On social media, the audience took his words ambiguously: some criticized the government for shifting the responsibility for providing drones to ordinary citizens, while others, on the contrary, supported the idea and saw it as another way to support the army.

AIN.Capital spoke to three Ukrainians who had completed the People’s FPV course and asked them about the specifics of assembling drones at home.

Illia Bondar, Photographer

Illia confessed, “I never held a soldering iron in my hand; however, I found the idea of hand-crafted drones quite interesting.” So, he signed up for Victory Drones training and had to wait a month to finally participate because so many people were willing to learn this. About 500 attendees visited online training sessions. The complete course consists of seven lessons: a lecture + a Q&A session each.

“Maybe that makes this course so valuable compared to YouTube videos: You can ask any question, even the stupidest ones. Because the stupidest questions are much better than the stupidest failures.”

One session lasts over three hours. According to Illia, students can get feedback and continue communicating with teachers even after the end of training. All learning videos stay available in Google Classroom, so you can watch them anytime while assembling a drone.

Illia got components for his first drone in Ukraine because he didn’t want to wait for delivery from China despite better prices. “The first training alumni created high demand for pieces. So, the second wave got some struggles,” he recalled. The first drone-crafting set cost Illia about ₴16,000.

Nowadays, he orders 10 to 15 sets in China for $230–260 per unit. He works not alone. Some first and second-wave alumni joined Illia. The team currently has three members spending two hours daily after work on their new hobby. Illia emphasizes that the course is a must before starting to craft drones because soldering a piece also requires knowing how to set up drone software and where to test it.

“An experienced hand can assemble up to four drones daily. I can craft now two or three things. The assembly is only one part of the process. You must also fill it with software, test it, and set it up. The assembly feels like a Lego for adults.”

“A low-quality drone will never get to the army.”

The Victory Drones team provides the participants with a list of components and software for drones at the beginning of the course. The People’s FPV trainers developed it in advance. All trainees have to install the software in a UAV. It is the basic setup. A check follows—the drone must have no gaps; the engines must rotate in the right direction. While soldering, participants send pictures of their work to a trainer who can check for mistakes. If any, the teacher will explain to the student what to fix and how.

After a pre-check, Illia packed and gave the drone to Victory Drones. They tested and re-checked it. According to Illia, improperly assembled UAVs don’t even reach a test stage. So there’s no chance it would appear at the frontline. “If the assembly was successful, though, and the item passed the Victory Drones’s test, it goes to an actual combat unit without naming it due to obvious reasons,” said Illia. However, the manufacturer gets feedback and photographs from soldiers after receiving them.

“During the People’s FPV training, I didn’t care much where exactly they sent my drone. My training was free of charge. So, the product I created is a sign of my gratitude to the authors of the course. I knew it would get to the frontline.”

Illia also shared information about the Social Drone initiative by KazhanFLY, where handmade drones are received and tested. You may indicate the desired destination for a UAV. And they will deliver it accordingly after checking.

“After manufacturing some drones, your contact list grows, including UAV pilots. Then you work on specific requests for a specific military unit.”

Cost of equipment

Regarding Facebook posts about a starting equipment set that should cost you about ₴6,000–8,000, Illia seems not to believe that. He is sure a ₴200 AliExpress soldering iron would be fine for crafting one or two drones for the project. Then, you give another hundred hryvnia for a solder. “A silicone mat also would be nice, but a flat table is just perfect for soldering on,” Illia said. In total, the initial expenditure is about ₴1,500.

Later, however, Illia bought a better soldering iron for more UAVs since he had ordered 15 sets of components. “The 200-hryvnia tool is no longer comfortable for large numbers, but it’s all about the comfort of welding it,” he added.

“I am not a professional yet and have only two soldering irons: the first was from China and the second one I bought later. But my first product still has no quality claims. So I don’t see the problems they write on Facebook about.”

The most difficult is to find a proper video transmitter (VTX) with a chip inside.

They at People’s FPV provide you with software for a specific VTX. Regarding additional drone equipment (remote controls, land stations, glasses), Illia remarks you can buy it to check the video connection. But it is not a must when you are going to craft only a few drones.

Today, Illia plans to learn UAV testing to skip the pre-check stage. However, it’s not simple because you should load your flying machine and test it at maximum capacity. A drone must be safe to fly over the positions of Ukrainian fighters before targeting enemies. Illia has advice for beginners:

“Don’t listen to those who criticize the process they don’t understand. Yes, there might be useful remarks. But often, people refuse to try something after reading that. And it is strange when our warriors lack FPVs. I agree with those who say it is not a thing for anyone and requires checking. Someone can think, ‘OK, I can craft something that will fly. Something is better than nothing.’ But no, it won’t work in that way. You need to consider your skills. If you feel talented in this, why not? And it is the right time now when any help is vital.”

Ivan, Network Specialist

Ivan asked not to mention his last name in the article. His post about drone set fundraising exploded with a great interest in media he wasn’t ready for. Although, he agreed to speak with AIN.UA anonymously.

Ivan applied for the Victory Drones course about an hour after he saw the announcement, passed all the checks and security issues, and got a confirmation in October 2023.

The course had a positive impact. He never thought free training could be such a high quality. At every stage, we got hints and advice on what to fix and how, like we were “fifth-grade students”—which cable to solder, how it should look, what other issues might be there, and how to solve them, etc.

“I did not do much of soldering, tried only a few times, and it was years ago. Then I watched a video, tried again, and made it.”

Ivan got a degree in construction, but now he works with computer networks. He’s always been more in programming than engineering. The guy started assembling a drone during the course and finished it right after.

Ivan got all the parts in Ukraine to skip waiting time and supposedly paid only a few thousand hryvnia more. The purchases started before the training following Victory Drones’s recommendation list. Some parts were fast to get but became rare then, and something was bought by mistake, for example, a wrong-angle antenna or a wrong-direction fan. But those were the cheapest articles in the list—200 to 400 hryvnia.

“The first UAV cost me about ₴17,000. I spent another ₴4,000 on tools, and it was very cheap because my friend solderer made me a special offer. So, they should cost a bit more.”

Soldering appeared to be the most complicated part of the process—you had to pay attention to material parameters, temperature, and skill. Ivan managed to pass the check only with his second drone.

After performing a self-check, he had to wait another month for independent re-checking of his drone. Ivan and others got clear instructions that it was all about safety. “There were some logistics issues by Victory Drones after I filled out the delivery form, but we all found it OK,” he added.

The drones went through a two-stage certification. Ivan got his first certificate after the course and passed the test. The second certificate was for assembling a drone. After testing, confirmation followed if it works, flies, and lacks issues. While waiting for a verdict, Ivan ordered the components for the second product. He thought if the first outcome would be not satisfying, he would consider his mistakes to improve the next one. Fortunately, feedback from the field was positive.

After that, he decided to start a new fundraising for more parts and involve more friends since drone assembly doesn’t require much time. Now, he simultaneously puts two drones together and possesses a part of the components for six more.

Ivan noticed a shortage of some spare parts. And this is where the speculation begins.

“Look at video transmitters, for example. As our training started, I could buy them in Ukraine for 2,500 hryvnia. And I thought it was too much. Now, they cost up to 6K in Ukraine. So, the price has grown more than two times. And it’s available in China for about 5,000.”

Ivan thinks that raising prices to high demand and supply shortages is a standard practice of resellers. He looks for suppliers in different groups. He follows recommendations of experienced professionals regarding marketplaces or proven merchants. One shop’s specialty is drones, and the other is IT parts. Alternatively, you can search on Prom.ua, AliExpress, or multiple flea market Telegram channels.

Drone settings

From Ivan’s POV, a great advantage of Victory Drones training is providing ready-to-install software and a list of components. Correspondingly, there is no need to waste time learning all the details and setting nuances. Everything that a participant must do is to assemble a frame, solder the components together, and install the software file.

Ivan is going to give Victory Drones all the drones he assembles. But in the future, he will look for other options to hand over handmade UAVs to friends and buddies in the fields after the check. “It can be possible only when I am 100% sure in my drones.

So, testing is crucial, too,” Ivan added. The engineer considers it another plus of this project because, currently, civilians are not allowed to fly drones in Ukraine. With such initiatives as Victory Drones, people may test their UAVs on an appropriate testing ground.

“The Victory Drones initiative is outstanding. You can give them your handmade drone for a test, and if there is any issue, they will fix it instantly and won’t send it back to you.”

After the test, a military drone operator instructed Ivan about cable installation. His advice is,

“Don’t assemble drones for fun. Please do understand that it is not about the quantity. Pay attention to the quality and be careful about what you do so that your product has a specific purpose. It must fly and not just be assembled.”

Artem Melnyk, Software Developer

Since he works in IT, Artem is fond of technology. Before the full-scale Russian invasion, he was interested in quadcopters and could fly them. However, the man never assembled them. In November, he signed up for the People’s FPV course. It was too late for the first wave, so they added him to the waiting list. All applicants were verified. “Wrong people” might not attend this kind of training. It started in three weeks. Artem shares his insights:

“It was cool and clear. There was a lot of structured information. I used to watch different videos online, for instance, on the E-Drone YouTube channel. I liked their videos, too. But Victory Drones explained and chewed over all the details and answered all the questions.”

A teacher and a mentor hosted the lessons. The first told the information and the second read questions from the chat.

Artem started his first drone assembly right after the end of training. But then, the component shortage began. He believes it was because the training got hyped. So, he had to order the pieces in China. The package came in late December. However, Artem successfully mounted his first UAV and sent it for testing. All the parts cost him about 9,000 hryvnia.

Fortunately for Artem, it was the sale season, and the USD to UAH exchange rate was better. Now, drone components cost ₴13,000–14,000. In addition, you will need a battery to test the thing. This piece is worth ₴2.5K in Ukraine.

Some things are not worth saving on

Artem says some parts are not worth saving on because whether a drone will fly depends on that very component. The most important is not to let it fall on the heads of the soldiers piloting it. Pay attention to the frame. It must be balanced and equal to all beams. It also must be robust (a 7-inch UAV) to carry a 1.5-kg weight. The beams get a high load, lifting four engines. If made of low-quality materials, they can crack.

“Victory Drones and Social Drone recommend carbon frames. Why carbon? It is light and robust. Alternatively, you can use textolite plates, different kinds of plastic, or aluminum.”

