Yura Riphyak 🇺🇦

Co-founder and CEO @ Alphie

About

Tech entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience. Key areas: HR tech, social media, online marketplaces, product development, AI assistants, and productivity apps.Yura began his career as a designer in 2000, building user interfaces for web and standalone digital products—before the term UX/UI even existed. From 2005 to 2010, he collaborated with an advisory group to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. On February 24, 2010, he was awarded the Ukrainian national “Order of Merit, Class III.” In 2009, he founded Chumak Way - a startup-focused business development consultancy that later pivoted to a business event management service.In 2012, Yura co-founded Hubbub.fm, a “Twitter for voice” platform that successfully raised an angel round, grew to over 50,000 daily active users, and was recognized by multiple media outlets as one of the top European startups of the year.In March 2014, Yura co-founded YouTeam, a marketplace for hiring software developers that pioneered the “fracking for talent” model. In January 2018, YouTeam was backed by Y Combinator. In 2025, it was acquired by TopTal.That same year, Yura co-founded Alphie - an intelligent chat agent that allows to convert prospects while they are still on your website.He lives in the Bay Area with his wife, Maria, and their two children. He plays chess and writes literary fiction and sci-fi. His short stories have been published in Eclectica Magazine, Twelve Winters Journal, Black Sheep Magazine and Möbius Boulevard.

Country

United States

City

San Francisco Bay Area

Industry

Computer Software

Skill

Early Stage Investment, Start-up Ventures, Marketing Strategy, NGOs, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Start-ups, Outsourcing, Management Consulting, Management, Business Strategy, Web Design, Budgets, Negotiation, New Business Development, Strategy, Marketing, Online Marketing, Project Management, Business Development

Experience

Co-founder and CEO

Alphie

2025-3 - Present · 1 yr 7 mos

San Francisco Bay Area

Alphie is an inbound engagement platform that converts website visitors by personalizing their experience.

Venture Partner

Pioneer Fund

2025-3 - Present · 1 yr 7 mos

San Francisco, California, United States

Investor

Orange Collective

2025-4 - Present · 1 yr 6 mos

San Francisco, California, United States

Member

PEF Community

2025-12 - Present · 10 mos

Executive Chairman

YouTeam (YC W18)

2023-9 - 2025-1 · 1 yr 5 mos

Mountain View, California, United States

YouTeam in now part of Toptal: https://www.toptal.com/youteam

CEO

YouTeam (YC W18)

2021-1 - 2023-9 · 2 yrs 9 mos

Mountain View, California, United States

"AWS for talent", YouTeam allows businesses to instantly ramp up their R&D with vetted engineering contractors. Used by: 250+ tech companies across the US, UK, and Europe. 50+ Y Combinator startups. 2 Fortune 500 companies. Backed by Y Combinator.

Co-CEO

YouTeam (YC W18)

2019-12 - 2021-1 · 1 yr 2 mos

Mountain View, California, United States

Co-founder and Chief Product Officer

YouTeam (YC W18)

2017-11 - 2019-12 · 2 yrs 2 mos

Mountain View, California, United States

One of the two original founders of YouTeam, Yura is the architect and the principal force behind the company's present success. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES: - Product vision ownership - Supervision of the product roadmap and backlog - Management of the design and development of all YouTeam products - Gathering and analysis of customer feedback through a proprietary Product Lab process - Analyzing and interpreting user data - Managing the cross-functional product team - Strategic management as a voting board member - Supervision of R&D, legal and financial departments, - Representative duties, customer research, sales, etc. - Built the R&D, sales and partner relations departments - Set up YouTeam offshore office in Lviv, Ukraine - Signed YouTeam first clients (Ormary, Areobooks, Candesic, Toogle Toys, Panda Club) - Brought some 30+ clients on board, including the largest and most prestigious (PWC, Tide Banking, Starsky Robotics, Just Giving, Wifinity, Leezoo, StratiFi, Akido Labs, Maxwell, etc.)

Contributor

Forbes Human Resources Council

2020-9 - 2023-7 · 2 yrs 11 mos

Advisor

Startup School Online

2018-7 - 2023-7 · 5 yrs 1 mo

Mountain View

THE Startup School by Y Combinator. - 2018 batch: mentoring the group of 23 startups - 2-3 weekly sessions; - 2019 batch: mentoring 20+ various Startup School companies ad-hoc; - Helping the Startup School companies hire engineers via the exclusive YouTeam deal - Co-organized Kyiv Startup School meetup in August 2019

Co-Founder

Cryptohire

2018-2 - 2019-12 · 1 yr 11 mos

Mountain View, California

Cryptohire was an online HR platform that helped crypto-economy businesses hire vetted blockchain engineers. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES: - The original idea and Proof-of-concept - Designing and supervising the development of the online marketplace - as a spin-off of YouTeam platform - Development and implementation of the Go-to-market strategy and website launch plan - Conducting customer interviews, gathering and analyzing customer feedback - Pre-sales and working with customers - Designing secure and compliant payment processing solution

Mentor

Seedstars

2018-10 - 2018-10 · 1 mo

Individual mentorship of 10+ companies participating in Lviv pitching event of Seedstars global selection. Preliminary assessment of the projects

Mentor at StartUp School

StartupDepot Incubator&Coworking

2016-4 - 2018-10 · 2 yrs 7 mos

Lviv, Ukraine

- Participated as a mentor in 3 Lviv StartUp school batches: 2015, 2016 and 2017 and Startups School University Edition - Gave lectures and workshops on the topics of Ideation ("Startup founder mindset"), business modeling ("Lean canvas') and investor presentations. - Individual mentorship for the School startups - Assesment of the student projects - at the Demo Day