Product Strategy in Kyiv, Ukraine

Product Strategy in Kyiv — from discovery to product-market fit for startups and SaaS

Kyiv is Ukraine's main hub for IT startups and product teams. It's home to Reface, Genesis, Grammarly, Preply, MacPaw, Restream and dozens of seed/Series A SaaS teams aimed at the global market. It's also home to Unit.City in Podil, Sigma Software Labs, Genesis Educational, Startup.Network, KMA Business School, and access to venture capital through TA Ventures, Horizon Capital, SMRK and AVentures. If you're building a digital product in Kyiv, you're playing on Ukraine's toughest market with the highest competition for talent, investment and users.

I'm Alex Filiuk, a Senior UI/UX designer with 15+ years of product experience. I help Kyiv startups and SaaS teams build product strategy — from discovery and customer development to RICE roadmap prioritisation, MVP scoping and HEART/AARRR metrics. I work directly with founders and product leads, with no hand-off to juniors. This page contains the complete explanation of the process: what product strategy consists of, how it differs for pre-seed, seed and Series A, how much it costs, how to avoid typical mistakes, and why a senior consultant on a fixed price is a more practical choice for a startup than a Kyiv product agency or a freelance PM from a marketplace.

Why Kyiv is a special zone for product strategy

Unlike regional markets, Kyiv plays on two fields at once — national (Ukrainian users, Ukrainian B2B clients) and global (US, EU, MENA, LATAM). This creates specific challenges:

• High competition for product managers. A senior PM in Kyiv is Reface/Genesis/Grammarly level with $4-8K/month compensation. A pre-seed startup struggles to hire one full-time, so strategy is often built by the founder or an outside consultant.
• Access to venture capital. TA Ventures, Horizon Capital, SMRK, AVentures, Genesis Investments — most Ukrainian funds sit in Kyiv. Investors expect your strategy to be structured to Y Combinator standards: clear ICP, validated JTBD, RICE roadmap, ascending retention curve.
• Bilingual market. Many Kyiv products start with the Ukrainian market but target global (US, EU). This affects discovery — interviews must cover both audiences because expectations and JTBD can differ dramatically.
• Fast iterations. The Kyiv pace is 1-2 week sprints with weekly releases. Strategy must withstand high rates of change without breaking on every new feature.
• Founder expectations. Kyiv founders often come from technical or financial backgrounds, having read Lean Startup, Inspired, Continuous Discovery Habits. That means generic advice doesn't work — expert level is required.

What product strategy consists of — three layers

I work on three layers that overlap. Without any one of them, the strategy doesn't function.

Layer 1. Discovery — an honest look at the problem and audience

The biggest mistake startups make is starting the roadmap without discovery. The team sits in a room, draws features, plans sprints — and 6 months later it turns out users don't need it. Discovery is a 4-6 week investment that saves 6 months of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars in venture money.

• Customer development interviews. 15-20 conversations of 45-60 minutes with target audience members. Not "would you buy our product?" (that doesn't work) but "tell me how you solved this problem last time — what was the trigger, what did you try, what didn't work, what finally did". Bob Moesta's Switch interviews methodology.
• Jobs to be Done (JTBD). Interview analysis through the lens of a "job" the user hires the product to perform. Not "B2B segment user, age 30-45" but "when I prepare a tender proposal under tight deadlines, I want to quickly gather documents from different departments to avoid missing the deadline and look professional in front of the client".
• ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). Who your best customer is — by demographics, firmographics, behaviour, willingness to pay. Without a clear ICP, marketing scatters, sales calls the wrong people, the product tries to please everyone.
• Competitive analysis. 5-10 direct and indirect competitors in a matrix: positioning, price, features, UX patterns, marketing channels, user reviews. Separately — Kyiv-based and global.
• Brand positioning canvas. Where you sit on the market's mental map. Here discovery overlaps with branding and business consulting.

Discovery provides the foundation for every later decision: which MVP, which features in roadmap, which metrics to monitor, how to position.

Layer 2. Scope and roadmap — prioritisation via RICE/ICE

After discovery you have to choose what exactly we build in the MVP, what goes to post-MVP roadmap, and what we don't build at all. This is the hardest part: founders naturally want to ship "everything" and "now", the dev team is tuned to push for more features, investors expect a quick launch. Without a formal prioritisation tool the loudest voice wins — and that's almost never the right one.

