Product Strategy in Rivne, Ukraine
I help startups and SaaS teams in Rivne and the region build a product strategy — from discovery and customer development to RICE/ICE prioritisation, MVP scope and HEART/AARRR metrics. A focused plan to product-market fit.
15+years in product design and strategy
40+products from discovery to launch
Rivnelocal IT ecosystem — primary focus
100+Satisfied clients worldwide
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Tell me about your idea or product — I'll assess the potential and suggest next steps
Strategic session
Deep dive into your product, market, and audience — free for new clients
Get a roadmap
Clear product strategy with prioritized features, metrics, and implementation plan
Types of Product Strategy
I help at every stage — from idea validation to product scaling
🔬
Discovery phase
Deep research into market, users and competitors to form a product hypothesis.
🚀
MVP planning
Defining minimum feature set for quick launch and market idea validation.
🗺️
Product roadmap
Strategic product development plan with feature prioritization and milestone definition.
📊
Market research
Analysis of market trends, competitive landscape and opportunities for your product.
💡
Idea validation
Testing product hypothesis through user interviews, prototypes and testing.
🎯
Product-market fit analysis
Assessing product-market fit and defining strategy to achieve PMF.
Work Process
1
Idea & Market Analysis
I research your idea, target audience, competitive landscape, and market potential to form a strategic vision.
2
User Research
I conduct interviews with potential users, create personas and customer journey maps to understand real needs.
3
MVP Definition
I shape the minimum viable product concept: core features, user stories, and success criteria for the first launch.
4
Prototyping & Validation
I create prototypes of key scenarios and test them with real users to validate hypotheses before development.
5
Product Roadmap
I develop a strategic roadmap with development phases, metrics, and feature prioritization based on impact/effort.
6
Launch Support
I help with launch preparation, success metric definition, and iteration strategy based on user feedback.
Pricing
Choose the optimal package for your project
Basic
Express Consultation
One-time 2-hour session
$300$400What's included:
- Preliminary site/product analysis
- 2-hour video call
- Current situation analysis
- Main UX issues overview
- Basic competitor analysis (3 companies)
- Conversion improvement recommendations
- Current design assessment
- Mobile version analysis
- Page speed check
- SEO recommendations
- Sales funnel overview
- Task prioritization
- Consultation recording
- Short action checklist (PDF)
- Chat support for 7 days after consultation
Results in 1 day
Optimal
Deep Audit
Comprehensive analysis in 1 week
$800$1000What's included:
- Full UX audit of website/app
- Analytics analysis (GA4, Hotjar)
- Competitor analysis (5-7 companies)
- Target audience analysis
- User behavior research
- Step-by-step conversion funnel analysis
- Forms and CTA elements audit
- Responsiveness check on 5+ devices
- Content strategy analysis
- SEO audit (technical + content)
- Speed and Core Web Vitals analysis
- Detailed report with screenshots (PDF, 30+ pages)
- Step-by-step change roadmap
- Results presentation (2 hours)
- Prioritization by business impact
- Chat support for 14 days
- 1 additional consultation after implementation
Most popular
Premium
Strategic Partner
1 month collaboration
$2000$2500What's included:
- Everything from the Deep Audit package
- Full digital strategy development
- Product strategy and positioning
- Detailed competitor analysis (10+ companies)
- Customer Journey Map development
- Key page prototypes creation
- A/B test plan for conversion optimization
- Content marketing strategy
- Process automation recommendations
- Technical infrastructure audit
- Business model and unit economics analysis
- Presentation for team/investors
- 4 strategic sessions of 1.5 hours each
- Weekly check-ins throughout the month
- Help with specs for developers/designers
- Implementation monitoring
- Post-implementation results analysis
- Chat support for 30 days
- Priority access to future consultations
- 20% discount on my development services
Maximum results
Portfolio
Examples of completed projects
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to the most popular questions
Product strategy answers the question “where are we going and why”. It’s a long-term vector: which audience segment, which problem we solve, how we win against competitors, what the north-star metric is. A roadmap is a tactical map of “what we do in Q1, Q2, Q3” — specific epics, features, releases over time.