The frame also protects against vibrations that can interfere with the video connection. Artem prefers the MARK4 7-inch carbon frames for their space for components, convenience, and solidity, similar to the Apex models recommended by Victory Drones. MARK4’s price is $15 to $22.

Artem also doesn’t recommend to save on engines. The FPV drones basically are not designed to carry a heavy weight, so the engines must be high-quality ones. Emex is gold for Artem. A four-engine set costs about $70; there are cheaper alternatives as well, for example, a $50 one from Yashida. “They are well-tested and show only a little share of refuse. There are also expensive options—Mamba, Flash Hobby, or Brotherhoods.”

Artem also emphasized the importance of video chips. There are supply shortages both in China and Ukraine, and it has become harder to find reliable video transmitters. The prices have doubled. And Chinese resellers take advantage of the situation.

They accept as many orders as possible but deliver nothing, waiting till the end of shortage and keeping the money “frozen.” The 2.5W Rush Max VTX is a perfect example. Recently, it was available in China for $60. But now it doesn’t even for over $100.

“Military likes volunteer drones.”

Artem stated he didn’t get any feedback from militants yet, “Maybe it is because my package got to them only two weeks ago. It’s not that long.” He’s not going to stop, however.

“After assembling my first drone during the Victory Drones training, I crafted four more. Then, I ran a fundraising campaign on Instagram and FB and got funds for ten more. I ordered them on January 8, so they are coming from China now. And I won’t stop on this.”

Artem told of a girl whose father is serving now has contacted him. Recently, he changed his profession to the FPV drone pilot, and his unit needs tons of them.

“The girl said the drones from the state are low-quality ones. So low like only 6 of 10 are working. Half of them either are not completely set up or have issues. Military likes volunteer drones as they are well-tested and of higher quality.”

She offered cooperation, and he didn’t refuse. So, the drones he made go to her father through the Social Drone initiative. Artem admitted so many requests from people needing drones after he started raising funds. Several charity organizations also contacted Artem for consulting.

He underlined the importance of proper drone soldering and cable-laying so that the soldiers could easily add an explosive in the field. Usually, it gets done with sticky tape and cable ties. Don’t overpressure the cables and don’t let the thing vibrate.

Also ask military guys about their needs, equipment, and software when crafting drones for someone. They are not universal; they work with different communication protocols, frequencies, VTX capacity, etc.

“Victory Drones prescribed the use of 5.8 GHz for video transmitters. But you can also find 1.2 GHz at the frontline, I believe. They work in smaller distances, but it also has fewer obstacles since fewer EW are used on this frequency,” Artem concluded.

He agrees that drone assembly is not for everybody. But everyone can learn how to do it. The financial component is also vital. The person should afford to buy UAV components. Yes, fundraising is a decent option. However, you must be sure of your drone-assembler skills.

“You are responsible for money you got from people, so you must be sure you convert it into a real drone.”

Meanwhile, the startup co-founded by Yev has already raised over $1 million in investment: about $100,000 from friends and family, $120,000 from TechStars, then another $600,000 from the Eberg Capital and IA Ventures investment companies, who recently backed the project with another $300,000.

In this interview with the AIN.Capital editor, Yev shared how he became a developer, left Ukraine shortly before the full-scale invasion, why he didn’t like living in the US, and how TechStars changed his life.

I was good at only two subjects—English and math.

And, as in any typical Ukrainian family, if a child is good at English and math, they go into IT. I’ve had a computer since I was six and loved playing games, so I was all for it.

I grew up in Chyhyryn district, Cherkasy region. So, after the 9th grade, I studied software engineering at the Cherkasy State Business College. My parents were stringent, so I went wild when I left the house. On campus, I spent all my time playing games and doing anything but studying.

I completely wasted the first two years and realized that this was not the life I wanted. So, I started actively learning programming. In about six months, I seemed to become the best student in the class.

After the second year, we had to have an internship. Many people faked it, but I did it for real to take advantage of the opportunity. I was a trainee at Interlink, an IT company. It’s a local company, also known as Software Planet Group. They have offices in the US and Lviv, with about 100 employees, so it’s relatively small.

I did the internship there. Everything went very well—we made our first commercial application. And I was invited for an internship. I was the youngest there—I turned 18 on the first day of the internship and was the first to be hired after that.

The company specialized in full-stack development, so I became a full-stack developer.

I worked full-time for the next two years. In college, those who worked in their specialty were allowed to skip lessons. We had to pass the tests only. I did not continue my studies after college, so I have only a secondary education.

When I was 19, I already had a year of experience as a programmer, and… I was burnt out. I realized I could keep living the way I was—in 20 years, I would have a $5,000 salary and secure my life. I got bored.

I started reading self-development books like Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and actively learning English. And when you learn English, you have to read English literature. This immersed me in the world of entrepreneurship, startups, and the American Dream, all that stuff. I was inspired by Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, who was at the peak of his popularity (before he bought Twitter).

I was working as a programmer and wanted to transition smoothly to product development.

I talked to my managers at work, and they recommended that I become a PM. I took a few courses, but our company didn’t need PMs so much. I worked on one project but was given minimal competencies and had no room to grow. There was a stage when I had a lot of business ideas. I proposed many different changes, but the company rejected them all.

I started working on my thoughts while still working at my job. It was always an iterative process: I’d come up with a platform, make a document, describe it, find a team, and… drop it all. Then, I’d develop a new idea, find a team, launch a small website, and drop it all. There were about six such cycles before I quit and decided to engage in my projects fully.

I was 20 years old. As a person who is 90% self-taught, I saw that what is taught in colleges in IT specialization is not always relevant. It was the only problem I saw then, and I thought I could solve it for all because I had solved it for myself.

I wanted to create a decentralized education system for IT professionals. The idea was to allow people who have learned without a university to get a full-fledged certification without going to university. That is, if you have read 50 books, you know more than people who have graduated from university. So why aren’t they recognized like people with diplomas?

I moved to Kyiv, found a co-founder, and we worked on it for about six months.

As a result, I realized that I was a great programmer but a lousy businessman.

I managed to build and launch the platform but couldn’t sell it or organize marketing. I ran out of money, returned to my hometown, and started freelancing to save money and come back to this idea.

I managed to find a project pretty quickly. I knew that the company I was working for was selling us for $50/h, and I realized that I could easily bid $30/h, which would be a competitive rate.

A gambling startup approached me. I didn’t want to work in gambling but couldn’t refuse, so I asked for more money. It would be fine if they refused, but I would work a little and earn some extra cash if they agreed.

And they agreed.

That was Matt and Dan, my future Scrimmage co-founders.

They turned out to be very cool. They studied at the University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy League, and then worked on Wall Street as business analysts. They developed a framework that helped them bet on sports and win. They managed to make 40% profit annually, which is really cool. So they decided to create their own startup: something like a sports betting investment fund. They wanted to collect investors’ money and multiply it by investing in sports betting. To do this, they needed an IT platform.

They raised about $100,000 from their relatives and started looking for programmers who could do it all. Before me, they had 32 different people who coded something and left. I became their first full-time IT person.

I started pushing the project towards web3 because it was all the rage at the time. But it didn’t work out with web3. Therefore, we pivoted again and turned to the Gamification Loyalty Program. We have packaged our application in a B2B White Label Solution that betting companies can integrate into their own to make a loyalty program for customers. We have already launched the first integration, and we need at least 15 more or an integration with a top player to attract a seed round of $1-2 million. But in the future, we plan to go beyond gambling and enter other branches to democratize loyalty programs for all businesses. First of all, e-commerce.

I offered to become a co-owner and CTO.

I read somewhere that this is an ideal option for people like me: first, become a co-founder in someone else’s startup, gain experience, and then start something of your own.

At Scrimmage, I was a back-end developer at first, then I started working on the front-end, took on more responsibility, and became a kind of team lead. At some point, I was already deciding whom to fire, whom to hire, and how to develop the product.

Matt and Dan agreed, gave me a share of the company, and cut my salary. That’s how I became a co-founder and CTO at Scrimmage.

At that time, there was already news that Russia was gathering troops around Ukraine. No one was somehow worried about this in Ukraine, but they were already preparing for World War III in America.

And so, one Friday night, when I was in Kyiv smoking a hookah and programming, I got a text from Matt. “You are our Co-Founder. We can’t risk so much. Grab your bags and come to us.”

On Saturday, I was on my way to Poland. My classmate, with whom I had spent the first two years at college, lived in Poznan. He sheltered me for a while.

In the winter, we got accepted to TechStars.

I wanted to get there very much, but with American visas, everything is very, very complicated. We were supposed to start the program in three months, but there was a 6-month queue to get an appointment at the US Embassy in Poland. I decided to look for a place with no queues. I read that there was an excellent embassy in Switzerland.

And so I took a train, but instead of getting to Zurich, I somehow accidentally joined the Ukrainian refugees and went with them to Berlin.

They just asked me, “Are you from Ukraine?” I said, “Yeap.” And they said, “Go there.”

So, I ended up first in one refugee camp and then moved to another in a small town near Zurich. They settled me with 20-30 others and were even ready to give me a grant at a local university that covered my educational and living expenses. But I refused. The lady who organized it said I was the dumbest guy she had ever met.

While deciding which embassy to go to, I got very sick. I was ill for ten days; it was awful, and all I wanted was to return home.

Disappointed, I returned to Poland and started going to a local coworking because working from my classmate’s house was inconvenient. There, I met Vira, a refugee who also dreamed of moving to the United States and knew some Ukrainians got there through Mexico.

I decided to try to cross the US border from Mexico with her.

At first, I had doubts because there was no guarantee of success, and it’s not a very official way, although you don’t have to climb any fences, as Americans often imagine.

My co-founders were terrified: They were afraid that I would be involved in some drug cartel, and they would never see me again. But there were no other options.

We traveled to Mexico through Poland, Portugal, and Spain. Mexico was not as scary as my co-founders had imagined. In addition, people had already organized a camp for Ukrainian refugees who’d like to go to the United States. We joined them, signed up for a digital queue, spent the night in a hotel, and crossed the border the next day.

Everything was fine. They didn’t ask for anything, just my passport. So simple. I could not believe I would pass, but it was not very popular then. Only a few did it so.

It seemed like my dream had come true. I had been wanting to get to the US for so long!

But America disappointed me.

I rushed to Texas. My co-founders live near Austin. So I just bought a ticket and flew to them. But I didn’t like it in Texas—it was very hot, impossible to breathe.

