We were lucky to catch up with Tonya Yemelianova recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tonya, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

My co-founder owned a development agency where I worked as CTO for many years. We’ve seen a lot of cases when clients could not afford a good team if working through an agency because they were limited in budget and didn’t know where to find qualified talent to work directly and how to overcome all the cross-border issues. On the other side – we have IT specialists who are hesitant to work directly because they don’t know how to cover operational tasks and are scared that clients will not pay them after the job is done, so they choose to work for big companies and earn much less money, but feel covered. After COVID, salaries increased dramatically, leading to no new crisis on the market.

In one of the days, when we were talking about the existing company’s future, we came to the idea of helping Ukrainian IT specialists start working directly with clients from other countries and covering all the legal and payroll issues. We knew that there was a place for Ukrainian remote specialists and we already had pretty big experience working with overseas markets, so we decided to give it a try. In parallel with the existing agency, reinvesting our own money, we started creating our own platform to automate legal, and payroll and provide benefits to remote employees and contractors working in Ukraine.

We worked on the idea for several month, before we found the competitor names. We were not unique, but our competitive advantage is knowing the market from both sides, so we were sure we would find a good differentiator.

The more we are working on the platform, the more I think we are doing a great thing. With the first clients onboard, I see how a small number of people are getting the opportunities and can use the benefits provided by the platform to get what they need. I really see how the platform can help fill the talent gap in the world as well as help get employed for many Ukrainian people.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

CleverFleet really grew out of my co-founder’s agency, CleverCrew. It just felt like the next logical step in our journey. That’s when the idea of a ‘Fleet’ came to us. It’s like having a bunch of smaller, agile teams or even separate people, kind of like ships, going head-to-head with those big, corporate giants who often treat remote workers like cogs in a machine. That’s where the name CleverFleet came from.

Back when I was working remotely, both the company hiring me and I had a real struggle on our hands. Figuring out the legalities and payroll was a complete nightmare. In Ukraine, outsourcing and outstaffing companies usually handle all of that for you, so I was in uncharted waters. I spent much time trying to wrap my head around the taxation process. It was a real hassle. And this is one of the reasons why either companies do not work with remote employees directly and why workers prefer local companies over direct hire.

But with CleverFleet, we’ve completely changed the game. Now, you can sign a contract with a single click, and doing payroll takes just a few minutes. And for workers, we have an automated taxation process.

For our clients, the benefits are even more significant. They can hire remote people from Ukraine without worrying about misclassification risks, and the tax deal is very competitive – just 5% instead of the usual 20%.

But CleverFleet is more than just contracts and payroll. We’ve built a whole support system for our workers and contractors. Right now, we offer health insurance, language lessons, and access to legal help. We are also helping to battle the mentality differences and offer mediation if needed. We’re working on adding more benefits like nanny services or cleaning services. Our goal is to let people focus on their work without life’s everyday problems getting in the way.

We’re proud of the fact that we work closely with small local businesses in Ukraine. It’s our way of keeping money flowing within the country, and it’s our small contribution to the local economy.

When it comes to helping people build their teams, we’ve got a straightforward process. We start with a chat to understand what they’re looking for, then we do some screening, maybe a tech interview if needed, and present 3-5 candidates who could be a great fit. The final decision rests with the client. With my co-founder and I have backgrounds in tech and running our company for eight years, we’ve got a pretty clear idea of how to find the right people to join a team.

Our bigger vision? We want to simplify the whole process and help Ukrainian developers find amazing contracts
with companies abroad. That way, we can help talented Ukrainians stay right here and support our country’s economic growth. Ukrainian talent is incredibly hardworking and experienced, especially in tech. We believe that we can make a big difference for small and medium-sized businesses outside Ukraine, helping them compete and grow.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Sometimes, I think that my whole life is a story about resilience :)

We started working on the idea sometime before the war in our country started. But when the war emerged, the reality changed utterly. The planned sales went on hold, and the existing clients started thinking about backup plans, but we still needed to pay salaries and keep the business up and running.

When you have 2 businesses in a period of instability, with no home and no one to rely on, you first learn to build stability from what you have at this specific moment and continue executing, no matter how many resources you have.

Now, I understand that the stability I had in my mind was always a myth and that life can be changed dramatically in one day, so you have to have not only plan B, but also plan C and plan D.

I believe all Ukrainian founders are the best examples of resilience because doing business in a country with active war, when the social and political environment is constantly changing, is the biggest difficulty you can ever experience.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I was introduced to Dmitry more than 10 years ago by a common friend. At that moment, we never thought about working or doing business together. I was a developer and taught development then, and he started his first business. At some point, I joined his company as a consultant and coach for his employees, and in a year, I found myself bound to the company.

When I was laid off from my main work, I switched to being a full-time employee in CleverCrew (my co-founder’s company), mostly doing technical or managing work. From time to time, we discussed different product ideas but never had one, we both agreed it was worth working on until Dmitry came up with an idea that brought our discussion to CleverFleet.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cleverfleet.io
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cleverfleet/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cleverfleetinc/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/clever_fleet

Image Credits
Alina Kucher