The mistake most Rivne startups make is starting with a roadmap without a strategy: “we’ll build login, then a paywall, then notifications…”. That ends in scattered resources. I work in reverse order: first strategy (discovery + JTBD + positioning), and only then a roadmap that executes the strategy through specific features. If you also need business consulting — we combine it into one track.
The cost depends on the depth: discovery sprint (2 weeks, 8–10 user interviews + JTBD map + initial hypotheses) is the basic package; full strategy (4–6 weeks, discovery + segmentation + positioning + MVP scope + 6-month roadmap + metrics) is the standard package; strategy + ongoing support (strategy + 3–6 months working with the team as a fractional CPO) is premium.
Exact numbers are in the “Pricing” block above. For Rivne teams that combine strategy with UI/UX design or SaaS development, combined packages are available — this is more economical, since strategy and design are done in a unified context without knowledge transfer between contractors.
Yes. For Rivne teams I always try to run the discovery workshop in person — it’s a 4–6 hour session where together with founders and key stakeholders we go through the JTBD canvas, formulate hypotheses, draft initial segmentation. The in-person format at this stage gives much more than Zoom: you can see emotions, conflicts of vision inside the team, things nobody articulates in chat.
Further work is hybrid: I can run user interviews online, we keep documents in Notion/Miro, regular weekly syncs in Zoom. If you’re in Rivne — every 2 weeks we meet at your office or a coworking space for deeper discussions. This works more efficiently than 100% remote.
The classic cycle is 2–3 weeks:
- Week 1. Hypotheses inside the team (who is our ICP, what is their pain, how do we think they solve the problem now). We craft a discussion guide for interviews.
- Week 1–2. Recruiting 8–15 respondents — among existing users, potential audience from Rivne, and broader from Ukraine. We run problem interviews following Steve Blank / Rob Fitzpatrick methodology.
- Week 2–3. Transcripts, tagging, synthesis into a JTBD map, outcome statements, validated / falsified hypotheses.
The deliverable is a 15–25 page document with real user quotes, need clusters and a prioritised list of hypotheses. It’s the foundation for everything downstream: UX audit, design, features, marketing.
Jobs-to-be-Done is a framework that looks at a product not through “who is our user” (demographics), but through “what job is the user hiring the product to do”. The classic phrase: “People don’t buy a drill — they buy a hole in the wall. And actually — a hung painting. And actually — a feeling of home”.
I use JTBD in the format of job stories: “When [situation], I want [motivation], so that [expected outcome]”. This gives a much sharper understanding than persona documents, which 90% of the time sit in Notion and are never used. Based on job stories we build UX flows, formulate value propositions, test marketing messages. For Rivne startups that often go to the national/international market, JTBD is especially valuable — it’s universal and not tied to geography.
RICE = Reach × Impact × Confidence / Effort. Each feature gets a score across 4 parameters: how many users it touches (Reach), how strong the effect is (Impact), how confident we are in the hypothesis (Confidence), how much it costs to build (Effort). The final number lets us compare features objectively.
ICE is a simplified version (Impact × Confidence × Effort), often used for fast in-sprint decisions.
I run prioritisation in a Notion or Airtable table the team sees in real time. Each feature has a score author, date, reasoning. This kills the typical Rivne-startup question “why are we building this and not that” — the answer is always in the table. At the development stage this saves the team’s time critically.
The classic mistake of startups in Rivne (and across Ukraine) is the “MVP that does everything a little”. It doesn’t work. An MVP is a minimum set of features that proves ONE key hypothesis. Not “all scenarios”, but the one that answers the question “are users willing to pay to solve this problem”.
I use the “one core flow + 0 additional” approach: identify the narrowest scenario with business value and cut everything else. Email signup + main flow + basic analytics — and nothing more. No onboarding tutorial, no admin panel, no 5 user types. This makes it possible to launch the MVP in 6–10 weeks, not 8 months. The rest — added iteratively after the MVP shows whether there is PMF.
Depends on the stage. For an early-stage startup in Rivne — the AARRR framework (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral): we look at the funnel from the first visit to repeated use.
