Andriy Dovbenko is the founder and principal of UK-Ukraine TechExchange, an organisation conceived in 2023 to build important bridges between the UK and Ukrainian tech ecosystems.
The non-profit organisation connects start-ups operating in defence and agricultural sectors with capital and individuals who can get technologies to market faster via in-field testing.
It has an extensive network of entrepreneurs, investors, government officials and lawyers to finance, open doors and create pathways to make important international collaborations possible.
In this week’s Founder in Five Q&A, Dovbenko discusses two sage pieces of advice he received that have always steered him in the right direction, a common mistake founders make and how his early starts are a key part of his routine.
Which company’s growth story are you most impressed with?
Datadog immediately comes to mind due to its impeccable market timing and customer model.
Founded over a decade ago, the business began as a basic cloud monitoring service. It quickly transformed into the leading observability platform for Big Tech players such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
Datadog’s success comes down to an excellent combination of perfect product-market fit (relating to the advent of cloud adoption), a smart subscription-based model, and a developer-first approach to tools.
What advice would you give to a first-time founder?
Two pieces of advice that have never steered me wrong: listen more than you talk and acknowledge and learn quickly from your mistakes.
It’s vital to understand the world around you, whether that’s your peers, customers, or competitors. Hear what they have to say and see how that can be applied to your business.
Most founders struggle with the second bit of advice, but adjusting your behaviour according to any mistakes or missteps is essential for sustainable growth.
Failure is part of being a founder, but you can’t make the same mistakes repeatedly and expect different results. Simply put, a first-time founder must listen and learn to grow.
What’s a common mistake that you see founders make?
Unfortunately, a lack of deep customer understanding is all too prevalent within the founder community. Many founders build businesses based on assumptions rather than actual market needs, which leads to product-market fit issues right from the offset.
Identifying a problem and creating the appropriate solution is a much easier sell – to both customers and investors – rather than the other way around.
Do you have a productivity hack?
I wake up at 5 am every day, which has greatly improved my productivity and work-life balance. It’s a simple hack, but starting my day earlier means that I don’t have to compromise on either my private life or business or charity work.
Those extra hours in the morning mean I have more time to spend with my family while also ensuring the success of my business endeavours and my non-profit organisation.
I’m also fortunate enough to make time to actively support the Ukrainian Armed Forces through charity foundations. My days are people-focused, and getting up a bit earlier allows me to spend more time doing what matters most to me.
What’s the most misunderstood technology?
Electronic warfare (EW) and drones are both misunderstood and underappreciated technologies.
One company working to protect against weaponised drones is Kvertus, which is also part of the TechExchange cohort.
Earlier this year, it launched a mega defence project, Atlas, to create an advanced anti-drone “wall” spanning the entire Ukrainian frontline.
This project will harness EW and electronic reconnaissance technologies to detect and disable incoming enemy drones, saving the lives of countless soldiers and civilians while protecting critical infrastructure from the escalating threat of unmanned aerial vehicles.
On the other side of this, is the use of drones for humanitarian purposes. Viewing this defence tech as crucial to delivering humanitarian aid would not only make importing and exporting drones easier but would also enable greater investment in the sector.
In our recent whitepaper exploring the role of technology in demining Ukraine, experts found that AI-enhanced drone technology can reduce this process from 100 years to 10.
A reframing of drones as a dual-use technology would mean we could effectively and efficiently remove explosive remnants of war from the land; making it safe for people to use and restore it for agriculture.
The post UK-Ukraine TechExchange founder: Understand the world around you appeared first on UKTN.
