Founder Of The Week: Vlad Zhovtenko

• Vlad Zhovtenko has been working in digital marketing since 2000, bringing decades of hands-on experience to RedTrack after seeing first-hand how fragmented and unreliable performance data can be.
• RedTrack was born from Vlad’s own frustrations with delayed, incomplete, and distorted marketing data, with a clear mission to give businesses accurate, actionable insights without complexity.
• As a founder, Vlad prioritises disciplined product development, ensuring RedTrack delivers decision-making clarity through streamlined analytics, automation, and AI rather than overwhelming users with unnecessary features.

Tell Me About Yourself and RedTrack

I’m Vlad Zhovtenko, co-founder and CEO of RedTrack, and I’ve been working in digital marketing since 2000. Over the years, I’ve seen how complex and inaccessible performance marketing analytics can be for SMEs, agencies, and growth-stage brands that rely on paid media to grow. With RedTrack, we build tracking, attribution, and automation software designed to give operators clarity they can actually act on. By using first-party data, direct platform integrations, and increasingly AI, we handle the heavy lifting of measurement and analysis, helping teams understand what truly drives revenue across channels. Our goal is simple: to make enterprise-level analytics and automation accessible to anyone.

What Inspired You To Start ReedTrack, and What Problem Were You Trying To Solve?

RedTrack grew directly out of my experience as a performance marketer. I repeatedly ran into the same problem: the data needed to make decisions was delayed, incomplete, or distorted by the platforms themselves. I first tried to build a solution back in 2005, but the technology at the time couldn’t handle the data speed or scale required.

The idea crystallised while I was consulting with companies at Boston-based ExtremeForm in the mid-2000s, where I saw how difficult it was to align media buying, automation, and analytics. RedTrack was ultimately built to solve that gap — giving marketers control over their own data and a truthful view of performance, without complex setups or pricing models that penalise growth.

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

The biggest challenge in building RedTrack has been resisting complexity. As the product evolved, it became clear that adding features didn’t automatically create more value — often it created the opposite. Rather than solving this with a single decision, we focused on building internal discipline through clear product frameworks, strict prioritisation, and constant validation around ease of use and decision clarity. That discipline is something we continue to strengthen.

Digital marketing has always been defined by change. I started in what now feels like the Stone Age — scaling campaigns in Excel, watching Google replace Overture, and Facebook grow into the center of the ecosystem. Every shift has been a challenge, and overcoming them is simply part of the business.

Can You Describe a Pivotal Moment That Significantly Shaped the Direction of RedTrack?

A pivotal moment for us was realizing that adding more features didn’t create clarity — it often created noise. That forced a rethink of our roadmap, shifting focus from dashboard depth to decision quality, simplicity, and automation. We moved away from building a “rocket ship” for power users and instead focused on creating a tool that works for everyday marketers with limited time and resources.

That shift naturally led us toward automation and AI-assisted insights, where the product doesn’t just surface data, but actively helps users understand what to do next and act with confidence.

How Do You Define Success?

For the business, success means making measurable progress against clearly defined goals. We don’t invent targets on the fly — we set them deliberately during strategic planning and evaluate ourselves over a fixed period. Success is about moving the company toward those objectives and reaching them, rather than chasing abstract or unfocused definitions of growth.

For me as a founder, success isn’t a single destination. It’s the journey of guiding the company from milestone to milestone, navigating uncertainty as the challenges evolve, and staying effective through each phase of growth. That ongoing process is what I find most rewarding.

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

If I had one piece of advice, it would be this: take a pause and be honest about why you want to do it. There’s a poem by Bukowski, “So, You Want to Be a Writer,” that captures this perfectly. It’s not just about writing, it’s about creation, endurance, and knowing whether the drive is real.

Once you commit, clarity and prioritisation matter more than anything. You can’t do everything at once. Execution and process are your anchors, and they demand discipline. At different moments, hiring, product, or growth will take priority. Ultimately, you live and die by your team. Choose them wisely.

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 5 with Vlad Zhivtenko

Here’s TechRound’s exclusive Founder’s 5 with Vlad Zhovtenko

Favourite business tool

I am torn between pen and paper and LLMs. Both help me think and make decisions. I use both of these daily. But I use pen and paper more often.

One lesson you learned the hard way?

When building a product, you get a lot of signals and feedback. But in the end, you need to prioritize what users are actually using and willing to pay for. Everything else is just noise.

One future trend you’re watching?

AI—aren’t we all? I’m paying attention to changes in society that are influenced by how AI re-shapes human interaction with information and data.

One quote you live by

I don’t believe in one universal quote. Context matters — in leadership and in performance marketing — and the right answer changes with the situation.

One book/podcast you recommend

For business, Good to Great by Jim Collins stands out for its clear frameworks, while The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz resonates for its honesty about how messy building a real company really is.

For personal growth, Antifragile by Nassim Taleb is a favourite. And if 500+ pages feels like a commitment, Skin in the Game offers a more accessible entry point to the same ideas.

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.