For a growing SaaS — we add HEART (Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, Task success) to evaluate UX quality, and a north-star metric (one number that best reflects the value created — for example, weekly active teams for B2B SaaS).
I help set up dashboards in Mixpanel / Amplitude / PostHog, formulate hypotheses for improving each stage and work with the team via conversion optimization. Without metrics, strategy turns into faith; with metrics, it turns into discipline.
Product-market fit is the moment when the product is so needed by the market that users buy faster than you can serve them, recommend it to others without referral programmes, and would be “very disappointed” if the product disappeared tomorrow.
Classic PMF signals:
- Sean Ellis test: 40%+ users say “very disappointed” if the product disappears.
- Organic growth — new users come in by themselves, not through paid marketing.
- Retention curves “flatten out” — users don’t drop off after the first week.
- NPS 50+ among active users.
For Rivne startups that often start on the local market before going national, it’s important to test these signals early. PMF doesn’t arrive suddenly; it’s validated through a series of experiments and metrics. That’s the part of strategy I bake in from the very beginning.
Yes — and it’s often even more productive than entering a finished product. If you’re at the idea stage — my “discovery sprint” format helps validate within 2 weeks whether this product is worth building at all. Better to spend 2 weeks on discovery than 6 months on an MVP nobody will buy.
At this stage we do: 8–10 problem interviews with potential ICP, a JTBD map, a positioning hypothesis, market sizing (TAM/SAM/SOM), competitive landscape. The output is a “go / no-go” decision, or a pivot to an adjacent problem. For Rivne founders who often bootstrap their first steps from personal funds, this is the best insurance against losing time and money. Next — we move to UI/UX design and development.
Several important differences I’ve seen over 15+ years working with different cities:
- Less competition for talent inside the city — that’s a plus (easier to assemble a team), but a minus (harder to find senior PMs, designers, marketers locally).
- Stronger focus on B2B and niche markets — Rivne startups rarely go into hyper-competitive B2C, more often hunting for verticals where they can become a leader.
- Going to the national/international market from day one — the local market in Rivne is too small for a SaaS product, so the strategy must be global from the start.
- Less local access to angel investment — most Rivne founders bootstrap the first 12 months, and that affects strategic decisions (slower growth, focus on unit economics).
A Rivne-startup strategy must take these specifics into account — otherwise it becomes a “Kyiv copy” that doesn’t work in your context.
It’s the most frequent situation among my Rivne clients: the product exists, users exist, but growth has slowed down, the team doesn’t understand “where to next”, the roadmap is planned sprint to sprint. That’s a classic symptom of strategic drift — the strategy was implicit in the founder’s head, but the team grew and implicit understanding stopped working.
At this stage a strategy session gives three effects: (1) we re-align the vision and north-star — so everyone pulls in one direction; (2) we run a UX audit with real users and find funnel leaks; (3) we prioritise the backlog with RICE — and it turns out half the “must-have” features don’t deliver real impact. The team gets focus, the founder gets confidence, the product gets faster growth. Often it pays off within 1 quarter.
Why choose me?
Comparison with other options
| Alex Filiuk | Outsourcing agency or freelance PM | |
|---|---|---|
| Working on-site in Rivne | ✅ In-person meetings and workshops | ❌ Slack/Zoom only |
| Understanding the local IT ecosystem | ✅ 15+ years in Rivne region | ❓ Often without context |
| Discovery with real users | ✅ 8–15 interviews with ICP | 📋 Templated assumptions |
| JTBD framework | ✅ Job stories + outcomes | ⚠️ Only a persona document |
| Feature prioritisation | ✅ RICE/ICE with numbers | ❓ “PM gut feel” |
| MVP scope | ✅ Focus on 1 core flow | 💰 “All inclusive” = bloat |
| Product metrics | ✅ HEART + AARRR + north-star | 📋 Only MAU/DAU |
| Connection to Rivne startup community | ✅ Incubators, accelerators, investors | ❌ Usually none |
| Post-strategy support | ✅ 60 days for questions | 💰 Extra charge |
Product Strategy in Rivne, Ukraine — Discovery, MVP Scope, Roadmap | Alex Filiuk
Product Strategy in Rivne — from discovery to product-market fit
Product strategy is not a vision-statement document that sits in Notion and nobody opens. For a startup or growing SaaS in Rivne and the Rivne region, it’s a working tool that answers the question every week: “what are we building next sprint and why this specifically”. Without a strategy, the team scatters across features that “seem needed”, burns out on work without visible results, and spends investor money (or the founder’s personal savings) on functions real users don’t want. I’m Alex Filiuk, Senior UI/UX designer and product strategist with 15+ years of experience, working on product strategies for Ukrainian and international teams since the 2010s. My portfolio includes 40+ products driven from discovery to launch, including a number of startups from Rivne and the Rivne region that have entered the national and international markets.
