Section 1: About me. Dossier.
«Perhaps it is the habit of regularly making difficult decisions and consciously stepping outside my comfort zone. One of the most recent examples is the decision to join YBC.»
Shashkov Anatolii Ruslanovych
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Join the clubSection 2. About the business. Dossier.
Section 3: Biography.
My name is Anatolii Shashkov, and today I am the co-owner and CEO of Roar, a fashion retail company. I live in Warsaw and run a rapidly growing business: on average, we grow by x2 each year. Along with this pace of development, the company constantly experiences so-called “growing pains,” which are a natural part of scaling.
My entrepreneurial style is focused on building infrastructure and systematic management. I am used to relying on accounting, processes, and management systems rather than chaotic decisions or occasional “heroics.” My business journey is not about finding one “magic button.” In my experience, the most important changes happen after making difficult decisions—the ones I call “coming out of your cocoon.” In business, this means being ready to take responsibility for systematizing processes and scaling the company.
In life, it means deciding to enter new environments and communities, such as joining YBC. I joined Roar not as the person who came up with the idea, but as the person responsible for managing and scaling the business. Before that, I had worked on other entrepreneurial projects as well.
The business idea belongs to my wife. It came about as a classic case of solving a personal need. She found it difficult to find suitable products in Ukraine—lingerie and swimwear that met her expectations in terms of shape, fit, and quality. She had to literally model options “out of cardboard,” search for solutions online, and spend a lot of unnecessary effort. At a certain point, she decided to simplify the process and create the product herself. I joined the business later, at the stage of building management and scaling the company.
The foundation was determination, perseverance, and a genuine love for what we do. From a management perspective, the key skill was the ability to build a system:
When I joined the business, the key challenges were:
There have been many crises, and some were a natural consequence of rapid growth. One of the most notable was a cash-flow crisis. We managed to resolve it using our own bitcoin reserve. For a period, I was involved in mining and, to some extent, spot cryptocurrency trading. As a result, I sold the asset for less than I had planned (the expectation was 100-120 thousand dollars, while the actual sale was for approximately 74 thousand dollars). However, this decision fully resolved the financial issue and allowed us to maintain business stability. Another ongoing problem is product shortages. This is not due to weak demand, but rather to high quality requirements and the difficulty of scaling production.
The main factors:
We are working systematically on this area: bringing in consultants, expanding the team, and appointing a dedicated manager responsible for developing production. At the end of last year, we also faced a management crisis. The existing management team could no longer cope with the volume of operational tasks. The solution was to form a new team of specialists who are helping us build a fully-fledged management structure.
A staff shortage remains a separate, systemic problem that the business has to address continually.
The greatest impact on growth came from changing my management perspective. I am used to relying on numbers and analytics, while my wife relies more on intuition. In the early years, I was skeptical about this, but over time I realized that a leader’s instincts can sometimes be no less important than numbers. Without them, you may get results, but they do not always ensure quality growth.
The second group of important decisions involved building the business infrastructure:
The third important factor is a strategy of continuous reinvestment. We put a significant portion of our funds back into business development before calculating net profit. This enables us to sustain dynamic development, strengthen the team, and maintain a high rate of growth.
One of my most valuable lessons came from opening my own bar in 2019. I entered the business as its sole owner and registered it in my name, effectively taking on all the legal and accounting responsibility. In practice, this meant I also carried full operational responsibility. This approach proved to be a mistake. As a result, I spent more than three years dealing with tax matters and learned Ukraine’s tax legislation firsthand. The main takeaway from this experience is that in partnership projects, you should not take all the responsibility upon yourself.
Roles, resources, and responsibilities need to be distributed rationally. In my case, it would have been better to join the project as a partner in a specific area—for example, taking responsibility for people, events, and event organization.
Section 4: How can I be useful? Experience I can share.
My practical experience lies in turning a ‘living’ business into a manageable system. This process usually begins with describing the current state of the business:
Next, the key elements of the system are implemented:
After that, roles and responsibilities are assigned so that the team can work independently, clearly understands the scope of its tasks, and has the authority to make decisions within its area of expertise. A
separate area of value is experience navigating growth crises:
I start with what I call an inventory of reality. All processes need to be documented and a systematization table created that answers several key questions:
After that, the basic components that should exist in any business are established:
In our case, systematization began with accounting. We organized the tracking of orders, finances and expenses, and employee documents, integrated these processes into systems, and built the necessary infrastructure. Later, we brought in outsourced financial services, which strengthened the financial function, improved accounting, and helped establish systematic development planning.
At the same time, we built up management: clear areas of responsibility, decision-making authority, and people development—even if their starting qualifications were modest, as long as they had potential.
My experience shows that a business can double in a year only by combining infrastructure, product, and positioning. Infrastructure alone or marketing alone rarely delivers a stable 2x result if the product itself is not being improved. The key factor is a unique selling proposition around which the entire strategy is built.
For our brand, what makes us unique is not just the product itself, but above all the emotion it creates. We do not simply sell a product; we sell a feeling: «I want to look like her» or «I want to feel the same way». This idea is scaled through marketing, PR, and communication with customers. At the same time, we maintain a high level of quality, product durability, and customer support.
That is what generates steady demand and repeat purchases. The second important factor is the discipline of reinvesting. We put money back into business development almost immediately, even before calculating net profit in full.
This strengthens the team and the company’s internal capabilities. At the same time, it is important to understand the limits of marketing: increasing the advertising budget does not always lead to a proportional increase in results. So it is necessary to understand the limits of each channel and develop other areas in parallel.
Section 5: Club value
Section 6: Tell me who your friend is, and I will tell you who you are.
