Sergey Sundukovskiy has become an unlikely poster child for tech start-up success.
While earning a degree in computer science from UC San Diego, Ukrainian native Sundukovskiy mastered English by watching “Married With Children” and “The Simpsons.”
Now a successful serial entrepreneur with a Ph.D. in information technology, Sundukovskiy is CTO of a software company that’s revolutionizing the construction industry: Raken.
Carlsbad-headquartered Raken is a provider of mobile apps and software for the construction industry. Since launching in 2014, Raken has grown to 3,000 customers in 50 states and 89 countries. Its top product is a smartphone app and web-based software to streamline daily job site reporting – a time-consuming compliance requirement.
Raken has raised $10 million in the first round of venture capital funding. The 53-employee company will now use the money to expand its mobile job-site software into new areas, including digital time cards.
Sundukovskiy has also helped birth a handful of other tech companies including, PushPoint, which was acquired by Capital One in 2014. PushPoint provides local businesses with mobile marketing tools that reduce management effort and grow their business.
Sundukovskiy remains active in San Diego’s startup community, benefitting from the guidance of the city’s tech pioneers and passing his experience on to the next generation.
After coming to the United States at age 18 with an electrical engineering background, Sundukovskiy admitted, “I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do.” 
But, after getting exposed to people in the software industry, Sundukovskiy said, “I decided to go into computer science, though I wasn’t sure what computer scientists or software developers did.”
But the budding entrepreneur found out quickly. After graduating from UC San Diego, he landed a job immediately afterward with a San Diego engineering start-up.
Starting out working for larger start-ups, Sundukovskiy gradually worked his way back down the ladder, helping launch smaller, more entrepreneurial companies, where he discovered his expertise really lied.
“By 2008, I had a masters degree in computer science, and I knew I wanted to go even further in getting some business acumen,” he said. “I decided to go all the way and complete a Ph.D. I got interested in the entrepreneurial route, starting your own companies.” 
Of becoming an entrepreneur, Sundukovskiy said, “I knew how to build things.” He added, “Typically, you get started with either a business person — or a tech person.”
Sundukovskiy enjoys the diversity of being a start-up entrepreneur noting, “Outside of finance, I’ve probably held every position, at every level, that you could.”
Asked what his next business venture might be, Sundukovskiy replied, “E-commerce, how people shop online.”
Noting he’s “passionate about being an entrepreneur,” Sundukovskiy pointed out he’s closer than ever with UC San Diego, re-engaging with the university to connect with “lots of incubators and accelerators, organizations that help entrepreneurs and start-ups along.”