Beyond the Backpack: Classtag's Vlada Lotkina on Disrupting EdTech

Join along as I sit down with the incredibly inspiring Vlada Lotkina, the brain behind ClassTag, for a journey filled with dreams, determination, and the drive to make a difference in the world of education. From her early days in Ukraine to creating waves in the U.S. tech scene, Vlada's story isn't just about building a successful platform; it's about bridging gaps, overcoming the naysayers, and transforming challenges into triumphs. We're not just sharing her success story; we're diving into the essence of what it means to pursue your passions, stand up after setbacks, and forge your path in the world. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or someone who loves a good story of hope and hard work, you won't want to miss this.

[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:01:03] Founding ClassTag
[00:03:04] Vlada's Entrepreneur Background
[00:06:04] Navigating business during the war in Ukraine
[00:09:56] Selling ClassTag
[00:12:47] Reflecting on the Exit
[00:15:39] After the Exit
[00:17:28] Supporting Immigrant Founders
[00:23:33] Scaling ClassTag to 5 million users
[00:27:44] Impact of COVID on ClassTag's Growth
[00:31:21] Parenting and Entrepreneurship
[00:37:22] Wrap-up

Vlada Lotkina's Stuff

Website: https://www.elev8orlab.com/

X: https://twitter.com/vlotkina

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vlada-lotkina

My Stuff

Podcast: MadeItPod.com

Website: https://www.connortomkies.com/

X: https://twitter.com/ConnorTomkies

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connortomkies/

Creators & Guests

Host

Connor Tomkies

Tweet stories and lessons learned. SupportNinja | Acquired by Boston Ventures. Hear Made It Podcast Here: https://t.co/QjryGKbaKS

What is Made It with Connor Tomkies?

"Made It" is a podcast hosted by Connor Tomkies that delves into the journeys of successful entrepreneurs who have not only built and exited their companies, but who are writing the next chapter of their journeys. The show focuses on the unique challenges and lessons learned while moving beyond the exit, offering insights and strategies for listeners aiming to grow their own businesses. Through engaging conversations with various guests, the podcast provides a blend of motivational stories, practical advice, and insider tips on entrepreneurship, business growth, and personal development.

[00:00:00] Vlada Lotkina: I met so many investors who told me, Oh my God, this is a graveyard of companies. Don't go into primary education. Districts are tough. They're bureaucratic. No funding, right? Just really the worst. Dynamics that, um, that you might want in a business. Hey, co founders welcome to made it with Conor Tompkins, a podcast where we meet with bad ass entrepreneurs who've successfully exited their companies, discussing everything from the wins and losses of entrepreneurship to the next steps after the exit to not miss out on these exciting stories.

Be podcast. Let's dive in.

[00:00:40] Connor Tomkies: Hey everyone. I am here with a lot of. Uh, Lakina, did I say that correctly? That's right. She is the founder of ClassTag. She's also an immigrant founder and has done some fantastic and wonderful things in education and in the tech space. So I want to hand it over to you and hear a little bit about your origin story and how you founded the business.

[00:01:03] Vlada Lotkina: Super. Well, thank you. I'm excited to be here. My story starts from Ukraine. I loved my early start as entrepreneur back in Ukraine, actually growing up alongside my dad, who was entrepreneur. So I got to inherit that and, and sort of get my first, um, steps as entrepreneur alongside him. And then I wanted to learn the proper way to do business, which In my book, meant, uh, MBA, big companies and things like that.

So I applied to top three business programs, got it to Wharton in the U. S., shipped myself overseas, spent about a decade at Boston Consulting Group and climbing corporate ladder at Dell, two levels down from Michael Dell. Then I realized that big companies actually are just a lot of people, but really entrepreneurship is where my passion is.

And that's perhaps the most honest or the most truthful way to see what you're worth. Because the fast steps with you, you can't really rely on this large infrastructure and all the various people, resources, et cetera, that you have in a large company. And so about that time, my daughter started school in New York City.

And I was receiving communications from the school. And frankly, I was shocked. It was flyers in the backpacks, sign up sheets on the door. And obviously in a day and age when we know what our friends eat for breakfast on Instagram, whether we want it or not, it's crazy that you can have the same level of connectivity with your child.

