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Every ambitious EMEA, APAC, and LATAM startup that’s positioned to disrupt an industry and become the next big thing knows that entering the American market needs to be on their roadmap.
American startups received 5x more venture capital funding in 2023 alone, which means that your best shot at a successful IPO or a lucrative exit lies across the Atlantic.
Welcome to Selling America - the podcast where we sit with business owners and executives worldwide to uncover their journeys into the US market.
Join Sergey Olexa, Co-Founder at Leadium, as he dives into their strategies, challenges and successes in navigating one of the most dynamic business landscapes.
Whether you’re on the cusp of launching your US expansion or planning it for the distant future, this podcast will give you actionable, timeless insights from those who have already made it happen.
Share the show and leave us a review - it truly helps the podcast grow!
[00:00:00] All right. Hey, welcome everyone to a new episode of Selling America, the podcast where we sit down with business owners and executives throughout the world, and we kind of dive into their unique journeys in the U. S. market. I'm your host, Sergey Alexa. I'm excited to have, Sasha Voloshin with me today.
[00:00:19] Hey, Sasha, how are you doing today? Hey, Sergei. Hello, everyone. Thanks for having me here. Sasha, I'm a bit confused on how to introduce you properly. I know, I was scrolling through your LinkedIn profile and the range of roles you've held over the years is impressive. I obviously know you from back in the day when we started in the same industry in the lead generation, sales development.
[00:00:45] Yeah, we were kind of competitors, but hey, you know, it's a big space, we were one of the first ones, so it was exciting journey. Since then, you've kind of shifted your focus to fundraising, launching and helping, tech [00:01:00] startups running VC funds. Hey, I let you take it from here and do the proper introduction.
[00:01:08] Okay. great. So, yeah, let's move step by step, to give you, a sense of my background, I wear two hats. As you mentioned, founder, entrepreneur, and venture capital as, head of incubation in, Spanish, Spanish fund. So, let's start with my entrepreneurial journey.
[00:01:27] as you mentioned, seven years ago, I actually went, head to head with you, you know, like in our B2B space, launching, lead generation and outbound sales company. It's was, you know, like a. My first, you know, like a big thing, in this, entrepreneurial journey. So we work in the same environment, same market, same customers, same jail.
[00:01:50] So, yeah, we were running a remote sales office, you know, like it too, but. For our auditory, yeah, to better understand that we're running a remote sales office for B2B [00:02:00] companies, main idea will help companies attract customers through email, LinkedIn and LinkedIn outbound. small world, small world.
[00:02:08] Our first meet was in this field. So autonomy and growth, these are two words that would, describe, my career, once I understand that the traditional nine to five grind, really limits my creativity.
[00:02:24] So I follow my desire to break free and set my own space. So, yeah. lead generation company was my first really big thing. after these, I deep dive to a product company. my next product company was, pastella.
[00:02:40] ai. It is a tool, you know, like a quick Wikipedia note that, a tool that we call AI social media specialist for small medium businesses. Main idea was to help. Businesses pay only 50 monthly for online presence instead of, you know, like. [00:03:00] 800 per month for, you know, like a social media, especially something like this.
[00:03:04] That was the startup that generated one of the pitches for the prime minister, right? exactly. A little bit later, I will, tell you about this, Perfect. I would love to hear your story behind that, because that was very impressive.
[00:03:17] So yeah, after we launched, we got some great findings from Ukrainian startup fund and European innovation fund. Also quick note for our auditory that in Ukraine, we have special, government program for innovation companies and startups, and that's why we received this non equity.
[00:03:38] It's very important, non equity money. So it's not like a loan. How much was it? If it's not a commercial secret, of course. No, no. It's not commercial because this program was, first money 20, 20 5K dollars. It's for prese startups and 50 K dollars for seed startups.
[00:03:57] So, we received this money before full [00:04:00] invasion, we also received 10 K for our acceleration program. a very big. Amount of money. We received from a Ukrainian startup fund. not only money we received really good networking.
[00:04:13] And also, from European innovation fund, similar organization, but from European union. And by the way, it's very important to highlight that. This idea, Pastela, this, social media tool, came from, a lead generation on bound sales company that I mentioned above.
