Lessons From The Founders Scaling Their Startup In A War Zone
2 AM, we have an alarm system. We’re screaming like hell. This sound in the middle of the night signified a Russian missile had struck close by. It was February 28th, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine had started four days earlier. I woke up; we went to the bunker.
Happy birthday, Ramen! Roman's mom made a homemade cake, and it was kinda... yeah, happy birthday from the bunker. Yeah, and then the alarm system ended, and we went back to our beds. Unforgettable experience, I would say.
This is Stacy and Roman. They're the founders of Assamic, a platform that matches companies with designers for design tasks with a 24-hour turnaround. We have now more than 100 designers connected; most of them are from Ukraine. With an office in Ukraine’s capital city, Kiev, the two founders spent their time building their startup. A typical day was kind of like, uh, as a hustle for founders mainly. It was like spending your work time in the office, meeting new people, talking to people, having interviews.
We've been living nearby in Kiev downtown and had a kind of normal life. That all changed as 2021 came to a close, and Russia began moving military forces next to the Ukrainian border. Russia, though, is still sending more troops to the border. Stacy and Roman now had important considerations unfamiliar to most founders.
We would understand the risk of the region, but we've been living. We've been constantly talking with our people, with our designers about potential, uh, potential threats. We shared advice on how they can secure themselves in advance.
On February 24th, Russia attacked Ukraine, a free and democratic European country. These are among the darkest hours for Europe since the end of World War II. I work at 7:00 AM. My mom called; she said, "The war started! Go away to a safe place!" I just, I called Stacy and woke her up, and we started the evacuation of our people, of ourselves as well. We've been just moving out from Kiev because Kiev is being bombed. Even when we've been riding out of Kiev, we saw a Russian helicopter fly over us.
There is no safe place in Ukraine now, so we are kind of safe, but it’s hard to ignore because we still hear radars every day. Any place in Ukraine is not the safest place because there are threats of missile attacks. We didn’t expect this full massive-scale invasion, so it was a surprise for us. Even we’ve been preparing for some escalation.
Once the two founders found safety for themselves, their concerns and focus shifted to the Assamic team. To be honest, the first days were so much about panic and stress for the people who were denying the reality. It was hard to deal with everything that was going on because it was like living a horror movie or a dream. But for us, having a plan in advance just helped us to focus and execute.
It was more like a robot mode, when you’re just executing step by step. You know what to do, you know what funds you need, and things like that. The first month for me was really intensive. We've been helping everyone, so no time to be depressed or to feel sad or something like that. You’re just active; you’re executing.
Executing this emergency plan was key to helping those that needed it most, but the emotional toll and trauma exposed itself once that initial hard work was over. For me, the hardest part was when the photos from Bucha were released. What I had was a week of actually staring at the wall. It was the week where it was hard for me to focus; I was staring most of the time just at the wall, thinking my thoughts.
Those kinds of photos... it’s hard to explain because, you know, it’s not only photos. You know people from there; you know people who love their homes there. You know stories from there, so it’s kind of personal every time. This is what makes it hard; you just cannot be disconnected or be far away from that.
After these horrible photos were released, we discovered a lot of raping cases. We had a few girls, and one of them was in an occupied city. So, actually a few days straight, we've been thinking how to hide her, what instructions we should provide her, what her relatives...