**Disclaimer: we filmed this episode earlier in the year, prior to the escalation of events in Ukraine**

On episode 25 of HQLA we talk to Aleks Volodarsky, who is the founder of online marketplace lemon.io. Lemon allows you to add an Eastern European engineer to your existing startup team.

Aleks talked us through his startup career, having other ideas that worked, and some that didn't, including being early in the Google Ads space for Ukraine, and joining a digital ads startup.

After his early side hustles and failed ideas, Aleks got into an idea for his startup: Coding Ninjas, which was supposed to be an Uber for web developers, allowing you to use the service for special one-off projects, and tasking a developer to your project. This idea didn’t work for the team, and they ended up pivoting into Lemon.io, which is more focused on adding developers to existing ideas and projects.

Although it may seem straightforward, it’s challenging to keep both the supply and demand side of the market busy, all while managing the business in between. Lemon.io isn’t just another UpWork or Fiver, one of the main differences is that the developers are carefully vetted, and matched to the company which is applying to use the service based on the needs of the startup team hoping to add the developer.

Remember, there are two great questions in the world: ‘what is the meaning of life?’ AND ‘how do I balance supply & demand?’

You can find Aleks on Twitter @volodarik

You can find us on Twitter @IJSmith01 & @NJNotley

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