Entrepreneurship In Ukraine | How It Really Started – Yana Matviychuk’s Story
People often ask where everything began — the business, the humanitarian work, the advocacy. They expect a glamorous story. I always tell the truth: it started with $300 and a stubborn refusal to depend on anyone but myself.
Back in 2004, I wasn’t dreaming of becoming a CEO. I simply wanted to create something that wouldn’t collapse every time the government changed its mind. I didn’t have mentors. And I didn’t have investors. What I did have was curiosity, discipline, and the belief that responsibility leads to freedom.
That belief carried me through every challenge — including the ones I could never have anticipated.
You can manage a company for 18 years, but nothing prepares you for a full-scale invasion.
When the war began, everything I knew about leadership, teamwork, and decision-making suddenly became essential. Not for business success — but for survival.
Listen more in Sharon Stevenson’s Podcast.
Self-Employment as a Form of Defense
I’ve always believed — and will always repeat — that economic independence is a weapon.
A country whose people can think and act freely will always be stronger than a country that controls its citizens’ lives. This became painfully clear in the first weeks of the invasion.
While government institutions tried to reorganize under bombardment, entrepreneurs simply acted.
- IT teams restored broken communication lines.
- Small manufacturers started producing armor plates, medical equipment, and drone components.
- People with zero military background learned how to solder electronics, repair vehicles, and build shelters.
A wedding photographer I know in Kharkiv grabbed his filming drone and began tracking Russian convoys, passing the coordinates to the military. That single act saved lives.
This is how innovation happens — quietly, urgently, because it must.
When ammunition ran low, engineers in garages found ways to convert racing drones into FPV weapons. Today everyone talks about them. Back then, it was five or six people around a table doing the impossible.
This is what a free society looks like under pressure.
Why Ukraine Must Stay a Free-Market Country
For years, Ukraine struggled with old habits: excessive regulation, monopolies, fear of individual initiative. The war erased these illusions.
We no longer debate whether Ukraine should be a free-market economy.
The question now is simple: do we want to survive?
A modern state that protects its citizens must:
- Keep taxes low enough for businesses to breathe.
- Stop restricting private initiatives that outperform state structures.
- Open markets instead of closing them.
- Fight monopolies instead of protecting them.
The success of Diia.City proved this approach works. When many predicted our tech sector would collapse, it grew instead. Thousands of engineers stayed in Ukraine, kept working, volunteered, and supported the army.
Freedom is not an ideology.
Freedom is a tool.
And during war, it becomes the strongest pillar of resilience.
Blackout caused by russia during an event for Ukrainian entrepreneurs
Women Are Holding the Country Together
People often ask how Ukrainian women “adapted” to wartime life.
We didn’t adapt.
We responded.
Women were the first to organize evacuation routes, opened hundreds of volunteer centers, took over supply logistics when local governments were overwhelmed, joined the Armed Forces in record numbers.
Then something quietly revolutionary happened:
in 2024, 61% of all new businesses in Ukraine were founded by women.
Through Women’s Aid International, I meet women every week who lost their homes, their cities — sometimes their entire previous lives — yet choose to start again.
We help them learn new professions, launch small businesses, regain stability, and rebuild their communities.
These are not just inspiring stories.
They are proof that Ukraine’s recovery will be led by women.
Quiet.
Confident.
Persistent.
Listen more in Sharon Stevenson’s Podcast.
