Club member reviews
Strong people with ambitious goals. During my time here, I have made close friends, found partners, and launched new projects. YBC is an amazing place, and I recommend it to everyone.
I am probably one of the most grateful members of Young Business Club. In 2017, I was among the club's first 40 members. My connection with the community is unbreakable because every year I receive tremendous value from this ecosystem. Thanks to the club's members, my life has gained new meaning and new practices. For example, it was YBC member Yura Kruchyn who introduced me to a passion for mountain climbing — Mont Blanc, Mount Kazbek, Mount Ararat, and Kilimanjaro — and helped me discover the practice of standing on nails. All my closest friends and the people around me are members of Young Business Club. We have taken part in numerous peer-to-peer groups and masterminds and travelled together to exotic destinations. These are more than business connections; they are a genuine support network. I have always been and remain an active YBC ambassador because I feel deeply grateful. The club has given me not only business opportunities but also practical support in life.
Young Business Club has brought wonderful new people into my life. It has given me truly great friends and introduced me to good people.
I have been in the club for more than three years, and it has become a true family to me — a circle of like-minded entrepreneurs with whom I always enjoy spending time and working through personal challenges. Thanks to the club, I have been able to scale my business. I am always grateful for the community: people I enjoy playing sports, football, and Mafia with, as well as going on retreats and spending time together at countryside resorts. Being surrounded by these people inspires me to grow, scale, contribute, and achieve my goals. The club has given me a community that is both enjoyable and genuinely valuable to be part of.
To me, the club is first and foremost a community of strong, thoughtful, and truly ambitious people who are not afraid to set bold goals and take responsibility. One of its greatest values is the opportunity to connect with people who make decisions, build and grow businesses, shape markets, and set the direction for others.
YBC accounts for 80% of my circle, and my best friend is a former YBC member. From friendships to business connections, I owe virtually my entire network to YBC.
You can travel anywhere in the world and meet a fellow club member in almost any country. I recently met with Viacheslav Fomenko, a member of YBC International, and it was an amazing experience. Most importantly, the club is about growth, partnerships, and everything you need to scale.
I discovered the club through Google at a time when I needed new connections. I was invited to the office, had a meeting, and received demo access. I remember that the first peer-to-peer group I joined included three people I found particularly interesting. I became close with two of them, and they became good friends of mine: Misha Kudashvili, a grain trader, and Andrii, who works with premium steaks. Every friendship requires an investment of resources from both sides. Peer-to-peer is an organised process that makes it much easier to maintain and build relationships. Through peer-to-peer, I found valuable information, new perspectives, support, and a positive atmosphere. I believe the success of any group depends on selecting the right combination of people. It is not simply about saying, “This is a great guy with a successful business.” It is more like a DJ mixer: you do not need two bass controls; one is enough. When people with different profiles are brought together, the result is a resilient group that develops and becomes stronger. Put five dominant leaders in one group, for example, and they may simply tear it apart. Meanwhile, a cheerful, down-to-earth woman who sells ice cream and does not have millions in revenue may become the heart of the group and carry it through her charisma. Only then do the others truly open up and all the pieces fall into place.
It is a place where you can find the right people and the right solutions faster. This is where I meet professionals who can help solve specific challenges: we completed a financial audit with a fellow club member, and we are now testing a recruitment solution recommended through the network. To me, it is about more than meeting people — it is about the speed and trust that can save you months.
It is important to me to build honest and transparent partnerships based on mutual trust and shared values. I particularly value high-quality professional connections without aggressive sales tactics or hidden pressure. I also want to find inspiration and momentum for developing new business ideas and projects. In the club, I look for opportunities to gain new knowledge and develop a deeper understanding of business processes. I also value the exchange of genuine practical experience without embellishment or theory for theory's sake. It is important to me to build honest and transparent partnerships based on mutual trust and shared values. I particularly value high-quality professional connections without aggressive sales tactics or hidden pressure. I also want to find inspiration and momentum for developing new business ideas and projects.
