From Idea to Business: Three Insights from the “Living Toward” Program Lecturers After the First Modules
Participants in the fourth season of the “Living Toward” educational grant program have completed the first three learning modules. KSE Business School lecturers shared what surprised the veteran teams most and which takeaways will help them turn an idea into a business that works.
October 15, 2026
8 min read
A Business Is a System, Not Just a Good Idea
Every cohort of the program begins with a business modeling module. In it, participants learn to work with the Business Model Canvas, an analytical tool that helps structure a business idea or an existing venture and becomes the basis for a business plan.
After the theory part, participants are often both surprised and confused: it turns out that coming up with something interesting for yourself or useful for future generations is not enough to form a business plan. Because business is also about money. But after the second session, where we go over the homework, relief sets in, along with the desire to keep moving forward. The teams get a first outline of a business model that already accounts for the entrepreneur’s ideas, the customers it is useful to, and the resources needed to start. On this basis, you can already build a business plan.
Illia NovikovPartner at the Association of Entrepreneurs and Veterans of Ukraine, DoLadu Mental Health, Superhumans; Diia.Business mentor; TEDx speaker
Start with the Customer’s Need, Not the Product
The module on market, competitor and target audience analysis helped participants look at their business through the buyer’s eyes.
A person makes a purchasing decision within a category: first a need arises, and only then do they look for a way to satisfy it. So the main value of the module is that participants moved away from a product-centric view and shifted their focus to the customer. They started to take into account the customer’s needs and how they choose between options within the category, and realized that their business has to be visible precisely along that path.
Volodymyr SobolevCMO at Kovalska; Academic Director of the Master in Marketing Management program at KSE Business School
Participants asked the most questions about how to conduct in-depth customer research. A checklist was developed for them, which the teams can continue to use.
Don’t Rule Out Channels Until You’ve Tested Them
In the module on branding, promotion and sales, the teams learned how marketing works with human attention, desire and memory, and received tools for low-budget promotion.
For microbusinesses and startups, it is especially important to look for tools that deliver results without large marketing budgets. Communication or sales channels often seem ineffective only because the business has not yet found the right way to use them. Some participants rediscovered channels they had previously considered unworkable. So it is worth testing different approaches and only then deciding what to drop.
Volodymyr PolishchukCo-founder/CEO of MUST marketing agency
Step by step, the participants of the “Living Toward” program are testing their own assumptions about business: whether the idea adds up to a viable model, who actually needs the product, and how to find an effective route to the customer. New modules, hypothesis testing and work on business plans lie ahead.
The “Living Toward” educational grant program was created on the initiative and with the financial support of PUMB and is implemented in partnership with the NGO “Redut Business” and KSE Business School.