Artem Borodatiuk is a Ukrainian entrepreneur, founder of the Netpeak Group of IT companies, a member of the Presidential Council for Entrepreneurship Support, and a member of the Strategic Council of the Diia.City United Technology Business Union.
Artem runs a Telegram channel about business and management, created a closed video course for Netpeak Group managers, and is preparing a book for publication based on it.
Tell us what your company does?
Netpeak Group is a group of IT companies that unites 25 businesses, 3 public organizations, and 1500+ specialists around the world. In fact, we are building a factory of businesses that have different directions.
The structure of the group includes:
- Venture builders
- Tonti Laguna Group is a multi-product company that develops and promotes its own mobile applications. It includes 42n, Asolytics, PDFLiner, Tonti Laguna Prime, Tonti Laguna Automation.
- Kiss My Apps is a startup studio that specializes in the creation and development of mobile products in a co-founding format.
- A group of digital agencies: Netpeak Agencies Group (Netpeak Ukraine, Netpeak Kazakhstan, Netpeak Bulgaria, Netpeak Alliance, RadASO).
- Services: digital marketing agency Inweb, recruitment agency Netpeak Talent.
- SaaS (software as a service): Ringostat business telephony, AcademyOcean cloud LMS, Serpstat search marketing platform, Saldo Apps fintech ecosystem of mobile and web services for financial management, CoreHR HRMS system, Netpeak Software, developer of search marketing tools.
- Choice31 online university.
- A group of social projects: Group 31 (My City and GladPet).
What achievements are you most proud of?
The biggest achievement of our team is that the companies of the group are really developing independently, we have done a strong recruitment drive and have our own flow for launching new businesses. It’s too early to relax, but we are already moving to the third stage of the group’s development, and for me, this is an indicator that our team is able to work with processes in a structured, clear and systematic way and scale up.
Speaking of scaling, the group of marketing agencies is entering foreign marketplaces. What advice would you give to businesses that have the same plans?
Netpeak Agency Group is really specialized in this issue and is an Amazon partner in three programs. I can give three main tips that we have formulated based on our experience:
- Before deciding to enter a particular country, analyze the local market. Answer the following questions: where to enter, with what assortment, whether you need to refine the product, and whether you should enter at all?
- Resolve legal issues and set up logistics before you start preparing your entry strategy. Adapt the content and design of the product packaging, and also find out what certificates you need (in case you need to reflect this in the packaging or content) – it can take up to 14 weeks to get some certificates in Europe, so it’s better to apply for them before the release of the batch, which will have time to deteriorate before obtaining a sales permit. The same with logistics, build it taking into account market demand, if on average competitors in the niche sell 1,300 sku per month, and you can only ship 300 and with a delay, then again, it is better to solve this before the start.
- Develop marketing, content, and a promotion strategy tailored to the cultural characteristics of the target audience in a particular country – from texts to images. You should even take into account that the name of the product may be different in the UK and the US.
Today, Ukraine is one of the most advanced IT countries in Europe, thanks in part to Diia. In your opinion, why did our country make such a leap forward in digital technologies and get ahead of its EU partners?
I consider Mykhailo Fedorov to be one of the most powerful managers in the country (and beyond). Thanks to the right team and the hard work of each of them, Diia has become one of the world’s best GovTech products.
Speaking of technology, we can’t help but mention artificial intelligence. Has it replaced any positions in your company?
We are not talking about replacing any positions completely, but AI helps us to significantly optimize the work of our employees. For example, my partner, co-founder, and CEO of Kiss My Apps startup studio Dmitriy Lola said that their needs are currently covered by more than 100 employees using AI, and without it, they would have to increase the team by at least 10%. In other words, AI allows employees to be more efficient and do more work.
For example, since August last year, we have been using LITI artificial intelligence to hire employees. To do this, our AI Director Sergey Sauta developed a model that analyzes a candidate’s soft skills and gives a recommendation on how well they fit the position.
LITI can save a company over 1000 hours of technical staff annually by not interviewing candidates. Together with all other factors, this is about $100,000 by reducing the second stage of interviews and the work of HR and managers during onboarding and probation.
What challenges do you see for the IT sector in Ukraine today?
First of all, there is a lack of human capital. This applies to both the IT sector and the labor market in general. Obviously, there are military risks – both direct threats to life and mobilization of high-quality specialists, and it is becoming more difficult to attract investments.
Despite your involvement in the Business Support Council, do you still help the state hire strong managers? Why hiring?
When I created Netpeak Group, I put the highest priority on recruiting because I believe that nothing can be done without people. It is people, their ideas, enthusiasm, inspiration, professionalism, and perseverance that allow us to believe in great things and realize them. Finding such people is difficult, but definitely possible.
We are currently filling the following positions:
- Chief Operating Officer for the project office to join the team of the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov;
- Two deputy vice prime ministers, Yuliia Svyrydenko, who will be responsible for attracting investment and working with international organizations;
- Head of the Made in Ukraine Foundation.
- CDTO (Chief Digital Transformation Officer) at the Ministry of Economy.
- Product Manager at the BRDO’s Better Regulation Delivery Office.
- CEO at the State Enterprise of the Ministry of Defense.
Why can’t the state find strong managers on its own?
It can, but it doesn’t have enough resources to do so. The Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Digital Transformation alone employ more than 1,500 people, and there are a number of other structures in the executive and legislative branches of government. That is, the flow of personnel is enormous, and recruiting for the civil service requires teams as strong as those that implement projects. Currently, I see a situation where such specialists are absent or have little experience or resources to hire strong managers.
One high-quality recruiter can hire 2-4 specialists per month, depending on the requirements of the requester, but in the state (I can’t vouch for all institutions), recruiting is mostly quite simple. The main bet is on networking, but if you look for a specialist in this way, it is impossible to build a large funnel.
At Netpeak Talent, recruiters look through 500 candidates on average to find one specialist. That is, networking is purely mathematically losing in this competition.
In my opinion, recruitment is one of the key issues today, the solution of which will transform into more efficient work of ministries and not only. Because people are the basis of change.
How has your business adapted to the challenges of war?
Since the beginning of the great war, I always emphasize that we have to work twice as productively as in peacetime. That’s why, instead of stagnating, Netpeak Group started moving towards growth – we launched eight new businesses, including Netpeak Core, a consulting company, Kiss My Apps and Netpeak New, a startup mobile app studio, and Netpeak Talent, an IT recruitment agency. The digital marketing agency Netpeak was transformed into a group of digital agencies Netpeak Agencies Group, and Tonti Laguna was transformed into a startup studio Tonti Laguna Group.
In terms of rhubarb in USD, Netpeak Group grew by 18% year-on-year in 2022, by 50% in 2023, and we expect it to grow by 76% in 2024.
We are also actively helping the Defense Forces – from February 24, 2022, to date, the amount of charitable support has amounted to UAH 141,794,135. And we will continue to donate until we win.
Tetiana Stelmakh