That brought idea of class tag, really helping parents and teachers become partners in the kids education. And that's the platform I started with a dad in the same class. His son and my daughter were classmates. He became a CTO and I became the CEO of this company. We scaled that to 5 million users, raised funding and ultimately exited.

And that's my story in a nutshell.

[00:03:00] Connor Tomkies: That's a big win. Not a lot of companies exit. What was your dad doing

[00:03:04] Vlada Lotkina: as an entrepreneur? So my dad actually, uh, was entrepreneur during the collapse of Soviet Union. That was the most fun time. I actually regret that I can't be entrepreneur in that time because it was really wild west.

So whatever company you start. You can be the first to market. He started maybe 15 companies and they were all different, right? So one of them was producing coats. Another one was producing hats. Another one was a little cinema in an office space or apartment he was renting. Really retail. Tons of stuff because you could be really on a limb with very little funding and just a lot of entrepreneurial spirit.

You could be first to market with anything.

[00:03:49] Connor Tomkies: Isn't that incredible? After the collapse of the Soviet union, they're like real estate was open. You could be the first to market too. If you opened up a mine or opened up, you said a cinema, a

[00:04:00] Vlada Lotkina: half shop. He is a brother immigrated to United States. When he visited him, he brought a DVR.

I think he was one of few people in the whole city that actually had the DVR. So he rented out a space. He put on that DVR, I think it was called Police 3 or whatever that movie was. And so it kept playing. And, um, he had a big audience. As a kid, maybe I was selling tickets or whatever I was doing.

[00:04:25] Connor Tomkies: You were selling things when you're, you were a kid.

That's a kind of the beginning of an entrepreneurship,

[00:04:30] Vlada Lotkina: right? Yes, exactly. And I think just having that front row seats to that craziness, he was an engineer by his education, who worked at a factory until you, you know, Soviet Union collapse, and then he just went all out and doing all sorts of crazy entrepreneurial things, and it was just so fun to watch and participate

[00:04:50] Connor Tomkies: in.

When you look at the economic development post Soviet Union, a big spike over seven to nine years of like just businesses being developed and then access to the global economy. Is he still an entrepreneur or did he end up selling those businesses? Did the cinema take off? Did the hat company not? Like what, what happened with this, with all these different companies that he had?

[00:05:10] Vlada Lotkina: Obviously, one of the things being part of a developing economy is that it's always developing and has a lot of twists and turns, even more so, right? Here we talk about COVID and how much Uh, it impacted business as well in a country like Ukraine, let alone what's happening now, there is a big shift and a big sort of event happening every couple of years, right?

The complete devaluation of currency or this or that, or this crisis, right? So you have to be so agile and on your feet to run business there. So to answer your question, he, um, and sort of evolve his businesses, his latest businesses in renewable energy. Which is sort of, uh, more consistent with the times.

And unfortunately, because of the war in Ukraine, it is challenging to run these businesses. My heart goes out to old entrepreneurs who continue to employ people, who continue to try and run businesses no matter what. And he and other entrepreneurs like that are my heroes for

[00:06:04] Connor Tomkies: sure. That's remarkable. I remember seeing video footage of an office and it looked like my tech office.

You have the sanding desks and everything like that. And then you see footage post what happened with the war in Ukraine. And it doesn't look anything similar to what it looked like before. I can't imagine running a company in this environment or trying to work with customers and trying to make sure your employees are safe.

Everyone is taken care of. Um, that's a scary and hard

[00:06:32] Vlada Lotkina: thought. And as we know, running a business is hard enough in itself. Finding a problem that people want to pay for and that you are differentiated in a competitive market and yada, yada, yada. And yet, that's like 20 percent of the things that these people have to worry about.

80 percent is really the livelihood of the people and their safety and just so many other political factors that they need to think about beyond just the core business as we know it.

[00:07:02] Connor Tomkies: My outsourcing company had a couple thousand people in the Philippines and we had the pandemic and they shut down the highways and there were safety concerns.

And we were worried about how do you get people home? Did you have to navigate those type of concerns with the war in Ukraine as a founder and going through your process?

