This article is authored by Valeriya Ionan, Advisor to the Deputy Prime Minister — Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine on Innovations, Digitalisation and Global Partnerships.

In times of crisis and accelerating global challenges, the way governments operate must evolve. This blogpost explores a bold and timely question: can — and should — governments adopt startup-like qualities to meet the urgent needs of their citizens? Drawing on Ukraine’s experience of digital transformation during wartime, it highlights how embracing speed, user-centric design, and innovation enabled the delivery of vital public services.

In her recent article “Governments Are Not Startups”, Professor Mariana Mazzucato — whose work I deeply respect and follow — argues against governments attempting to mimic business practices. She raises valid concerns about applying startup logic to public administration. While I appreciate her perspective, the experience of digital transformation in Ukraine offers a different viewpoint worth considering.

The debate about whether governments should or should not act like startups presents a false dichotomy. The question isn't whether governments should transform into businesses, but rather how they can adopt certain startup principles while maintaining their core public mission.

As Ukraine's digital transformation journey demonstrates, governments don't need to choose between institutional resilience and innovative approaches — they can and should pursue both simultaneously.

Crisis Response and Innovation

When the aggressor state launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine's digital response became crucial for national survival. Our ability to quickly launch and iterate digital services wasn't simply a matter of efficiency — it was existential.

War has been perhaps the most extreme test of our approach. When the aggressor state attacked, we needed to:

• Provide digital identification for internally displaced persons
• Ensure continuous access to government services despite infrastructure attacks
• Facilitate rapid rebuilding efforts
• Solve many other emerging needs

None of these challenges could wait for years-long planning cycles. These solutions had to be deployed in days or weeks — not months — which would’ve been impossible under traditional bureaucratic timelines.

We needed to ensure access to information for citizens during first missile attacks, help internally displaced people who left their houses without even documents but with smartphones, deliver support payments to millions of displaced citizens, and maintain critical government functions. 

A great example is our remarkable cooperation with the private sector and the creation of the Air Alert app. For millions of Ukrainians, this app became a lifesaver. Within days of the invasion, Ajax Systems, a home security company together with IT company STFalcon, developed the app in collaboration with our Ministry of Digital Transformation. The old Soviet-era municipal air raid sirens were often inaudible in many areas. The Air Alert app solved this critical problem by delivering instant notifications to smartphones — allowing citizens to seek shelter before incoming attacks. This wouldn't be possible through traditional long-term bureaucratic cycles and processes. The Air Alert app went from concept to nationwide deployment in just a few weeks—something that would take months or years in conventional government timelines.

At the Ministry of Digital Transformation, we didn't blindly copy startups, but we did embrace three key principles:

• Agile development through rapid iteration: Launching minimum viable products (MVPs) that could be improved based on real user feedback
• User-centric design: Building services around citizens' needs rather than administrative convenience
• Data-driven decision making: Using metrics and feedback to rapidly evaluate what works and what doesn't

These approaches weren't about treating citizens as “customers” in a commercial sense. Rather, they were about fulfilling our fundamental duty to serve the public efficiently and effectively under extraordinary circumstances.

One can argue, “This is war and you can't compare”, but look at the number of crises in the world and Europe: climate emergencies, energy security challenges, rising cost of living, supply chain disruptions, and refugee crises. Governments everywhere are operating in emergency conditions.

Let's remember the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments that could rapidly develop and deploy digital services — for vaccination appointments, health certificates, or financial support — managed the crisis far more effectively than those stuck in traditional bureaucratic models.

This experience taught us that experimentation isn't irresponsible — it's a necessity when faced with unprecedented challenges. Not every initiative succeeds, but in rapidly changing circumstances, the greatest risk is inaction.

Essentially, our journey towards building the most convenient digital state in the world had already laid a strong foundation., The war didn't create our digital approach; it accelerated and validated strategies we had already begun implementing.

Ukrainian Diia Ecosystem: A Case Study in Public Innovation

Our Diia ecosystem exemplifies how startup methodologies can enhance — not detract from — public service. With over 22 million users, state super app Diia has transformed how citizens interact with the government.

Diia wasn't developed as a monolithic system with years of planning. We started with digital driving licences and ID cards, then rapidly expanded digital documents and services based on user needs and regular feedback. Each new service was launched as an MVP that was continuously improved through iteration.

This approach wasn't about “disruption” for its own sake or seeking financial returns. It was about creating what we call “the most convenient digital state in the world” — a vision fundamentally rooted in public service.

