PR expert sees untapped potential in Cyprus innovation scene

Cyprus’ startup and investment scene is expanding rapidly, but founders still face the challenge of making their businesses visible beyond the island, according to public relations and communications strategist Evgenia Zaslavskaya.

Zaslavskaya, the founder of international communications agency ZECOMMS, has made Cyprus her home after working with technology startups, venture capital firms and global companies across international markets.

Speaking exclusively to the Cyprus Mail, she delved into how founders can build visibility without large marketing budgets, what separates startups that attract international media attention from those that do not, and why she believes Cyprus is one of Europe’s most underrated innovation hubs.

Zaslavskaya launched ZECOMMS in 2022 and, in the three years since, the agency has supported more than 50 companies across sectors including fintech, femtech, robotics, climatetech, cybersecurity and child safety.

Its clients have secured coverage in major international outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Bloomberg and TechRadar, while Zaslavskaya herself was named Best Leader in Public Relations and Communications at the Davos Communications Awards 2025.

She also judges international industry competitions, including the APAC SABRE Awards, and has more than a decade of experience in public relations and communications.

For founders operating in emerging technology hubs such as Cyprus, however, she argues that geography is much less important than many entrepreneurs assume.

“Where you’re based matters far less than most people think,” Zaslavskaya said.

“Business happens online now. Your journalists, investors, and customers are probably scattered across different countries, and that’s perfectly normal.”

Cyprus can nevertheless offer founders something that money cannot easily buy, namely an ecosystem in which they can build relationships, find advisers and connect with other entrepreneurs.

The island’s technology sector contributes around 16 per cent of GDP, supports nearly 79,000 jobs and sits within a startup ecosystem valued at roughly $4.1 billion, according to figures cited by Zaslavskaya.

Organisations such as TechIsland can also provide mentorship, connections and access to a community of people facing similar challenges.

“So before you spend a single euro on marketing, tap into that ecosystem,” she said.

“Go to events, apply to speak, meet founders, and build relationships. It costs time, not money.”

The other early investment she recommends is the founder’s own public profile.

“Post on LinkedIn, make sure your website clearly explains who you are and what you do,” she said, adding that companies should concentrate on the social platforms that matter to their audiences rather than trying to maintain a presence everywhere.

For Zaslavskaya, this is the foundation of effective PR, and it becomes particularly valuable at critical moments such as fundraising, recruitment and international expansion.

“When you’re raising a round, hiring great people, or expanding into a new market, and someone Googles your company,” she said, “the difference between finding a credible, visible business and an empty website is enormous.”

She said she had repeatedly seen founders who invested in their visibility early eventually appear to have achieved success almost overnight.

“The founders who put in the work early always look ‘overnight successful’ a couple of years later,” she said.

Where founders waste money

One of the most common mistakes she sees is entrepreneurs choosing communications agencies based on the strength of the agency’s brand rather than the people who will actually handle the account.

“A classic mistake is hiring a big-name agency for the logo on its website,” Zaslavskaya said.

Founders can end up paying a premium for a recognised name only to discover that the account has been transferred to a junior team that is several layers removed from the people who secured the original contract.

Boutique agencies can often offer a different model, she said, with senior staff remaining directly involved throughout the engagement.

“Instead of buying a logo, check the team,” she said.

“Ask who will actually be working on your account and judge them by their track record.”

Another trap is measuring communications activity rather than its results.

Zaslavskaya warned against spending money on large numbers of press releases that attract little attention, coverage in publications that investors and customers do not read, or so-called guaranteed placements in paid catalogues presented as though they were earned media.

“If the right people aren’t seeing your story or taking action because of it, none of those metrics matter,” she said.

Her advice is to ask two basic questions before spending money on communications, namely who needs to see the story and what should happen afterwards.

She also cautioned against treating PR as a single event.

Founders can spend their entire communications budget on a launch, enjoy a short burst of coverage and then disappear from the media landscape for months.

“Journalists move on quickly,” she said.

“A steady drumbeat of stories almost always outperforms one, even viral, campaign.”

The agency should therefore be treated as an expert partner rather than simply an executor of tasks.