• RICE = Reach × Impact × Confidence ÷ Effort. Each feature gets 4 numbers. Reach — how many users it touches (e.g. 80% of active base). Impact — how strongly it changes behaviour (0.25 / 0.5 / 1 / 2 / 3). Confidence — how confident in the prediction (50-100%). Effort — how many person-weeks. Score = R × I × C ÷ E.
• ICE = Impact × Confidence × Ease. Simplified version for early startups with little data. Faster to apply, easier for the team.
• Anti-scope list. A separate document with a clear list of "what we are NOT doing in the MVP". Without it, scope creep eats 30-50% of the budget.
• 6-12 month roadmap. Broken into sprints or quarters. Every feature has a RICE score, target metric and success/failure criterion.
• Hypothesis-driven roadmap. Not "build feature X" but "test hypothesis H via feature X. If metric M exceeds threshold T — scale. If not — kill or pivot".

This is the most useful tool for Kyiv founders — it makes team discussion transparent. Instead of "I think we need to build X" — "X has RICE score 320, Y has 180, Z has 90. We build in this order".

Layer 3. Metrics — HEART, AARRR and North Star

Strategy without metrics is just opinions. I set up a metrics system using two frameworks at once:

• AARRR (pirate metrics). Acquisition — how many people learn about the product. Activation — how many reach the "aha moment". Retention — how many return (D1/D7/D30 for mobile, W1/W4/W12 for SaaS). Referral — how many invite others. Revenue — how many pay. Provides a complete funnel from first touch to repeat purchase.
• HEART (Google framework). Happiness — satisfaction (NPS, CSAT). Engagement — depth of interaction (frequency, session length, key actions). Adoption — share of new users who activate. Retention — share that returns. Task success — whether key tasks are completed without issues (success rate, time on task, error rate).
• North Star Metric. One key metric for the whole team that correlates with long-term success. For B2B SaaS — "weekly active teams". For marketplace — "weekly transactions". For mobile consumer apps — "weekly retained users".
• Dashboard. Set up in Mixpanel, Amplitude, GA4, or Metabase (if the team runs on its own DB). Metrics update daily, the team checks the dashboard weekly.
• Runbook. A document explaining: what each metric means, how to read it, what the benchmarks are, what to do if it drops.

Work stages — step by step

1. Week 1. Kick-off on Zoom. A 2-3 hour meeting with the founder and key team via Zoom, BC Gulliver in Pechersk, your office. Audit of available data: analytics, prior research, customer letters, sales conversations.
2. Week 2-3. Customer development. Recruiting 15-20 respondents, conducting 45-60 minute interviews, recording, transcription, coding. In parallel — competitive analysis.
3. Week 4. Discovery analysis. JTBD map, ICP, brand positioning canvas, competitive matrix. Interim presentation to the team.
4. Week 5-6. Workshop and roadmap. I gather the team for a RICE/ICE workshop — each participant scores every feature, then we discuss and align. The output is a prioritised 6-12 month roadmap with an anti-scope list.
5. Week 7. Metrics and dashboard. I configure HEART, AARRR, North Star. Integrated with your analytics. I write the runbook.
6. Week 8. Final presentation. I hand over the strategy in Notion/Confluence, run a handover session with the team, answer questions. The first 30 days post-handover are free support.

How much product strategy in Kyiv costs

Cost depends on product stage and depth of discovery. Approximate ranges (exact figures in the "Pricing" block above):

• Pre-seed format. Idea validation, 8-10 problem interviews, MVP scope, basic roadmap. Ready in 3-4 weeks. Suitable when you're still formulating the hypothesis with no paying users.
• Seed format. Full customer development (15-20 interviews), JTBD map, ICP, competitive analysis, RICE roadmap, metrics (AARRR + HEART + North Star). 6-8 weeks. The most popular choice for Kyiv startups that already have an MVP and are seeking PMF.
• Series A / scale-up format. Restructuring the roadmap of an existing SaaS, repositioning, metrics rebalance, integration with sales/marketing strategy. 8-12 weeks. For teams with $1-5M ARR preparing for or already in Series A.

Separately: if you order strategy together with UI/UX design, MVP development or a UX audit of an existing product — the combined package costs less than the sum of separate services. One contractor, one logic, no losses on hand-off between designer and PM.

Common mistakes by Kyiv startups — and how to avoid them

Over 15 years working with product teams I've seen dozens of cases where a Kyiv startup burned a round on repeating mistakes. Here are the key ones:

• Skipping discovery. "We already know the market, let's just build". 6 months later the market turns out to be different, users have a different JTBD, and the MVP solves the wrong problem. Discovery isn't a "brake", it's a foundation.
• Prioritisation by loudness. Whoever speaks loudest in the meeting gets their features into the roadmap. Without a RICE/ICE model the team loses focus — every new founder idea blocks the previous plan.
• Vanity metrics. The team celebrates MAU growing on the back of advertising while retention falls and LTV/CAC is negative. Without HEART and a North Star, AARRR numbers easily mislead.
• MVP scope creep. "Let's add one more feature — it's just 3 days". Twenty such "3 days" — and the MVP shipped in a year instead of 3 months. The anti-scope list is the best defence.
• Premature optimisation. The team invests in performance, autoscaling, infrastructure — while there are no 100 paying users. Pre-PMF this is throwing money away.
• Pivoting too late. Metrics 6 months in show PMF isn't approaching, but the team keeps pushing "just a bit more effort". Strategy must include clear pivot protocols: if metric M is below threshold after X months — re-test the hypothesis.
• Ignoring customer success. Acquisition without retention is a leaky bucket. Before scaling marketing, you must be sure users are sticking.