Competition Does Exist in Government

As one of the points in ‘Governments are not startups’ op-ed suggests, metrics like market share are irrelevant for governments since they have no competitors. In theory, this is correct — citizens can't easily switch to another government's services. However, in practice, governments do face a different kind of competition: the battle against expectations, inefficiency, and distrust.

In Ukraine, one of our biggest “competitors” is what we ironically call “pokrashchennya” (покращення, or “improvement”). This term has evolved into a powerful symbol of cynicism in Ukrainian political discourse. Over years of unfulfilled political promises of “improvements”, the word itself has acquired a deeply ironic connotation, representing the gap between political rhetoric and actual results.

What we've learned is that you can't “improve” fundamentally broken systems — you need to transform them entirely or replace them with something new and effective. This is a crucial distinction: “pokrashchennya” implies incremental tweaks to dysfunctional systems, while digital transformation requires bold reimagining of government services from the ground up.

In Ukraine, long before our digital transformation efforts, citizens had extremely low trust in government services. They would pay intermediaries, navigate complex bureaucracy, or simply avoid engaging with public administration whenever possible. In essence, they were “voting with their feet” by disengaging. Each time they heard promises of “pokrashchennya”, their scepticism only deepened, creating a cycle of expectations followed by disappointment.

By creating services that matched or exceeded the user experience of the private sector, we reclaimed citizens' trust and participation. We are not, nor have we ever been, fighting for abstract “market share” — we are competing against deeply ingrained cynicism and accumulated disappointment. Our digital transformation wasn't about announcing grand “improvements” but demonstrating real, tangible change that citizens could experience directly. This is not about “winning a market” — it is about fulfilling our democratic obligation to serve citizens effectively and rebuilding trust through action rather than words.

Institutional Innovation as Evolution, Not Revolution

Professor Mazzucato rightly warns against undermining institutional capacity through disruptive approaches. However, innovation and institutional strength aren't mutually exclusive.

In Ukraine, our digital transformation hasn't weakened public institutions — it has strengthened them by making them more responsive, transparent, and efficient. Modern governments face challenges that traditional bureaucratic structures weren't designed to address: climate change, pandemic response, cybersecurity threats, and, in our case, war.

Adapting to these challenges requires new operational models. This isn't about dismantling institutions but evolving them to better fulfil their mission in a changing world.

The European Paradox and Implementation

The “European Paradox” refers to Europe's strength in research and invention but comparative weakness in turning innovations into widespread, real-world applications. This challenge extends to the public sector, where government innovations often struggle to scale or achieve widespread adoption as well.

I believe that if more governments embraced certain startup principles — agility, experimentation, and outcome-focused thinking — they would be better positioned to implement solutions at scale. The problem isn't a lack of great ideas or institutional capacity — it's the mechanisms to bridge the gap between concept and implementation.

Innovation shouldn't end at pilot projects or policy papers. Innovation should not take years and years (though, there might be exemptions). Governments must develop the capacity to move from ideas to scalable, tangible impact. This requires breaking down silos between policymaking and implementation.

A Balanced Approach for a Complex World

The reality is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to how governments should operate. Different contexts demand different approaches. What works for a stable, developed economy in peacetime may not work for a country under attack or facing severe economic challenges.

The world is changing rapidly, with technological, geopolitical, and environmental shifts creating new demands on governance. We should avoid rigid dogmas about what governments can or cannot borrow from other sectors.

Instead, the focus should be on outcomes: Are citizens well-served? Are public resources used effectively? Are complex challenges addressed systematically and comprehensively?

Conclusion: Complementary Strengths

Rather than seeing government and startup approaches as opposing models, we should view them as complementary. Governments provide legitimacy, scale, and long-term thinking. Startup methodologies offer speed, user focus, and adaptability.

In Ukraine, we've learned that these strengths can be combined to create responsive, effective public services—even under the most challenging circumstances imaginable. This doesn't mean abandoning the core mission and values of government. It means enhancing our ability to fulfil that mission in a rapidly changing world.

I believe that as we move forward globally, the most successful governments won't be those that blindly adopt business practices or rigidly adhere to traditional bureaucratic models. They will be those that thoughtfully integrate the best of both worlds—maintaining institutional integrity while embracing innovation, speed, and user-centricity.

The challenge isn't whether governments should or shouldn't act like startups. It's how they can leverage the strengths of different approaches to better serve their citizens in an increasingly complex and fast-changing world.

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