[00:04:31] So my role was like a COO, something like this. Yeah. You know, like, it's, when you, launching your startup, your company, you were like, yeah. CEO, you know, like a chief everything officer. titles mean absolutely nothing. You can assign yourself the fanciest title in the world.
[00:04:49] You're still doing pretty much everything. So yes, you're chief of everything. my role was COO and while I was trying to optimize, our [00:05:00] business process in our company, we faced with a biggest problem for us.
[00:05:06] Maybe in your company, you have the same problem that, you know, like template creation. We waste a lot of time for, you know, like these strategy template creation, So we spent a lot of time for that. And I started looking for solution, how we can optimize this. And I found, a lot of articles about GPT 3.
[00:05:27] 0 version, you know, like it's, before all these hype chart, GPT, you know, like all these hype. So, yeah. And, yeah, so, but in the end we are done with founders, you know, the story that, we, finish our cooperation and I didn't implement this optimization, but I created an independent product, which pivoted to Postello,
[00:05:51] Gotcha. So originally Postello was meant to be part of your lead generation company, just to help you create better templates [00:06:00] faster. Yeah, fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So to learn more about, running a business, I went to a special program at Draper University in Silicon Valley.
[00:06:09] It is famous place for entrepreneurs where entrepreneurs learn from the best. while I was there, I lived in San Mateo in California. It is like Bay area. I was super excited. I got an invitation from Team Draper's team.
[00:06:23] Yeah. Yeah. His grandfather. Grandfather was one of the first investor in silicon value. So, you know, like, and Draper Ventures, you know, like his venture fund investing in such company like. Tesla, SpaceX, Skype, Twitch, and so on and so forth. So, yeah. but learning wasn't all I did, I was choosing to join a group, from Ukraine Technical and Innovation Ecosystem that went to a program in Washington, DC called SelectUSA.
[00:06:54] This program, helps businesses from. Other countries, invest in the [00:07:00] United States. speaking a cool new ideas. I also helped create the speech for high ranking Ukrainian government official using, artificial intelligence. it was the first ever, speech for, a high ranking politician.
[00:07:15] And this, speech was created by Pastela. Interesting. How did you guys make that connection? Did you just know him and reached out on LinkedIn or what was the background behind, him using your tool? thank you to a Ukrainian startup fund. they, as I mentioned, Ukrainian Startup Fund, it is like a government organization and, many people in this organization, knew about Bastella that's why as I remember, maybe two years ago or something like this, Michael Fedorov, you know, like he, want to do something, you know, like with the startups, because he want to, it was like a second annual of this Ukrainian startup fund and, you know, [00:08:00] like he, he want to do something I dunno, interesting with some of the startup and, you know, like, people in, Ukrainian startup fund, know me better, so they recommend to create maybe, Hey, Michael, maybe we can, a press officer from Michael Fyodorov, connected with Ukrainian startup fund and we discuss how they can do the speech.
[00:08:21] And, you know, like Ukrainian startup fund recommend to, Make this speech, you know, like this, this speech about, you know, second annual of a Ukrainian startup fund recommend to use our service. And, you know, like, so it's like a very interesting situation. I received message on telegram and that's all.
[00:08:41] No, and that was super exciting for me because obviously I knew about Pastello, you know, before I've heard his speech and I was like listening to him. I think it was on TV or one of the social medias. And then he was like, by the way, This pitch was, generated by Ukrainian startup Postello and I was like, [00:09:00] hold on a second, I know this guy, I know the company, I know the founders, so I was like, okay, that's, that's, that's very exciting. I played the big role in this, fund that called DEMUM, Spanish fund. And you know, this fund. we invited Sergei to be our mentor, as I remember, something like this. So, this incubator with, 50 million euro under management.
[00:09:22] So. You know, like, this incubator invest in new businesses. It's like a pre seed, pre idea stage. So yeah, we find promising ideas, gives them support and connect them with investors. So, something like this. another story, over these all activities, I mean, in, venture capital. So helping startup is
[00:09:43] The not only thing that I do, I also organize a special three day event called BNB blockchain bootcamp, in the metaverse. So startups that won in the event got some prize money. the event was a collaboration. With a [00:10:00] few different groups, including the Ukrainian startup fund. On top of that, I helped two startups win awards also in a big tech conference in Lviv.
