software engineer extraordinaire

Justin Petrone • Aug 08, 2024 • 5 min read

Starting a business in Europe and accessing banking and payment services were the core reasons Ukrainian Illia Haidar became an e-⁠resident

Ukrainian e-resident Illia Haidar started his Marketplace business in Europe, Sellme with e-Residency

Lasnamäe is a district of the Estonian capital Tallinn that is forever loaded with meaning and intrigue. It once was a bucolic highland adjacent to the center where shepherds reared sheep. Later, it became an industrial area, and in the 1970s, it developed into a Soviet microdistrict. Most of its massive apartment blocks were erected at this time, and a largely Russian-speaking population of Soviet migrants moved in. It is today the most densely populated district in Tallinn. Its notable architecture has been featured in films such as Autumn Ball (2007) and Tenet (2022). In recent years, because of its proximity to the center and its views, it has attracted newcomers.

Among them is Illia Haidar.

Illia is a talented software engineer from Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city. He is the founder and developer of Sellme.ee, an online marketplace that he launched to serve the Estonian market, but which he has quickly expanded to serve Europeans everywhere. He was able to get his foot in the door thanks to becoming an Estonian e-⁠resident in 2018. Illia then moved to Lasnamäe in 2019.

But it all actually started in high school when there was a competition to create a school website. One that young Illia took up with enthusiasm and completed successfully. "That's when I realized my hobby could make me money," Illia recalls. "After that, I learned more and more and more."

For a long time, much of his experience was gained through doing freelance work. In fact, he has more than a decade of freelance experience under his belt by now and designed more than a 100 websites for customers. He was working as a freelancer when he discovered e-⁠Residency. He saw a video about it on TV.

"There was an interview, they were talking about the advantages of the program and how it works," says Illia. "I was surprised that I could start a business in Europe," he adds. Ukrainian entrepreneurs, as he noted, while being geographically located in Europe, are unable to access payment systems like Stripe or Paypal that make it easier to do business with European clients.

"This was one of the reasons why I developed an interest in Estonian e-⁠Residency," Illia says.

Ukraine was and is a country of train connections. Illia took the train, naturally, from Kharkiv to Kyiv, to pick up his e-⁠Residency card and kit when it was ready. He started off running an online website with classified ads from Ukraine, targeting the Estonian market, but fell in love and deeply with Estonia during numerous trips to Tallinn, eventually deciding to move wholesale:

"Each time I traveled to Tallinn, I realized it was the safest and cleanest city I had visited in Europe. I decided that I wanted to live in that city."

So, he applied for support through the startup visa state program to support entrepreneurs, with a positive outcome. Thanks to Startup Estonia, Illia's firm received startup status in Estonia and he relocated to Tallinn. His business partner and now wife came along too. The pair were married in Estonia.

In Estonia, Illia decided to create Sellme, an online marketplace that is also available as a mobile application. The market was, as he felt at the time, underserved. Larger online marketplaces like Amazon have ignored smaller European countries, preferring to serve them from Germany. And Illia believed that local marketplaces suffered from design flaws that made them slow and at times complex. He also thought the introduction of a mobile app could give him a market edge.

He built it all himself, of course. From scratch. Did all the sales and marketing for Sellme too.

Read this general overview of how e-Residency works for eCommerce businesses.

Originally, Sellme was available only for Estonian users, but the company has expanded in the past year, and sellers from the entire Baltic Rim, from Finland through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, can now place products on Sellme, and reach buyers from all over Europe. The company's next move will be to open a pickup point somewhere in Tallinn where customers can exchange goods. Sellme users have been clamouring for their own pickup point, rather than having to arrange meeting places ad hoc, or to ship using parcel machines. Sellme is also looking to hire about 10 people in the future as the business expands.

Discussions are underway regarding setting up subsidiaries in Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania, and maybe across the Baltic in Sweden, but wherever possible, Sellme will use its Estonian entity to do business. The Estonian e-⁠Residency digital ID is still the main way Illia identifies himself. It's how he signs reports or manages his business, noting:

"Everything can be done online."

He has learned some interesting things managing an online marketplace too. Not that the sales are particularly interesting, but clients can be fickle and change their minds on a whim. "One day they will place an order and then the next day they will decide that they don't need the product," he says. "A lot of people do this," he adds.

Illia Haidar, CEO of sellme, at a business conference — Illia Haidar, CEO of sellme

There are also some rather sly customers out there, such as one who acquired a new product and then tried to return a used version of the same product which they already had at home.

As such, Sellme isn't just an online marketplace venture, but is providing insights into human psychology.

It's all worth it though.

Illia is proud of the fact that he is helping Estonians import and export products throughout Europe. Estonian products are now reaching Polish, German, or Dutch customers.

"In this way, we can increase the export potential of Estonia. And I like that I can make a contribution to this process. It's my way of giving back to Estonia."