This enterprising Brit has spent time soaking his feet in the Caribbean and is now whetting his appetite for all things Ukrainian, including revolution.
“Sometimes I think I’m going to sell the business and become a professional body-builder,” says Tristan Brotherton
with a slight smirk as he sips an espresso (Hr 11.25). The co-founder of Firejuice Development, a software outsourcing company in Kyiv, took time out for lunch at Le Cosmopolite earlier this week.
While he was joking, it wouldn’t be surprising if one day Brotherton actually did decide to do something like that, as this 24-year-old self-proclaimed “student of the world” has been adventuring since he was 16.
The London-born Brotherton seems to have slowed down, however, settling in Kyiv seven months ago to start his own software development company.
On the Road Again
The laid-back Brotherton’s road to Kyiv is something out of a dime-store novel.
“I actually met a guy in New York City in a Ukrainian bar in 1999, and he told me Ukraine was kind of cool,” explains Brotherton, as he tastes his mushroom soup (Hr 26). So, like any other rational person, he sold his software development business in London and moved here.
Brotherton started traveling after he dropped out of school at 16 and went to work on pleasure boats in the West Indies.
“I didn’t really feel [school] was teaching me anything, so I moved to the West Indies, and started working on boats,” says Brotherton.
It was in the West Indies that he got his start in computers.
“I met a guy who gave me a book on computer technology, and it seemed like an interesting thing to do. So I read and studied that and started a business back in London.”
Building Web sites soon snowballed into something larger.
It seems unbelievable, but on the basis of what he learned from that first computer tech book, he has built lives for himself in New York City, Singapore and now Kyiv, doing everything from installing networks for investment banks, to developing software, to doing technology consultation.
“I was 19 years old, living in New York City, running an office and having the time of my life,” says. “I was in charge of an office, but too young to drink. Fortunately, when you’re a computer technologist it’s easy to print identification,” he says before he orders a half-liter of Stella Artois (Hr 15).
“I’m a people person, and technology is kind of like Legos. It’s logic. You can work it out: things that plug together and fit are meant to be there. If the light goes on and it’s green, it’s all good, and if you don’t know something, you can look it up on Google,” he laughs.
Really Fired Up
Now that he’s in Kyiv, Brotherton is co-owner of two businesses. One is Firejuice Development and another is to be launched soon. It will be aimed at the youth tech market in Ukraine, and will be called Go Mobile. Mind you, he’s still rather hush-hush about it all.
Brotherton smiles as his potato varenyki with mushrooms (Hr 26) arrive. In the last few months, Ukrainian cuisine has become an enthusiasm, he says.
Despite traveling in some of the more exotic regions of the world, Brotherton has fallen in love with almost every aspect of Kyiv, despite not knowing much Russian or Ukrainian.
“I have one sentence, ‘Mozhna meni eta,’ and it gives me absolutely everything that I need, because I can point,” says Brotherton, adding that he’s gained more language skills over the last few months “through osmosis.”
Despite the language barrier, Brotherton has had a surprisingly easy time getting established in Kyiv.
“To set up a business anywhere else in the world would take a significant investment, and you’ve got raise a lot of money. It’s tiring. It’s difficult and you have to get a lot of people involved,” he explains.
“Setting up a business here was cheap, simple, the people we work with are absolutely fantastic, our staff are amazing, and it requires significantly less investment and it’s easier to get it going,” says Brotherton.
While Firejuice caters more to Western clients, it is Brotherton’s goal to keep building up the Ukrainian side of the business.
Although he says he’s in Ukraine for the long run, Brotherton admits the travel bug could bite again.
“I have to keep traveling. I’m not a stay-in-one-place kind of guy.”
All I’ve Got Is a Photograph
An amateur photographer and filmmaker, Brotherton has a passion for visual art. Not surprisingly, he was swept away by the Orange Revolution. Never without his camera, he couldn’t believe his luck when the huge Kyiv protests began.
“When it happened, I dropped my business and disappeared; my business partner took over everything, which was fantastic, and I just left and started recording what I could.”
Now Brotherton is in the planning stages for exhibitions in both London and Moscow. He’s accumulated more than 200 hours of video footage of the events of late last year, as well as countless rolls of film.
“I’ve never voted. I’ve never felt like a citizen of a particular nation,” he begins. “And seeing an 80-year-old woman next to a 17-year-old guy out on the street when it’s snowing and freezing cold, protesting something that I take completely for granted, was inspiring.”
Le Cosmopolite
47 Volodymyrska, 228-7278.
Open daily from 11 a.m. till 11 p.m.
English menu: Yes.
English-speaking staff: Yes.