When the time came for TechStars, we moved to Indiana (the program takes place in the state capital, Indianapolis). The accelerator invested $120,000 in us, and we wanted to save money, so we rented a place far from the city center.

It turned out that our neighborhood was a local ghetto. And one beautiful Saturday night, I was robbed.

My co-founders worked in a coworking space. I wanted to go for groceries on my bike. Right after leaving the block, a car stopped in my way, and several black men got out. One of them had a gun. They took my backpack with my passport and phone and left me without documents in the United States.

Later, I realized that living in the USA is too expensive. In my first startup, I had a co-founder from India. While we were still working together, we started dating online. However, there was little chance to meet for real—she was in India, I was in Ukraine, so we broke up. But she suddenly came to Los Angeles in the fall of 2022 to study at a college. We met again in Los Angeles. I wanted to be with her. So we started living together.

The rented apartment in Los Angeles was the most expensive in my life. We paid $2600 a month plus about $500 for utilities. We lived there for three months and realized that we couldn’t afford it. She came from a low-income family, and I had only a minimum founder’s salary of $2000.

She decided to leave the college and go home. I decided to go with her. But there was a problem.

My passport was missing, and I couldn’t leave the United States.

The only agency that could restore it for me was in San Francisco, so I decided to live in California for a while to visit Silicon Valley.

I had to live there for six months until I got my new ID. So, I decided to take everything I could from the Valley. I took courses at Stanford, visited Hacker House, attended several networking events with entrepreneurs, joined a community, and visited Mountain View. It was cool but expensive. Living in the US is very cool, but only when you have reached a certain level of financial independence.

After moving to India, our investments increased, and so my salary did. My girlfriend and I got engaged, and now we live in India. $2000 per month is enough to cover all our family expenses.

I don’t like India, it’s a terrible country.

The food here is delicious, but the streets are a mess. Everything is dirty; there are no sidewalks. For the first few months, I thought I would get hit by a car—there are simply no rules here. You show your hand to cross the street and… run.

Also, cows are a problem here. They are sacred animals. You can’t kill them. But people keep them as long as they give milk. When a cow gets old, they let it into the wild, which is why stray cows roam the streets in India.

I want to return to Cherkasy.

After joining Scrimmage, I hired my friends to the team. We now have four programmers. All of them are Ukrainians. Three of them are from Cherkasy, including me, and a junior girl is from Chernihiv.

I dream of an office in Cherkasy, on the bank of the Dnipro River. As soon as the war is over, I will return. Ukraine is the best country I have ever visited.

I’ve come a long way. I’m 22 now, and I’m a CTO at the US startup. And although I work full-time at Scrimmage, I still dream of changing the education system in Ukraine. I want Ukraine to be among the top ten economies in the world by the time I die. I have several projects that I am working on for this very purpose. For example, I share my experience in the tech industry on Kavun UA and help people find co-founders in the US market. I hope there will be more people who will not just code but also build startups in Ukraine. Although it is a risky path, it is necessary for economic growth.

I want to build a startup accelerator.

I think Ukraine lacks institutions like TechStars. TechStars changed my life, and I turned from a programmer to a tech founder there. I met fifteen other companies there. We worked in a shared office every day, and we went to dinner parties for each team once a week.

Matt, Dan and I also organized such a dinner. We listened to lectures, talked to founders of top companies like Dropbox, and built a product mindset.

I think it was a turning point in my career. And now I want to change other people’s lives the way they changed mine.

Ukraine has several explored deposits of this metal ore, and its volumes can reach millions of tons, but it has yet to be mined. There are various reasons, from technical difficulties to fighting on the front line.

The AIN.Capital editors asked Yevhen Naumenko, a researcher at the geological department of the National Museum of Natural History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, why Ukraine has so far not been mining lithium. Here is his opinion:

Lithium is a popular and sought-after metal, and we have four explored deposits in Ukraine: Polokhivske, Dobra, Shevchenkivske, and Kruta Balka. However, each of them has particular challenges.

Polokhivske

Let’s start with the largest one, Polokhivske, in the Kirovohrad region. The deposit itself is pretty extensive, with three ore bodies. A reasonably high concentration of lithium characterizes the deposit area. But it has a problem, as many others: Lithium ores lie at a considerable depth. That is, a massive amount of sedimentary rocks 60-100 m thick need to be removed. This deposit has been explored to a depth of 500 m, so it makes no sense to open the pit. We need to build a mine. But it will be a rather large investment.

There is also another thing. Rumors say there are many lawsuits related to this field, and no one can do anything until they are over.

One more thing is that more than building mines may be needed to use the deposit effectively. It may be necessary to build a mining and processing plant. After all, lithium is usually extracted from several types of minerals in the world: lithium mica — lepidolite and zinnwaldite, or lithium pyroxene — spodumene, the most abundant ores in the world. Petalite ores, lepidolite-spodumene ores, etc. are the least common. The composition of ores affects both the processing method and the final product: spodumene concentrate or petalite concentrate.

The petalite concentrate can be produced from the ore of the deposit above and will require the construction of a mining and processing plant. This concentrate can derivate either lithium oxide or lithium carbonate, the most commonly used lithium source globally. But this will make the process even more expensive, as most of the world’s smelters produce spodumene concentrate.

But we should also keep in mind that, according to long-standing estimates, the ore reserves of this deposit are millions of tons. Recently, foreigners commissioned additional exploration, but I don’t know the results. I have held samples of ore from it and know there is much of it.

Dobra

It is also a field in the Kirovohrad region, near Polokhivske. The fun thing about this source is that its lithium ores are mixed with ores of other elements: tantalum, niobium, rubidium, cesium, beryllium, tungsten, and tin. Small amounts of gold ore are also here. Lithium occurs in the form of petalite and spodumene ores.

This diversity of essential elements is outstanding. But at the same time, it makes production very difficult and expensive. Another feature is that, unlike the Polokhivske deposit, the ore bodies here are located in a specific area, with several ore occurrences (6-7). In addition, there is an overburden of 80-100 m (i.e., surface sedimentary rocks that do not contain lithium ore and are to be removed to get to lithium — ed.). Therefore, we will have to establish separate small mines.

Shevchenkivske

This field is in the northwest part of the Donetsk region, within the occupied territory, where active fighting occurs, and the front line is close. So, this would be the first difficulty: once these territories are liberated, there will be access to the source. In addition, this field has quite a lot of water, so if we build a mine, we will have to pump out a lot of water. But it can also produce feldspar and vein quartz, raw materials for the glass-blowing or porcelain and faience industries.

Kruta Balka

This is a relatively small but complex deposit located in the south of the Zaporizhzhia region. Extracting tantalum, niobium, lithium, rubidium, cesium, feldspar, and quartz is possible. Theoretically, zirconium and tin can also be mined here. There may be difficulties because it looks like a small quarry on the bank of the Berda River, and there is a summer cottage area above — land under some of these houses may be part of the land of this deposit.

Summary

Developing the Polokhivske deposit and building a mining and processing plant there makes sense. All the difficulties will pay off if the data about it is correct. I estimate the construction of a mine there at $200 million and another $300 million for the plant and infrastructure.

The AIN.Capital editorial team has long heard from Ukrainian officials about a framework in which a single mainstream state institution would collect innovations in military tech and cybersecurity from private accelerators and developers and provide them with a fast track. According to the positioning of this accelerator, as Minister Oleksii Reznikov said, it will become a “single window of entry” to the Defense Ministry. However, two months earlier, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the Ministry of Economy, the General Staff, and the National Security and Defense Council launched the Brave1 platform, which seems to have similar functions. But the appointment of a coordinator for this project drew the attention of the AIN.Capital editorial board.

According to the Ministry of Defense, the advisory body has 13 members. Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Volodymyr Havrylov will lead it. Serhiy Loboyko, state expert of the Directorate of Digitalization, Digital Development, Digital Transformation, and Cybersecurity in the Defense Sector of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, will coordinate the work.

A Ukrainian Story by Tim Draper

Indeed, Loboyko did have previous experience in the technology industry. In 2017, Tim Draper, a third-generation American tech investor, billionaire, and co-founder of the DFJ Foundation, wrote about him. His portfolio includes early investments in Skype, Tesla, and Baidu.

Then Draper released several chapters from his book The Startup Hero’s Pledge to the public. One of them was called A Ukrainian Story, about his visit to Ukraine in 2005. His father, William Henry Draper III, opened outsourcing in India to the world. Timothy Draper sought to replicate his father’s success by “opening Central and Eastern Europe to the world from a new side.”

In 2005, a man named Roman Kizyk, whom Draper described as talkative, arranged a visit to President Viktor Yushchenko, where they talked about investing in Ukraine. Then, Draper contacted the USC outsourcing company, part of the Techinvest group, owned by Andrey Kolodyuk and managed by Serhiy Loboyko. Draper was offered to invest $500,000, which he did.

“Still caught up in the excitement of just having seen the President, we went to see the outsourcing company. Unbeknownst to me, they had staged 40 engineers to sit and look like they were working in order to get me to invest,” Draper wrote.

Later in his book, Draper wrote that it was one of the three times in his life he was fooled so much. And Loboyko was the name Draper mentioned in this regard.

Reaction

After AIN.UA published the text of Draper’s book, the Reanimation Package of Reforms organization wrote a letter demanding to remove the material and instead prepare an article listing Serhiy Loboyko’s achievements, but none of his accomplishments, however, was specified there. So it was not clear what they were about.

Loboyko only found time to meet with the editors in 2017 at Boryspil airport for 20 minutes. His position was that Roman Kizyk was to blame for Draper’s losses.

However, Roman Kizyk died in 2015, so he would not say anything in his defense. He was an ethnic Ukrainian living in the United States who promoted the prospects of R&D development in Ukraine to large American businesses—he helped Draper organize a trip to Ukraine in 2005. The five witnesses interviewed by the editorial board, familiar with the situation, said it did not look like Kizyk was guilty. According to them, he raised an additional $100,000 to get a stake in the company Draper had invested in, and after USC failed, Kizyk sold everything he had to pay off his debts and was paying them off for years, which was also a reason why he died so soon.

Techinvest founder Andrey Kolodyuk told Forbes.ua in 2021 that he could not comment on commercial relations with Draper due to a non-disclosure agreement.

Later, Loboyko’s name disappeared from Draper’s book.

