What does it take to build and scale a tech startup while your country is under attack?

In this episode of Tenacity with Sonia C, Ukrainian founder Oleksandr (“Alex”) Buratynskyi, co-founder of T-Travel, shares the raw, unfiltered truth about growing a startup during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with no outside funding, constant uncertainty, and the pressure to keep his team motivated while the world around him shifted overnight.

Alex opens up about:

• The hackathon spark that pushed him from QA testing into entrepreneurship
• Bootstrapping T-Travel through wartime conditions when investors disappeared
• How the invasion changed everything, from funding to timelines to team morale
• The biggest mistake he made as a founder (and how it cost years of time and money)
• Why overbuilding early nearly crushed the company
• How he scaled to 37,000+ users without VC dollars
• The mindset tools he used to stay steady while leading through crisis
• His philosophy from his book Systematic Adaptiveness, and how founders can apply it in their own moments of chaos

This conversation serves as a blueprint for fostering founder resilience, resourcefulness, and psychological endurance.

If you’re navigating failure, rebuilding after a setback, or fighting to keep your dream alive, Alex’s story will remind you that tenacity is a strategy, not just a trait.