This page brings together everything a founder, product manager or CTO should know before commissioning product strategy work in Rivne: what the process looks like, how discovery differs from “brainstorms in a meeting room”, how the JTBD, RICE/ICE, HEART and AARRR frameworks work, which key mistakes Rivne startups make, and why it pays off to engage a strategist who deeply understands the local IT ecosystem rather than a random Bay-Area agency that has never heard of your city.
Why product strategy is critical for businesses in Rivne
Rivne is a city of 240,000+ residents with a unique IT ecosystem: there is a strong outsourcing segment (local companies serving American and European clients), and a growing pool of in-house product teams building SaaS, mobile apps, fintech products and B2B tools. Rivne startups have an important specifics — they almost always go to the national or international market from day one, because the local city market is too small for a typical SaaS product.
This creates a particular challenge: the strategy has to be both pragmatically local (taking into account resources realistically available to a Rivne team — a smaller pool of senior talent, less local access to angel investment, a limited investor network in the city) and ambitiously global (because the product will be sold to clients in Kyiv, Berlin or San Francisco). It requires a separate approach, different from “copying Kyiv startups” or “copying Silicon Valley”.
Product strategy for a Rivne startup serves three key functions:
- Focus. A team of 5–10 people in Rivne can’t do “everything” — you need to know exactly which audience segment you’re attacking, which problem you’re solving, which hypotheses you’re testing this quarter. Without focus — scattering.
- Hypothesis speed. A startup wins not by “doing it better”, but by faster validating / falsifying more hypotheses. Strategy is a decision-making system that lets you move fast.
- Chance of product-market fit before runway runs out. Most startup failures aren’t “the product is bad”, but “money ran out before PMF was found”. Strategy maximises the chance of finding PMF in limited time.
What full product strategy includes
There’s no “universal” product strategy — each startup needs its own depth and emphasis. Before starting, we agree with the team which of the following blocks are critical for your product and which can wait.
- Discovery and customer development. 8–15 problem interviews with real users, synthesis into a JTBD map, validation / falsification of initial hypotheses. Without this, all downstream work is guessing.
- Segmentation and ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). Whom we are attacking first and whom — later. The ICP must be specific: not “small business”, but “owner of a dental clinic in cities of 100k+, with 5–15 employees, who already has a CRM but isn’t happy with it”.
- Positioning and value proposition. The single sentence that explains why a user should pick you over a competitor. The classic April Dunford framework or the “JTBD value proposition canvas”.
- MVP scope. The minimum set of functions that validates the most important hypothesis. One core flow, zero extras. A realistic launch term — 6–10 weeks.
- Product roadmap for 6–12 months. Epics and features split by quarter, with transparent RICE/ICE prioritisation.
- Metrics. What we monitor — AARRR funnel, HEART UX-quality metrics, north-star metric. How we set up tracking — Mixpanel, Amplitude, PostHog, GA4.
- Hypotheses backlog. A list of 10–20 hypotheses with priority and experimental design (how exactly we will test each).
If you’re also planning UI/UX design, a mobile app, or full development in parallel — strategy comes first, because everything downstream is built on it. Design without strategy is drawing pretty screens at random.
How the process looks — step by step
I work via a transparent process all my product clients have gone through. Each stage has fixed deliverables — you see weekly progress, no “black boxes” for a month.