Draper explained to AIN.UA that he had removed Serhii’s name from the book after the latter contacted him. Draper said that he wrote the name in the book because he thought Loboyko was the one who managed the company’s money. But Draper was not 100% sure, so after receiving Loboyko’s letter, he simply removed the name from the book. He didn’t want to waste time looking for evidence. And before that, Draper also put a quote that, despite all its bias, still will hang over Ukrainian IT for a long time: Took $500k from me and “disappeared.” When that money is repaid, I will look to invest again in Ukraine, which I assume will be never.

The AIN.UA editorial team then studied a huge archive of correspondence and other data regarding the $500,000 deal with Draper, several companies with the same USC abbreviations and different full names, and people involved in these assets. The story consists of 25 pages and may be published one day. But the text you are reading now is not looking for or naming those responsible for the history of 2005.

The main question of this text is whether such an appointment to the accelerator, which is extremely important today, is the message that the Ukrainian technology industry and the public sector responsible for it want to convey to society and the world?

AIN.Capital makes a short overview on what is going on in the region, and explains how the layoffs influenced local markets.

Big tech layoffs

• The main reason for massive layoffs are the consequences of a massive hiring spree during the Covid-19 pandemic. In a pursuit to ensure both quality and quantity in a short amount of time, big tech companies hired large staffs of remote workers, who later turned out expensive to upkeep.
• In this regard, big tech companies like Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft and outsourcing companies like EPAM, SoftServe, GlobalLogic, were hit the most, laying off hundreds of employees in their regional offices.
• The Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine only deepened the economic crisis, with Central and Eastern Europe affected the most. Many companies were undergoing costly relocations to countries further west, massively downsizing their offices in Ukraine.
  • For example, EPAM reported 15% fewer specialists in its Ukrainian staff in November 2022 compared to December 2021.
  • Ciklum also noted at the time that its Ukrainian office employed 2,800 people, which was 14% less than in 2021.
• However harsh the economic situation is, some companies continue recruitment. Intellias reported 11% more employees, N-iX with over 10% growth, and Grid Dynamics with an increase of 21% in the end of 2022.

“The demand for specialists is almost double. The lack of specialists is the main barrier for a more accelerated growth of the industry. The talent gap is over 15,000 professionals per year and could reach an alarming proportion of up to 24% of the needed IT workforce in the following 3 years,”

Matei Dumitrescu, General Partner of Roca X VC, told the Recursive.

Startup ecosystem

The CEE startup ecosystem seems to be less affected by economic turmoil. As the regional investors explained to Sifted, local markets are smaller, transaction values have always been lower than in the West, so it’s easier to justify their valuations to investors, at least at this moment.

“Not all companies or startups in Central Europe, even if they raise money, scale their expenses and operations so wildly. So they might be a bit better positioned to survive those tough times with tough fundraising than startups that really go at full scale without any backup plan,”

Jan Habermann, partner at Czech VC Credo Ventures, commented.

Nevertheless, during the period of 2022-2023 CEE has seen several large layoffs happen, according to Layoffs.fyi database:

• Austrian crypto company Bitpanda laid off 270 people, 27% of its staff, in June 2022.
• Helsinki-based startup Swappiedownsized by 17%, with 250 employees affected, in Summer 2022.
• Vienna-based edtech GoStudent cut 200 of its employees in September 2022, and later in December laid off 100 people more.
• Estonian company Pipedrive reduced its staff by 15%, 143 employees, in November 2022.
• Bucharest-based Foodpanda cut 80 employees in May 2022.
• Estonian unicorn Veriff laid off 12% of its employees, or 66 people, in early 2023.

“The decision to initiate collective redundancies certainly did not come easily, and I sincerely regret that we had to take this step. I am grateful to all Veriff employees for their dedicated work and contribution,”

Kaarel Kotkas, CEO at Veriff, said about that situation.

• Lithuanian Uber office in Vilnius fired 60 people in September 2022.
• Polish edtech Brainly reported reductions of 25 employees across teams in Poland, Spain, and the US in late 2022.
• And most recently, in March 2023, Polish IT recruitment platform No Fluff Jobs laid off 13 employees in Poland.

The good news is that the VC and startups ecosystems managed to quickly learn about how to deal with layoffs and its consequences. For example, KAYA VC spoke to several founders and affected employees (stayers/leavers) that went through a reduction in workforce (RIF) and shared valuable learnings for this challenging situation:

AIN.Capital spoke to Pavlo and shares his story about building a business.

What was your experience and what did you do before moving?

I’ve never done anything else in my life but video: filming, and editing. It all started back in school: my friends and I used to get together in basements and play punk rock. I always had a camera with me, and we would shoot videos, edit them, and post them on YouTube. Then I ended up in a production company that made content for TV. We filmed news reports, interviews, and so on, which were later bought by channels to fill the airtime.

But I always wanted to be location independent, I wanted to be like the programmers who can code anywhere in the world.  I slowly studied motion design and animation, and did it in Ukraine for several years, building a portfolio. I was working as a freelancer in productions, collaborating a lot with NLO-TV, and local Cherkasy TV channels. However, I also started looking for clients abroad.

Why did you decide to move to the USA?

I believe that the decision to move was a logical one in my career.  I wanted to see if I could live and work there initially. I worked on Upwork at the time and had some clients from the US. I thought it would be cool to go and meet them. Maybe they would introduce me to someone, and recommend my services. The plan was rather slow: to go to the US, do some networking, return to Ukraine, and work from here. But things turned out differently.

When I left for the States, I had only a backpack with me, because I didn’t plan to stay. A few big clients came up pretty quickly, I decided to stay until my visa expired, and six months later I had already launched a company there. When I was leaving Ukraine, I didn’t even say a proper goodbye to my parents, thinking I would return in a few months. In the end, I managed to return 3.5 years later.

How was your move?

Of all the possible places in the United States, I chose New York, which is one of the most expensive locations. At that time, I didn’t have a lot of clients to pay for a permanent place to live. So I rented a room for the first couple of weeks and set myself a deadline: I had to earn enough money to rent a decent place during this time. When I arrived in the US, I had $2000 on my card. I didn’t even have my own website.

You have a story about how you asked someone in a coffee shop for a Wi-Fi password, and as a result, they ordered your services. How did you find your first customers?

It was my first week in New York, I was in a coffee shop doing something on my laptop and asked my neighbor for the Wi-Fi password. We started chatting, and it turned out that he ran a startup that was in need of a video, so he offered to work together. I had heard before that it is common here to tell you how cool you are and discuss joint projects, but then nothing actually happens. But he called the next day, made a job order, and even paid in advance.

This gave me the faith to believe in myself. I’m a guy from Ukraine, I moved to New York, even though it seemed like New York was the best and it was impossible to make it here. But I did it.

I was looking for my first clients at conferences, meetups, and some sort of hangouts where people from the creative world gather. I just approached strangers, got to know them, showed them my work, and said that I could do creative design, animation, and motion design. And gradually it worked. I didn’t try to spread emails, I just went and met people. Some people immediately offered to work together, others recommended who I could approach and exchanged contacts.

I probably went on such client hunts 3-4 times a week, and it worked. Over time I realized that I wanted to work with big brands rather than startups.

Why is it so?

It is always more interesting to work with startups or a young, exciting company. However, from a business point of view, a startup always wants to pay less and make the coolest product. Sometimes I took projects from startups just to satisfy my creative streak.

In most cases, however, in recent years I have started targeting large companies: they are more or less stable and pay well. I wanted to switch from a person who “makes videos for everyone” to a specialist who makes more specialized content that not everyone is capable of making. Large corporate clients are ideal in this regard because a lot of people will be able to see my work.

You have worked for Microsoft, Puma, and the City Hall of New York. How did you start working with them?

New York is the perfect city to meet the right person in a random place. I was introduced to the agency that did the New York City Hall project by my friends at a party. They did all the creatives for the mayor’s office, all the stuff that could be seen in the subway, on billboards, and on New York’s Time Square.

I joined them as a creative director, developing billboards and subway kiosks, and making videos for the SMM campaign. It was very cool that the then-mayor of the city tagged me in an Instagram post.

The cherry on top was a video projection onto Washington Square Park’s arch. The video was reposted by a bunch of people. It was a very cool project, not particularly well paid, but it became a strong and recognizable case for the portfolio.

New York is one of the world’s coolest cities, and it was nice to walk around and see my work. Some guy from Cherkasy, Ukraine, came here thinking: “What can I possibly give to New York?”. But it turned out that I brought something to this city, and made it better.

Tell us about the JPMorgan case, how did you start working with them?

That’s an interesting story. I was in a “Motion Designers of New York” Facebook group and saw that someone was looking for a motion designer for a project. I responded but was ignored. A few months later, they were looking for a motion designer again, and this time we got in touch (and I didn’t even know who it was). It happened to be the creative producer of JPMorgan.

So I go to a meeting with them in their skyscraper on Park Avenue, go up to some super-high floor, we sit down at a table, and I realize that I know nothing about the financial world. And the project required me to explain some complex financial terminology to users through motion design.

Still, as they say, fake it till you make it. So I told them I was quite good at it and started working. To be honest, it would have been hard for them to find any motion designer who knew a lot about finance.

We worked with them for a year, it was my only client, and I learned a lot. When I added that I worked with JPMorgan on LinkedIn, other banks and investment companies started contacting me. That’s how I started working with Fidelity Investments, which is one of the largest investment companies in the United States, and I’ve been working with them for 3 years now. Our main task is to educate people about investing and to make these training videos fun: so that a person can watch 3-minute videos and understand how to manage their account, for example.

Were there any unsuccessful cases or any mistakes?

There was a project that I still feel ashamed of – a case with Google. I had an acquaintance with whom I did some small projects, and six months later he offered me to work with Google. He invited me to their office (one of the coolest offices I’ve ever seen in my life). He told me a little bit about the challenges of working with Google:

that sometimes they don’t have a clear vision of what they want to do, and it sounds like: “we want something, but you have to tell us what it is”. You have to think like a “Google person”.

I gathered a team for that project, it was a very specific, very technical motion design, somewhat related to UX/UI. We kept pitching them different ideas, and they kept responding: “Doesn’t feel like Google”. We tried our best and offered the best options, but everything was “not right”.

In the end, the time was running out, the deadline was tight, and they agreed to one option, which we modified several times. We submitted the project and got the money, but the guy never contacted me again. I even wrote to him several times, asking if there was anything from Google, but he didn’t answer. Google hasn’t used our work anywhere, even though we tried very hard to do a great job. It’s just that we probably didn’t do it the way Google saw it. We didn’t turn out to be “Google-minded”. Although it’s quite possible that the manager who led this project didn’t know how it should be done, he mentioned that he hadn’t been in the company for long.

