is a Ukrainian business portal, and Mas's column appeared there on February 2, 2016. This is not his first text on the site: a column of his was published there in April 2012. Mas himself has long been known in the Ukrainian internet. In January 1999, together with Ruslan Dmitrakovich, he launched the Ukrainian Banner Network (UBS); in spring 2000 he headed the Ukrainian Portal (UAPortal), created Infostore, and was the architect of Mail.ua. A man who went from banners to major services spoke about entrepreneurship not theoretically, and this is evident in the tone of the column.
The main difference, according to Mas, lies in speed and reference points. An entrepreneur builds a business slowly and relies on models already tested by others. A startup founder, by contrast, seeks a path no one has taken before. Such a division does not make some people more important than others. It rather describes two different kinds of work, with different risks and different costs of error.
"Inventors" and "Guides"
Within the class of startup founders, Mas distinguishes two types. "Inventors" crack the standards: they find a place where the usual rule stops working and offer something that previously seemed impossible or unnecessary. "Guides" are built differently. Their task is to lure the audience away from competitors, drawing people to their platform and making them use it instead of previous services.
As an example of the second type, Mas names Facebook. The social network was not the first in its niche, but it managed to gather users who had previously been elsewhere and to keep them. For Mas, this is a model of how a new project can become not just an alternative but a new center of attraction. The column does not equate inventor and guide: in both cases, it is about the ability to change people's habitual routes.
Three Fears and Twenty Minutes a Day
In the second part of the text, Mas moves from market structure to personal discipline. In his view, the main resource of a startup founder is not money or connections but attention. He writes:
"The main thing is concentration."
One has to fight for it against three fears. The first concerns beginning: the project seems too big, and the person puts off the first step. The second is connected with continuation: enthusiasm fades, and work becomes routine. The third fear is the most unnoticed. It consists in the project never being brought to completion because each new idea seems more interesting than the current one.
Mas's practical advice is simple. One should spend at least twenty minutes a day on the project, even if there is not enough time for the rest. In addition, it is useful to regularly ask oneself the question that is highlighted separately in the "What things should I not do?" Such a question shifts attention from what needs to be done to what can be left undone, and thus frees up space for what matters most.
What Happened Next
The 2016 column appeared at a time when Mas was already a prominent figure at industry events. Since 2009 he had participated in organizing iForum, the first of which took place on April 1, 2009, for the tenth anniversary of UBS, with 1,280 participants. In 2014 he drew up the program for iForum, and the seventh forum was held on April 16, 2015. In 2016 Mas became an advisor to Kyivstar on digital technologies, and later, as wrote, he headed the operator's innovation laboratory for three years. In 2019, according to the same publication, he launched "craft social networks" with funds from donors.
On October 6, 2021, Oleksii Mas died in Kyiv at the age of 47 after an illness. His death was reported on October 8 by his brother, Viktor Mas.
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