“If they can’t explain why each activity exists and what it’s supposed to change, move along,” she said.

What gets a startup into Bloomberg

For companies hoping to move from a local market into international media, Zaslavskaya said the starting point is not PR at all.

“The product is the key,” she said.

Tier-one publications do not generally cover a startup simply because it is new, she explained.

They are interested in companies with technology that works, addresses a problem that matters and offers something meaningfully different from existing products.

“No amount of PR can manufacture that,” she said.

She pointed to ZECOMMS client Rainbow Weather, a Polish climatetech company that uses satellite and radar data to predict rainfall minute by minute up to four hours in advance.

The agency secured an earned Bloomberg article for the company last year, but Zaslavskaya said it did not pitch Rainbow Weather simply as one of the world’s most accurate weather applications.

Such a claim would have been difficult to prove, while many weather providers make similar assertions and independent performance data can be difficult to verify.

The company was also relatively small, while Bloomberg rarely covers startups unless they have raised substantial amounts of money.

Instead, ZECOMMS built its pitch around a wider issue, namely the lack of transparency in weather forecasting and tools that could help address it.

One element was Rainbow Weather’s Weather Index, a public benchmarking tool comparing short-term rainfall forecasts with observations from real weather stations.

The index placed Rainbow Weather alongside AccuWeather and The Weather Company using the same methodology.

“Because our pitch was about the challenges rather than a single startup, Bloomberg picked it up,” she said.

The lesson, according to Zaslavskaya, is that founders should stop asking how they can get into a particular publication and instead examine whether they have something genuinely relevant to the publication’s audience.

“When founders ask me, ‘How do we get into Bloomberg?’, I always ask this question: ‘What have you built, and why should anyone care today?’” she said.

“If the answer is compelling, our job begins.”

That job involves shaping the story, identifying a global angle, finding supporting data, selecting the right moment and putting the story in front of journalists who cover the relevant subject.

“If there isn’t a compelling answer yet, no agency can create one,” she said.

“And anyone who promises otherwise is selling you false hope.”

She also stressed that international journalists do not approach stories primarily through the geographical identity of a company.

“Journalists at Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, or the Financial Times don’t cover ‘a startup from Cyprus’ or ‘a startup from Belgium’,” she said.

“They cover ideas, technologies, and trends that matter to readers around the world.”

Her preferred metaphor is that PR cannot make an empty product look substantial.

“You can be an absolutely brilliant PR person, but you cannot wrap emptiness in a beautiful candy wrapper,” she said.

“If there’s great substance inside, we can build great packaging and great storytelling around it.”

Cyprus as an innovation hub

Zaslavskaya moved to Cyprus only a month before the interview, meaning she remains cautious about drawing definitive conclusions about the local business environment.

However, the decision was not made in isolation.

ZECOMMS had already worked with Cyprus-based companies for several years, and those experiences contributed to her decision to relocate.

“Long before I arrived, I was impressed by what I was seeing from afar,” she said.

Her first major impression has been the diversity of the ecosystem.

Cyprus remains strongly associated internationally with iGaming and forex, but she said that picture no longer adequately reflects the companies operating on the island.

“There are so many more,” she said.

International companies are establishing substantial operations in Cyprus while startups are developing products in areas including AI, climate technology, fintech and health technology.

“The ecosystem is far broader, and far more sophisticated, than many people realise,” she said.

The island’s links with the US are another factor in ZECOMMS’ decision to establish itself in Cyprus.

The US is one of the agency’s key markets, while a significant number of Cyprus-based companies are seeking to expand there.

For an agency focused on securing international, and particularly US, media coverage, Zaslavskaya said the fit is therefore natural.

“Our clients’ ambitions and our expertise are closely aligned,” she said.

She acknowledged that her assessment could change as she spends more time in Cyprus.

“Ask me the same question in a year’s time and I’ll probably have a much more informed perspective,” she said.

“But my first impression is this: Cyprus is one of Europe’s most underrated innovation hubs.”

She believes the gap between the island’s reputation and the reality of its technology sector creates an opportunity for communications professionals and businesses alike.

“The island has a much stronger story to tell than most people realise,” she said.