Which project are you proud of?

We did a cool project for Microsoft, and both we and they really liked it. We worked successfully with smart Europe (you can watch the video here).

It was also interesting working with Puma. It was one of my first experiences working specifically for social media: all the content was vertical, all for stories (stories, by the way, were just beginning to become a tool for business promotion).

It was a challenging but interesting project: we had to be as technical as possible and handle everything professionally, but in a way that made the videos look sincere and natural at the same time. For example, part of our job was to get content from Puma influencers, people like Selena Gomez or Formula 1 champions, and make it look like they filmed it themselves.

It was a very cool experience because I worked with one of the coolest agencies in New York, they are located in Soho, and it was a dream come true for me. I always imagined myself as a creative director walking through Soho with a cup of coffee for a meeting to some cool office and team. This was an incredibly creative environment: people do very professional work and right away go up to the roof to do yoga, everyone in the office has a dog, everyone is dressed casually, and some got tattoos. The ultimate New York experience.

The project turned out to be great because the tasks and the team were great. Puma even sent me a bottle of whiskey afterward.

We can also mention one educational project. I met the guys from Fresh Ed at a tech conference in New York, and they presented their project, the idea of which is that they make rap for children in schools: about math, history, and literature. I offered them to create a series of animated music videos of their tracks for literature and history classes. The following day, we were already sitting in their studio in Soho and coming up with ideas for the videos.

You mentioned that you incorporated a company in the US, what does this mean for the business? Was it difficult to do?

It was easy to set up the company, we just needed an accountant to do everything. It cost up to a thousand dollars to register the name, address, and office. Our company has a New York address, and this is important for our clients. Sometimes we were told: “We have an office in Soho and we would like to work with those who understand the Soho culture.” So, for a creative business in New York, having a local office that can be found on Google Maps helps a lot.

Are there any specifics of doing business in the US compared to Ukraine?

I’ve hardly lived in Ukraine for the last 9 years, so I can’t compare. But there are no pitfalls to doing business in the United States. If you want to work and earn money, there’s everything for that here. You do business and you feel safe, you don’t have to be afraid that you will have a tax nightmare or get raided.

Do you monitor the war or contribute to the aid?

Absolutely. My family, my parents, and my friends are in Ukraine. I try to help as much as I can, to support the cause financially. All my clients know that I am Ukrainian, and they always ask me how things are going. I tell them the news. In general, Americans are very supportive of Ukraine. 

There is no one like it.

Harassed and offended employees

November 17, 2022, was Bondarenko’s last day at Twitter. He worked for an infrastructure team that owns several critical services.

“I’ve worked with very talented engineers there, and I am proud of what this team achieved. I am so sad about how it ended, though. The rich and arrogant guy, who bought Twitter, ended up destroying its excellent working culture based on trust and transparency,”

he writes.

According to Vitaliy, Musk started by not communicating his intention, followed by laying off 50% of the workforce based on unknown metrics. Moreover, he harassed and offended employees while firing them. Bondarenko gives some examples of inappropriate behavior of Musk and his managers:

• After realizing he fired some critical engineers, his team called them back and asked to stay, giving 15(!) minutes for the decision. 
• One of his most close new directors (according to Bondarenko, it was Luke Simon) publicly stated Twitter engineers are “lazy, needed only for knowledge transfer and will be fired after it is complete.” 
• His Testa staff went through public Slack channels and purged everyone who was criticizing or even not just accepting Elon’s way of dealing with the company.
• Engineers were called incompetent for not agreeing with something the new ruler said. 

“Ultimately, Elon decided it was time to let only loyal employees stay. He sent an ultimatum to the workforce requiring them to commit to a “new hardcore culture, working long hours and weekends” by opening the Google form with a single “Yes, I want to work for Twitter 2.0″. This was it! It broke the patience of people, I guess. It broke mine and made me very angry”,

Bondarenko states.

As a result, several critical teams were torn down completely, and others were left with 10-20% of the pre-acquisition headcount. Only some of the engineers signed the “new order”. Less than 1000 employees from 7400+ left before the acquisition.

Bondarenko assures, that Twitter’s infrastructure will survive anyway, because it was built very well. But he himself decided to quit.

“I cannot be part of a company led by an arrogant so-called “leader” who proclaims free speech but fires you for your opinion,” 

the Engineer concludes.

Why is it interesting

In less than a month, Elon Mask messed things up at Twitter, achieving uncertainty about how his brand new “Twitter 2.0” will look like. It is yet unclear if Twitter will cope with lack of experienced engineers in crucial teams. Some users already reported problems with singing in to the service. Mask’s decision to make Twitter’s blue check mark a paid option also done a lot of trouble to its users. It even led to the emergence of a fraudulent scheme. And the last but not least, the stories like that Vitaliy has told doesn’t make Twitter to look like a nice place to work.

CharStudio employs about 25 people today. They have up to 10 active games in their portfolio, and the total amount of downloads in the markets is slightly more than 10 million. The games are mainly popular in the USA, UK, Germany, and France.

I will try to explain our experience in detail. In the beginning it was difficult sometimes, but to this day still magical.

First CharStudio games and releases on the App Store

In 2010 I was a third-year math&mechanical engineering student. I realized that this was a good path for starting a career in IT. I was looking for freelance work – I had created websites, developed different modules, and started working with applications.

One day I received an order to develop a browser game, and I started trying out how games are basically programmed. But after a while, I went to Norway as an AIESEC intern and referred all freelance cases to my brother Igor and now a partner, who was also a software developer.

I was an intern for 2.5 years, and Igor actively started programming various games during this time and implemented quite a lot of projects. When I returned to Lviv, I began to think about what to do next – work for an IT company or launch my own startup. At that time, my brother set up his own freelance strategy: he discovered how to develop and sell games. So I decided to start developing games, too.

It wasn’t easy at first, but I worked on my portfolio. I was selling game licenses at a price from 500 to 800 dollars. The growth was becoming more complex, so my brother and I decided to form our own registered business.

At that time, Match 3 Games were gaining popularity, and one of our customers from Belgium recommended that we publish a game to the App Store. We released it, and it gradually began to bring a stable income of several hundred dollars monthly. Since then, we have partnered with this publisher and have seriously focused on mobile game development.

Christmas Sweeper was almost an accidental success

Among all the projects, Igor created the Christmas game named Christmas Sweeper. It quickly began to gain momentum in the United States.

This game has not been in stores for a long time, but this was what it looked like:

It was just another game in the Puzzle category for us, but the players really loved it. We had a game downloaded tens of thousands of times for the first time. I consider it almost an accidental success.

After seeing the result of the seasonal game, my brother started developing Christmas Sweeper 2, which surpassed even further. This game is still in the App Store and Google Play; it has continuous profit and a loyal pool of players who have downloaded more than 1.3 million times.

After the 2-nd Sweeper’s success, we started a game development company. That’s how CharStudio was founded. 

The first project we took on was Christmas Sweeper 3. We realized we had found our niche and should scale the holiday game idea.

And we achieved it. In 2014, the Christmas Sweeper 3 monthly earnings brought us to a budget level where we were ready to hire people and rent an office. Our company really looked like a full-fledged business.

We had fluctuating successes with other games, but the Sweeper series still gives us a stable profit. Christmas Sweeper 4 was launched a few years ago on Unity, but the game’s popularity is just starting to grow.

We have a total of 10 games today and more in production. Our Sweeper series at the moment gives us 90% of the profit. 

How long does a mobile game live?

A moderately popular game’s lifetime is about 3-5 years. Hyper-casual games and some others usually live less, and some games can generate profits for 10 years and more.

The game lives when a developer constantly programs into it new functionality, new mechanics, locations, and levels. That’s how we have been developing improvements for Sweeper 3, which is more than 8 years old. We are working on the game every day, not leaving the players behind, communicating with them, and adding various features, new events, and competitions. That’s how we are breathing life into the gaming community. 

I really love this version, and I still play in Sweeper 3 even when we have new editions. 

Six steps for creating a mobile game

Let’s overview how to create mobile games step-by-step. 

1. Step #1 — Market Analysis. We need to analyze what games are popular now, how each category or genre grows, what are the trends in game design, etc. The deeper we research into the market, the better we will understand what players are interested in. This step is sometimes skipped, but then game developers often lose their money. You can make a really wonderful game that surpasses all competitors in terms of mechanics, but you won’t have any success with it if the niche is currently in decline.

2. Step #2 — Game Idea. You need to consider what the game will be about, what setting, what type of game, and what genre to choose. What makes you different from others? Where is the heart of your game?

3. Step #3 — Concept and MVP. At this stage, a developer creates an MVP. It’s a basic mechanic that can be evaluated and tested by friends to get the first feedback. I believe this is the right approach — to do something small first to feel and understand whether the game will be engaging. We can also publish a game MPV on the markets and buy traffic in a test country to evaluate the functionality and see how players interact. If it turns out that something is nuanced with the game, we can stop development as quickly as possible to avoid unnecessary costs.

4. Step #4 — Game Design and Game Development. If we are satisfied with the MVP metrics, we complete the full development. This is a very big topic that needs to be considered additionally.

5. Step #5 — Soft Launch. When we have decided that the game development is complete, we can release it, but this should be a soft launch limiting the audience and testing the metrics. It often results in the tested game becoming great, but we need to add balance and make some levels more difficult or simpler. We can call this process polishing up the game.
   

6. Step #6 — Game launch. At this stage, we fully release the game and take a step back to analyze, do marketing, and hope for success.

7. Step #7 — Scaling. If everything is flowing good, and our ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) pays off the initial marketing budget, then we scale the game. We use localization, work with traffic, development of updates and releases. Finally, we do it again in a cycle. Until the positive trend in the niche begins to decrease. 

You may face the problem when the traffic acquisition becomes so expensive that it is unprofitable to attract more players. In this case, we freeze the marketing campaign and consider how to stay profitable. There may come a phase when a game has a base number of loyal players, but new ones no longer download. Then you need to profit from this game as long as possible and give the remaining loyal players new content but not as much as before when you were scaling-up the game.

