Since I was a child, I had a dream to build something valuable, impactful, and influential. I always knew I could apply my flexible mind and huge potential toward my own goals and a better future. I wanted to gain the freedom I desired, hit the mark, and grow alongside like-minded people. As I loved coding, I began thinking about launching my own digital agency.
My first two attempts at starting a business were complete disasters, leaving me with only debt and frustration. But I never gave up. Those failures taught me lessons no fancy business book could ever provide. By my twenties, I already had management experience, negotiation skills, and a solid ability to solve problems. One of the most important lessons I learned was this: success is impossible without the right people at the right time. You need a team. With the right team, you can achieve anything - starting with nothing but images in your mind.
In April 2018, I made the best decision of my life - or maybe the worst. I didn’t realize how powerful imagination could be, bringing both good and bad into reality. I decided to start an international outsourcing/outstaffing digital agency - something much bigger than a regular programming job.
The first thing I had to do was find the right people. I started by sharing my ideas with friends. It wasn’t easy convincing my friend Vlad to join me in my tiny apartment “office” - which wasn’t even a real office. I didn’t have a plan, just a vision. I told him, “Maybe we fail, maybe we win!” We sat in the park as I tried my best to convince him to join a non-existent company. Vlad had just received an offer from a major IT company and was about to start his career. All I could offer him was a possibility - the chance to create something bigger. After some thought, Vlad’s entrepreneurial spirit won. That was the beginning of MetraBit Digital Agency. The company was born.
We started small, taking on projects from around the world until we landed our first big client. We worked hard - sometimes 16-hour days. Vlad once said, “It was the best time ever,” and I couldn’t agree more. Even the air felt heavy with tension, as if the world was resisting us. Within the first few months, we got our first office space - not big in size, but enormous in our minds.
The company quickly started to take shape. I watched as our small team grew into separate departments. I implemented new approaches, tested ideas, and tracked KPIs. I created systems that automated the repetitive work, helping us handle a massive workload efficiently. We had dozens of projects around the globe, and we began to scale.
Wanting to keep my programming skills sharp, I continued working as a backend developer and tech lead. I didn’t delegate anything, which tied me to every aspect of company operations. I thought no one could do things better than me - a typical entrepreneurial mistake. I believed it gave me better insight into the company’s inner workings, but the lack of time led to poor decisions. One such mistake was hiring a couple of completely incompetent people. Instead of lightening my load, their presence doubled my work. The company began to stagnate.
I took full responsibility. If the company had problems, I believed it was entirely my fault. I blamed myself, fell into depression, and eventually burned out. Looking back, I can see my mistakes clearly, but at the time it felt like a nightmare. Even through the darkness of depression, I saw a light: the solution was already within the company. We had great people - people I trusted.
That’s when Vlad, Vitalii, and Viktor officially became my partners. Together, we shared the pressure. It was one of the best days of my life. If you ask me about those guys, I’d say they are the most professional, hardworking, patient, and creative people I’ve ever known. I knew they would treat the company even better than I could at that point. This decision gave me breathing room and helped me recover from anxiety and depression.
From there came growth - growth and happiness. Under our collective leadership, the company tripled in size. Imagine that - our team grew from a few people to around 35. Some in the entrepreneurial community said we were growing too fast, but to us, it felt like we hadn’t even started yet. With our growth we got new opportunities. We started negotiations with Daimler AG (Mercedes). When you deal with such a big company, you need a lot of time to establish solid collaboration. It takes years to make it happen - but unfortunately, the black swan arrived sooner. We’d completed just a few projects for Daimler AG and had tons of other active clients around the world. But if you’ve read Nassim Taleb’s books, you know how fragile even the strongest systems are in a true crisis.
MetraBit was based in Kharkiv, Ukraine. And on Thursday, February 24, 2022, the war started. My biggest mistake wasn’t in scaling too fast or trusting the wrong people - it was not preparing for black swans. We’d already survived one during COVID, but I focused too much on growth afterward and ignored resilience. That oversight cost us everything. Within months, a missile struck near our office, causing significant damage and making it impossible to continue operations. Our hopes to reanimate the company were completely destroyed. The war took away our company - but not what we built within ourselves. The experience gave me priceless lessons and brought incredible people into my life.
MetraBit didn’t just build software. It built character, trust, leadership, and resilience. It shaped the way I think, work, and live. The company may be gone - but its spirit lives on in everything I create, everything I build, and everything I strive for next.