Dina Ruslan—Founder and CEO at CODIFY.
Raising a first investment can be a tough task for startup founders. I remember how it was for me, coming from a third-world country, far from tech hubs like Silicon Valley and Singapore. In the end, my company was able to get an evaluation for $6 million and raised an additional $400,000 investment, all while building our IT company from Central Asia in the Covid and post-Covid era and working from Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic. So what lessons did I learn to help me achieve this?
1. Stay humble.
Right from the beginning of the company in 2019, I knew that it would be a challenging task to raise international venture capital as a company from Central Asia, that’s why in the fall of 2020—during one of the many waves of Covid—I knew we had to join an acceleration program. This ended up being “Accelerate Prosperity” in Kyrgyz Republic, a new acceleration program launching its first batch, and I didn’t know what to expect.
Most importantly, I was hesitant that they would actually teach me something valuable because at that time I already had over eight years of experience working in the IT industry building international-level products as a project manager. But I never thought that I didn’t know how to package and sell products. If I hadn’t put aside my pride to sign up for an acceleration program, I never would have realized my knowledge gaps.
2. Learn more about finance.
After winning our first acceleration program, I realized that there is so much I don’t know about finance. I had no idea how to pass a due diligence process by an investor to get an evaluation of my startup. So instead of spending one or two months of the due diligence process, we spent over five months to pass the due diligence to a $1 million evaluation for our product.
Consider listening to podcasts and videos from experts and VCs. I personally enjoy how they explain heavy topics about finance in a simple way. Reading articles from startup founders who went through due diligence can also help you understand.
3. Make sure you learn English.
Once we started expanding our product to other countries to scale our product all over Central Asia, I realized that we needed help with scaling our IT product to other markets. So we decided to apply to a global acceleration program in Singapore and were accepted. To say it was an amazing and crazy experience, it’s not even close to what we felt. But I wouldn’t have been able to do this without knowing English.
I realized that it doesn’t matter which country you are from, as long as you speak English and have an innovative IT product, you can apply to any global program. A few ways I learned English was by listening and reading podcasts on finance and due diligence in the language. You can also try using apps like Duolingo or Skyeng.
4. Don’t rely on the market conditions and investment you didn’t secure.
Once the VC crisis hit in the summer of 2022, I learned that you can never rely on market conditions and investment you didn’t secure. We responded by saving our second investment and retreating from Southeast Asian markets to concentrate on the Central Asia region. I recommend a similar approach if you find yourself in an economic downturn—focus on your niche and executing that well instead of pushing yourself to expand at the same rate as you would in a time of economic prosperity. This approach helped us to decrease the “burndown rate” and secure markets that we already knew.
We were smart enough to save our second investment and retreat from Southeast Asian markets and concentrate on the Central Asia region. It helped us to decrease the burndown rate and secure markets that we already knew. Unfortunately, not all of the startups I knew survived the crisis.
5. Never get distracted from your goal.
All that being said, these experiences brought me to realize the importance of never getting distracted from your goal. Somehow over the past three years, I got comfortable with my life and got distracted from our main goal: Build the first unicorn out of Central Asia by building the biggest edtech job matching platform in this part of the world. Being part of an acceleration program did an amazing job by reminding me why we are building a startup and that we can do more with less.
Something that helped me regain my focus was writing down my goals. Try to write and rewrite your goals and company goals on a monthly and quarterly basis. And if needed, update them regularly. This way, you always have your eyes on the prize.
Conclusion
So to summarize my out-loud thinking about the startup founder journey: Stay humble, learn finance and the English language, never rely on things you can’t control or manage, and, finally, don’t lose focus. Even if you are from a third-world country like me, you can build an international IT company and raise investment from venture capital if you apply to acceleration programs all over the globe and follow these steps.
Good luck with your startup journey.
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