Leading through a crisis with Alex Tsepko

Leading teams during times of crisis presents a unique challenge. Many of which are multiplied when you are a startup and the team was only formed months ago.

And then, overnight, everyone suddenly felt very fragile. It's a unique feeling and unique in a bad way because suddenly you have no idea what to do. And the feeling is that you're very lost.

Yet, that is exactly the challenge that faced Alex Tsepko, CEO of Lawrina - a website that provides useful content and productivity tools for lawyers. The entire team for Lawrina was in Ukraine, and things changed overnight as the country was invaded.

In this episode, we cover (timestamps in parenthesis):

• Introduction (0:20)
• Ukraine as a hub for IT innovation (1:38)
• Experiencing unexpected crisis as a young organization (3:22)
• Leading through a crisis (6:08)
• Finding growth through a shared vision (11:57)

Recognizing that it wasn't possible to continue doing anything the old way, Alex ensured that his team was safe and pivoted to continue working to execute their vision. The business went from a domestic play to having an international group with traffic growing 35%+ each month.

As Alex shares, "it was not easy," but the team came together during a time when they felt fragile to build something they believed in.