- Week 1. Kickoff and initial hypotheses. A workshop with founders and key stakeholders (4–6 hours, ideally in person in Rivne). We capture what the team already knows about the market, hypotheses about ICP, pains, solutions. We draft a discussion guide for discovery interviews.
- Weeks 1–2. Recruitment and interviews. We find 8–15 respondents — among existing users, potential audience, or “warm contacts” from your network. I run interviews personally, in “problem-interview” format following Steve Blank / Rob Fitzpatrick methodology.
- Week 3. Synthesis. Transcripts, tagging, clustering of needs, JTBD map, outcome statements, validated / falsified hypotheses. Output — a 15–25 page document with real user quotes.
- Week 4. Segmentation and positioning. We draft the ICP, formulate the value proposition, analyse competitive landscape (who are the competitors in Rivne, in Ukraine, globally, what makes us different).
- Week 5. MVP scope and roadmap. We define the core flow for MVP, build the feature backlog, prioritise by RICE/ICE, draft the 6–12 month roadmap.
- Week 6. Metrics and final presentation. We set up the tracking plan (which events to log, which metrics to monitor), finalise the strategy doc, present it to the team and investors.
The total cycle is 4–6 weeks, depending on depth. If you’re at the idea stage — a discovery sprint can compress to 2 weeks. If a fractional CPO format is needed — after the strategy I stay with the team for 3–6 months, regularly join sprint planning and retros.
How much does product strategy cost in Rivne
The price comes from the scope of work, not from geography — residents of Rivne, Kyiv or Berlin get the same rates for the same packages. Approximate ranges (exact figures are in the “Pricing” block above):
- Discovery sprint (basic). 2 weeks of work: 8–10 user interviews, JTBD map, initial hypotheses, recommendations. Suitable for teams at the idea stage or for validating a new vertical.
- Full strategy (standard). 4–6 weeks: discovery + segmentation + positioning + MVP scope + 6–12 month product roadmap + metrics + tracking plan. The most popular choice among Rivne startups.
- Strategy + ongoing support (premium). Strategy + 3–6 months working with the team as a fractional CPO. I plug into sprint plannings, retros, run regular strategy syncs, coach the in-house PM.
Worth a separate note: if you order strategy together with UI/UX design, mobile app design or SaaS development — the combined package costs less than the sum of individual services. Savings for you and more efficient work for me (one context, one logic, no knowledge transfer between contractors).
Common mistakes by Rivne startups — and how to avoid them
Over 15+ years of work with product teams I’ve seen dozens of cases where startups in Rivne (and across Ukraine) spent months and hundreds of thousands of UAH on work that didn’t need to be done at all. Here are the key mistakes:
- “Build the MVP, then think.” The most common and most expensive mistake. The team writes code for 6–9 months, then discovers users don’t need it. Discovery in the first 2 weeks saves these 6–9 months.
- “Asked 3 friends — that’s customer development.” No. Customer development is structured problem interviews with users belonging to your ICP, not the founder’s friends who will say “great idea, will totally use it”.
- “Stuff every feature into the MVP, otherwise users won’t buy.” The paradox: the fewer functions in the MVP, the faster you validate the hypothesis and the better you understand which features are actually needed. “All inclusive” = “nothing clear”.
- Persona docs without JTBD. “Our user is Iryna, 32, from Rivne, loves yoga, works in IT.” It’s pretty but useless. JTBD gives much more: “when Iryna kicks off a new project on the weekend, she wants to set up the team quickly so she doesn’t lose Monday on onboarding”.
- “We’ll add metrics later.” A classic disaster. The MVP launches without analytics, then nobody can say what works and what doesn’t. The tracking plan must be ready BEFORE launch, not after.
- Copying Western startup strategies without adaptation. “Slack did it this way, Notion did it this way — we’ll do the same”. The context in Rivne is different: different competition, different resources, different growth speed, different users. The strategy must be your own.
- Roadmap without OKRs and metrics. Roadmap = “build feature X in Q2”. That’s not a roadmap, that’s a task list. A real roadmap is “in Q2 we increase retention by 20% via X, Y, Z”.