[00:10:09] It's another, story in this venture capital fund in Lviv, Ukraine. so these startups, two startups from our incubation program, two of them, as they passed. These, startup competition and, these, organizers of this event, they gave to them, non equity money.
[00:10:26] I think it was for the first place, it was 20 K dollars. And for the third place, it was, 15 or 15, yeah, 15, 15 K non equity money. And here is. Another, another very interesting story where I will mention this, you know, like a Pastela, Pastela and you know, like what happened with Pastela. So, I also helped to attract a 2 million, preset round for Platma.
[00:10:52] Also, you know, like it's another startup and quick note that it's like an extreme, no code platform where you can generate [00:11:00] business process websites for your, you Artificial intelligence. and here is the story that Pastella was acquired by Platma. You know, like we have a similar, we had, we have similar auditory with a Platma because in our case we have.
[00:11:18] More than 8, 000, small, medium businesses for the entire world from Germany, Greece, United States, India, so my main responsibilities in this startup, Plasma was, creating investor presentations, strategy, communication with investor. And I build super proactive investment department from scratch in the startup.
[00:11:40] Yeah, go ahead. No, I just wanted to ask you about your current role, what you do. It looks like you just joined. new company with as a chief business development officer. So maybe you can give us just a quick overview of this position. So yeah, yeah. you're totally right. So my current [00:12:00] position is chief business development officer.
[00:12:02] And it's very similar. With the Plasma. So I mean that, yeah, by the way, also quick note, software, it's a travel tech industry. It's a solution for B2B travel companies. So, you know, like, the companies who. Travel a lot, something like this. So yeah, we have clients like McDonald's, Volvo, Chanel, Lifesell, Ukrainian telecom, telecom.
[00:12:26] Yeah. So, yeah. And my main responsibility is to find these external capital for, to grow in another markets. So yeah, it's very similar with Sputnik, but yeah, we had a three million turnover in the last year. So yeah, very, very interesting company. we'll definitely talk about, this company in a little bit. I wanted to take a step back and it's here to South 2017, I believe. This is when the pilot was founded, this lead generation and sales development agency. I remember those times really [00:13:00] well. Obviously the industry itself was just shaping up, there are some rules and, unwritten notices, we're still kind of figuring out, how to position things for the audience and what our audience actually needs.
[00:13:13] Do they need appointments? Do they need the good service? Do they need consulting services? Do they need, dedicated SDRs? Do they care about someone, being local in the United States or you could have teams throughout the world and no one really cares about that. So, obviously one of your co founders was in the United States.
[00:13:34] So I think the U S market was always the main market for you, right? you never had a doubt of like, Hey, how can we enter the U S market? Because you did have some representation in the U S is that correct? Yeah. you know, I understand that one of the main, I don't know, maybe competitive advantage for the company, I don't know, from Europe or from another region, yes, to [00:14:00] soft landing in this market.
[00:14:01] It's better, of course, to have, some local partner. I mean, you know, like a partner who understand, you know, like this local environment. US investors, they want to invest first in the person who in the United States, for example, you need to, have this O 1 visa or green card or something like this, nobody cares about your B 1 or B 2 visa. So, and the O I that's the investment in investor visa.
[00:14:32] Like what was that? What's. What's that be? Is it B1, B2? That's just business and travel, right? Yeah, they want to understand that you won't left from the company, you know, after one month or two months or something. They want to understand that you stay here for the long, for the long term.
[00:14:48] So yeah, it's first point. And another point, it is, traction. So you need to have, traction from customers or something like this, but to better, you need to have, a [00:15:00] visa and of course the traction, I think in mostly cases. All investors in the United States, first, if they see, someone from Europe, Ukraine, I don't know.
[00:15:10] I think the first question will be, do you have visa to stay in the United States for the long time? Gotcha. Have you noticed that, you know, and obviously pitching to the investors, it's another way of selling your company, right? you basically selling your business to raise some money. so I'm curious if you've noticed any.
[00:15:33] You know, any challenges in pitching for the U. S. investors, like, any cultural differences, any specific requirements that, typically a non U. S. founders just don't have, I don't know whether it's understanding, the local market, language barriers, different ways of selling and positioning, I know Americans, they have this very I mean, they've been taught on selling since the very beginning, right?
