One year on: how Ukrainian founders have survived a year of war

War is some­thing one can’t be ready for, and the unfold­ing events seemed com­plete­ly sur­re­al. At the begin­ning of the inva­sion, we had a team of 350 peo­ple in Ukraine, so we had to urgent­ly relo­cate them to safer regions in West­ern Europe and the EU.

In those ear­ly days, we asked our­selves if we should even go back to work. We sell online cours­es and edu­ca­tion is not a top pri­or­i­ty in wartime: were peo­ple ready to learn? Lec­tur­ers and stu­dents all had dif­fer­ent issues – some had no elec­tric­i­ty, oth­ers had no inter­net con­nec­tion – so we tried to organ­ise the process­es accord­ing­ly. It was only two months after the out­break of war that we felt we could resume our cours­es in graph­ic design and copy­writ­ing.

From March, we set up offices in the Czech Repub­lic, Poland and Roma­nia to ensure the team was safe and that key oper­a­tions could con­tin­ue run­ning. Some employ­ees decid­ed to return to their home­towns in Ukraine. How­ev­er, many cities have suf­fered pro­longed pow­er out­ages, mak­ing it extreme­ly hard to main­tain their dai­ly lives.

Because of that, we decid­ed to rent a house for our employ­ees in the west­ern part of Ukraine so that they can feel safe, and live and work with­out black­outs. About half of the team has been work­ing there since Novem­ber 2022. We bought pow­er­ful gen­er­a­tors and equipped a back­up office in case there’s no elec­tric­i­ty in the main one.

To sup­port and moti­vate the local team in Ukraine, we have brought back offline meet­ings and host­ed movie nights togeth­er, so that peo­ple can switch off from the news and their work. In addi­tion, we have increased the num­ber of gen­er­al meet­ings with HR and top man­agers to be in touch more often.

Teams need the sup­port of their lead­ers – if you don’t have ener­gy and moti­va­tion, your col­leagues are like­ly to lose them too. This requires lead­ers to show hon­esty and trans­paren­cy. Your team deserves to know what’s real­ly going on with­in the com­pa­ny and how they can con­tribute.

Last­ly, look­ing after people’s men­tal health has been very impor­tant. We man­aged to find inspi­ra­tion with­in the team, which helped us move for­ward. Our focus is on con­tin­u­ing to grow in the year ahead.

3DLOOK was orig­i­nal­ly found­ed in my home­town of Ode­sa, Ukraine, and we had 70 mem­bers of staff work­ing across our Ode­sa, Kyiv and Lviv offices when the war began. It was impos­si­ble to imag­ine that such an unjust and unwar­rant­ed attack would occur in the 21st cen­tu­ry but what our team, and all of Ukraine, does­n’t lack is deter­mi­na­tion.

Our num­ber one pri­or­i­ty was to ensure the safe­ty of our employ­ees and their fam­i­lies. We relo­cat­ed our team mem­bers from Ukraine to safe regions across Europe with­in days. The HR team was in con­stant con­tact with every employ­ee, assist­ing them with any prob­lems. We paid wages in advance so every­one had cash in case of emer­gency and we cov­ered relo­ca­tion costs for our teams and their fam­i­lies.

While our Ukraine-based col­leagues were relo­cat­ing, the rest of our glob­al team was eager to help them in any way they could. Every­one took on extra work and respon­si­bil­i­ties to sup­port the crit­i­cal func­tions of our busi­ness and main­tain oper­a­tions with­out dis­rup­tion. Our focus then switched to estab­lish­ing a new research and devel­op­ment hub in War­saw, Poland, and help­ing our employ­ees to set­tle in.

We were already used to work­ing as a glob­al­ly dis­persed team, so com­mu­ni­ca­tion while work­ing remote­ly hasn’t been an issue. Like­wise, the appar­el indus­try recog­nis­es our val­ue and has con­tin­ued to sup­port us.

The biggest chal­lenge has undoubt­ed­ly been sup­port­ing the men­tal well­ness of our employ­ees. After all, even if you’re giv­en all the pos­si­ble assis­tance, hav­ing to flee your home and adjust to the new real­i­ty quick­ly is chal­leng­ing for many peo­ple

To take our minds off the tragedy in Ukraine, we’ve been hold­ing week­ly guid­ed med­i­ta­tion ses­sions, as well as month­ly Zoom par­ties that encour­age us to socialise, relax and have fun. We’ve also ral­lied the team around ani­mal adop­tion char­i­ty Glad­pet, a non-prof­it that 3DLOOK helped found.

Ukrain­ian busi­ness­es have main­tained pos­i­tive growth for the same rea­sons that the coun­try con­tin­ues to exist. Despite the year-long assault it has faced, from an army sup­pos­ed­ly far stronger and bet­ter equipped than our own, we’re moti­vat­ed, tal­ent­ed and inno­v­a­tive, and we’re capa­ble of build­ing some­thing great even when resources are lim­it­ed.