[00:07:22] Vlada Lotkina: And I still remember that day that the war started and, you know, of course, having not only my team and family there, I was, you know, very closely following the news.

I offered the team to relocate, um, a couple of weeks and months before that. They said, absolutely no, nobody would believe that this war is happening. And so. The morning off, we had our all hands and I remember all my U. S. staff messaging me saying, Hey, maybe we should cancel because of what's happening.

And I said, absolutely not. While folks in Ukraine are dealing with this, we just need to work harder and we have to be strong for them because as long as we run the business, as long as we accelerate our sales. That's how we can support them. We are not going to support them if we just sit here and go crazy because Yes, that's what everyone wants to do is just to paralyzing.

It's so incredibly challenging to deal with it. And so we did help hold the all hands. Some of the Ukrainians actually joined, believe it or not, from underground and wherever they were hiding. And the team really pulled together. We had some operations with some other folks that were based in Europe to help connect folks to evacuation opportunities.

We had a live chat to do that. And we even were singing Ukrainian anthem with American colleagues to lift up one of the employees who Was hiding with her small daughter and was just not in a good place mentally. And so that lifted her up and gave her strength to run to the train station in Kiev and take that train to Poland and get to a more safe location.

Are

[00:09:07] Connor Tomkies: all of your employees now in safe locations?

[00:09:10] Vlada Lotkina: Many are still in Ukraine. Yeah. They didn't want to move or couldn't move because men between the ages of 18 and 60, they cannot leave the country. Unless they have three kids or some other special circumstances.

[00:09:24] Connor Tomkies: Makes sense. My wife is Ukrainian and her uncle is like 63 and we're looking at the age cutoff and we're like They could increase it to 65 You don't know and then you're trying to figure out the logistics of how to get them over the border and that's

[00:09:38] Vlada Lotkina: stressful Anyone is prepared to deal with for sure.

[00:09:42] Connor Tomkies: Absolutely not. You ended up selling Class tag. What do you mind sharing about what that M& A process was like? And then what was that process like in regards to the war happening in Ukraine?

[00:09:56] Vlada Lotkina: I would say that before we actually sold Class Tag, we went to initially through a process 18 months prior to that.

As I was raising our Series A, we got approached to sell the business and it was a really compelling offer. A lot of deliberation. I just had to give in. The partners were flying to see me, they were calling me. And so there was just a lot of convincing happening. And so we went with that M& A offer, which meant that we locked down for that exclusivity period for maybe three months or so.

And as luck or unluck had it, we got, uh, to the very last mile in that M& A process right before the war started in Ukraine. I always believed that whatever happens, happens for the best, but at that time, I would say professionally, that was one of the toughest things I had to persevere, uh, through, uh, and that was when at the 11th hour, when I was collecting signatures from investors, the last minute negotiation about some tax treatments, those fine details on the deal, diligence was done, technology diligence, everything was done.

We got on a call with them and they said, They're not going to do the deal. And I, honestly, I couldn't speak for probably 48 hours. I just couldn't.

[00:11:21] Connor Tomkies: It's a hard process to go through period.

[00:11:24] Vlada Lotkina: I know. And I think that, um, honestly, that's. Something I want to share with other first time entrepreneurs who are thinking about M& A or getting M& A opportunities in their inbox.

One thing I wish I knew as a first time founder is that I think 90 percent of M& A deals fall apart. And I just did not know. I had no idea. Have I known the statistics? I should have raised, let's say Series A. And then got back to these folks and say, amazing, let's now have a conversation, right, and I just have a lot more cash in the bank, but we can still, you know, continue the conversation.

So I think that it is really important at all times to have optionality. And as a first time entrepreneur, that actually taught me a lot about going through the process second time. And that's why. It went so smoothly, right? And second time, we had to add multiple offers. We hired an investment banker. It was a proper process with all the steps and stages in place.

And then I just operated the business as if no M& A process is happening. My goal was to have a thriving business, M& A or not, I didn't care about it. In

[00:12:47] Connor Tomkies: the conversations that we've been having over the past few weeks, that seems to be a common thread. Like this business needs to run and stand on its own.