[00:15:59] that's [00:16:00] almost like the cultural aspect of their education, right? for a Ukrainian like myself, I've experienced that very early on when I just joined the U S market, I realized that, no one actually showed me. In Ukraine, how to sell myself, my business, my ideas.
[00:16:21] So I just thought that it's because I'm so amazing. People should just start investing in me and then supporting me all the time because America is this land of opportunities. And like, here I am, where are the money? Right. So, obviously that's not true. Obviously, you know, investor is done.
[00:16:42] Don't make decisions like that. So walk me through that kind of mindset and how European founders and founders throughout the world should kind of adopt their understanding in order to successfully raise money in the U. S. it's [00:17:00] very funny because, I think that one of the main also, I don't like this word, word problem, but yeah, challenge for, you know, like, people from European, from European union, you know, like, from Ukraine, it's a problem.
[00:17:12] It's a challenge to present yourself, you know, we really know, how works, I don't know, lead generation, how works artificial intelligence and et cetera. But it's really that many people that, I saw in my life from Ukraine, from Europe. Don't know how to exactly present, this knowledge, the experience to the market, only if you ask, questions, Oh, could you please tell me about these, or would you be so kind to, deep dive in your experience after this, you can understand what person you talk about, but yeah, so I definitely agree that we have these, maybe, I don't know, problem, challenge mentality or something like this.
[00:17:54] So, yeah. and a quick question back from the pilot days, obviously all SDRs [00:18:00] were based out of Ukraine and, a few sales people in the United States. So closing deal, wasn't a big problem because you had someone in the United States, right. But then on the services side, did you notice that, Hey, Ukraine based SDRs might not necessarily be the best option for the American market, right?
[00:18:22] Obviously, handling responses, very different. Ukrainians, or non Americans would probably handle responses in a very different way that Someone in, in, in the S would respond to an email, again, from a cultural perspective, language barriers, things like that. So did you feel that was a challenge with your customers?
[00:18:42] And if so, how did you guys overcome those? First of all, you need to, hire someone with experience a person who works in the United States market. It's one tip, I agree that, this mentality, this cultural difference but in the end it is a country of immigration, so, you [00:19:00] know, like, of course, you know, like, in the pilot, yes, we had local partner in case of Pastela, you know, like, because we also, you know, like, jumped to U S market, but you know, for the whole world, many people from different countries joined to our, website.
[00:19:17] We didn't see, you know, like, big problems in, you know, like to maybe, I don't know, have some, I don't know, native SDRs or native, customer support or customer success managers. So it depends on the industry that you work. For example, Our size of subscription was, 50 per month.
[00:19:40] It's not a high amount of money, but if we're talking about, lead generation, when you try to sell someone, services on, 10, 000, or 20, 000 or something like this, I think in this case, of course, you need someone who can, deliver exact, thoughts, to your potential customers.
[00:19:58] So, I [00:20:00] understand that us market was, you know, like a learning us very, you know, like a huge experience. So, one of them, so, you know, like I call this American way. we need to, of course, prepare, you know, like to jump or to, to sell. I don't know, something. First of all, you need to be like them, you know, like, like Americans, for example, you need to change your marketing messages, to better, we did, you know, like, like our customer development, so we changed, you know, like a little bit, our marketing images, marketing texts and et cetera.
[00:20:39] So, yeah, it's one thing that You need to prepare marketing to join for the, small medium business in European, it's small medium business in United States, it's small medium business, but anyway, you need to change, your messages, for example. Yes. So, you know, like, something like this.
[00:20:57] And how did you know how to change the [00:21:00] messaging? Like, did you hire someone to tell you exactly? Or it was just, well, it doesn't feel like that's the right way of wording things and it's not converting in the S market. So we might as well try something else. And it was just the serious of A, B testing and figuring out and, spending money and wasting time a little bit as well.
[00:21:21] So first of all. before jump, to, Brazil market or U S market, you need to make these, customer development. So you understand your ideal customer profile. For example, you need to see your audit or your potential customers. You need to ask them, I read
[00:21:38] A really nice book called the mom test, it's a book about this customer development. of course you can read the whole book, but you can find, some very important, Key points from this book. it's very important to start before you jump to the market, you need to read this book.