Kyiv competition — product agencies, freelance PMs, incubators

The Kyiv product consulting market is varied. Understanding the trade-offs of each option helps you choose:

• Product agencies (Reface, Genesis Educational, others). Strong brands, methodology, cases. But pricey, the senior on your project shows up at the pitch and strategic meetings while the actual work is done by a middle/junior PM. Suits corporates with $50K+/month budgets.
• Freelance product managers from marketplaces. Cheaper, more flexible. But quality varies hugely: a senior PM at $5K/month doesn't sit on freelance boards, those are mostly middle and junior. Risk of getting a "feature list from Reddit" instead of strategy.
• Incubators (Sigma Software Labs, Startup.Network, Genesis). Provide mentorship, networks, sometimes investment. But strategy there is part of a package, not deep individual consulting. Suitable at pre-seed for idea validation, not for Series A scale-up.
• Senior independent consultant. That's me. Senior level on a fixed price, personal involvement, no hand-off to juniors, integration with design and UI/UX. Suits those who want agency depth at freelancer flexibility.

Cases — product strategy for Kyiv and international clients

My portfolio includes 130+ projects, of which ~40 are full digital products and SaaS platforms. SaaS cases include fundly-hub (fintech), alt-mobile-crm (mobile CRM), best365care (digital health), bmw-service-crm-system (B2B CRM for automotive), cyty-app and cyty-app-2 (mobile consumer products), imprint (B2B SaaS), pet-alteration (consumer marketplace), european-auto-parts-crm (B2B CRM), solars-power-systems (B2B product). I've worked with founders from Kyiv, Lviv, the US and EU.

For NDA projects I can't publish details, but I can show on a call — the discovery process, JTBD maps, roadmap fragments, metrics dashboards. Reach out via the contact form and describe your product stage — I'll pick the 3-5 most relevant cases for your product type.

What you receive

• Discovery document. JTBD map, ICP, customer development insights, competitive analysis. In Notion/Confluence or PDF.
• MVP scope and anti-scope. A clear list of what's in the MVP and what's NOT. With explanations of why.
• 6-12 month roadmap. Prioritised by RICE/ICE, with hypotheses, metrics, success/failure criteria for each feature.
• Metrics and dashboard. HEART, AARRR, North Star. Set up in Mixpanel/Amplitude/GA4/Metabase. A runbook on how to read it and what to do.
• Brand positioning canvas. Where you sit on the market mental map. Useful for marketing and branding.
• Pivot protocols. What to do if metrics don't move. Predefined scenarios.
• 30 days of support. Questions, minor revisions, consultations — free of charge.

My other services relevant for Kyiv product teams

Product strategy is the foundation. But without execution it stays paper. If you want a complex approach, it's worth tying strategy to:

• UI/UX design — product interface built on JTBD and metrics from the strategy.
• Mobile UI/UX — for iOS/Android apps.
• Web product development — from MVP landing to a full SaaS.
• Mobile app development — product implementation on iOS/Android.
• UX audit — for existing products where metrics have dropped.
• Conversion optimisation — improving Activation and Retention in the AARRR funnel.
• CRM/ERP/SaaS design — complex B2B products with robust functionality requirements.
• Business consulting — positioning, pricing, go-to-market strategy.
• SEO and Google Ads — Acquisition channels for the AARRR funnel.

Product strategy in other Ukrainian cities

I work not only with Kyiv. If your product team is distributed or you have offices in several cities:

• Lviv — IT, product teams, creative startups
• Odesa — e-commerce, fintech, marketplaces
• Dnipro — B2B SaaS, manufacturing digital products
• Kharkiv — IT, EdTech, engineering products

The full list of locations is on the "Service Areas" page.

Ready to discuss product strategy for your Kyiv project?

If you have a request — fill in the contact form or write on Telegram (contacts in the footer). The first consultation is free, up to 60 minutes. We'll discuss product stage, strategy goals, approximate budget and timeline. After that I'll send a detailed proposal with a fixed price — no surprises, no hidden fees.

I'm ready to build for your product in Kyiv a strategy that leads to product-market fit, not to burning rounds. Discovery with real interviews, MVP scope with an anti-scope list, a roadmap with RICE prioritisation, HEART and AARRR metrics on a dashboard. No agency overhead, no hand-off to juniors, no "vision" instead of a plan.