And if you want to buy the business and you want to partner together, great. But if not, then I'm just going to be over here doing my own thing. And there's also nothing better than being like, Hey, you can also buy the business. A year from now, but it's not going to be the same price and we're going to be growing.

I think investors as well as potential M& A partners can kind of tell or kind of sense that if you're like, we're doing this with or without you.

[00:13:18] Vlada Lotkina: Exactly. And I think that first experience gave me a lot of confidence. That's the only way to go. And even In my mind, I already decided, and with the board, we gained alignment that that was a plan A to actually sell the business.

I knew that we are perfectly capable of plan B and that we have a thriving, profitable business that can keep going if this doesn't happen. And I think that just puts us in a whole different position in negotiation.

[00:13:50] Connor Tomkies: I think so too. Like you just have to be able to walk away. Did you have a formal board that you were working with or reporting to?

We

[00:13:58] Vlada Lotkina: did have a formal board and that was formed later on after the first M& A didn't happen. And so we got a more structured governance in place for the business. It's funny that. My co founder and CTO, as I mentioned, was a dad in my daughter's class. He started a number of companies in the past and had experience with boards.

He said, be careful, don't, you know, don't run, don't rush into having a formal board. Somehow we just had good relationship, good communication with the investors, but we didn't have a formal board. Until sort of that experience. Board

[00:14:38] Connor Tomkies: management's kind of a skill that no one talks about, but how to make sure that the board is an advocate for you and can help you with the process.

Do you feel like that was part of the difference between the first process and the second one?

[00:14:50] Vlada Lotkina: There were a difference. There was an investment banker and so that also took some pressure off. Me as the only eyes and ears on the front lines of what, what's really happening. And as a more independent party, I think that it also, we had a pretty substantial cap table with over 30 investors.

The fact that we had a few major investors on the board allowed for that representation and effective communication overall, I've been really blessed with very supportive investors. Many of them were founders in the past. Some of them were. Really experts in education and so really cared about the mission as well as, um, the outcome financially as well.

Just really thrilled to have shared this journey with some amazing people. How has

[00:15:39] Connor Tomkies: it been after the deal went through? How are. How are you doing? And what are some of the things that make you excited? The

[00:15:46] Vlada Lotkina: second time I was operating as if I'm not selling the business, when I sold it, I didn't feel anything, to be honest.

I didn't even feel that I sold it because I kept, I kept going on that momentum. And so. Um, I would say the first few months were actually really busy because of the integration and how critical the role of class 10 is in the ecosystem of other companies as part of this strategic acquisition. And so I wanted to make sure that my team is properly integrated and gets opportunity for growth.

I wanted to make sure that the platform. Is well understood. And so it lands well, and we have millions of users in the platforms. That was important to me as well. I was busy. It just was that whole process. And so until three days ago that I'm officially not part of the acquiring company. I actually didn't feel like I've exited beyond just the fact that I financially feel much more secure.

[00:16:41] Connor Tomkies: Congratulations on the actual exit. And then this like almost secondary wave of exit, um, over the past three days, what have you been feeling?

[00:16:50] Vlada Lotkina: Excited about, um, opportunities and excited about, you know, the world of possibilities. It's so fun to feel like. You know, you don't have 50 things on your plate.

And I know a lot of founders go through the downs of it. Um, and, and sort of, um, maybe because of this delayed exit in my mind, I didn't feel it. I, I, I feel great. I feel excited for what's next. I love. Connecting with other entrepreneurs and dreaming up what the future holds. Let's

[00:17:28] Connor Tomkies: talk about that. What are some things that are exciting to you?

[00:17:31] Vlada Lotkina: As I reflect on my experience, um, effectively what I have expertise in is management consulting, which I've done decades of and being a founder over the The remaining eight years of my professional career. And if you blend the two, it's, it's really, I think, lends itself well with coaching and supporting other entrepreneurs.

I am very passionate about the idea of product market fit and focusing in on what's working and untangling that signal, right? And I think as a founder, I found that hard to do because You have a lot of things that sort of are working and then you end up with a multi layered cake that is really hard to untangle over time, rather than figuring out where the signal is, where is that persona and how to go pursue it.