[00:21:53] And, need to, I don't know, schedule appointment, schedule meetings with your potential customer. In our [00:22:00] case, we wrote really, a ton of messages to, a small medium business in the United States. Of course we used, LinkedIn, plus sales navigator.
[00:22:08] We filtered all this profile, et cetera. so what we offer to the people, you know, like Hey guys, you need to spend 30 minutes to call with me and answer for my questions. Do you agree with this? nobody cares about this because, it's a waste of time.
[00:22:22] So we offer to the people, you know, like, coupons from Amazon. So, yeah. And after the Bribing them. That sounds like, that sounds like Ukrainians. Yeah. Yeah. So, it was very nice, you know, like experience. So, I think we had, maybe 15 or 20, maybe people in the batch of this, you know, like a customer development.
[00:22:43] So we received some answer for our questions and after this, you know, so. First step, customer development. And after this, it's only testing because you know, like you can read a lot of books, a lot of articles, you can see a lot of YouTubers, you know, like how you [00:23:00] need, what you need to do to jump on the U S market, et cetera, but you know, like Every products, every service, it's very different.
[00:23:08] So you need to testing that you mentioned AB testing, you know, like a, something, something like this, you need to have, you need to connect. I don't know. I think it called Google, Google ads, no, not that sense. but you know, okay. Two of that measure. All this time that the user spent on your website, yeah, this bounce rate from your website.
[00:23:26] So you need to connect your website to the such program, and up testing, testing, testing, you know, like, I dunno, turn off some functionality, turn on, change the, image on your, I dunno, main website. Or if we're talking about, you know, like a, B2B sales, like a face to face sale, you need to change maybe your, I don't know, conversation sales template.
[00:23:49] Yeah. It's interesting how you mentioned Amazon gift cards and, it worked for you because a few years ago, we lost the customer and obviously [00:24:00] every client will lose. I call it a business therapy session.
[00:24:03] we sit down, we talk about, issues and problems and, what we could have done better their expectations and, why they decided to leave. And it was an interesting conversation because they were like, Sergei, you know, we love you guys, but there is nothing we can do.
[00:24:18] Our team. performs at a much higher rate, they just generate more meetings. And I was like, Oh wow, I'm, I'm curious, like what strategies do you guys use? Like if you, if you use the same channels, we do like email, LinkedIn, cold calling, maybe we can take a look at the scripts that you're using and kind of implement the same messaging and really be more effective and efficient that way.
[00:24:43] It was like, nah, Sergei, you know, what really makes us What really drives the conversions is the call to action of our messages. I was like, what's the call to action? Well, we offer everyone who is willing to spend 30 minutes of their time on the call with us. We offer them an [00:25:00] iPad. And I was like, hold on a second.
[00:25:02] You're literally sending them an iPad if they join the call with you. I was like, yeah, but you can, you understand if we close them, it's a multi million dollar deal for us. So at the end of the day, what's an iPad for that, you know, for that matter? I was Like, I will join your call for an iPad.
[00:25:19] Like, I have zero clue. we have zero interest in what you do. I'll spend 30 minutes for an iPad. So it's interesting how, you know, this technique kind of can be scaled to the point where it's like, Hey, we're basically willing to give you whatever you need. Just jump on the call with us. And this is where you really need to nail down your audience, because it's Every time you spend money on unqualified lead, that's kind of money thrown away.
[00:25:46] So you have to be careful with that strategy too. You can't just offer everyone, you know, whether it's a gift card or an iPad or a car, for someone who is unqualified and will join just for the sake of getting that. You know, [00:26:00] incentive. so yeah, I agree. And we actually use this strategy with some of our clients.
[00:26:05] Obviously our budgets are, kind of limited. So we trying to see if, a quick Starbucks gift card will push a little bit for booking a meeting. Or, lunch for the team. we seeing this as a successful strategy for some of the industries and personas you go after, many people, like something unique because, I understand.
[00:26:25] I think, you have the same situation that many people in LinkedIn that, has, a, C level profile and cetera, they were seeing a lot of, junk messages, and when you see that someone, I don't know, maybe unique message.
