How understanding the needs of immigrants in the United States helped a Ukrainian build a multi-million dollar business

Stakh Vozniak is 29 years old, he is from Vinnytsia region. In 2018, he co-founded Cargofy in the USA - a service for self-employed truckers that helps them find cargo, complete documentation and solve problems on the road. In its first year, the startup earned $2,7 million and was included in the top 5000 fastest-growing companies according to Inc. XNUMX. Stakh told Voice of Americathat contributed to the growth of his business and what opportunities the United States opened before him.

Photo: Shutterstock

“We first launched in Ukraine and were one of the first to use this model: a mobile application called Tona, digitalization in the field of logistics,” says Stakh.

But after seeing that the competitors that started after them and were in the States grew much faster, Stach and his team realized that it was time to enter the international market - important access to capital. Therefore, they began to rebuild their strategy to enter the American market.

Before that, they worked in logistics for more than five years, but 2017 is considered the starting point of Cargofy. Then the company began to look for some kind of support, because it knew nothing about the American market, and found an acceleration program in the state of Iowa - Iowa Startup Accelerator.

“They helped us take the first steps, we came to them, they started introducing us to entrepreneurs. And it all started to happen,” says Stakh.

Company first steps

“For three or four months we simply adapted, because when we arrived, we did not understand when they were joking with us, because the difference in mentality, there is a certain barrier that is difficult to pass. Every day it became easier, more comfortable to be in the USA,” Stakh recalls. — In the first months, the pressure was abnormal, sometimes it was difficult for me to fall asleep due to stress, I went to bed and could lie for up to five hours, because there were a lot of ideas, fears, we put everything on the line, because the American market is much more capital-intensive, and it’s understandable that on the first day there were no investors in line with us, no one knew about us.”

Among the problems they had to face from the very beginning, the first one was paperwork.

On the subject: American dream: how immigrants from Ukraine achieved success in the USA

“When you move, you are like a “Euro plaque” in Ukraine, without status, without any rights, and obtaining these documents is a rather complicated process,” says Wozniak.

The second is finances, the cost of living is many times higher. And third, linguistic and cultural adaptation; it was also necessary to understand local legislation.

But when you go through this, you adapt, you have access to one of the largest markets in the world, capital, people, so it’s worth it.

What is unique about the USA?

“We focus mostly on immigrants, because we ourselves are immigrants, we know their pains, barriers and understand that when you come to the States, you have neither a credit history nor language knowledge at the required level to conduct any negotiations, and all this is difficult to get started, so we simplify the process,” says Stach. “There are about 100 such drivers, if we have 000% of this market, then Cargofy will be Unicorn.”

Unicorn company is the name of a private startup, which is valued at more than a billion dollars, since the market is quite large.

After living in the States, Stakh understood the path the States had taken to achieve this. And comparing Ukraine and the USA is like an early-stage startup and a large corporation. The USA is a magnet that attracts the best talents from all over the world through promotion and export of culture, everyone grows up on American ideas, on their ideology.

Ukraine has its advantages, since there is a sufficient level of freedom, there is no such regulation, but there are a lot of minuses. Ukraine as an investor has invested in people, they have learned, received education, reached 18-20 years and left there. Ukraine is losing the most valuable things it has, and this is not black soil, but people.

But the States are the opposite, they did everything to ensure that these people came to them and realized themselves. This is a country of the same immigrants, they have gone through this and feel the same obligation to help new ones, and the entire culture is built on this.

American decentralization

“I’m from Kalinovka, in Vinnytsia, we have an office here, and we have many plans for this city. When I moved to Iowa, we were also in this small city of Cedar Rapids, and it was our first investor that greatly changed this city. He did a lot: he opened a large food market, areas for events, and generally implemented a lot of objects there, although it all started with an IT company. And I really liked this approach because I saw that the community that they built there added value to their business,” says Stach.

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Now Stakh wants to do something similar for the Ukrainian part of the company, wants to make even more infrastructure in the city, that is, completely reinvest the entire resource from Ukrainian operations to show that it is also possible to do something similar in Ukraine.

The company received a grant from USAID to develop the city, we have obligations, we need to create jobs, and, in principle, everything is going according to plan, even despite quarantine.

Business support in the USA and in Ukraine

Even before the coronavirus, the company was focused on remote workers, so in fact, nothing has changed much, and in terms of logistics, some product groups sank, some grew, so everything was somewhat compensated.

Of course, there is more support in the States for small businesses to survive the crisis. In Ukraine, this is not much regulated, there were times when Stakh rented several offices, the owner of one of them refused to give a discount for the time of the crisis.

What is the main advantage of the USA?

“For me, the American dream is the transformation of myself into these values ​​of American society. When we arrived in Silicon Valley, we saw how fast companies were moving, how quickly ideas were being tested, we felt that we were still at a low level of development, and how much further we had to go,” says Stach. — When you see such examples, this is rivalry, mutual development, it is much easier to believe in the possibility of implementing and building a large company than reading articles while sitting in Ukraine. ”

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