#OneUkraine: why Center City company Stuzo launched this Facebook app

Stuzo couldn’t hire fast enough in 2009. The company had been developing apps on the Facebook platform for about a year, focusing on promotions for big brands. So CEO Gunter Pfau bought a one-way ticket to Ukraine and didn’t return until he built out a team there.

Today, Stuzo, which still builds Facebook promotions for brands as well as develops other marketing tools, has two offices in two cities in Ukraine: Kiev and Zhitomir. Those offices collectively employ 27, more than half of Stuzo’s 40-person staff. In the company’s office at 13th and Race Streets, there are two clocks on the wall: one for Philadelphia and one for Kiev.

In light of the recent conflict in Ukraine, Stuzo held an internal hackathon last month in Kiev to build #OneUkraine, a Facebook app that aims to show “that Ukraine is united as one country and as one people,” Pfau said.

Pfau is quick to say that he doesn’t consider his Ukraine-based team as outsourcing. The majority of the staff there has been with the company for more than three years, he said. They have a recruiter on the team, offer English classes and host cultural exchanges between Ukraine and Philly.

“It’s about having the right resources in the right place,” Pfau said.

Why is Ukraine the right place?

Pfau did research and found out that the country had many technical universities with a focus on math and computer science. He was also considering Mexico and Romania but ultimately chose Ukraine because of the ties that he had already established with the first two contractors he hired.