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There are more than 7,000 businesses founded by Belarusians operating in Poland. Most of them were created in the last five years. Mine is one of them. But this column is not about statistics; it is about what happens to a person when they take their entrepreneurial instinct from one country and transplant it into a different environment. It is about the internal transformation that is difficult to see in numbers, but without which nothing will work.

Twenty years – and a clean slate again

In twenty years of entrepreneurship in Belarus, I have gone from small family projects to large companies that give a sense of belonging to something big and important. There were deals, partnerships, and ambitious plans. But all of this happened within a closed system—with its ceilings, limitations, and eternal sense of short-termism. Belarusian businesses operate in a constant state of alert. You have to be quick, ready for sudden changes in the rules, surprise inspections, and the sword of Damocles hanging over you from the regulatory authorities. And attempts to enter foreign markets have always been like storming a fortress—a kind of Big Hairy Audacious Goal that not everyone is willing to take on.

In Poland, I started from scratch and discovered something unexpected: when you no longer need to spend energy on tasks that have nothing to do with running a business—on maneuvering, defending, constantly waiting for something to go wrong—a tremendous resource is freed up. It goes where it should: into the product, the team, the strategy. You have a blank slate in front of you, surrounded by resources, tools, and opportunities. You simply take them and create. It is an experience of creative freedom that is difficult to explain to someone who has not experienced it. And it changes your philosophy. Not immediately, but irreversibly.

A different perspective

In the European environment, you are not limited to the market of one country. Thinking on the scale of the European Union is not ambition or audacity, but a natural stage in the development of a business. This is how the environment is structured here: investors encourage planning not for five years, but for at least ten. And at first, it’s not easy to accept if you’ve grown up in a culture where the planning horizon is limited to the next audit, and strategy is more like a useless stack of papers or files sold by consultants.

But this is where another kind of entrepreneurship begins—not survival, but creativity. You see a need or demand in the market, you come up with an idea, you find resources, build a team, and ultimately, something new emerges. Creating a product people want and are willing to pay for — that is the entrepreneurial creative process in its purest form.

In a foreign country, there is an added thrill – to repeat what you have done before, to surpass yourself, to prove, first and foremost, to yourself, that you are capable of building not only within the familiar system, but also in new territory, according to new rules. That drive becomes fuel: it boosts self-esteem, gives you a sense of progress, and forces you to set goals that are not always rational, but without which humanity would not have a new Apple or Google.

Belarusian identity as a resource

Moving does not cancel out your identity. There is no point in hiding that you are Belarusian: sooner or later, investors and partners will find out anyway. Why waste time? But it’s not even about pragmatism. It’s easier to build trust, navigate immigration challenges, and form a team with people from the same context, with a shared cultural background, language, and shared experiences. Everyone has the same context, and that is a powerful foundation.

That is why my first partners, employees, and investors are Belarusians. But I would not call this isolation or a refusal to integrate. It is a starting point and a natural starting circle. As the company grows, local employees appear, and the geography of partners expands. Over time, Belarusian identity ceases to be an operational advantage and becomes a value that binds the team together and creates a culture of trust within the team. The further we go, the more difficult it is to maintain a maintain that Belarusian core, and that’s normal. But as a core, as something that unites people at the beginning of the journey, it is invaluable.

Can this be called social entrepreneurship? Perhaps, in part. If, under equal market conditions, I can hire someone from my own country who finds it more difficult to adapt to a new place, I will do so. Such people are often more qualified and motivated. And the whole team sees that we help our own here. This creates a microclimate, and it is not charity, but a rational decision. In addition, immigrants in Poland who are persecuted for political reasons in their home countries are considered a socially vulnerable group. European countries support their employment. So economic logic and social mission do not contradict each other here — they are allies.

How does this benefit Belarus?

Let’s be honest: there is no direct effect today. Economic ties between projects in the EU and Belarus have been severed, but that does not mean that nothing is happening. It is happening, just not directly.

The mirror effect. Every entrepreneur in exile has dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of contacts from their past life: friends, former colleagues, people from the business community, who follow what they are doing, rare meetings, and phone calls. And they see an alternative model in your example: a person with entrepreneurial potential in a free country is building a more ambitious project than would be possible under an authoritarian political regime. At the same time, they are not sacrificing moral values and political positions while keeping the right to hold different views. This works more quietly than propaganda, but more deeply.

Bridge. Belarusian businesses abroad are a point of entry for those who want to try their hand abroad. To gain new experience, broaden their horizons, or simply earn more. For an employee from Belarus, such a business is not just a job vacancy, but a first step. The people who work here have already gone down this path, understand how things work, and can help. Each such business becomes a link between two worlds and makes the transition between them less daunting.

The cumulative effect. This is perhaps the most important, but also the least obvious. Right now, we Belarusian entrepreneurs abroad are accumulating business experience, financial resources, European management approaches, a habit of transparency, and long-term thinking. We are learning to work with European investors, build companies according to international standards, and think on a scale that would have seemed fantastic at home. All of this is capital that is currently sitting in foreign accounts, figuratively speaking. But someday the stars may align, and then this experience and these people may turn out to be the resource that the country may one day need to rebuild itself. The potential benefits are significant, but whether they are realized depends on political transformation within Belarus.

In the meantime, we are simply doing our job: building companies, creating products, hiring people. Every day is a small reminder that things can be different. And we believe this matters not only to us but also to those watching from afar who may one day decide to make a change themselves.