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- Wanted to make real money so he became a programmer and left Ukraine to come to North America
- Started in Vancouver in 2009
- With English as his second language, it was hard
- He was stressed making phone calls on interviews as a programmer
- Dreamt of coming to America since he was a teenager
- Was probably over-thinking things a bit
- Was frustrated with the poor state of crime, healthcare, and government in Ukraine
- It was "too easy" to find a programming job online so he wanted to come to North America and get hired in person
- Nobody would hire him
- He made a fake job post on Craigslist
- He got 50 resumes from experienced people
- This showed him how competitive it was
- Got hired by going to networking events in person while he was going to school
Be transparent about your pricing."
- Worked for someone else for about four years
- He started building his own company on the side as he was saving money at his full-time job
- He hired programmers in Ukraine to code for him on his own project
- Took a year to build it then six months to get up to an $8k MRR so he could quit and go full time on his own business
- He spent a lot of time learning marketing while he was learning to program
- SEO, content, etc. as well as Google Ads
- His first company was an idea of his business partner
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- But it was a fad/niche that faded quickly
- They couldn't grow their business after a certain point due to the decline in the market
- Put it on autopilot to find a new idea, which took about a year
- Lots of ups and downs being an entrepreneur
- Created a list of 10 things he wanted to do if he was independently wealthy
- B2B sales were on his list and he was interested in it
- Which one has good financial potential?
- For nine months he immersed himself into the B2B sales space
- Did some outbound sales for a friend of his who was also a developer
- He built what he wanted for himself and saw the need and saw little competition
- Took four months to develop Reply.io
- Go fast. Make the "minimum viable product" to make the first sale. (Took him just four months.)
- Then nine months to polish it
- Found the early-adopters to buy his beta software
- Spent time on Q&A platforms like Quora
- Sold at a big discount at first
- Hired a developer right away to go full-time into production
- He moved back to Ukraine to cut costs
- He would call and do his demos at night since he was selling into the United States
- Once he got to $10k MRR he hired a sales rep in Toronto
- He was looking for a VP of Sales at the lowest compensation possible and offered an ownership stake in the business
- He wants to build a global company
- He was spending three months in the U.S. but he didn't need to be here but came to meet customers, attend conferences, and meet with investors
- A multi-channel platform for marketing and messaging
- Can be standalone but it is usually used to augment your CRM
- Be transparent about your pricing
Links Mentioned In The Sales Podcast