[00:26:38] And if someone, offer something interesting for you, it's very, interesting because, And many people, I mean, many marketing specialists, what they wrote to you, they're writing, this, typical message.
[00:26:47] I would love to hear your perspective, you know, obviously in the startup world, there are a few kind of conversations around what goes first. Is it the product that should be perfect [00:27:00] and ready to service the audience and provide value, or is this the sales that can fix everything, right?
[00:27:07] If you can figure out how to sell your product, whether it's good, whether it's ready, whether it's perfect. sales can fix a lot of things like you can continue product development as you, figure out your sales processes. I know some of the founders kind of get into the mindset of like, no, we have to make sure that the product is amazing.
[00:27:28] From a technical side, it all makes sense. It works. it should have some robust functionality. Others selling screenshots and I've seen those founders as well. And they're like, yeah, we don't have that feature yet. But it's going to be launched in the next four weeks, but let's sign the contract now.
[00:27:46] And, you know, you'll be part of the journey. So what's your perspective on that approach? what should be figured out first? So, you know, like overall. Yeah, that's a short spoiler.
[00:27:59] [00:28:00] It's sales because you know, like, yeah, before pilot, you know, to join, you know, like to build these lead generation and outbound sales company. I, I, you know, I thought that, okay, I need build product and after this, I can sell it, so yeah. but after. You know, like a pilot experience after my, startup experience.
[00:28:18] And after the Silicon value experience, I understand that you can build your, I don't know, something, some website on, I don't know, on vix. com, you know, like you can, use, I don't know, some small marketing budget, sell, I don't know, something, maybe PDF file of your, I don't know, potential product or something like this.
[00:28:39] And it's important to know what is. You know, like, how auditory they, you know, like they understand your product or something like this, because what investor, for example, yeah. What to know that your product is, needed on the market. Yes. on the market and it is competitive and [00:29:00] users. need these products.
[00:29:01] So my, strongly recommendation, of course it is, to have, these sales before make some product, definitely agree. And I really recommend before you want to do something, Of course, maybe we have a lot of. Exceptions, like of industry, because maybe, in mining industry, maybe you can do sales before some product or something, but if we're talking about the most, available product, like a SaaS or lead generation service or something like this, I think you can build.
[00:29:34] something small. And after this, you can sell it and see what's the feedback from the market. And with this feedback, if it's, for example, positive with this feedback, you can attract this external capital from the investors. And on this case. You don't spend a lot of, a lot of time and money. and another very interesting tips, for [00:30:00] example, on your table, for example, you have 20 k dollars you can build really, you know, like a nice product, strong product with, I dunno, attractive user experience.
[00:30:13] Yes. Nice website and et cetera. You can connect all this paid, you know, like a software and et cetera, and in the end you understand that. You made something wrong, but you spent all your amount of money for this product. And company is lost. Another way you can spend, for example, 1, 000 for one A B testing fall.
[00:30:40] Okay. Let's move, let's, you know, like a back to let's move into another, I don't know, test spent another 1, 000. So if we talking about, you know, like a, this. I don't know, some small of, I dunno, actions, you know, like to test your product, to sell something, it's better to make [00:31:00] something small, test it and make maybe, you know, like many mistakes.
[00:31:05] But you know, like you can do with small budget, you can make a lot of mistakes. Yeah. Meaning differentiate your risks, right? Like, even if you feel like you found the most amazing idea, you think it's genius, you think it's going to change the world and, flip the market ups and down.
[00:31:23] Like don't spend all your money for that idea. Even if you feel like this is the best one you've ever had in your life, start small, build an MVP, launch it, get the market feedback, and then develop it from there. If you feel like this is the traction you wanted to see. Keep investing to that idea. If you don't see the traction, Hey, maybe your idea wasn't that good, at the end of the day, maybe you need to make some changes.
[00:31:50] And the audience will typically give you some ideas of like, Hey, that's the functionality that we know we really needed and couldn't find it in your MVP kind of [00:32:00] product. Like if you build that, you know, we would definitely spend more money with you, instead of like investing. All your funds at the very beginning, building something that no one really uses, no one really wants, and which I think that's one of the problems of especially technical founders.