I have as a immigrant founder, have a soft spot for immigrant founders. And so I've been spending a lot of time supporting immigrant founders who want to enter U. S. market, perhaps they have a business. That they want to bring to us or folks that on the contrary are looking at an international expansion.

That's something that I don't think us businesses spend enough time thinking about. And there is a whole world out there. I

[00:18:46] Connor Tomkies: honestly think it's fantastic because I get it really excited whenever I hear about a company taking something that either works in one market and taking it to another one. You hear about Rocket Internet and they take Amazon and they're like, I'm going to take this to the Philippines and it's going to be called Lazada.

You can do that. And then you can also do the reverse and say like, Hey, this is really working. Uh, well, and Portugal and we can. It doesn't exist here and it kind of creates its own moat, right? Because you already know it's a proven idea. Have you seen any good examples of this or any cool other immigrant founders or companies that are doing this really well?

That

[00:19:17] Vlada Lotkina: have done that transition? Um, that's a good question. Um, I, um, I certainly know some, but they wouldn't be big names as of yet, right? So there are early days in, in entering the market, specifically the few founders I'm working with are from Latin America or Europe at the moment. And I think, especially in this world where the world is taking over by AI bit by bit, right?

I think what's deeply human is that culture, as you said, your origin story. And I think as you talk about sort of cultural differences and things like that, There are a lot of really cool businesses that can transport that culture and that flavor, uh, but also, um, a lot of great opportunities to just scale a proven idea in one market and figure out where else you can go.

Creating just a tremendous opportunity

[00:20:11] Connor Tomkies: for growth. In college, we had a program called Isaac, which was like an international exchange of young people so they can go work for like PwC and like Mexico city or, or, uh, Coke and Korea. And like, you have that international exchange of like young people and ideas.

You could hire people in your city, but you can also find the best talent if you were to search nationally and even more if you were to go internationally. It's like a no brainer. Did you have that experience? Because I know you have ties to Ukraine and your team was international. Did you find that was like a unique differentiator and had an

[00:20:42] Vlada Lotkina: impact on you?

Absolutely. And I think from day one we decided it will be fully remote. So we were fully remote before remote became a thing and then forced transition. And so, We had support team in Philippines. We had development team and product team in Ukraine. We had folks in all sorts of odd places from Singapore to Portugal, to UK, just because we found great talent in those locations in the U.

S. that also spread out across the country. I think as long as you have great communication mechanisms and a way to build culture around the core team, it becomes really fun. They know for a fact that a number of. American colleagues who joined ClassTag, they were saying, Oh my God, I joined this company, you're only 40 people, but you have 40 countries in this one place.

Right. That's so fun.

[00:21:33] Connor Tomkies: Um, what were some things that made your experience a little different when you were launching your business as an immigrant founder versus a business owner? Um, say someone that, um, grew up here and, and probably had a different experience than you did.

[00:21:46] Vlada Lotkina: It might sound strange, but I only recently realized that I'm an immigrant founder because I didn't think of myself as such.

Right. And so as I was building the business, I was just building it. Yes. It's hard. Yes. You get a hundred no's for every yes. And, you know, just keep going with it. And only recently when I started talking to founders, And they say, well, you know, as an immigrant founder, how do I start? How do I do this? And, you know, how do I build a network?

And that actually opened my eyes to say, gosh, I am an immigrant founder. I think there are a lot of labels, right? Female tech founder, immigrant tech founder, whatever other things. Yes. And, and there are biases and there are some barriers and all of this stuff is true, but I just feel that it's not helpful.

To put that label on myself. And then say that I can't do something because of that label, when in fact, all I need to do is to embrace my strengths. So I'd rather focus on my unique, I don't know, accent, if you will, or I don't know, sense of humor or whatever else there is that differentiates me rather than things that hold me back.

How

[00:22:59] Connor Tomkies: remarkable is like your background too, and like what your dad went through and, and the Soviet union when he was launching. You got to see someone launch 12 businesses instead of one. That's not a normal experience, it's a special one. And so I think there's something to celebrate there for sure.

