01The company was running, but the old approach was no longer enough
Sergey Soroka came to the training with an established website development and promotion business. The company had been through a difficult period but was still operating and making money. Staying afloat mattered, yet Sergey knew it was no longer enough.
He had previously seen himself primarily as a specialist. Now he had to tackle the work of an entrepreneur: developing the company, working with a team and deciding where to go next. His existing knowledge, determination and willpower were no longer sufficient for the next stage.
The downturn had hit him hard. In the interview, Sergey recalls spending several days at a time at home, trying to distance himself from what was happening. He needed a fresh perspective on the situation and his own role in the company.
02He came to the training with doubts
Sergey does not describe discovering the training as a moment of instant certainty that everything would work out. Some of the ideas were already familiar. In his account, Power ON did not immediately produce a major leap in his business. It did, however, help him emerge from a prolonged period of feeling stuck.
Looking back at his first impressions, he suggests that learning these things earlier might have shortened some stages of the company's development. That is his assessment of his own experience, rather than a measured program result.
He also wondered whether a trainer who did not work in his particular field could offer anything useful. Later, Sergey said he received practical advice even on professional tasks he already knew well, including his website and attracting customers.
03A different view of himself came first
Sergey started with Power ON and then completed Business Code. When he describes the main change, he starts with his thinking rather than financial figures: his view of life, his attitude toward other people and his sense of where to go next had changed.
For him, this was not simply a return to how he had felt before. He describes finding new points of reference and becoming interested in what else he could do, both at work and beyond it.
The program's practical tools built on that personal shift. The question was no longer just how to survive a difficult period, but how to develop the company from there.
04Relationships changed alongside the business
When discussing the changes, Sergey repeatedly returns to his outlook on life and his relationships. Some people no longer understood him as they once had. He also makes a specific clarification: he did not experience anything like half his employees leaving after the training.
He saw it more as a natural parting of ways as people's views and directions changed. Some stayed close; with others, his path diverged. In the interview, he connects this to his own changing perspective on familiar things.
Sergey does not claim his personality changed completely, either. He still thought of himself as someone inclined toward pessimism, but felt he had become more optimistic. He liked that more balanced state of mind. Progress was not always visible from one day to the next, yet the sense of movement and growth was rewarding.
05An organizational chart revealed staffing gaps
One practical tool was mapping the organizational structure. Sergey does not present this as something that instantly fixed the business. Its value was more specific: the chart helped him and the company's manager see which employees they needed and where one person was taking on too many different responsibilities.
This provided a basis for further decisions. They could relate the structure to the company's actual development, identify the next role to fill and understand why the existing division of work was causing problems.
An individual training exercise became a way to examine the team's day-to-day work more closely.
06Trying to implement everything at once became overwhelming
The changes did not proceed smoothly. Around the middle of the training, Sergey felt overwhelmed. He was learning a great deal and wanted to apply the organizational structure, business processes and other tools straight away.
But this was an operating company, with employees who had their own habits and established relationships. Rebuilding everything quickly was not possible. That led him to wonder whether the new approaches worked at all.
Later, Sergey came to see the pace of implementation as the problem. Neither a mindset nor an established company can be transformed in a week or a month. Instead of trying to tackle everything, he chose a phased approach: discussing priorities with employees, planning and moving from one task to the next.
He also found it useful to choose one main task for the day and began using that practice in his own planning.
07A useful tool is not always the first priority
Sergey stresses that even a good tool must fit the stage of the business. A team of only a few people should not automatically treat a detailed organizational chart as more urgent than finding customers. The important question is what will help now.
His own experience was mixed: drawing the structure did not simplify every process by itself, but it did reveal overload and the next roles the company needed. Its value lay in the decisions he could make once he could see the whole picture.
He adapted his planning in a similar way. Choosing one main task each day felt practical and productive. There was no need to adopt every method in full; he needed to see how it worked in his actual working day.
08From referrals to advertising his own business
At the same time, Sergey began changing how the company attracted customers. Previously, it had relied heavily on referrals. During the training, he reworked the website and started advertising his own business.
In the interview, he mentions the first inquiries following the launch of that advertising. He also describes preparing to develop a contextual advertising service more systematically. Some of this work had previously been subcontracted.
At the time of recording, these were initial steps rather than a completed transformation. Some decisions were being implemented; others remained plans. Sergey spoke enthusiastically about the possibilities, but future expectations should not be counted as achieved results.
09He wanted to share what he was learning
The interview includes another personal detail: Sergey recalls bringing useful ideas into conversations with other participants and sharing things he had begun to apply himself. He enjoyed realizing he could help someone else.
This added value to the training beyond the company's immediate tasks. New interests and possibilities emerged, and by the end of the program he was looking forward to working on further business processes.
That enthusiasm did not erase the earlier overload. Being excited about new knowledge and trying to apply it all at once had proved to be different things. Sergey began to distinguish between wanting to change a great deal and having a realistic plan the team could carry out.
10The main outcome was knowing how to move forward
This story is about both practical tools and a changed relationship with his business. Sergey became more attentive to the team's limits, set priorities more carefully and weighed new ideas against what the company could realistically implement at that point.
He does not describe an instant solution to every problem. One of his central conclusions was to stop expecting immediate transformation from himself and his team: choose a direction, break the work into stages and move forward consistently.
This case study was prepared from a video interview with a Business Code graduate. It describes Sergey's experience at the time of recording and makes no claims about his company's current performance.
«Business Code» is a program by Igor Graf. More member stories