The success or failure of the company is the responsibility of the CEO like all others.
Most CEOs don't have to make hard decisions, but the 36-year-old is running a start-up in war-tornUkraine.
There is not enough people in place. The founder of Lemon.io said that one of his employees was fighting on the front line.
Decisions I make right now are not the decisions to make [the situation] better. It’s just … to suck less.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Volodarsky told his staff that their jobs would be retained and they would be paid.
If you have to worry about your income and lose your job, it is like double anxiety.
It is more difficult to go through this if you lose your job.
The CEO ran a start-up during the war. CNBC makes it discover.
The war has left Volodarsky uncertain about the future.
How do we hire another person or not hire another person and keep the first person?
He said that he wanted to take the position of chief marketing officer but that it was not efficient and not good for the company. Someone needs to do the job.
He has no good answers for that and many other problems. Is it a good idea to hire men right now, given that there could be a lot of people at any one time?
On one hand, excluding someone is just an ugly thing to do. But on the other hand, I have 60 people that I’m responsible for...
It's an ugly thing to exclude someone. If I do something that can hurt the company and their future income, I can't do that.
He wants to keep his promise to all of his staff, even though he's stilldebating on the right thing to do.
The decisions I make right now are not the decisions to improve the situation. To suck less.
He paid his employees in cash and in advance.
He said, "People got more nervous and we said, let's make some plans so they feel confident."
People were given two months' salary in advance so they could have cash. People need cash and the banking system can go down.
On the same day that Russia invaded the country, the Ukrainian central bank stopped electronic cash transfers.
ATMs across the country ran out of cash as the invasion went on, and some people stood in line for hours only to face a limit on their transactions.
It's been a challenge. The last five months have been messy, but people are confident that they can work.
3 million people fled their homes in less than 3 weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine. Many people couldn't work because of that.
They relocated, made their own plans and helped their families. We wanted to make sure that people could get settled, so we decided to ignore all of the company's goals.
That didn't help with his employee's feelings.
Having a sense of accomplishment helps people to live a normal life. You can see that there is progress being made, instead of waiting for the war to end.
He said that he started steering his team to push for the goal that was set before the war, which was for the platform to be the main source of income.
The company has small goals to improve the platform and user experience.
The company says it will create 1,000 jobs by the end of the year.
There is a bit more meaning in what you do. People were very excited when we had wins.
The decision by Volodarsky to give all profits to the Ukrainian military gave his company a lot of motivation.
"Not everyone can do something for the war, but they know that if they can keep contributing to the company and the company is growing, they have influence."
Giving up profits is notheroic according to Volodarsky.
What are profits, actually? He said that you make revenue and spend it on the army.
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