When you were talking about helping founders and helping pay it forward, I think it would be fun to have almost like an accelerator where you're like, Hey, you have a great business here in Uruguay. Let's like, look at bringing it here to the States and we'll help you with connections and distribution channels and vendors and stuff like that.

There's definitely something there where I think it, it would be a fun

[00:23:33] Vlada Lotkina: project. That's in line with what, with what I'm thinking and, and starting to test out. So if you're an international founder listening to this, reach out. I think

[00:23:42] Connor Tomkies: that with the kind of push for remote culture, it opens up a lot of channels and opportunities for international companies to expand their reach and who they work with.

Are you seeing any of that in your company and some of the companies that you're working with?

[00:23:57] Vlada Lotkina: That they're reaching out as, as distributors.

[00:24:00] Connor Tomkies: Yeah. And it's easier to enter markets almost like it's easier to hire people in the Philippines than it was before. And vice versa, it's easier for Philippines companies to enter the American market, because if you are working with the companies on the backend, or if you're launching a product, you can enter a market that you couldn't previously enter if you didn't have a physical presence there.

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:24:19] Vlada Lotkina: And I think the reality is that especially in the software space, right? Business in a way is a global business, whether you want it or not. So for example, when we launched ClassAg, I remember there was an article in Greece, and all of a sudden we got 10, 000 Greek, users overnight. And I was like, damn it.

Like we are not, you know, we, we didn't count on it. We didn't go through this GPR. So we just closed it that same day. It was like, no, we can't have EU users, but you know, you never know, right? Your stuff is out there and an article can be written and all of a sudden you have a business in a new place. And of course.

I think the whole mantra is to be proactive, right? To proactively look for those opportunities, uh, in different, uh, geographies and to enter. But the reality is, especially in software business, you can have 10, 000 Greek users any day. That's pretty

[00:25:15] Connor Tomkies: awesome. How did you scale ClassTag to 5 million people?

That's a lot of users.

[00:25:21] Vlada Lotkina: I still remember that moment when I, Would travel and, or talk to other parents and they're like, Oh my God, I'm using it. Or my friend teacher is using it, et cetera. And so I think when you reach that number, pretty much anywhere in the country, uh, or in Greece, as we learned, you can meet those users.

And so. It's really fun, but how we scaled was the first hundred users by hand. I interviewed a lot of parents, had teachers of their kids. And so I got those a hundred users effectively in New York City where I lived at a time. And then from there, we started really scaling through that early advocacy group of these hundred teachers.

And maybe that's how we got to about a thousand teachers when they started inviting others. And what's cool about teachers as well as a lot of vertical SaaS solutions is when People like something they will share, right? And so a lot of our messaging and marketing was teachers sharing with other teachers, whether that was actual advertising of teachers talking about it or, um, or webinars of teachers, but it was always teacher to teacher as the central idea of the marketing.

And then from there, I just started scaling it was amplifying some paid advertising for the back to school, which was the most cost effective time to, to scale before school year starts.

[00:26:46] Connor Tomkies: So you weren't selling into the school districts and like the principals and stuff like that, right?

[00:26:50] Vlada Lotkina: In my early days of, um, fundraising for class tag, I met so many investors who told me, Oh my God, this is a graveyard of companies.

Don't go into primary education. Districts are tough, they're bureaucratic, no funding, right? Um, just really the worst, um, dynamics that, um, that you might want in a business. That lesson was so ingrained in my head that I avoided selling to districts until they started coming to us. They started coming to us when we had Enough sort of critical math, but we also had COVID, which was a big catalyst for digitalization of communication and the importance of community building in, in schools and in public education in America.

We started getting inbound from these districts and. That's a much easier way to sell.

[00:27:41] Connor Tomkies: Did you see a massive lift when COVID went through?

[00:27:44] Vlada Lotkina: Yeah. So it was really interesting because of our model, which was bottom up, right? Sort of teachers adopting it in their classroom. The day COVID happened, I mean, that week it was spreading like wildfire.

My cell phone didn't stop because my, the teachers were calling me and begging to let them use ClassEd because their schools and districts basically told them. We can't, right? We need to be in control. We need to be in charge. We need to have this system. And so they were finding my cell phone to, to ask for help.

