War in Ukraine and its impact on the Tech Industry: work process at Linkup Studio

Andrew Sambir, the CEO of LinkUp, shares his vision and experience in the new conditions of war. We want to tell you how we have organized our life in the new reality, how we feel, what we do, how our employees feel, and what the reaction of our clients to the situation was.

We will help you to get a clear idea of current processes and cope with business circumstances in times of war.

The purpose we have made this record is not to blame someone or make you feel sorry. We just want to share our perception of the things in business, and to assure you to forget all your concerns.

On February 24 Russia started a full-scale war against Ukraine. Ukraine has been brave, defending itself against the aggressor, which is 28 times bigger than us. So, in today’s record we want to talk about our company journey during these dark times.

Lots of people ask us how they can help. Work with us, not only with LinkUp, with every Ukrainian business, with every service job you can find.

We went fully remote, 80% of our team have already moved to safer places, far from big cities.

Our first goal was the safety of our people. We called each member of the team to make sure they were safe and had enough food or medicine.

We made lots of cash reserves. In case people lose their money, or in case the bank system falls down, which didn't happen, we had enough cash to give people.

That was our basic plan of coping with problems when the war started.

Then, we formed a big newsletter in which we explained what was happening and what our plan was; we asked to give us some time before we were able to resume the work. And we were given that time. Lots of our customers paid even for those hours when we were unable to work, just to protect their people. And we really appreciate that.

Our first priority is the safety of our people.

We made the decision that 70% of the money we earn at the end of the day will be donated to the Ukrainian army, Ukrainian medicine and the refugees. Our team members are preparing food for the people who are arriving at the railway station.

We are back to work, we must support the economy of our country. We have got huge support from foreign countries which help us to survive economically, but also inside our country, we need to make our economics work. So, we pay taxes three months in advance, and we encourage our people to do the same.

This is the key feature for Ukrainians now, we are very united and strongly motivated. We are ready to do our job.

What concerns mental health, people have already adapted to air alarms, they continue working from the bathroom. Some specialists gave us a few lectures on how to react, and what you can do to calm yourself down. They say, when you're working, you're not reading the news.

To protect our people, we made some steps to secure the payments. We opened the Transit Account in Estonia (European Union). We asked our customers to make payments to that account temporarily, so we can use it as the transit. It's very important that taxes are still paid in Ukraine.

Now all companies have a common situation, not only LinkUp. We have great developers, great designers, and great data engineers. Whatever service you need, you can find it here. These people are very dedicated. During this war month, we signed two new contracts. One of the customers said:

“In case you are doing such a job under bombs, I can imagine how you will do it when the situation is ok.”

Our government is doing a lot to help our people and to continue work. Our country’s policy is that people, who can generate money and value for the economy, are in their job positions.

Here are our main conclusions about the current business situation in times of war:

       
1. First, you should care about your people, financially and mentally, and provide conditions for their safety.
       
2. You should continue work despite all current circumstances.
       
3. We have learned how to live and how to work now.
       
4. If you want to help us now, the best way is to work with us.

“If every person makes some small contribution, then we will get something big in the end.”

If you want to go deeper into Ukrainian-Russian history, what vision we have, let us know, we can make a separate podcast about it.

As somebody said, “We will forget the bad words of our enemies, but we will always remember the silence of our friends.” Thanks to all our friends who are not silent.

If you want to hear our full story, where we tell how to handle the current reality and find the productive ways in business, listen to our new podcast.