From our HR team, to finance, mar­ket­ing and cus­tomer suc­cess — every depart­ment and every employ­ee has had to take on new chal­lenges in the past year and all have stepped up when it real­ly mat­tered. It’s taught me that peo­ple real­ly are a com­pa­ny’s great­est asset. If you treat them right, offer trans­paren­cy and safe­ty, and assist them in achiev­ing their per­son­al goals and ambi­tions, they will go above and beyond for you when you need their sup­port most.

Our recent suc­cess, as well as that of oth­er star­tups, sends a strong mes­sage that, as Ukraini­ans, we can with­stand what­ev­er is thrown at us.

We start­ed our prepa­ra­tions at the end of 2021. Even back then, we under­stood that the sit­u­a­tion was very unsta­ble. Our first pri­or­i­ties were to devel­op a busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity and dis­as­ter recov­ery plan, relo­cate part of our team to Poland and increase our pres­ence in the US.

On 24 Feb­ru­ary, when the inva­sion start­ed, we quick­ly moved to ensure our Ukrain­ian team’s safe­ty. We had 42 peo­ple based there at the time and relo­cat­ed 30 to Poland dur­ing the first hours of the inva­sion. We also pro­vid­ed finan­cial sup­port and accom­mo­da­tion for all our Ukrain­ian staff, and set up an autonomous pow­er sup­ply and inter­net con­nec­tion at our deliv­ery cen­tre in Lviv.

As a cyber­se­cu­ri­ty busi­ness, we rely heav­i­ly on the inter­net. It was chal­leng­ing to pro­vide our Ukrain­ian employ­ees with a reli­able inter­net con­nec­tion in the office until Star­Link became avail­able to every­one. Pow­er out­ages also became a risk when Rus­sia changed their tac­tics to start attack­ing pow­er plants in Octo­ber and Novem­ber.

Men­tal­ly, it was a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge to nav­i­gate. Giv­en that the core of our team is Ukrain­ian, it was cru­cial to help every­one feel safe and con­fi­dent dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time.

Despite these dif­fi­cul­ties, our team demon­strat­ed their unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to serv­ing our cus­tomers. For many, their job pro­vid­ed a sense of nor­mal­cy amid the chaos. Despite the con­stant air raid alerts, our team worked tire­less­ly, with pas­sion and ded­i­ca­tion.

Ukrain­ian busi­ness­es are hard­ened by crises and are some­what used to deliv­er­ing great ser­vices and prod­ucts in spite of unsta­ble and chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic con­di­tions. Although Under­De­fense did­n’t reach its goal of dou­bling its growth due to mar­ket insta­bil­i­ty and the impact of war, we still man­aged to grow 1.5‑fold and have donat­ed over $500,000 to sup­port the Ukrain­ian armed forces. We remain opti­mistic for 2023.

I grew up in Ode­sa, Ukraine, and although I have now immi­grat­ed to the US, I still have mul­ti­ple busi­ness­es in the coun­try, where I am involved in oper­a­tions.

My ini­tial reac­tion to the Russ­ian inva­sion was one of shock and a nev­er-before-expe­ri­enced amount of pain for rel­a­tives, friends, sib­lings and the nation in gen­er­al.

In the days after war broke out, I flew to Roma­nia to help my team and fam­i­ly mem­bers relo­cate to safer places. All busi­ness process­es were put on pause until every­one was safe; it was two months before research and devel­op­ment was able to return to nor­mal.

The sup­port and adjust­ments we had to make were very indi­vid­ual to each team mem­ber. This ranged from emo­tion­al and finan­cial sup­port, all the way to pur­chas­ing train tick­ets, arrang­ing logis­tics and help­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers and pets get to safe­ty.

Every Ukrain­ian busi­ness that I was involved with saw its sales and pro­duc­tion drop tremen­dous­ly. We still don’t know the long-term effect and must con­tin­ue to learn how to nav­i­gate the chal­lenges each day brings.

The one thing the past 12 months has taught me about being a leader is to put emo­tions aside and act. The hope now is for the war to end soon­er rather than lat­er and for Ukraine to emerge as one of the most advanced coun­tries in Europe.

War is something one can’t be ready for, and the unfolding events seemed completely surreal. At the beginning of the invasion, we had a team of 350 people in Ukraine, so we had to urgently relocate them to safer regions in Western Europe and the EU.

In those early days, we asked ourselves if we should even go back to work. We sell online courses and education is not a top priority in wartime: were people ready to learn? Lecturers and students all had different issues – some had no electricity, others had no internet connection – so we tried to organise the processes accordingly. It was only two months after the outbreak of war that we felt we could resume our courses in graphic design and copywriting.

From March, we set up offices in the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania to ensure the team was safe and that key operations could continue running. Some employees decided to return to their hometowns in Ukraine. However, many cities have suffered prolonged power outages, making it extremely hard to maintain their daily lives.