To me, YBC is about three things. 1. A place where anyone can inspire someone else In my work, I see hundreds of examples of how a single story can inspire someone to start a business or even change a life. The same thing happens in the club: any conversation can become a catalyst for someone else. I believe in the power of stories, and at YBC we share them not for likes, but for growth. 2. A space for partnerships that move the country forward I often say that partnerships are the most powerful tool for progress: when businesses help communities, communities support initiatives, and the government creates the right conditions instead of standing in the way. We have seen dozens of cases in which this kind of partnership changed the reality of a community or business for the better. YBC is a community of the same kind of people — people who do not wait, but act. People who are not afraid to invest their time and effort in others because they understand that a strong network pays back a hundredfold. 3. A community of people who focus not on the problem, but on the solution
“I found a business partner in the club during a skydive” I had been a member of business clubs since I was 19, but when I moved abroad, the choice became obvious. My former club was losing momentum in Poland, while I urgently needed to build a new company. I needed contractors and advice on hiring, taxes, and legalisation. That was when I decided to join Young Business Club, which I now consider incredibly valuable to me. And you know what? It was the right decision. In the four months since joining, I resolved every one of those issues by sending just three messages to the business manager. The business manager is like my personal assistant. The club is not only about business; it is also about the people around you. I really appreciate the quality of its informal events. Organising a golf trip by yourself is one thing. Knowing that the club has enough people who can afford it and are looking for high-quality leisure experiences is another. I love extreme sports, and one day I contacted the business manager with a request: “I want to go skydiving, but I do not know where or how to arrange it in Poland, and I am a little afraid to go alone.” They organised everything. Two of us went, and my skydiving partner is now one of my contractors! We met, talked, and resolved a number of legal and financial issues for my business. He owns companies abroad, while I need to accept payments from European clients. This also requires a certificate for exporting live animals. He helped me resolve these matters, and I will continue working with him because the partnership is highly beneficial. It proves once again that value can be found in the most unexpected places.
I use YBC instead of Google. I have found many contractors through the club. My decision to join was emotional, driven by curiosity about the people I saw there — people like Tarasiuk and Artiukhov. It was not a rational calculation along the lines of, “I will join, sell services to ten people, and buy from twenty.” No, it was pure curiosity. Only after I became a member did I understand how much value I could gain from it. I believe every entrepreneur should be part of a business community. Those who do not join one fail to realise 100% of their potential. A business community is a concentration of people and tools that is guaranteed to give you momentum. It offers so much more, from partnerships to a complete shift in your worldview. The club broadens the horizons of your thinking, and that is what matters most.
The club's greatest value to me is peer-to-peer. It is my peer group and my outlet. I invest a great deal of my time, effort, emotion, and energy in it, and I receive just as much in return. That is what makes it so valuable: it is about connection, empathy, and investment. You invest in others, and they invest in you. It is an exchange of energy. To me, my peer group is something incredibly powerful. It is almost like a second family.
I have been with YBC since 2017, so you could call me one of the old-timers. I saw an ad on Facebook, submitted an application, and met with Andrii Ostapchuk. At the time, I was not a member of any clubs; I was simply curious. Over the years, I have been part of many communities, including Board, Victoria Tigipko's club, CEO Club, and Vasyl Khmelnytsky's club. But YBC is the only one I stayed with. Most other clubs are communities of people who are already “successful.” They are comfortable and no longer especially ambitious. I still want to grow, and at YBC I found exactly the environment I needed. Most people here are young, hungry, and ambitious. There is a spark in their eyes. That drive is the most valuable thing. To me, a person with an idea and the energy to pursue it will always have more potential than someone who simply has money. The club offers real opportunities if you make use of them. For example, we had our own investment subgroup and invested in various projects. To be honest, most of them did not take off. It was a risk, and not everything worked out. But it was valuable experience, and when you look at the overall result, we came out ahead. I also found friends here. We play padel on Tuesdays and our families spend time together. This is your community.
Peer-to-peer is the most important part of the club for me. Today, our group has eight members: Valentyn Stanishevskyi, Serhii Kharlamov, Oleksandr Komashko, Yevhenii Artiukhov, Yevhenii Dranishchev, Serhii Tymoshchuk, and Yurii Pasichnyk; Andrii was also a member in the past. For six years, we have met for three hours every two weeks — previously in person and now online — without missing a single meeting. The results have been incredible: we do many things together, including educational products and work with consultants; we share our experience and grow together. Our peer-to-peer group also led to joint investment activity. Most of us invested in several dozen companies, primarily businesses founded by graduates of my educational programmes whom we believed had the greatest potential. Two of those companies became tremendously successful.