Moving from the product to the problem

For deep-tech and fintech businesses seeking international attention, one of the biggest communications mistakes is explaining the product rather than the problem it solves.

“If you’ve spent three years building a technology, it’s only natural to want to explain how elegant the architecture is, how the models work, and why your solution is technically superior,” Zaslavskaya said.

“But your audience doesn’t understand the product the way you do, and, in most cases, they don’t need to.”

The more important questions are what problem the technology addresses and why the audience should care.

A second problem is remaining too narrowly focused on the company itself.

Founders, she argued, should understand the wider landscape, including their customers’ problems, industry trends and the forces changing their market.

“The moment you can talk about issues bigger than your own company, you stop sounding like someone selling a product and start becoming someone journalists call for insight,” she said.

Her aim with clients is to make that shift from selling to providing expertise.

“Stop asking, ‘How do I get people to buy my product?’ and start asking, ‘What keeps my audience awake at night?’” she said.

That principle applies equally to investors, customers and journalists.

“People care about their own problems before they care about your solution,” she said.

“When you start with their world instead of yours, your message becomes more relevant, more credible, and ultimately far more persuasive.”

Numbers, expertise and the founder’s voice

In sectors such as femtech, robotics and climatetech, where companies can easily begin to sound alike, Zaslavskaya sees three particularly effective ways of cutting through the noise.

The first is data. “If you have real traction, such as sales figures, investment rounds, growth metrics, lead with them,” she said.

Concrete figures, she argued, are more powerful than promotional language because journalists and investors are accustomed to ignoring adjectives such as “revolutionary” but will pay attention to substantial numbers.

Early-stage companies may not yet have impressive metrics, however, and Zaslavskaya said this should not prevent them from establishing authority.

Her second recommendation is to become a genuinely useful expert in the field.

That means explaining what is changing, what people misunderstand and where an industry is heading, rather than constantly promoting the company’s own product.

Founders who consistently demonstrate expertise can become recognised and quoted by journalists before their businesses have generated major financial figures.

The third tool is statistics. She explained that companies with access to meaningful user data can build stories around their findings, while others can conduct properly designed industry surveys or identify unexpected trends.

“Data-driven stories work brilliantly in media, on one condition: it has to be true and genuinely interesting,” she said.

She warned that journalists can quickly identify research created primarily to promote a company.

“Journalists see through manufactured ‘studies’ almost immediately,” she said.

Underlying all three approaches, she added, is the founder’s personal brand.

Companies operating in crowded sectors often sound alike because they rely on corporate language, whereas an individual with a distinctive voice and genuine opinions can stand out.

“People remember people, not companies,” she said.

The hardest entrepreneurial lesson

Looking back on the creation of ZECOMMS in 2022 and its expansion across several continents, Zaslavskaya said her hardest lessons have had little to do with markets or strategy.

“The toughest part of building a business isn’t launching products or winning clients; it’s saying goodbye to people,” she said.

That can mean team members she has worked with for years, clients and, most difficult of all, business partners.

Zaslavskaya has had two business partners during her career, but has spent the past two years running the agency without a co-founder.

She said the experience had shown her that she is more effective working independently, although making that transition was initially frightening.

“Every founder knows that feeling, the fear of having no one to bounce ideas off, the belief that two heads are better than one,” she said.

“For many founders, that’s absolutely true. But in my case, the opposite turned out to be true.”

Rather than maintaining a permanent partnership, she has built a network of trusted experts whom she can bring into projects when necessary.

That network has included journalists from organisations such as TechCrunch and communications professionals in Dubai and the UK, who have provided private advice to her team and helped the agency understand the unwritten rules of different markets.

She said her team remains the part of the business of which she is most proud.

International technology projects require people who can understand both complex technologies and the workings of global media, she said.

“Building the team I have today has been harder than expanding into any new market,” Zaslavskaya said.

“It’s the most valuable asset I’ve built. It took the longest to create, and it’s the one I value the most.”

That is also one of the reasons she is looking forward to becoming more involved in Cyprus’ business community.

“The community here is incredibly strong, and I believe it will help me become a better founder too,” she said.

“Running a business on your own doesn’t mean you have to build it on your own.”