Mobile game profitability and finding game publishers

You can sell any game because you can profitably buy traffic for it. People won’t like the game, but it will still be profitable for the owners for a while. I know studios that choose such a short-term strategy for themselves and bet on the number of games, and not the quality. 

If you plan to make money from the game for years, then the audience must constantly expand, and the game must receive positive reviews.

But remember that even an captivating game does not always earn significant money. Traffic in a specific category is so expensive that the profit does not cover its production costs. You need to find a compromise. 

And we always need to analyze market metrics. Players consciously limit how much they are willing to spend on games. It depends on region. A player in Japan spends on avarage of $200 in the category “Casual Games”; in South Korea they spend $110, and in the USA up to $80. This is the most important metric, when we calculate future revenue, because we operate not with downloads but with formulactic strategy.

Basically, mobile game studios focus on app development and then collaborate with a game publisher. A publisher analyzes the game, buys test traffic, and then observes whether it is worth publishing the game and scaling it. I would say it is difficult for a small studio to work without any publisher, but we at CharStudio try both strategies; work with publishers or independently release games.

Top mobile game studios are usually both developers and publishers. We consider such a model as an example to follow.

Sometimes a developer makes a game and it becomes a instant hit. This occurs in 2 cases – either the game is brilliant at its core, or the game is just satisfingly good, but the developer has invested in it to create more visualy-bright and engaiging functionality. 

Mobile games compete with Netflix

No one can say for sure how mobile games will develop further. Let’s experiment and consider the example of Match 3 Games:

• At one time, everyone just played Match 3, and everyone liked the simple mechanics.

• Then it becomes not really interesting for the players to simply pass the levels. So, developers started adding meta-elements to their games – when you play Match 3, you collect stars or crystals and spend them to build something.

• After the meta-elements, developers started to add story plots to their games. So players build something to achieve specific goals and experience a shared story together with the game charecters.

• Now there is a trend to create a dramatic cinematic-like story as possible. It should be non-stop action, and also there should be engaging drama in the plot. Even casual games start competing with companies like Netflix, which also focus on their retention rates and engaging mechanics.

This approach greatly increases development costs. But a good story is worth the money to pay the game plot authors; it is also necessary to implement all their ideas qualitatively in mechanics.

We at CharStudio have grown with the mobile market’s development. Now the market has already formed, and companies need large budgets to compete with major studios with thousands of employees. We manage to compete with them by developing niche products, like Christmas or Easter games. It’s such a small market for big companies, but it’s advantageous for us right now.

We are also evolving towards game stories and plots, although not so quickly. After all, it is not only investments but also our creativity that matters. Because we believe games are an art.

I began preparing for war in January and February

I’d been reading a lot about the war, including the Institute for the Study of War publications, and came to the conclusion that with the bombings going on and troops and aviation movements, it is safer to sit through the fierce battles in a village rather than in the capital. 

Before the war, we bought a country house in a village in Kyiv suburbs, in Vyshhorod region. It’s a small village, which even in peacetime experienced power outages or snowdrifts. That’s why people got used to living more or less autonomously. Everyone has firewood stocks, wells; the majority have power generators, stocks of mushrooms and preserves, hunting and fishing gear. As for me, I had 60 litres of fuel stored in three oil cans, two walkie-talkies, food for more than three months, medication that I and my wife Olya take.

In Kyiv, my wife and I packed our go-bags, although I didn’t feel any anxiety as it is. I was just thinking rationally and preparing. The go-bags had everything we might need to survive: knives, water purification systems, dry provision units, energy bars, armchairs, condoms, a tourniquet to stop bleeding, a first-aid kit, torches, sleeping bags, rescue blankets, etc. We also kept some useful things in the car, such as a tent.

At the end of February, we paid salaries to the team in advance, so that they could withdraw or exchange money. We also suggested switching to remote work for a while in order to move to a safer place, but everyone stayed in Kyiv, so we were with them. Before the invasion, my friends offered me to go to Asia, but I refused — to be with the team.

On February 24, I woke up, saw the news, woke my wife up and said: ‘It’s started, get ready, let’s go’. She asked if she had time for the shower, and I said ‘no’. We took our go-bags, laptops, and our dog, and around 6:20 in the morning we were already on our way out of Kyiv. We managed to get past the traffic jams.

I thought it would be over quickly. That in 3-4 days there will be some clarity. But after a couple of days, the Rashists* marched past us along the wide roads to Kyiv, and we ended up in a territory not controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

*Editor’s note: Rashism, rashists — a term used to describe the political ideology and social practices of the Russian authorities during the rule of Vladimir Putin, and the Russian military expansionism. The term became more internationally known and more widely described after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

We learned that we are under occupation from the news. At that time, we still had an Internet connection.

At the same time, we understood that these territories had no tactical military significance either for the occupiers or for the Armed Forces. There are no strategic objects there, no one would attack or defend them. The only risk was the proximity to Chernobyl. 

In the early days, people believed that Russians could be convinced of something. And my wife suggested that I should join in the information war.

I didn’t like the idea. For one thing, we were on territory outside the Ukrainian Armed Forces control. Secondly, the connection was unstable. The only thing I did — on the third day of the full-scale invasion — was to send a letter to the 8,000 subscribers of my agency Roman.ua, urging the Russians to think about whether they were being lied to. 

I realised that for the Russians to admit that they are wrong was to admit that they are horrible people and that they have blood on their hands. Therefore, I now understand that my appeal hardly influenced anyone. But I sent this newsletter, and my partner in the Internet Marketers Club asked if I didn’t mind him distributing the post to the followers of the Information Resistance Club. I didn’t mind. Olya also introduced some Internet marketers from Ukraine to each other, who then started the informational resistance. 

Before that, I also managed to publish one of my friend’s texts on LinkedIn. It collected 360,000 views.

This newsletter and this post are actually all I have done in the information war.

All of a sudden, though, I got featured in a Russian propaganda TV video on Rossiya 1 TV channel! I was called ‘an overseer of the Ukrainian fake stream against the Russian Federation’, on which tens of millions of dollars are allegedly spent, and which has 1,500 people in the team.

I don’t know how I got so ‘lucky’. I have two theories. Either they did some frequency research and saw that my last name was mentioned several times. Or, which is more likely, they simply googled ‘internet marketer Kyiv’ and found a more or less public figure.

I was surprised and a little worried. In the video, a fragment of which they used for their story, I was driving to my country house, and the landscape is easily recognizable. At that moment, we were sitting there, already with a bad connection. And I was wondering if a Russian helicopter could suddenly fly by to check on the ‘overseer of Ukrainian fakes’? And then, they would record a video of me apologising to the Russian people… Although it is difficult to call them people, to be honest.

Since then I’ve become more careful, using a VPN and trying not to show my movements. I make publications of what I do for the Armed Forces with significant delays, when the enemy is no longer able to benefit from this information.

And then, being under the occupation, we faced the problems that had to be solved

Interruptions with connection, electricity, Internet. People started running out of resources. When you’re under occupation, you quickly get used to saying ‘yes’ when something is offered. Because resources are very limited.

When you come to visit, they say to you: ‘Will you have borscht?’ – ‘I will!’. Because tomorrow there may be no more borscht.

When the electricity went out, I went to a nearby village and found people who helped connect our village and territories further to the substation. Thus, we managed to provide people with electricity for several days.

Together with the locals, we organized ourselves and started taking turns to keep watch and to warn people in time if something suspicious was going on. I gave one walkie-talkie to another post so that they could communicate with the rest and with me, and I could already pass the information to the other side of the village.

Every morning we had a meeting where we summed up what we had in terms of resources and what problems we had to solve. Who has some medication in reserve, and who has run out of some critically important medications. For example, someone has asthma or diabetes. To understand what you need to get first. At these meetings, I brought news from the Institute for the Study of War and coordinated people on humanitarian issues. 

At times, it got ridiculous. For example, a man moves in with his neighbours and complains that soon there will be no heating because there is no electricity supply. You go to the owner of the house and ask: ‘Do you have an electric boiler?’ — ‘No, I have a generator, but I need fuel for the boiler to work.’ — ‘Wait, but your new neighbour has fuel, doesn’t he?’ — I say. And it turns out that they are living under one roof without talking to each other. 🙂

Under such circumstances, people become confused. They do not share information, sometimes they withhold some information because they are anxious. They need to be coordinated, reassured and directed. Everything is just like in business.

When the Internet began to disappear in the neighbouring villages, I took my MIMO antenna, 3G/4G modem and WiFi router, found a high point and connected it all to the power cable. Thus, we were the only access point in the village. People came to us for an hour in the morning and for an hour in the evening, we turned on the generator, I disabled the auto-loading on their phones in messengers — and they had the opportunity to write or sometimes even call their relatives, to say that everything was fine. 

There were some funny stories. For example, a builder comes by, he has a porn tab open on his phone — you pretend that you didn’t notice it, disable his autoload, connect him to the Internet. And what he does is write a message to his sister ‘Hello!’, and that’s it. He sits down and waits for the answer.

Dude, seriously? Connection may be interrupted at any moment, and everything your sister will hear from you is ‘hello’! Well, write right away that everything is fine with you, where you are and how. I took the phone and wrote instead of him. Apparently, his sister had never received so many points and commas in one message from him🙂

You have to support your inner Arestovych*

*Editor’s note: Oleksii Arestovych is a former Ukrainian intelligence officer, political and military columnist, who became famous due to his calm ‘pacifying’ manner of presenting news concerning the military invasion of Ukraine.

I read a lot about survival and came to the conclusion that people who survive in extreme conditions are those who do something, not panic. Those who take care of others. There were several particularly alarmed citizens in our community, who were afraid that Kadyrov* people would come to us, rape, kill, and rob everyone. We tried to calm them down in every possible way, and in this way we calmed down ourselves.

*Editor’s note: Ramsan Kadyrov is a Russian and Chechen politician who currently serves as the Head of the Chechen Republic, and whose troops are actively involved in the military invasion of Ukraine. 

On TV they were running ‘brain candy’ all the time — many repetitions, little information. Therefore, I focused on data from the Institute for the Study of War, which revealed the current situation on the frontline.

Focusing on it, we understood from the maps and told people that this is where our troops launched a counterattack, and this is where the occupiers were stopped, etc. It helped not to despair.