[00:32:18] And I've seen that so many times when they put together an amazing technology. You know, on the back end, it looks amazing. It's a nice code, very well written. all the rows are in place, you know, the best practices followed. And then automatically they feel like, because it's a great code, it's a great technology.
[00:32:38] Everyone in the market should absolutely be in love with that, which a lot of times, you know, it's not necessarily true because people don't really care about the code and the beauty of it. they really care about the problem, your solution solves for them.
[00:32:55] And if you don't hit that problem in the nail and you don't get to the point with [00:33:00] your platform, it doesn't matter how beautiful the back end is. you will fail. So I think it's important to remember that, it's not about the technology and the beauty of the code. It's the problem you solve, it's the market you're pitching, it's the idea you're trying to develop and deliver, rather than a technical solution for the sake of having a beautiful technical solution.
[00:33:23] You know, like, yeah, I definitely agree. I went. you will have, a first sales, you build really nice product with your, I don't know, maybe, some bad coding or something like this. You can make some, improvement later. It's not a problem. I think, in many cases.
[00:33:40] It's not a problem really, and by the way, very important things that maybe someone can, tell me that, okay, Sasha, but investors don't want to invest. I don't know, in PDF file or something like this, investors, first of all, they want to receive.
[00:33:59] Many [00:34:00] X after, exit from your company, that what matters, of course, intellectual property from your startup, it's very important, but if you can approve for investor that, at this roadmap, this journey, it's right. And after this, you will receive this and this.
[00:34:19] So yeah, in this case, it's not a problem for investors. in Demium, we saw, a lot of startup that build, their solution on Bible. I think this, no code app development platform or something on VIX. Nobody cares about this because investors are interested to understand that your product is, you know, customers, they need this product.
[00:34:42] we don't care about, the super technology, super technological website or something like this. Please prove us because, you know, Demium, as I mentioned, it's like a pre ID, a pre seed stage, please prove us for the next round of investments that you have this traction. What would you recommend doing?
[00:34:58] Let's say, I'm a [00:35:00] technical person. I've came up with this idea. I've built a technical team. We put the product together, but when it comes down to sales, we have no clue how to do that. We've never sell anything in our lives. We've been technical people, you know, always. Now it's time for us to figure out the customers.
[00:35:18] So what's a good next step for us? Like, do I hire someone and spend shit ton of money on, you know, someone who might not even be qualified to sell my product again, because I have no clue who I need to hire, what type of experience that person should have. I've never built sales teams, so I have no clue.
[00:35:37] do I try and bring a salesperson as a third party? founding team and give them some equity and say, Hey, let's figure this out together. You're a great salesperson. I'm a tech guy, so I think we can do this together. do you outsource and hope to God it's the right partner for you before you spend all your money with them?
[00:35:57] so what's a good strategy here? you know, [00:36:00] like, of course it depends on each case, but overall, I know very. Experienced person, his name is Sergei Alexa. I strongly recommend attract, this person to your founding team. If you want to running your, B2B business and you don't have this, sales experience, something like this.
[00:36:18] So yeah, it's like a Just for the record, we, we have not paid him for this. It was His own desire to promote us, but we, we appreciate that.
[00:36:28] If you don't have experience, I can recommend two main things, maybe start up incubator, start up accelerator, where you can understand, how to build your B2B department, what you need to do by yourself another way that and it's very, you know, like a very powerful, um, move.
[00:36:52] It's like, find the co founder, you know, like, because you spend [00:37:00] in, you spend a lot of time in startup incubator, startup accelerator, really to understand B2B, for example, in sales, yes, how it works, et cetera. In case when you can found some founder with his experience, you, you know, like you shift all these, mistakes, if you do all the sales by your own, you know, like, co founder that, has this experience in sales, in marketing, something like this. Yes. we did this in our case, for example, in Postello. So you went to find, you basically found. I have these B2B sales, but for example, I don't know the, marketing, how it works.
[00:37:44] So, you know, I found we had four co founders. I am a CEO. We have CPO, chief product officer with, all this knowledge about how to build the product and et cetera. A chief marketing officer with all this, you know, like, Messages, how to [00:38:00] build your pipeline. I mean, you know, like how to set up your Facebook account, you know, like all this stuff.
