My name is Charlie. I help companies develop great products through dedicated software teams and am a co-founder of an innovative IT school in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Fill free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Silicon Valley no longer has a monopoly on ideas or talent (if it ever did).

I wasn’t sure what to expect prior to my current trip to Ukraine but now it’s clear to me that entrepreneurs on both sides of the Atlantic are motivated by solving largely the same big problems.

There are definitely cultural differences between the US and Ukraine but fundamentally people still care about health, infrastructure, homeownership, education and pursuing happiness.

In short, “people are people” to paraphrase a quote from a friend’s dad (ironically from Ukraine).

I thought there might be bigger differences, but once you mentally move past the facade of concrete apartment blocks (that would cause an American to wonder who is in charge of the Homeowners Association), you see that once basic human needs are met, most people have similar concerns and ambitions regardless of location (and everyone agrees that winter sucks).

With regard to Ukraine specifically, I have always been curious about the paradox between the quality of the education system (good free public Universities) and the lack of great employment opportunities.

Outsourcing IT services has become the most powerful path for social mobility in the country for those who didn’t grow up wealthy.

In the past, it meant working directly for the US or European based company or indirectly through an outsourcing agency.

This has been a very positive development for the people working in these companies and Ukraine in general.

Even so, I couldn’t help but wonder why a country with all of this technical talent was primarily exporting people as a resource and not incubating their own successful startups.

I now have a more clear answer to this question.

The problem is lack of a sales culture and access to personal relationships in larger markets (ie US and EU).

I’ve had a number of conversations about these topics over the past week.

There seems to be a sentiment that even though almost 30 years has elapsed since the fall of the Soviet Union, the cultural remnants haven’t been completely shaken.

In a society that historically didn’t place much value on consumer choice, it seems to be taking some time for a mindset shift towards more customer-centric thinking. But this is happening now.

Aside from the challenges of thinking differently about selling, there are two main issues:

  1. A perception shift needs to take place in the typical American mind to have greater trust in Eastern European companies
  2. An understanding of the nuances of foreign cultures for effective sales & marketing is needed.

I could write a lot more about the “sales culture” issue, but that is the biggest hurdle.

The lack of deep thought given to sales strategy and execution, financial forecasting, brand positioning, and customer-centric thinking is the most glaring problem to be solved.

The good news is the solution to this problem starts with awareness and almost everyone I have spoken to has a keen understanding of this.

It is really inspiring to see a country that has been used as a knowledge export resource for the benefit of foreign companies start trying to build some of their own.

I can’t imagine Ukraine is the only place where this transformation is happening, but their mix of educational infrastructure, population size, and economic growth potential makes it a very exciting place to be.