Sometimes, it got scary. Once we went to catch communication in a neighbouring village, and one of the locals told us that a Rashists’ car with the letter V had just passed by the place where we were heading. It was scary, but what could we do? We had to go, warn our relatives, because they had no connection. And you don’t know what that car might do. Maybe it will stop somewhere on the road I’m driving on, or go back to meet me, and there is no one else on the road except for my car…

We drove with the windows down and seatbelts unfastened, so that we could at least try to jump out and run somewhere if something happened.

When I got there and got out of the car, my knees were shaking. We passed on the information to the locals and they prepared for the meeting 😉

One day, Russian APCs came to our village

We had just received a message on the radio saying that armoured personnel carriers were coming to us and at that very moment our neighbour turned on the generator! It’s good that the Rashists’ diesels were roaring louder.

It was scary, because you don’t know if they’re going by themselves or if another convoy will follow them now. And, generally, what their tasks are.

When the news reported about the corridors from Kozarovychy, Dymer and Demydov to the territory under the Ukrainian Armed Forces control, we decided to try to get to Kyiv. And although the information about the corridor was later denied, we passed. As it turned out, this corridor worked for three days, we left just in time — on the second day. And then the Russians blocked all the ways again until the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces.

We went on foot, having left the car by the house. Wearing our go-bags. And so we walked — my wife, my friend and our dog — for about 2 km. Then, we crossed the destroyed bridge in Demydovo. There were mines everywhere, and next to the mines there were stray dogs running around. We were very worried that a dog might run over a mine, and we would get hurt by the explosion as well.

Olya was anxious about them not letting us pass with the dog at the Russian checkpoint. When we approached them, they asked us where we were going. To Kyiv. ‘And why are you going to Kyiv? It is dangerous there. We are being shelled from there.’ — they said. We were silent, but we thought to ourselves: ‘Of course, you are, and it serves you right. Why have you come to our land?’ They said: ‘Wait until March 15, and you will go to Belarus’… But then, they let us go.

When we crossed over to the Ukrainian side, Russian artillery began to work nearby. And I was at the head of our column.

Suddenly, I see how a man wearing uniform (Ukrainian Armed Forces or Territorial Defence) instantly falls to the ground, and I understand that I should do the same. But if I fall now, people behind me will start to panic. That’s why I kept going. An interesting experience that I would not like to repeat.

When we reached the evacuation point, we were picked up, fed and taken by minibuses to Kyiv. It was very nice to be at home.

While we were under occupation, we couldn’t work

We had very limited communication, so the team coordinated itself, billed clients, and worked on projects. At most, I could watch something or write a couple of emails in the afternoon, when the people who came to our place to text and call went away. But this can’t be called remote work.

Since the beginning of the war, our turnover dropped by 60 percent. All Ukrainian clients held their operation and didn’t know what to do. We focused on our Western customers.

Salaries had to be adjusted up to 50% of the amount before the full-scale invasion, given that the load was at the level of 40%. Then, we raised them to 75%, now we are back at the old level of compensation.

We didn’t fire anyone, not even the trainees we recruited before the war. With the exception of one manager, who we had to say goodbye to — the stress made it too difficult for him to work. One of our employees joined the Armed Forces, and we continue to pay him.

As a company, we pay taxes and VAT, we did not switch to the 2% single tax. In addition, due to the exchange rate difference, we often pay more than 20% of tax, selling a dollar at 29.25, and paying compensation at 35, for example. But we aren’t complaining.

Every month we will donate $2,000 to the Armed Forces. This is how we supported the Army SOS fund, which develops ‘Kropyva’ software for artillery and participated in fundraising to buy drones for the Armed Forces and for other needs.

We bought an engine for a reconnaissance vehicle, delivered it, and put the vehicle into service. The car is really cool — made in such a way that it is extremely hard to detect it — so just buying a new one was not an option, and it was necessary to repair this one.

I gave my drone to the ZSU (Armed Forces of Ukraine) while we were under occupation. I asked our cleaning lady to hand it over. I was asked if it was fine with me that the drone would most likely not come back? It was fine, especially if thanks to it, several Rashists would never come back here either.

The Ukrainian business is beginning to revive little by little, and things are getting better now

In addition, we resumed working at Upwork, which we had left because before the full-scale war we had been completely engaged by projects. Now, we have transferred the interns to ‘bidding’ at Upwork and have already attracted one long-term project there.

We could do more, but we are not ready to ‘work for food‘, and some clients are either on a limited budget or simply asking for inadequate discounts. Saying that it’s better to earn something than not earn at all.

We refuse them, and instead allocate free resources to our regular Ukrainian customers, who currently do not have the opportunity to pay a lot for our services. We are ready to meet our Ukrainian clients, receive many times less, and perform many times more.

Today, we have reached the level of approximately 30% of the pre-war turnover. Almost all employees, with the exception of one girl, are already in Ukraine. Half of the team has returned to Kyiv, but for now we are working remotely.

Our office was slightly damaged by shelling. The windows got broken, metal structures got bent and the doors were torn out, but the guards managed to hide the equipment. There is a plant ‘Artem’* nearby, which has been attacked several times already and may come under fire again. Just like our office. Therefore, we are in no hurry to come back.

*Editor’s note: ‘Artem’ plant is a military plant located in Kyiv.

The rent was greatly reduced for us without any questions at all. We don’t push Ukrainian partners for discounts, but almost all of them have given discounts, just like we do to Ukrainian customers. Everyone has given off as much as they could.

And I wrote a dozen emails to the Western partners, and we received sometimes six months of free use of the service, and sometimes a year. We have been supported with discounts or free periods by such companies as Google, Slack, Zoho, Digital Ocean, Zapier, SoundCloud, SiteGround, Calendly, SemRush.

We believe in the Armed Forces and work on our economic frontline. And we also help by volunteering — we are currently waiting for walkie-talkie adapters for headphones with active noise cancelling and several drones. Together we will win!

In this first-person article, the CEO of obimy, Zhenya Zasutskyi, shares the story behind this impressive result.

Reasons for Rapid Growth

Before February 24, we had roughly 20 thousand users. Back then, we thought it was a lot. For half a year before that, we had been testing various audiences and marketing channels, including TikTok. We were looking for growth methods, aiming to go viral without a huge marketing budget. With the beginning of the invasion, the number of the app’s users started to grow swiftly, starting with the Ukrainian audience. At first, we had 4,000 new downloads per day; then 10, 20, and 50 thousand. Now, obimy’s DAU is from 400,000 to 500,000 users, and its MAU is three million.

As it turned out, we were completely wrong about who obimy was for. Judging by the analytics, the main driving force behind the growth was TikTok users aging from 14 to 20. Also, not only our own promo videos have gone viral: many people have posted screen recordings telling how the app worked. That’s how we’ve got our own micro-influencers.

After we started growing in the US, the trend moved to the UK, and there, our app was No. 1 in the App Store top list for several weeks. The same happened in the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Australia. In total, we were the No. 1 top app in 45 countries. It was very surprising and pleasant to see obimy conquering the whole world, with 50,000 to 100,000 people from over 100 countries downloading it a day.

For that, I must give huge credit to Anastasia Avramenko, our Head of Marketing. Back then, she was doing analytics, shooting videos for TikTok, making graphics, and chatting with our users simultaneously. It was tough, but the result was worth it.

During the next two months, we reached five million downloads in 175 countries, entering the social media mainstream for young audiences.

The Problems We Faced

We faced several typical young startup problems. The app’s backend was not quite ready for such growth: during the first week of our rise to fame, the servers were crashing every three to four hours, 24/7. When we reached the top of AppStore or Google Play in a country, our servers could barely handle it.

Kostia and Vova, our developers, were working non-stop, rewriting the backend and bringing the app back online. Dmytro, responsible for customer support, had to deal with 200 reviews every day. Slava, our product owner, turned into our project manager, while I had to combine my CEO responsibilities with customer support.

During March and April, we had no fixed working hours at all. But somehow, we managed to fit into that routine naturally. I didn’t have to convince my team to do their job. Everybody was in position, aware of their responsibilities and the significance of what was happening. Everybody was doing their best and even better than that.

The App

At first, we positioned obimy as an app where you can share your biometrics – your heartbeat, the number of steps you’ve made today – and get emotional feedback. Eventually, the app turned into what we call a sensenger: a service that helps people communicate with feelings and emotions from a distance. After we had shifted our positioning to ‘being the world’s first Sensenger,’ people realized what we’ve created. At the same time, we’ve got a deeper understanding of our own product.

Curiously, the most popular function is ‘to hug.’ In two months, our users exchanged more than 130 million feelings or, as we call them, ‘senses.’

The app has popularized itself. We just created a good product and looked for ‘growth hacking’ promotion methods. It sounds unbelievable, but we reached 1 million in downloads, having spent only $500 on marketing.

The app’s new version has shifted to a mixed model, including both subscription and in-app purchases. The subscription includes many new senses and possibilities. Premium users can now create their own senses, but we’ve also quadrupled the number of free senses. Also, the avatars are now customizable. Users can change their color and add accessories. Every day we sell 500 colors and several thousand actions.

obimy: Countries and Users

As of July 2022, obimy is being used in 175 countries, each one ranging from a thousand to 300-500 thousand users. Now we’re focused on the US, the UK, and Saudi Arabia. We’re also localizing the app for Japan, Brazil, and Spain.

All in all, our audience has become ten years younger. Honestly, it makes us extremely happy. It feels like we’re defining the future. Curiously, obimy has a global reach. We have virtually identical app growth in Asia, the Middle East, the UK, North America, and Europe.

The Team and the Plans

Our core team is 12 people. Each one is 100% focused on the app’s success. I’m proud of the things we’ve achieved together, and there’s much more to achieve in the future. We also have 20 part-time and outsource team members: lawyers, accountants, PR specialists, motion designers, etc. At least 30 people are working on obimy each month.

We’re now shifting from part-time or outsource workers to full-time employees for some positions. But we have a less-is-more mindset, so we’re not going to hire people just for the sake of it. As we’re a startup, the team’s efficiency must be a bit more than 100%. That’s the only way to achieve success. Every open position means 50 to 100 CVs and 15 to 20 interviews; the whole team selects the new candidate.

Our goal is to get a share of the social messaging market. I believe we can reach more than 100 million users. We also have an even larger mission: to enable people to feel each other wherever they are as if they were together. That’s what we’re working on now.

How it started

The development of the new year show for Burj Khalifa in the UAE was a dream of Magic Innovations for years.

