Just 7 days before russia rolled out a full-scale war, we at KindGeek celebrated 7 years.
Through these seven years, we’ve worked hard and celebrated many wins along the way.
What’s invigorating is that our clients were able to raise almost $1B of investments in total with our software development and advisory services.
The war hit suddenly, but KindGeek and all Ukrainian tech companies were prepared and showed the whole world fantastic tech resilience.
In this article, we’ll take a look at Ukraine’s tech resilience through the example of KindGeek, a patriotic software development company from Lviv, western Ukraine.
Our primary national position
Back in 2015, on February 17th, at the time when russia annexed Crimea and intervened in Ukrainian Donbas, two young professionals, Yuriy Gnatyk and Anton Skrypnyk, gathered in Kyiv and conceived the idea of what we all know now as KindGeek.
From then on, they knew the company would stand firm in its national convictions, with Ukrainian values deeply rooted in its heart.
Throughout all seven years, we’ve never partnered with businesses from russia or somehow related to it.
This year, given the new reality, we are proud to have chosen the pro-Ukrainian path from the very beginning.
Working during wartime
Over those 7 years, KindGeek has grown into a team of 180 geeks and even during wartime continues to expand across all areas of the company.
We’ve successfully adapted to the new reality, retained all the projects, kept all the deadlines, and never lost sight of our primary goal — to be a platform for positive change for our clients and partners.
In KindGeek, we haven’t stopped working for a day, though the first few days were tricky in terms of efficiency, as the whole country was in shock. Since March, most of our employees, 95%, have returned to their regular workflow.
From the very beginning, we’ve organized mental health support and first aid training, redefined the business contingency plans, and enhanced cybersecurity measures.
Originally headquartered in Lviv, western Ukraine, where everything is calmer, we helped our employees from other regions with relocation to safer areas or abroad.
Quick fact: Earlier the third city in terms of technology, now Lviv has become Ukraine’s central tech hub and chief relocation point for many companies.
KindGeek managers also ran a communication campaign with the customers to discuss the circumstances of each particular project. Due to well-coordinated cross-departments work and careful planning, we’ve managed to keep up with the deadlines and project releases.
What our clients say
Sean le Tissier, a British entrepreneur and founder of Coffee King, noticed that the Ukrainian team managed to keep up to speed and get one step closer to the product release.
“The team has grown from a KindGeek point of view, productivity is up, and we’re at the critical mass point of launch. There are no issues. I am very happy with everything, and KindGeek managed very well, considering the circumstances.”
Communication within the project teams has also become much more frequent and personal. Joe Postle, Head of Product at Jaja Finance, a British neobank, mentioned some of the positive effects the critical conditions had on his project team.
“I feel like the team is actually closer now, after the last few months. I also feel like I know people more personally than I do just professionally, which is really nice.”
Aivars Belis, CTO of DECTA UK, a payment processing company, noted that the partnership has been successful so far and does not think that the current situation will hinder further cooperation.
“That political situation around, I think it wouldn’t stop and will not stop us from using KindGeek as a partner since we love what we do, we love our team, and our partnership has been great so far. I don’t want to change that, and we definitely will find a way to continue that in even harder situations.”
Economic frontline, volunteering, and other initiatives
Like all Ukrainian tech businesses, KindGeek supports the homeland’s economy, we diligently pay taxes and transfer funds from the company and from the employees to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Several of our employees have decided to donate % of their salaries to the needs of our army.
In May, KindGeek donated $80,000k to the ComeBackAlive, a Ukrainian charity fund.
“Yuriy and his team are true professionals. They also actively support the Ukrainian Armed Forces. For example, they recently donated $80k to ComeBackAlive. We bought night vision devices”
Also, all the revenue earned on state holidays, KindGeek transfers to charity funds. For example, the revenue earned on Ukraine’s independence day, $15 000, we’ve transferred to Serhiy Prytula’s charity fund.
Six months into the war, KindGeek, its employees, founders, and partners have transferred more than $1 000 000 for Ukraine’s defense capability.
Our geeks are also actively involved in volunteer work. Some of them launched their own initiatives, while others joined those that already existed — from fundraising organizations to mental health support hotlines.
We at KindGeek are always up for charity initiatives to support our homeland.
In September, we at KindGeek along with a few other IT companies held a charitable event — Parking Sale, where we all managed to collect 180 000 UAH in total for the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Final thoughts
Tech businesses in Ukraine continue to work, now even with more zeal and passion, as we realize that every dollar paid by the clients and received here in Ukraine makes us one step closer to victory.
Currently, we’ve signed several projects, despite the war we are growing and hiring more geeks. We have available resources as well, and we can start new projects and are open to cooperation.
For us at KindGeek, support from our clients has been invaluable: not only did we not lose or postpone any project, but also many of our current and former clients donated to Ukrainian charity funds and hosted Ukrainians in their homes abroad.
Moreover, we’re pleased to receive messages of support from potential clients.
We actively continue to network with other leaders and participate in several tech conferences and events all across the globe.
Also, just recently our team got back from the world’s largest tech event Web Summit 2022, in Lisbon. It was an amazing opportunity to meet and engage with other tech leaders.
Very soon, we’ll share with you some of our insights from this year’s Web Summit, so stay tuned and #standwithUkraine.