Modern product-strategy approaches 2025–2026
Product management is evolving. Here are the approaches I bake in for Rivne teams:
- Continuous discovery. Discovery is not a one-off event but a weekly process. At least 1 user interview per week, every PM holds a “discovery cadence”. Teresa Torres’ approach.
- Outcome-driven roadmap. Instead of “build features A, B, C” — “achieve outcome X via hypotheses A, B, C”. This makes the team more agile and focused on results.
- Opportunity solution tree. Visualisation of the link between metrics — opportunities — solutions — experiments. Helps the team see the holistic picture and prioritise.
- JTBD as the basis for value proposition. Instead of personas — job stories and outcome statements. Simpler, sharper, more actionable.
- Product-led growth. Instead of “let’s launch a powerful sales team” — “let’s build a product that brings in new users by itself through onboarding, freemium, virality”. An approach that works well for Rivne SaaS startups with limited marketing budget.
- AI-augmented product workflows. Using LLMs for interview synthesis, feedback analysis, hypothesis generation. Not replacing the PM, but augmenting them.
Cases: product strategy for Rivne and Ukrainian startups
My portfolio includes 130+ projects, of which ~40 are full work at the intersection of product strategy and UI/UX design. Among them — both indie product launches by Rivne founders and clients from Kyiv, Lviv, the US and Europe. This lets me see how the product approach works in different contexts — and how to adapt best practices to the realities of a particular team.
If you want concrete examples — go to the “Projects” section or get in touch via the contact form. I’ll pick 5–10 most relevant cases for your vertical (B2B SaaS, marketplace, mobile app, fintech, healthtech) and show not just final products but the working process — discovery docs, JTBD maps, RICE tables, roadmaps. This will give you a realistic picture of what the work will look like in your case.
What you receive after the strategy project
- Discovery report 15–25 pages: user quotes, JTBD map, need clusters, validated / falsified hypotheses.
- ICP document: a detailed description of the ideal customer with firmographics, pain points, channels, buying triggers.
- Positioning statement + value proposition canvas + competitive landscape.
- MVP scope document: description of the core flow, MUST/NICE-to-have feature list, technical assumptions, time estimate.
- Product roadmap for 6–12 months in Notion or Airtable, with RICE prioritisation and per-quarter outcomes.
- Tracking plan: a list of events to log, AARRR/HEART metrics, a configured dashboard in Mixpanel/Amplitude/PostHog.
- Hypotheses backlog for 10–20 experiments with priority and experimental design.
- Post-project support: 60 days for questions, minor changes, technical consultations free of charge.
My other services for product teams in Rivne
Strategy is the start of the journey. If you’re building a serious product, a complex approach is worth considering:
- UI/UX design — the web-product interface that executes the strategy via specific screens.
- Mobile app design — for iOS and Android, with platform guidelines in mind.
- Web development and mobile development — full implementation cycle.
- CRM / ERP / SaaS — complex B2B products.
- UX audit — for existing products, where you need to find leaks in the funnel.
- Conversion optimization — A/B tests, landing and onboarding optimisation.
- Business consulting — positioning, pricing, go-to-market.
- Branding — so that the product has a coherent visual identity, starting from the logo.
Product strategy in other Ukrainian cities
I work not only with Rivne teams. If you have a distributed team (some in Rivne, some in Kyiv, some in the US) — that’s often even better for the strategic process, because there are more perspectives. Among other locations I actively work with:
- Kyiv — the largest concentration of startups and investors
- Lviv — creative and IT product teams
- Odesa — e-commerce and fintech
- Dnipro — B2B and industrial-tech
- Kharkiv — deep IT expertise, edtech
The full list of locations is on the “Service Areas” page.
Ready to discuss product strategy for your startup in Rivne?
If you have a specific request — fill in the contact form or write to email/Telegram (contacts in the website footer). The first consultation is free, up to 60 minutes long. We’ll discuss your startup, current product stage, key challenges, an approximate budget and timeline. After that I’ll send a detailed proposal with a fixed price — no surprises and no hidden fees.
I’m ready to build for your product in Rivne a strategy that doesn’t just “sit in Notion”, but works every day for focus, speed and product-market fit. Not “another document”, but a working product-management tool.