It's like, can you call my district? I want to use your platform. They're not letting me do something. And I was like, I can't really help you unless you actually go to your district and tell them to call me, then I can help you and sell them the platform for, for their whole district. And so that's what started that whole inbound.

So in a way. Short term, it brought our users down, but then it brought them up from the enterprise side.

[00:28:43] Connor Tomkies: Did you see the, uh, pods, like, where teachers were spinning out and taking, say, like, six to nine students? And they were doing pretty well. Like, they were making more money working with fewer students directly than they were in the public school system.

[00:29:00] Vlada Lotkina: I think that's what's happening in education is that it, a lot of things just didn't go back to the old normal, right? There is a new normal in education. And so there are virtual schools now, right? So for example, my daughter says. Hey, I actually don't like how the, you know, geometry is taught. I want a virtual option.

Apparently public schools today offer virtual options, right? I, who knew right before COVID, I don't think that was a possibility. Then you have a homeschooling that is on the rise and a huge trend. You have these small schools that are popping up across the whole country. And in fact, there are so many interesting entrepreneurial opportunities in that It's kind of homeschooling, kind of small, uh, semi private space that are really amazing.

So it is, education is one of those lagging laggards that takes a long time to change, but it is going through quite a bit of transformation.

[00:29:57] Connor Tomkies: I hope it does change a little bit because I feel like if you have access to the best professors or the best teachers in the world, you can't go back to doing it the same way.

I also feel like there's a little bit of a shift towards like practical education. It makes me happy whenever I see entrepreneurs on like TikTok or YouTube and they're showing kids like, here's how you like change a tire. Here's how you change out a breaker and your breaker board. And I think that's amazing.

A

[00:30:23] Vlada Lotkina: hundred percent. And I think that As I reflect on sort of the skills that I actually find practical in life and the skills that I was taught in schools, like all of us, I think I find those diverging quite a bit and take it some practical skills, like you mentioned, or how to manage money, what money is, right?

Personal finance. I don't know. Nobody teaches that, but. Do you have a lot, if you have a little money or a lot of money, you still need to know how to manage it regardless. And that's not a subject. Yeah. The fact that

[00:31:00] Connor Tomkies: you go through 18 years and then you're expected to pay taxes, but that no one thought, Oh, maybe that should be a class on how you actually do that.

It's, it's shocking. So on your side, as a mother of a daughter, what are you thinking? What's going through your head, whatever she's, she's going through this and how are you going to help her?

[00:31:21] Vlada Lotkina: I actually have been really open about my entrepreneurial journey. And I think she likes to joke that I'm the least engaged parent who started a parent engagement platform, which thankfully there are not that many parents, but, uh, she is, um, you know, she's, she is sarcastic and we have beautiful, very close relationship with her, I think, in a lot of ways she is proud of, of the things I've done.

She also has seen the sacrifice that it took to, to get to where. Where I gotten and we do have very, I would say a very open and advanced conversation. So the other day she was asking me about taking companies public and stock and how does it work and if she buys one stock versus index funds and something, because she heard me talking about it.

So I don't know that many parents necessarily talk to their kids about it, but she's listening to what I talk about and she's asking me questions. And I think there is a lot of learning that can happen through, through that experience and that sharing. I wanted

[00:32:23] Connor Tomkies: to ask you about, uh, CEO Unboxed. What's the premise?

So you're launching a podcast. You also have videos that are coming out. What's the focus?

[00:32:34] Vlada Lotkina: Really wanted to put the spotlight on a person and knowing that a lot of times entrepreneurs put the spotlight on a company and say, Oh, my company's killed. My company did this. It solved that problem. Not your company did that.

You did that, right? And in parallel, you had your own journey. To be a better leader, to cope with whatever personal things you had to cope with and adjust, right, and, and persevere and go through all these crazy rollercoasters, which is called entrepreneurship. And so that's what CEO Unbox is about is really talking about lessons learned about personal qualities, uh, perseverance.