When I first arrived in Kyiv without a clear plan, the YBC team literally seated me at a table with ten entrepreneurs — and did the same every week. This is a place filled with remarkable people and real stories of both spectacular victories and painful setbacks that they survived before continuing to grow. Here, your environment acts as an accelerator: in a single evening, you can find a mentor and become a mentor to someone else. You also gain the “social permission” to approach someone you barely know and start an honest conversation about business, goals, and mistakes. As a result, every week you leave feeling smarter — not because of theory, but because of real people and their proven solutions.
Three years at YBC have given me two things: clients with my longest-running contracts and an environment where people give honest feedback. When the people you have coffee with tell you directly where the pain points are, you leave and immediately change the process. Another advantage is access to contractors and HR expertise. It was through the connections I made here that I rebuilt my team more quickly after several unsuccessful hires. I attend niche events and focus on making new connections more than on “mass lectures.” My most valuable business ideas have come not from marketers, but from entrepreneurs in completely different industries, from agriculture to manufacturing.
When the full-scale war began, we lost every client but one — fellow club members who specialise in cryptocurrency analysis. My wife said something to me then that I will never forget: “Keep fighting, because we will not make it without you.” I pulled myself together, and within the first month after the invasion I found clients through the YBC mobile app and signed contracts with four new clients abroad. All our competitors only started resuming operations six months later; by then, we were already working at full speed.
I encountered Young Business Club for the second time after I had already started working under the YARMICH brand. The dress code for the club's third anniversary was Black Tie. One of the members, Yevhenii Tepliakov — now a shareholder in YBC's Warsaw branch — was a friend of mine. He found me through the website and came in for a suit. He was so impressed by my openness, passion for what I do, and selection that he recorded a video message for all the club members: “Friends, there is a great service here and a great guy — come and see him!” I then started receiving enquiries from YBC members. Around 30 members came to me, and it gave the business a major boost. YBC clients helped me build initial capital of 50,000–60,000 hryvnias. Club members gave me the opportunity to earn money that I reinvested in clothing. I bought high-quality suits and then rented them out. That November, I set myself the goal of joining Young Business Club within a year.
In seven years at Young Business Club, I have sold my own products through the club only a few times. At the same time, I actively use other members' services. When I needed a website, Boria Volkov built it. Vitalii Matseliuk provided legal services, and Tetiana Dotsia advised us on finances. When we were opening a branch, Oleksandra Yamchykova — now the head of YBC in Berlin, but based in Dnipro at the time — found 40 people for the branch. Altogether, around 50 fellow club members have provided us with various services. There has been a great deal of cooperation and mutual support. Fellow club member Oleksandr Suslov, whose company is Volten, and I work on the same projects but supply different products: he supplies energy equipment, while we provide reinforced concrete. We have pitched together; sometimes his relationships with clients were stronger, and sometimes mine were. We still compare notes. In seven years, there have been more than 50 examples like this. It is more than helping one another with services; it is genuine cooperation. I am an active participant in events and attend peer-to-peer meetings. Before the war, we had a football team coached by YBC coach Zhenia Zadorozhnyi. It was great to play friendly matches between Betonenergo and YBC.
I joined Young Business Club at the beginning of 2022. At the time, our annual turnover was around $1 million. Last year, we recorded €2.5 million. This means that during my three years in the club, our business grew by 250%! At first, the club was about friends and new connections for me because I did not have many at the time. But it was after relocating that I truly experienced the depth and scale of the community. When you find yourself in a new country and have to start a business under unfamiliar laws, your head is spinning. That is when the support of fellow members became invaluable. They offered simple but essential advice: which lawyer to contact, how the tax system works, and where to find a reliable car repair shop. I spoke with people who had already gone through the same journey and learned about their own business models. After moving to Europe, I had to build the entire operating infrastructure for my business from scratch, and I resolved 95% of those needs through contacts at Young Business Club. These are not just words; there are specific examples. We urgently needed reliable lawyers and accountants who understood the complexities of working across Europe. Through the club, we were introduced to an excellent team that we have now worked with for three years. We have never considered replacing them because we feel completely protected and they handle every issue we encounter. This is more than a contact; it gives our business long-term security.