Founder Of The Week: Julia Maslenikova

• Julia Maslenikova is the founder and CEO of 25/8 PR Agency
• At 25/8 PR Agency, Julia works with startups and tech companies around the globe.

Tell Us About Yourself and 25/8 PR Agency

We help startups be visible and heard.

Simply put, we build PR in a way that ensures technology companies reach their actual target audience – investors, clients, partners, and media – and that PR aligns with clear business goals, not just awareness for the sake of awareness.

We work globally and help companies launch and scale in any market. For me, it’s crucial that PR is not an abstract reputation exercise, but a business tool with impact that can be tracked through metrics.

What Inspired You to Start 25/8 PR Agency? What Problem Were You Aiming To Solve?

Like many founders, I felt that I simply didn’t have another option. At some point, I clearly realized that I’m a very strong professional in tech PR. Before I started the agency, I worked a lot with startups, so I understand how founders think, how they make business decisions, and what they expect when they think about PR (and spoiler: very often what founders think PR is and what PR is in reality – are two different things).

And I didn’t want to build just “another PR agency”. I wanted to help startups and build something meaningful and important. Something that helps to support their business goals. That’s how the agency was born.

What Has Been Your Biggest Challenge So Far? How Did You Overcome It?

There were many challenges.

First of all, building an international team. Because I didn’t want just good PR accounts, but extraordinary talents, A-players with very strong hard skills, as well as well-developed soft skills, and the ability to work across different markets, clients’ teams, and cultures.
Second – to build a PR agency like a tech company. Which means we have metrics, we test hypotheses every time, we adore numbers and analytics. And this approach is not very common in the PR industry.

And the last one – and the hardest thing – is showing PR effectiveness in numbers. Because we work with reputation, and in PR we don’t have ways to translate it into numbers. But at the same time tech founders want to understand how to measure PR impact on their businesses. That’s exactly where we come in — building a clear bridge between PR and business.

Describe A Pivotal Moment That Significantly Shaped the Direction of 25/8 PR Agency?

When I started the agency, we primarily worked with tech companies in Eastern Europe and the CIS markets. But I was dreaming of becoming a totally global PR agency, and working with the best companies and startups across different international markets. But it was scary to jump, because I realized that I needed to transform the whole agency – our approach to how to hire people and build a totally new team, and the most important part – how to find new clients.

But one day I made this very radical decision and just jumped – I stopped working with the CIS markets and focused only on global ones. It was a real leap of faith. Our revenue was zero in the first month.

Zero again in the second month. Only from the third month did we start earning very small amounts.

Now, three years later, I can say that we’ve grown significantly. We’ve built a strong international crisis communications practice and work with startups, tech companies, and corporations worldwide. But at the time – it was very hard.

How Do You Define Success? 

For Your Business: For us, these are first and foremost business metrics.
Revenue and profit come first. Second, retention rate – how often clients come back. And our retention rate is over 80%, and for me, this is one of the most honest indicators of quality. And the last one key metric is referrals – how often current or former clients recommend us. In a service business, this is one of the strongest signals of trust.

As A Founder: For me, success is when the business can operate for some time without my direct involvement – when it’s not dependent on one person, but on structure, processes, and a strong team.

What Advice Would You Give To Someone Considering Launching Their Own Startup?

Try, make mistakes, test hypotheses over and over again. And never give up.

What’s Next For 25/8 PR Agency? Are There Any Exciting Developments We Should Keep An Eye Out For?

Our next big step is to make an AI-based PR agency. Next year we want to reduce manual work and significantly increase efficiency via AI tools. This is our main focus for 2026.
 

Want to be featured as TechRound’s Founder of the Week? Find out more about this weekly feature and how to get involved here.

Founder’s Five with  Julia Maslenikova

Here’s TechRound’s exclusive Founder’s Five with Julia Maslenikova, founder of 25/8 PR Agency.

1. Favourite Business Tool?

Perplexity.

2. One Lesson You’ve Learned the Hard Way?

Growth always comes with transformation.

3. A Future Trend You’re Watching?

How AI is reshaping service businesses and agencies.

4. One Quote You Live By?

When it feels scary to jump, that is exactly when you jump. Otherwise, you end up staying in the same place for your whole life.

5. A book/podcast you recommend?

One book you recommend? Let Them by Mel Robbins.

Want to be featured as TechRound’s Founder of the Week? Know someone who deserves to be recognised as a founder making waves in the startup landscape? Find out more about this weekly feature and how to get involved here.