Um, life lessons and sort of sharing and imparting that wisdom for other entrepreneurs, the role unfiltered stories of CEOs behind company headlines. Has there

[00:33:22] Connor Tomkies: been some good takeaways from the first, uh, 10 episodes? Yes.

[00:33:27] Vlada Lotkina: Um, huh. Um, no journey is easy. Every journey is full of twists and turns. I think What I've been really pleasantly surprised by is a lot of entrepreneurs that I'm interviewing are either exited entrepreneurs or they've scaled their company substantially to this point.

And people are really humble. I don't know if there is self selection there, but it's been a really enjoyable to see how people understand the mistakes they've made. Yeah. In a way that doesn't make them feel silly or lose confidence in whatever they're doing, but in a really mature way, talk about the mistakes and missteps and how they would do things differently in a very open way.

And I think in a lot of ways, I find that folks that sold their businesses somehow just have the benefit of that reflection period that you just don't have as someone who is grinding every day. You have more space, right? You go talk to people, you tell your story. And so that's, um, I think that there is a lot to learn from those folks because they just spend time reflecting.

And I think that self reflection is perhaps I found to be the most challenging skill to develop, but it's also the most rewarding skill to allow you to grow. It's

[00:34:51] Connor Tomkies: humbling, uh, running a company and then even selling a company because then your identity is broken off and you're trying to figure out who you are next.

So it's, I think there's a little bit of that too. I think whenever I talk to younger entrepreneurs, they're all, and there's this bravado there that it's like, I'm going up into the right, I, everything is great, and then you hear back from them and then the company doesn't exist the next, next week and you're like, Oh, what happened?

It was all great until it fell off a cliff. I don't think that's necessarily the case. And, and whenever you get to the point where you've sold a business or sold multiple businesses, you've seen. How it can go wrong. And you're just grateful that you were able to navigate it around all the corners and bends to make it to where you were

[00:35:36] Vlada Lotkina: and remain composed, right?

No, no, no, no matter what, that's

[00:35:40] Connor Tomkies: a pretty big shift, right? And your anxieties are different. Your anxieties go from like, Oh, I have employees I'm responsible for. And, and I have to like sell this product and sell the service and launch this too. Um, you don't have as many meetings, you don't, you aren't as responsible for as many employees, but you have anxiety as to like, maybe what do I do next or family or personal anxieties or, or monetary anxieties.

Um, and so it's just

[00:36:05] Vlada Lotkina: different. Yeah, exactly. And I think the other thing about entrepreneurs is after you've worked so, so hard, It's also really hard to not do it, right? Get into a whole new routine. And when your calendar might not be filled up with meetings and you're like, Oh, what do I do? Do I just read a book leisurely or what's, what's there?

But I do think that I haven't really honestly taken a, like a proper vacation. Yes, I'm, that's something I'm looking forward to doing this summer for a longer period. But. I do think that just slowing down a bit is really important because that allows you for that reflection, but also not, not going off the grid entirely for me, because I know that would set off some other anxieties about why am I not being productive?

Why I'm not doing this? And. And so I think that there is this happy medium for me about sparkling the ideas and having kind of enough momentum to, to think and grow, but also just allowing myself to kind of slow down. You don't relax too much.

[00:37:14] Connor Tomkies: You relax just enough and you stay in the pocket. Um, thank you so much for joining the podcast.

Uh, where should people go to find you?

[00:37:22] Vlada Lotkina: I, um, fairly active on LinkedIn, so you can find me by Vlada Lotkina there. I'm, um, broadcasting SEO Unboxed Live, various other. Sessions. I recently launched a newsletter as well. It's called the Founder's Elevator, specifically focused on product market feed, go to market scaling and other entrepreneurial subjects that I'm particularly passionate about and sharing some tested and proven strategies on that.

That's

[00:37:52] Connor Tomkies: fantastic. I'm going to include the links below and a lot of fantastic to have you.

[00:37:56] Vlada Lotkina: Thank you so much. Really enjoying it. That wraps up today's episode for more inspiring stories and valuable lessons from successful entrepreneurs. Be sure to listen and subscribe wherever you get podcasts. Thanks for listening until next time, keep pushing boundaries and writing your next chapter.