Anton Mishchenko | 3 reasons I closed an office in London and opened one in Ukraine

Good afternoon, distinguished crowd. I'm Anton Mishchenko, co-founder of YouTeam. I closed my office in London and moved to Ukraine. Let me share tips on working with Ukrainian engineers and suppliers. I'm a classically trained musician and a Y Combinator graduate. YouTeam is like Booking.com for IT outsourcing: find top suppliers, pick the best people, and manage everything through the platform. Why Ukraine? First, dramatic positive change: $290 million invested in 2018, 19% annual growth in IT exports, projected $1 billion in services sold in 2019. Second, lower costs: competitive salaries, cheaper office space, efficiency. Third, top talent: 26% annual talent pool growth, 160% growth in IT graduates, 16,000 IT graduates per year; Ukraine was the top sourcing destination in 2017. Challenges include judiciary, local market dynamics, and communication skills. My advice: go there to understand the market, deploy your own people, vet suppliers and engineers. Communication is key; ensure people can communicate effectively. For remote teams, avoid micromanagement, build trust, and align with company culture. I'm here to answer questions.

That's how you structure it. There are ways that you can protect your source code. Relying on the emerging justice reform system, which is still in its nascent stages, will be a challenge. They don't understand the issues. There's going to be a new intellectual property court that is being set up specifically for this issue.

So after we started, we've always aimed at startups as our target audience. That's a tribe we know how to operate and think. We know exactly how to help them. As we grow, we've moved from seed-level startups to serious Series A companies. The decision to outsource at seed level is based on immediate need to save money. At the serious level, it's a strategic decision to outsource or set up a remote team, meaning they're more committed. Technically, it's still startups.