Yevhenii Prutian, 35 years

Today, I am an architect, owner, CEO, and chief architect of YEP Architects in Kyiv.

I am from a village in Mykolaiv region. From childhood, I was used to working hard and creating opportunities through my own efforts. An important stage in my development was the period when I spent a year and a half traveling to Kyiv every weekend for preparatory courses, and later enrolled at a university to study architecture. That was when I truly moved into a different environment and began thinking on a different scale. My professional journey began while I was still studying: in my fourth year, I got a job as an architect.

I was fortunate to have Ihor Mykhailovych Protsenko as my first mentor. At his «Protsenko Architectural Bureau», I gained a strong professional foundation and, just as importantly, a love for the profession. Then came six years at «Archimatika», where I grew steadily, reached my career «ceiling», and realized that I needed a new stage. After that, I made a deliberate move to a property development company to understand the future client from the inside.

On a personal level, three events changed me deeply:

the birth of my first child, a son; a difficult period marked by crises in my personal life and business; and my return to God. After that, my approach to both people and business changed radically: I developed a different sense of responsibility, became less prideful, and drew a clearer boundary between my personal and professional life. This became the foundation for a new stage for the company and its rebranding as YEP Architects, where I am now the sole owner.

Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko has a line, «Fight—and you will prevail; God is helping you!», which has become deeply symbolic to me. It is about hard work, perseverance, and the ability not to give up. Why does it resonate with me? Because starting a business is an extraordinarily difficult process. Those who think you can simply «go and start» a business are deeply mistaken. Real survival begins when you have to pay your employees at the end of the month, when you literally have to fight clients for money you have honestly earned. Those are the moments that test your resilience.

My main principle in business is not to give up. Keep going, even when it is hard. Results will come. I have been through this several times. At the same time, it is important to be prepared for another scenario—to close the business. I started a business on my third attempt, and not alone, but together with people who helped me. Today, essentially, I am starting it for the fourth time—but this time it is entirely my own. Another key principle is having a plan and a strategy. I have always lived and worked this way. The phrase «it will be as God wills» once meant nothing to me. Over time, I understood its true meaning.

My formula is simple: you need a plan and a strategy, think ahead, and plan for the long term. But at the same time, you must be ready to change that plan at any second. Life often throws situations at you that change everything in an instant. If a person is not adaptable and not ready to embrace change, it becomes incredibly difficult to move forward.

So, if you want to start your own business or have life goals, remember: a goal is only your current point of focus. In the end, it may change radically. You never know for sure where life will take you. But learning to adapt and embrace new circumstances completely changes your approach to everything you create.

And one more principle, which I am still striving to live by but consider universal: treat people the way you want to be treated. If you want love, act with love. If you want honest, timely payments, pay that way yourself. Everything is directly proportional to our actions. When you begin to see reality through this lens, your approach to collaboration, business, and people in general changes completely.

How did the business idea come about?

The idea of starting my own business developed gradually. I had always wanted to have my own company, but my first attempts failed—I lacked the funding and experience, and, most importantly, an understanding of legal and financial processes.

The turning point came when, while working as an employee, I took on a side job «for the evening». The work received very positive feedback, and I was offered the chance to launch a joint business. My role was to lead the architectural side as chief architect and co-owner, while my partners provided legal, financial, and office support—the very resources I had previously lacked. That is how the company (formerly «Projectoria») came about, where I was the managing co-owner. Later, together with the team, I transformed this experience into a new format and brand—YEP Architects—as the sole owner. The key lesson I took from this stage was that even extensive architectural experience is not enough without solid legal and financial support and management maturity. Without these, a partnership can easily turn from a strength into a vulnerability.

What key skills helped you launch the business?

For me, the foundations for launching a business were professional expertise in design and a genuine love for my work, strong communication skills, and the willingness to take a risk when I was truly afraid. I had experience working in different settings—from an architectural studio to a large firm and a property development company. This gave me a broad understanding of how both architects and clients think, and allowed me to see the process from both sides.

Another important skill was the ability to «restart»—to accept reality as it is and quickly adapt the rules of the game. I lived through a period when the company was effectively born twice. In situations like that, the winner is not the one who is strongest in theory, but the one who can adapt, maneuver, and persevere.

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

The first and greatest challenge was the war. The company opened on 1 June 2021, and by February 24, 2022, in its eighth month, everything had effectively ground to a halt. By then, the team had grown from three to fourteen people, and we were working on major projects—then, all at once, everything came to a complete stop.

The second challenge was keeping the team and work going with no money, while completely rebuilding our compensation model. We moved from a fixed «salary» to a «what we earn is what we receive» principle, distributing the actual income. In March, the first payments could be only a few thousand hryvnias per person. It was a real experience of survival—for both the business and the team.

The third challenge was a lack of legal, financial, and management experience. I clearly realized that it is incredibly difficult for an architect to handle all the operational work alone. At the same time, if an architectural company is started by someone who is not an architect, the situation is reversed: that person needs to be strong in systems and operations management, while someone else takes responsibility for the product and design. Balancing these roles became one of the key lessons of the early years.

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

The first crisis was the war. We navigated it by seeking projects abroad and completely changing how the team worked together. I deliberately chose maximum transparency: I literally «opened» the budgets and shifted the focus from promises to reality. The team could see income and expenses and understood the actual situation, which made it possible to reach agreements, make decisions together, and survive as one system.

The second major crisis came during a period of rapid growth. The team grew to 25 people, and the company began competing with the strongest players in the Ukrainian market. At a certain point, people who had been with me during the early «family» stage stopped seeing me as their manager. Moving to the next level required a new management distance and clear rules, but neither I nor some of the team managed to discuss these changes in time or properly. As a result, key specialists and even entire teams left—it was painful both financially and psychologically.

The third was a management crisis. I went to study to grow as a leader, and made a mistake by bringing my senior managers into the same training. They gained the same management tools and business ambitions, but not everyone was ready for changing roles and responsibilities. At one point, I came into the office and saw «three people down». It was an important lesson: team development requires a thoughtful plan, and «friendship in the office» cannot replace clear working rules and a management structure.

What decisions proved most effective in growing the company?

After the full-scale invasion began, three decisions proved crucial for me and directly influenced the company’s subsequent growth. The first was maximum transparency. I opened the budgets and started speaking honestly with the team about income and expenses. This was what allowed people to agree to work under a «earn and receive» model: we all faced the same problem and had one goal—to hold on and get through the crisis.

The second decision was not to give up and to keep looking for a market, even when it seemed that «there was nothing out there». The first few months of entering foreign markets were extraordinarily difficult, but that is when the foundation for the next leap is laid.

The third was to consciously reject chaotic scaling. Instead of replacing people «in batches», I opted for controlled downsizing: I reduced the number of projects and began hiring gradually. It is better not to carry 20 people who are not a good fit and cannot physically be onboarded properly, but to build a stable system with a smaller team. Over the course of a year, I lost about 2 million hryvnias on unnecessary salaries, but this experience taught me an important principle: sometimes the right step for growth is controlled downsizing, which gives the system time to «digest» change.

Which mistake do you now consider your most valuable experience?

I consider the most valuable mistake to be the moment when I «lost God». I grew up in an Orthodox family, but when I was young and moved to Kyiv, I went to extremes and lost my main inner compass.

Looking back now, I believe that if this had not happened, I would not have made many of the decisions in my life and business that I later had to painfully correct. I am also very aware of my business mistakes—in partnership agreements, team management, and hiring. But for me, their root was the loss of inner support and a compass based on my values.

Projects for classmates and money that went toward tuition

The second and third years in business: projects on a completely different level