In 2016, Magic Innovations became the first Ukrainian company among the Berlin Festival of Lights winners. It is one of the most precious prizes for 3D mapping studios. In the following year, the team watched a show on Burj Khalifa for the first time and got inspired to develop content for the highest building in the world. As a result, magic Innovations applied for the new year’s show, but they failed to win in 2017.

The team got another fail in 2018, but then they got a contract to develop content for Burj Khalifa dedicated to the biggest holiday in the United Arab Emirates — EID Mubarak. The viewers liked the show so much that it was prolonged for an additional week, the Magic Innovations reps recalled. The following year, the team received an offer to become a part of the main show. The content the Ukrainians created was presented on the skyscraper surface every day.

Since then, Magic Innovations’ dream has become a bit closer. The management of the operator EMAAR appreciated their work. They checked the portfolio of Ukrainian specialists and offered them to develop new year content.

“3D mapping perfectly illustrates how art and technology enhance the interaction between society, business, and the architectural environment. It’s striking and eye-catching at a time when it’s not so easy to be surprised and stay in people’s memories for a long time,” the Magic Innovations team notes.

Preparations to the Show and its realization

About 20 people from Magic Innovations worked on the content for the Eve of Wonder show. There were concept artists, 3D designers, motion designers, VFX designers, a project manager, an art director, a creative director, and others.

For Burj Khalifa, with its world-biggest 828-meter LED screen, the team created over 200 unique scenes. The first stage was the confirmation of concept arts. Then they have been recreated in the 3D format, followed by VFX effects and motion design elements. Finally, the team worked for three months on the presentation of a one-kilometer video.

More than 20 powerful graphic design computers, a render farm, and special animation software have been used to realize this project. To create a 15-minute show, they needed over 500 hours of content rendering.

Magic Innovations did not comment on the financial details under the terms of the contract with the customer.

According to Magic Innovations, the show was transmitted using the V-Stick technology — thin sticks, 30 to 50 cm long, with high-performance LEDs. Every LED serves as a pixel with a standalone control and can broadcast simple static colors and dynamic video effects. The total length of all “LED sticks” used on the facade of Burj Khalifa was 28 km.

“Because of the complexity of the building, such aspects were important to take into account. Only in the case of perfectly calculated graphics, the effect of one picture became possible,” commented the reps of Magic Innovations.

The new year show created by Ukrainians was live-aired via different platforms and TV channels. Millions of people around the globe watched it. Some analysts say the audience of the Burj Khalifa new year show was larger than of the Olympics finals, Magic Innovations added.

About Magic Innovations

• Magic Innovations has been on the market since 2015. The founder is Ostap Khytruk, a Ukrainian businessman and innovator who lives in Dubai.
• The company has offices in Kyiv, Dubai, and New York, as well as clients across over 20 countries.
• Magic Innovations belong to the TOP 10 Best Digital Studios of the world. In 2017, they were acknowledged for the national record — The nation-largest projection — thanks to their 3D show on the Motherland monument during the Eurovision 2017 in Kyiv.

Speaking of the future, Magic Innovations references the Burj Khalifa project. The team believes that it was an excellent opportunity to make the name in the world and join the “premier league” of the world-best innovation and 3D graphics companies.

The Ukrainian professionals’ dream is art creation on the most prominent buildings globally and the development of permanent visual installations for famous museums, galleries, and art spaces.

“Speaking about events, we would like to participate in the next Olympics and Oscar celebrations,” Magic Innovations resumed.

Background

Yuliya joined the JetBridge team as Operations Manager since its launch in 2019. One of her tasks was to pay salaries to the Ukrainian team, so she had access to the company’s accounts. According to John, at first, she did well in terms of her duties. But in 2021, a team from the United States began to monitor Ukrainian operations and uncovered some issues.

“When it was announced that control would pass to the team in the United States, Yuliya said that she had contracted the coronavirus and disappeared. We asked her to provide papers from the hospital because our company pays for medical expenses, but she refused. Then a team in the United States discovered her fraudulent financial activities,” says John. 

Story details

According to John, financial specialists at JetBridge in the US checked the transactions on the company’s accounts. They found that Yuliya used her PrivatBank accounts and Payoneer account to transfer company funds to herself in multiple transactions. It became possible, among other things, because since coronavirus restrictions, it has become more difficult for John and other Americans to come to Ukraine and monitor what is happening with the company’s money. 

“According to our current estimate, the company lost about $200,900 due to transactions carried out by Yuliya Frolova. We do not know the final amount yet, since she has created a complex network of transfers to and from her accounts in PrivatBank and Payoneer,” the entrepreneur told AIN.UA. 

According to the entrepreneur, the employee also withdrew money from JetBridge accounts at ATMs: there is data on 50 such transactions in different ATMs for a total of $46,000. As an example, the entrepreneur cites data on the withdrawal of 60,000 UAH from the company’s account in 2 days: 

According to the entrepreneur, from the company’s point of view, withdrawing cash from ATMs was pointless since JetBridge does not make cash payments to its employees. The employee performed such transactions in the span of 19 months. When it became known about them, she blocked him on Facebook and stopped all communication. The other day, the company’s management nevertheless contacted her via Zoom, though the meeting was unsuccessful. 

“I am from San Francisco. Here it is customary to respect and promote women in IT because they are underrepresented in the industry. Therefore, we tried extremely hard to teach Yuliya, to acquaint her with famous people from the Valley, to give her great responsibility. Money is not so important to us, but we were unpleasantly struck by her decision to deceive us for such a long time. Now I have no goal to destroy her life, I just want to warn the IT community,” says the entrepreneur. 

According to the entrepreneur, part of the amount ($35,000) Yuliya also transferred to a person named Viktor Kuchko, who lives in Zhytomyr.

According to the company, since November 2019, she has also transferred about $119,944 from Stripe’s corporate account to her Payoneer account.

The entrepreneur also stressed in his commentary that he would not want this story to affect Ukraine’s image negatively and that it would not affect his decision to do business here. According to the company, Yuliya is a Russian national who now lives in Ukraine. Yuliya herself denies this and says that she is Ukrainian.

John says that he is going to file a complaint about Yuliya’s actions with both American and Ukrainian law enforcement agencies (on charges of Internet fraud and embezzlement of other people’s property).

Comment of the second party

Yuliya herself calls this allegation slander. In her commentary to AIN.UA, she indicated the following:

• Yuliya has worked at JetBridge since the founding of the company. At first, she was hired there as a sales manager, but then other obligations were transferred to her, including, she was responsible for payments to employees and the purchase of equipment on site. 
• Yuliya does not have a signed contract with JetBridge, and, according to her, John demanded that she sign the contract retroactively. She had access to the company’s account, but, according to Yuliya, it was John’s personal account in a Ukrainian bank, and, without his knowledge and confirmation of transactions, she could not conduct transactions with him. JetBridge did not have a registered legal entity in Ukraine.
• According to Yuliya, the accusation of stealing money arose because when the audit passed and it was found out that the company’s money was going to incomprehensible Ukrainian accounts, it was necessary to find an explanation. According to her, the situation was worsened by the fact that the company lost several large clients in March. 
• Employees were paid money to personal accounts or in cash. “As far as withdrawals of money from ATMs on April 15-16, 2021 is concerned, these were cash payments to employees. The company partially paid salaries in cash. And April 15 is the payroll period,” she says. Since she could not withdraw money from John’s Ukrainian bank account for salary payments, the money was transferred to her personal account or withdrawn from an ATM. The entrepreneur himself stressed that the company did not pay salaries to employees in cash. 
• Also, the money had to be withdrawn to purchase equipment since the company could not do it by bank transfer. Yuliya provided photos of paper receipts for laptops purchased at Technoplace store, Kyiv, in 2020 (the editorial office has the copies).
• She also denied the allegation that she had a Russian passport She showed a photo of a Ukrainian document (the AIN.UA editorial office should note that it is impossible to have two passports in Ukraine, but many have two or more, including a Russian passport. We do not know whether Yuliya has a Russian passport). 

• She blocked John on Facebook because, after his publication, she received multiple messages with accusations and threats. 
• She phoned John to discuss the situation, but the parties did not come to an agreement.

Eva.stories is an Instagram series filmed in today’s popular stories format. The series shows the life of a 13-year-old Jewish girl Eva Heiman during the Holocaust. The story itself is based on a true story, and the source for information was the diary of a girl who, at the beginning of 1944, described the persecution of Jews in Hungary.

The media project was created in honor of the Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel. The goal of the campaign is to attract the attention of young Israelis to the tragedy of the people. The promo of the series was accompanied by the signature: “What If a Girl In The Holocaust Had Instagram?”. Therefore, there were used gifs, signatures, filters, geolocation, and hashtags in the videos.

How the diary series work

The series consists of 70 episodes, they are consistently published on May 1 and 2. They are also available in saved account stories. All episodes are combined according to the days of recording in Eva’s real diary: from February 13 to May 30.

The plot of the series reflects the entries in Eva’s diary. In the first Stories, the girl talks about herself and her family. Then the Nazis come, they start persecuting the Jews, kill them or send them to the ghetto. As a result, the girl is taken to a concentration camp.

Shooting in Ukraine

The series was filmed by Ukrainian production Colorfilm. In total, 400 people participated in the shooting, 50 of them were Ukrainians. According to Colorfilm founder Yana Kartun, Lviv was chosen immediately as a location for filming Hungary in military times.

“The line producer of the project from the Israeli side often worked with us in Ukraine. As soon as he was offered this project, he thought of us as a company that would prepare and conduct the shooting, ” she says.

There was little time to prepare for the shooting – less than a month. At the first stage, Colorfilm, together with the Israeli POV studio and a team of directors, producers, and historical consultants, went to Lviv to look for locations. At the second stage, a film crew was formed in Kyiv, some of the actors were looking for, they selected scenery, props and stage costumes. The shooting itself lasted from March 17 to 26 in several locations: Eva’s apartment, pharmacy, school, ghetto, train station, park, and others.

“Locations were compared with photos of military times. I had to hide modern Ukrainian signs, air conditioners on the facades,” continues Kartun.

“I needed to make Lviv look like a Hungarian city occupied by the Germans,” adds project designer Volodymyr Cheremis. “At first we wanted to shoot individual episodes as Stories, but then we decided to make a full-fledged film.”

According to Volodymyr, the most difficult part of the shooting was to deliver the “Tiger” to Lviv from Vinnytsya – a real tank from the Second World War.

How much did it cost

The publication of the New York Times writes that the project budget was “less than $5 million.”