Pylyp Hryshyn

I am an entrepreneur with three active businesses: Abrisart in craft and hobby goods, the Prime Snack group with the Sneco brand in FMCG and production in Ukraine and Slovakia, and Pet Corp with the Barpi brand for animal treats. I live in Cascais, Portugal, have a family and three children. In my entrepreneurial story, two traits have been decisive: practical decision-making and the ability not to stop even when the business is on the edge of survival.

My path began with music. I played guitar, had my own recording studio in Kharkiv, and performed in bands. But at 18-19, I made a sober decision: music did not provide financial stability. I opened my first sole proprietorship and stepped into business. Later, new anchors appeared in my life: motorcycles, travel, the motorcycle community, and discipline from sport.

The war became a turning point. It not only changed the context, but physically stopped the businesses and forced me to restart recovery from zero in new conditions. That was when I fully formed the principle that every action must bring value: to the client, team, or market. This thinking became the foundation of my companies, from an accidental client request to business transformation; from observing a product in the US to a year of R&D; from our own snack technology to a logical expansion into pet food.

Today I am interested not only in selling products. I want to mature as a businessman: form personal capital, build a systematic business for decades and for future generations.

How did the business idea come to you?

Abrisart

Abrisart grew out of a completely different business. At first, for several years, we worked in outdoor advertising and large-format printing.

The turning point was an accidental order: we needed to find material for printing bead-embroidery patterns. The market was not yet saturated with Chinese materials, so together with a craftswoman we developed our own solution: cotton-based fabric with an additional top layer suitable for printing.

After launching the first patterns, it became clear the product had demand. The company gradually transformed from printing patterns into full bead-embroidery kits, and later into a wide range of goods for different craft directions. Today our portfolio includes more than 4,000 SKUs.

Prime Snack / Sneco

This business also came from an accidental idea, but already with a conscious desire to create a new product.

We saw a similar product in the United States and decided to adapt the concept for the local market: create dried cheese as a unique product for Ukraine. Almost a year went into R&D, and in 2017 we launched the first commercially successful product.

Pet Corp / Barpi

Pet Corp became a logical continuation of our technological expertise.

In addition to snack production, we have a separate direction that develops and manufactures equipment and essentially the entire production line for our companies. Our technologies and equipment are patented.

The logic was simple: if we create healthy snacks for people, why not apply a similar approach in pet food? After R&D together with veterinarians and market analysis, we launched the direction. The company has been operating for about a year and a half and is actively growing. Strategically, we are considering launching a new factory in Europe.

What key skills helped you launch the business?

Three key qualities became the foundation of my professional development:

• Persistence, the readiness to move the business forward even in the hardest periods, when resources are scarce and difficult decisions must be made.
• Faith in the result, the ability to hold a long-term horizon and not lose focus under uncertainty.
• Self-learning, the ability to quickly dive into new topics, from product and market to international quality standards.

I also consider my engineering side a strength. I am interested in production automation, technology, and everything connected with manufacturing processes.

In the food business, I gained deep expertise in international standards and certifications by directly implementing these systems at a high level.

Another important skill is understanding my own limits. To scale a business, it is critical to admit that in some directions other people are stronger than you and to delegate responsibility to them.

What were the hardest challenges in the first years?

Interaction with regulators. From the beginning, we worked with exports, including the Russian market. At that time, remnants of the 1990s were still strongly felt: pressure, inspections, and specific rules of the game. It was a serious test of endurance.

Business transformation. One of the hardest moments is realizing that the current model has exhausted itself and you must move in a new direction. The hardest part is accepting the inevitability of change and not clinging to the old.

Crisis periods on the edge of bankruptcy. We went through situations where the company was close to survival: not enough money for salaries, almost no resources left. In such moments, the main thing is not to stop and keep moving forward.

What crises did your business face and how did you overcome them?

I remember two major crises that radically affected the business.

The 2014 crisis

In 2014, Abrisart operated at high turnover, and about 80% of our sales came from the Russian market. After the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the war in Donbas, we made a principled decision to fully leave Russia.

The business effectively dropped by about 80%. In that situation, the only real solution was a complete reorientation toward Western markets.

We began systematically working on international expansion: participating in European exhibitions, looking for new partners and clients abroad, and building an export model instead of expecting the Ukrainian market to compensate for such losses.

The full-scale invasion of 2022

The second, even larger crisis was the full-scale invasion in 2022.

We lost access to our enterprises and office. For the first four months, we could not even collect founding documents. Our rented premises were on the territory of a plant that was closed on the first day of the war and handed over to territorial defense needs.

