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Agility, flexibility and adaptability, along with resilience, have become competitive advantages for Ukrainian technology companies.
Earlier this week I was asked to deliver a message in support of Ukrainian startups at the 1991 Fast Demo Day session.
My message would have been different a year and a half ago, when international awareness of Ukraine and the country’s technological capabilities and potential was very low, despite the many successes of Ukraine’s tech sector and Ukrainian startups.
I remember a few days after the Russian invasion, an American-based journalist wanted to write an article about the beginnings of Ukraine. But before we talk about how the startup ecosystem is affected by the invasion, I insist on starting from the beginning. I had to say that Grammarly, MacPaw, Refess, Petcube, Gitlab, to name a few startups, were from Ukraine, which she was unfamiliar with.
We also talked about the whole technology sector, including IT, and how I know how technology companies are offering their services to their customers because Ukraine was invaded eight years ago. When my company worked with a Ukrainian IT company, we would see them make extra arrangements whenever even the slightest challenge appeared on the horizon, and that was six years ago.
When we launched the Ukrainian chapter of Tech Emerging Europe in early March 2022, we were delighted to see the overwhelming support of over a thousand participants who joined online as we were unable to travel to Kyiv.
In January of this year, I was happy to learn that I was right about my predictions: Ukraine’s IT sector outsourced more services in 2021 than in war-torn 2022, a year earlier.
Learning to adapt
In August of last year, six months after the full Russian invasion, we surveyed more than 150 Ukrainian startups.
Considering the conditions, the results were very good. Most startups have shown resilience and entrepreneurs continue to operate their businesses and remain committed to their success even in this harsh environment.
Some Ukrainian startups have relocated, but most have kept at least part of their operations or teams in Ukraine. And more than half of them continue to work from Ukraine alone.
Whether they need funding or not, more than half of the startups surveyed said they would grow their business in the short term. This is what perseverance means!
The last 15 months have not been easy, in fact they have been far from it. Some of the founders suddenly find a new home, build a new life, leave their loved ones and fight for the country in the front line. Most of them lost friends and some family members in the war.
I am currently asking this question to a hundred Ukrainian women as part of research for a book I am working on about their strength and resilience. When I remember the experiences shared by some of the Ukrainian women I spoke to, how they struggled to leave the country, find a new home and rebuild their lives, sometimes losing everything they had, I just have to try. Draw a picture of your experience.
But I also hear the echo of their words – we may not have the chance to do it tomorrow, that’s why we have to do it today. We have to go now. There is absolutely no point in waiting. We have nothing to lose. We have a lot to gain.
This persistence and perseverance is one of the most important qualities that an entrepreneur must have for success. It’s about being able to keep going despite setbacks, setbacks, and failures. Perseverance means having the determination and persistence to overcome challenges and focus on your goals.
Perseverance also involves being willing to learn from mistakes and failures. Successful entrepreneurs use setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow instead of giving up when things go wrong. They analyze what went wrong, make the necessary adjustments and try again.
This is what I see Ukrainian startups and tech companies doing.
Ready for a change
A wise man once said, “There is nothing as stable as change.”
Even if we forget the war for a moment, today’s business world is changing at an unprecedented rate. We, entrepreneurs and startup founders, operate in a dynamic, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. We must be ready for anything that comes our way. To survive in this ever-changing landscape, we must be agile, adaptable and flexible.
One of the main reasons we all need to prepare for business change is that it can happen at any time. Disruptive technologies, changing customer preferences and global events – and the most recent of which include the Covid-19 pandemic – can all have a significant impact on business. We must be ready for change because it is inevitable. No matter how hard we try to resist, change will come. Those who are not ready for these changes are at risk of being left behind. Therefore, it is important to have a plan to deal with potential problems.
And if you think about it, during the lifetime of the men who built America, men like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, JP Morgan, and Henry Ford, the average company lifespan was 75 years. What it means as a company is to do the same thing for 75 years, make money from it and not worry about stimulating the business.
Then, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this business life cycle slowed down. This is due to several factors, the opening of China, the collapse of the so-called Soviet bloc and the dot-com bubble. Suddenly, the average life cycle of a business was reduced to just 15 years.
And does it stop there? no way.
Now the average cycle of the business model is no more than six years. This includes monopolies and long-standing businesses such as oil and gas and mining. But 60 percent of companies say they need to reinvent themselves every three years. And if we look at small businesses, they have to reinvent themselves every 12 months.
Ukrainian startups and tech companies are now more ready to deal with change than other companies and have the resilience that most of us can only dream of. They are better equipped to embrace change and challenge and are more likely to see these things as opportunities.
From experience, I can say that Ukrainians are a strong people, but the agility, flexibility and adaptability that they have shown in the last 15 months, along with their resilience, are their competitive advantage.
Now or never
A year and a half ago I said that global awareness of Ukrainian technology was relatively low. The last 15 months of the full occupation changed dramatically. All eyes are on Ukraine, and Ukrainian startups have no choice but to take advantage of that situation.
In March of last year, I hosted a fireside discussion with the former Minister of Economy and Industry of France, and he said that the country should learn from France, Germany, and other countries when rebuilding Ukraine after the war. When I asked him what these countries could learn from Ukraine, he did not wait for the question.
Today the answer is very clear.
Estonia, despite its size and small population, can be a heavyweight in Europe’s tech ecosystem. It leads several emerging European rankings, such as the IT Competitiveness Index. The country goes from strength to strength every year.
But I am convinced that Ukraine has the opportunity to become a European leader in technology, digital transformation and innovative startups. Ukrainian startups have the skills and determination to overcome any obstacle that comes their way. I look forward to seeing them succeed and become unicorns.
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