Lean Teams, Many Products — Interview with Vira Tkachenko, MacPaw

MacPaw built 15 products with ~500 people and zero venture funding. Co-founder Vira Tkachenko started in a Kyiv dorm room in 2008 and now leads technology and innovation across a multi-product portfolio that includes CleanMyMac and Setapp — proving a lean team can scale globally from Ukraine.

Vira explains why MacPaw invests in AI tokens instead of headcount, how the company went from 5 people to 200 engineers, why B2C founders struggle to raise money compared to B2B, and the counterintuitive advice to be a co-founder rather than a solo founder because diversity of thought beats AI agreement every time.

What

you'll learn

• How MacPaw grew from 5 co-founders in a dorm to ~500 people across 15 products with zero VC funding

• Why MacPaw now invests in AI tokens over new hires — keeping headcount flat while scaling output

• The B2C funding challenge: why investors favor B2B and how MacPaw stayed profitable from day one

• How starting globally from Ukraine shaped a bootstrapped company selling to 100+ countries

• Why “be a co-founder” is Vira's top advice — diversity of thought beats solo founder ambition

Links:

• MacPaw

• Vira Tkachenko on LinkedIn

• CleanMyMac

• Setapp

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