Documents, equipment, and accounting materials were first moved into one room, and later part of the property was simply taken outside. The business was effectively stopped from February to September 2022.

At the beginning of summer, we began relocating equipment to Mukachevo, but later our enterprise was directly hit. Practically nothing remained of what was left.

We managed to move only about 40% of the total volume of equipment, materials, and products.

Overcoming this crisis was not heroic; it was systematic, exhausting work to restore processes, the team, and markets. In 2022-2024, I worked in a mode I had never worked in before. The first year in Mukachevo consisted almost only of work.

Which decisions were most effective for company growth?

The greatest growth came from decisions connected primarily with people and management.

At some point, I realized something important: I cannot and should not be the strongest in every direction. There are areas where other people have deeper expertise, and they should make decisions based on their knowledge and experience.

For me, this meant three practical things:

• focus on strong hiring
• relying on experienced people
• real delegation

Delegation is not simply transferring tasks. It is transferring the right to make decisions where someone else's expertise is stronger than mine.

Another strategically right decision was not selling our technologies and equipment as a one-time deal, despite market demand.

Our technologies are patented, and selling them would mean creating our own competitors.

Instead, we chose another model: developing partner production facilities in key markets. The logic is simple: production must be closer either to raw materials or to the client, otherwise logistics eats the margin.

This is how we launched production in Slovakia for the European market. Next, we are looking at the Middle East, North and South America, and Asia through joint ventures where we will hold a share and provide the technology as the partnership base.

Which mistake do you now consider your most valuable experience?

My most valuable mistake was buying residential real estate for personal living.

Over the last four years, I clearly understood that being tied to owned housing significantly limits freedom: freedom of movement, thinking, openness to the new, and readiness for change.

I still have a lot of residential property in Kharkiv, and that experience became an important lesson.

I formulated a rule for myself: housing is better treated as an investment asset, not an anchor.

The ideal model is when real estate works as an asset: today you live in it and do not pay rent; tomorrow you move and it starts generating income.

I no longer plan to buy housing as a way to "settle down". I will pass the same logic to my children: do not rush such decisions before 50-60, look for yourself, your lifestyle, and the place where you truly want to live.

How did you earn your first $100?

I earned my first $100 at 15 through a music performance.

How did you earn your first $1,000?

I earned my first $1,000 not in music, but through one of my first large deals in outdoor advertising.

How did you earn your first $10,000?

Through the first export shipments of Abrisart products.

How did you earn your first $100,000?

The first $100,000 came in the Abrisart business. In 2012, we received a one-time large order from Moscow for about $130,000. Because of the high margin, the profit was about $75,000-80,000.

How did you earn your first $1,000,000?

I did not have one million dollars in accumulated cash. I mostly reinvest about 95% of profit and withdraw only money for living and large purchases. Now I am coming to understand the need for a more systematic dividend policy and focus on forming personal capital.

My most practical experience for other entrepreneurs is production business in FMCG and export.

I can share knowledge about:

• building manufacturing companies
• launching new products
• entering new markets
• scaling without illusions about "magic contacts"

I know the food industry from the inside: international standards, certifications, quality systems, and production processes.

Another area of expertise is engineering and operational efficiency:

• production automation
• process modernization
• working with equipment

We have our own equipment-production unit, and the company's technologies are patented.

I can also share an approach to international scaling of production: how to build partner enterprises in new markets while preserving competitive advantage and not creating competitors for yourself.

Your experience: how to systematize a business?

Systematization begins with the owner, but I do not believe in the effectiveness of an approach where an entrepreneur tries to invent the system from scratch alone.

It is long, expensive, and inefficient.

My approach is to find people who have already gone through this path and systematized businesses, and to build processes through their expertise.

In my case, it looked like this:

1. First, I gathered knowledge through networking and conversations with more experienced people. Often these were simple meetings over coffee or dinner.
2. After that, through HR agencies I hired the right people, already clearly understanding which processes I wanted to implement.

Your experience: how to grow 2x in a year?

I see 2x growth in a year as a contextual metric.

At the start, a business can grow twofold, fivefold, or even faster. But when a company moves from micro to small and then to medium business, 2x in a year becomes more of an exception than a rule.

In manufacturing, unlike some IT directions, it is almost unrealistic without unique market circumstances.

So I recommend manufacturing companies focus not on abstract 2x, but on systematic growth drivers:

• the right people in key roles
• delegation of decisions by expertise
• strategic production placement closer to raw materials or clients