Kirill Bigai, cofounder and CEO of the $1.2 billion online education marketplace Preply, shared details of the company’s early days when he and cofounder Dmytro Voloshyn paid themselves virtually no salary while building the platform. Founded in 2012, Preply initially raised a small pre-seed round but quickly ran out of capital, forcing the founders to bootstrap and juggle side jobs to sustain themselves, according to fortune.com.
Bigai and Voloshyn decided to keep operations lean by running the company out of their hometown Kyiv, Ukraine, to minimize overhead. During the first year, they worked about 60 hours weekly on Preply while maintaining separate jobs to cover living expenses. Bigai worked as an implementation consultant at Creatio and had prior engineering experience at Nokia Siemens Networks, while Voloshyn pursued a PhD. The founders agreed not to pay themselves salaries to focus on growing the business.
The sacrifices made by the founders highlight the challenges faced by startups in the competitive online education sector, where initial funding is often limited. Preply’s journey from a bootstrapped startup to a unicorn valued at $1.2 billion underscores the importance of founder commitment and lean operations. The company’s growth reflects broader trends in edtech, where platforms connecting learners and tutors have gained significant market traction.
Preply’s valuation milestone was reported in August 2026, marking a significant achievement for a company that began with minimal funding and personal financial sacrifice by its founders, as detailed by fortune.com.