Written by Kazo Roson Sep 30th 2025
Pavlo Pechenyi is the co-founder and CTO of OneNotary, a venture-backed legal tech platform that uses AI to streamline remote notarization. With a background in applied mathematics and early neural networks, he’s spent the last decade turning complex systems into scalable, investor-backed products. If you’re building something technically ambitious that also needs to scale, his path offers both a blueprint and a few hard-earned lessons.
Long before AI dominated tech headlines, Pavlo was studying neural networks in grad school, not to follow a trend, but to solve real mathematical problems. Today, OneNotary processes over 10,000 notarizations each month, has secured $5M in Series A funding, and partners with DocuSign to serve both consumers and enterprises.
But that kind of traction didn’t happen overnight. Pavlo’s journey cuts across industries, roles, and even war zones, and what emerges is a blueprint in systems thinking: how deep technical expertise, paired with grounded leadership, can drive real-world impact.
Early AI Before It Was a Trend
Back in grad school, Pavlo wasn’t chasing buzzwords — he was solving equations. His Master’s in Applied Mathematics focused on neural networks, back when the field was still fringe. That early work gave him more than academic credibility; it taught him how to model complexity and break layered systems into solvable components.
But he didn’t move straight into tech. His first roles were in finance and media, two industries where clarity is scarce and timelines are tight. As a risk manager, he built models to assess credit exposure under regulatory pressure. Later, in a media agency, he turned raw audience data into strategic insights for national campaigns.
“Those roles weren’t glamorous,” Pavlo says, “but they taught me how to make decisions with messy data and explain them in plain language.”
It was a shift from theory to communication using technical skills to solve business problems in real time.
“It wasn’t about math anymore,” he adds. “It was about making math useful to people who didn’t speak the language.”
That blend of precision and translation became the foundation for everything he built after.
TonicHealth: Tech That Actually Reached People
One of Pavlo’s defining early leadership roles came at TonicHealth, a healthcare engagement platform. As Tech Lead, he managed a team of ten senior engineers and led the build of a secure notification system that touched over 200,000 patients a day.
But it wasn’t just uptime or code quality that mattered. There were real-world stakes. Missing a medical reminder meant missed care. In healthcare, a system failure doesn’t just mean downtime; it implies risk. In one high-pressure week, the team shipped an update that helped thousands of patients show up to flu-season appointments just in time.
“That was the first time I really felt the weight of a line of code,” he says. “Someone’s health might depend on it.”
TonicHealth was eventually acquired. The patient notification system became a key differentiator. It proved that infrastructure could be invisible and still deeply human.
And for Pavlo, it unlocked a conviction: deeply technical work only matters if it changes something real.
OneNotary: Scaling Legal Tech With Intention
In 2020, Pavlo co-founded OneNotary to digitize the centuries-old notarization process. Most people don’t think much about notarizations until they need one. And that’s precisely the problem.
Taking a notarization remote wasn’t just about UI. The product had to meet strict legal standards across dozens of U.S. states, ensure secure identity verification, integrate with existing enterprise platforms, and scale without fail. Every part of the workflow had legal, security, and compliance consequences.
Under Pavlo’s leadership, the platform:
- Handles 10,000+ notarizations per month with 99.99% uptime.
- Complies with SOC 2 security standards.
- Integrates directly with partners like DocuSign.
One of the team’s biggest breakthroughs was building a proprietary ML system that slashed document preparation time from three hours to less than one minute. It didn’t just save time; it reduced errors, improved security, and unblocked the entire customer journey. It also gave the team a repeatable framework for automating other high-friction steps.
“When we saw the model work end-to-end for the first time, there wasn’t a celebration,” he recalls. “There was just silence. Then someone whispered: ‘That just changed everything.’”
It’s a technical win but one grounded in business impact. That’s what made investors take notice during their Series A raise.
Leading Distributed Teams Through Chaos
OneNotary’s engineering team spans Ukraine, Poland, Canada, and the U.S. Leading across time zones is one thing. Leading across crises, especially during wartime, is another.
“Some days, engineers pushed code from bomb shelters. Leadership wasn’t about features; it was about keeping people safe, stable, and able to work.”
Pavlo focused on trust, documentation, and high hiring standards. He coached managers, streamlined processes, and ensured that everyone was kept informed.
The result? The team not only delivered, but they also grew. They retained top talent and shipped products at scale, even in the most unpredictable conditions.
“You can’t fake trust at that level,” he says. “You build it or you lose the team.”
Founder Lessons for Anyone Building at Scale
If you’re building and scaling a product right now, especially one in a regulated or high-trust space, you know the pressure. Investors want velocity. Customers want security. Your team wants clarity.
Pavlo’s path is full of moments worth studying. Here are a few lessons drawn directly from his experience:
- Don’t chase perfection. “Architecture matters. But so does shipping.” Know when to move.
- Be your own translator. Tech specs are great, but buyers and investors want impact.
- Build networks, not just tech. Pavlo joined the Forbes Technology Council and the Founders Network to learn from others who’ve scaled. “It’s not just what you build; it’s how you align with the people around you.”
“At some point, your job stops being about solving technical problems,” he says. “It becomes about solving people’s problems at scale.”
If You’re on the Same Path…
You might be:
- A technical founder trying to align products with business outcomes.
- An engineering leader facing regulatory complexity.
- Or someone quietly building something meaningful and wondering if it will scale.
Pavlo’s story is a reminder that success isn’t just about code or capital.: The tech is critical. But so is the context. So is the clarity. And so is the ability to lead with calm precision when it matters most.
“Most people overestimate what can be done in a quarter,” he says. “But they underestimate what a clear technical vision can do in two years.”
If you’re scaling a platform that needs trust, precision, and real-world traction, there’s a roadmap here.
Not a shortcut.
But a strategy.
And that’s the difference.
Connect with Pavlo Pechenyi on LinkedIn to follow his journey and insights directly.
About the Author
Elena Karswell is a B2B technology writer and growth strategist who specializes in telling founder-driven stories at the intersection of product, scale, and systems thinking. With a background in enterprise SaaS and content architecture, she helps startups distill technical complexity into narratives that resonate with investors, operators, and early adopters alike. Her work has appeared in Indie Hackers, Product-Led World, and private founder networks across North America and Europe. When she’s not writing, Elena advises seed-stage teams on go-to-market clarity, thought leadership, and strategic messaging.