Labenko Yurii, 31 years

My name is Yurii Labenko, and today I am the CEO and an officer at the financial company Icon Finance with an international infrastructure. At the same time, I remember my starting point well: the small city of Nikopol, the feeling that my surroundings were limiting, and the decision to move to Poland in 2012 to start building a life practically from scratch. My journey was neither straightforward nor predictable.

I worked at corporations—including Uber, on the Incident Response team—went through unsuccessful projects, made mistakes, and reconsidered my own decisions. Eventually, I gradually built a business around what genuinely interests me and where I see my expertise: finance. For a long time, I lived caught between two extremes: either I enjoyed the work but it did not make money, or it made money but gave me no inner satisfaction. At a certain point, it became essential for me to bring these two things together—interest and financial results. I was also changing as a person. By nature, I am quite reserved and for a long time avoided having lots of meetings and public interactions. But growing the business forced me to learn something different: building a network of contacts, earning trust, and interacting with people systematically.

A major turning point was an event in Tenerife in 2025. Afterward, I reassessed my personal habits: I gave up alcohol and cigarettes completely, and brought exercise and discipline back into my daily routine. For me, this became a way to live more consciously, calmly, and soberly—in every sense of the word.

How did the business idea come about?

My business began with a down-to-earth, practical thought. In the winter of 2020-2021, I was taking an evening walk with my two dogs and spent about an hour sorting through what I knew how to do and what I genuinely enjoyed. By then, I had sold my stake in a metal business (manufacturing metal bars from Kryvorizhstal raw materials and selling them in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland). I had money, but I did not have a business of my own.

I came home and suggested a simple idea: opening a physical or online crypto exchange. It was not a leap into the complete unknown. Rather, it was a formalization of what I was already doing as a freelancer. I had contacts, liquidity—both cash and non-cash—and an understanding of how the market worked. Clients often found me on their own. There were even funny situations: once, near a bank, I happened to meet a woman who urgently needed to transfer money to China.

Then the principle of social connections came into play. I shared the idea with an acquaintance, who introduced me to the right people and, eventually, to my future business partner. From that point on, everything began to develop rapidly.

What key skills helped you launch the business?

Three things became the foundation of my growth:

1. First, persistence and resilience. There was a time in my life when I completely burned out and literally found myself “on the edge” after a series of setbacks. It was the ability to get back up and keep moving forward that kept me from falling apart.
2. Second, belief in myself and, in part, in my own luck. Without inner confidence, there is no energy in your eyes and no trust from your team. In my business, this is directly connected to retaining key people. Over ten years, team turnover was approximately 5%, and that is an important indicator for me.
3. Third, discipline. Mine is not perfect, but I work on it deliberately. For example, early workouts at seven in the morning are a way of proving to myself that I can work systematically, not only when I feel like it.

What were the 3 most difficult challenges you overcame in the early years?

At the beginning, already within the financial and crypto sectors, the three biggest challenges were:

1. First, rebuilding myself as a person. I am quite reserved by nature, but business requires systematically building a network of acquaintances and contacts. I literally had to push myself out of my comfort zone. Even joining a business club became a personal challenge in its own right.
2. Second, building infrastructure from scratch in an unfamiliar city and finding our first partners in Warsaw. I deliberately looked for places where cash was generated and circulated. It turned out these were not banks, but markets. My wife and I spent a month visiting Chinese-Vietnamese markets, facing tax inspections and struggling to understand the rules of the closed Asian community. I carried a Ukrainian passport and literally had to convince people that I was not a police officer just to get them to agree to talk.
3. The third challenge was the constant feeling that I was taking on more than I knew how to handle. Even now, as CEO, I sometimes feel that I am not qualified enough for some tasks. But this is exactly what pushes me to keep developing my skills and proving my value to myself and to the team.

What crises has your business faced, and how did you overcome them?

The toughest crisis in my entrepreneurial life was the Bruschetta Food & Wine restaurant in Krakow during the COVID pandemic. It was a beautiful concept: European cuisine with an Italian touch. But it quickly became clear that everything looked good except for the most important thing—money. I lost my inheritance, my wife and I ended up in debt, we lost our staff, and our accounts were frozen. At one point, I even refused to let the electricians in so they would not cut off our electricity. In desperation, we even got involved in a fraudulent scheme on Uber Eats: we confirmed nonexistent orders and split the payouts with scammers so we could pay wages. The only real crisis-management solution was to close the restaurant.

This was a decision not about business, but about physical survival. After that, I made up my mind once and for all that I would not return to employment. Another major personal crisis happened in July 2025 in Tenerife. The ocean pulled me under, and my younger brother, trying to save me, nearly drowned too. A surfer from Venezuela named Juan pulled us out. After that, I radically changed my attitude toward life: I started living more slowly, gave up alcohol and cigarettes, and brought exercise back into my life.

Which decisions proved most effective for the company's growth?

Several strategic decisions drove the greatest growth. 

1. First, deliberately partnering with a more experienced partner. After we formalized the partnership, my personal capital grew more than fourfold, and the business grew by approximately 30% in a little over a quarter.
2. Second, regularly auditing the company's products and focus. We are not abandoning the crypto sector, but every year we analyze demand and gradually shift our focus toward more substantial financial solutions. Without this, we would simply have stayed where we were.
3. Third, getting rid of dead weight. Letting go of people who consume resources without delivering results gives the team a tangible “breath of fresh air.” I directly connect this to the principles of lean and kaizen and to Toyota's example: remove what is unnecessary, optimize processes, and do not break what already works.

Which of your mistakes do you now consider your most valuable experience?

My most valuable mistake was the Bruschetta Food & Wine restaurant in Krakow. It was my first truly systematic business. I went through every stage: my first court cases, the first emergencies, and my first work with lawyers. That was when I understood how quickly the romance of entrepreneurship turns into harsh operational reality. When you have been through an experience like that, many later risks no longer seem so frightening.

Even the details taught me a lot. On the first day of operation, during COVID restrictions, there were more than 90 people in the restaurant. About 60 police officers and the sanitary inspectorate arrived. But at the hearing, all the visitors said the same thing: they had come to order catering and do some work. Nobody informed on anyone.