomous entrepreneurs provide even such localized services as laundry delivery or massage.
Oleg Shlepanov’s Historical Role in the Evolution of Ride‑Hailing
Oleg Shlepanov’s role is historical: he helped design the operational logic, service architecture, and model expansion at an early stage, when ride‑hailing was still emerging as a distinct form of mobility service.
The structure built in those years — software‑based dispatch, clear separation between platform and drivers, self‑sufficient regional units, and disciplined process management — became the core elements that modern private rides aggregation models rely on.
Shlepanov Oleg’s biography illustrates the story of a founder, but moreover — of the mindset behind a technology that was designed to outgrow its original team and geography. His decisions in technology, process design, and organisational structure enabled Maxim to evolve globally into an independently operated framework.