[00:38:06] Or SEO optimization. Yes. So something like this. And CTO, Chief Technology Officer. How did you find those people? Did you launch an outbound program and said, Hey guys, let me just send a bunch of outbound emails and hope to God someone replies back? Or it was all through the connections, through your network recommendations?
[00:38:25] back to my own experience, you know, I found this old person in incubator, but if I want to start my, new company or something like this, my new journey, right now I have very huge experience. And I will use my personal network because I understand that, I know many experienced people in very different area.
[00:38:48] So, yeah, if you don't have, you know, like if you're a. New person in the startup industry in building service company, et cetera. You left from your, I don't know, KPMG company and you [00:39:00] don't understand what you need to do. You know, like, yeah, I strongly recommend to go to, to startup incubator where you can find the same people with the same mentality, with the same, goals for life, all this entrepreneurship and et cetera.
[00:39:13] So yeah. There are so many startup incubators these days, in different countries, different specialties, different, investment, volumes. How do you find the right one for yourself? Do you interview them? Or do you just take the offer from whoever offers first?
[00:39:33] So it was Demium. my first incubator Demium. And after this, I joined the team of the Demium. I didn't do some, due diligence, really. I saw Facebook advertisement and that's all. And I joined for this, but, I didn't have, this experience to understand what, startup incubator is good, what is the, success rate, how it works and et cetera.
[00:39:55] I saw the main problem for me, you know, so Demium told that in Demium, [00:40:00] you can find, Your potential co founders and, when I left from the pilot, I don't have any, people who build something like this, some product company or something like this.
[00:40:10] So I saw this problem that this startup incubator can help me, you know, and not many. Startup incubators, you know, they work, in the same, model because, a pre idea stage, It's super early. It's super venture. Yes. So now retrospectively with the experience you have, are there any tips for, startup owners, the founders who have the ideas to find a good startup incubator?
[00:40:38] Are there any red flags that you would recommend avoiding or some like, Hey, that's a really good sign for you. You might consider this one, over another. if we're talking about the European Union, I can strongly recommend StartupFaceGuys, it's, a Baltic countries, startup incubator.
[00:40:55] I think one of the best in our region. Of course we have [00:41:00] many. in different countries, we have many, accelerators, incubators, many of them, focus in some specific industry for, like, for example, educational tech, travel tech. something like this.
[00:41:11] startup wise guys, it's one of the famous, they have, a lot of, industries, for example, program for the SAS. Program for the FinTech company, what we are talking, if you don't want to join, you know, like a startup as guys, and you try to find, I don't know, accelerator in Germany or in Spain or in Ukraine.
[00:41:29] So, find. entrepreneurs who already, spend time on this incubator and ask them, it's very important to do, before, for example, before received investment, it's the same strategy. found, someone from portfolio companies and ask, how it's going, what's the problem you have
[00:41:47] And what should you expect from a startup incubator as a business? Do you expect them to, you know, teach you how to run business properly, how to shape up your ideas, how to build a team, [00:42:00] everything from the above? you know, I think that Most powerful thing it's networking, for that, that you can receive from, from these incubators, of course, in startup wise guys, it's very, strong and very powerful, you know, like, networking because, you know, it's around the whole Europe.
[00:42:21] when I joined the incubator, I want to understand how the whole industry works, how you need to build the product, what's the metrics, how you need to build the, you know, like a presentation. So, I tried to found. Someone who can teach me all about startup industry and how to build your own product.
[00:42:46] Gotcha. Now spending a little bit of time on, on the soft way, as a new business development leader who just joined the team. what are your goals and expectations for the first, [00:43:00] six months? Do you have any ideas of like, where are you guys going? Any, any specific metrics that you think you, you wanna achieve?
[00:43:08] Yeah, so, one main goal for us, it's, attract external capital, to 50, K dollars. Yes. it's one of the goal and another goal it's, to penetrate to the Polish market because all our traction in software right now only in Ukraine. And we understand that to grow our capitalization of our company, we need to get, customers from European union.
[00:43:34] Are you guys planning on expanding in the U S market eventually, or are you trying to stay local? right now our roadmap, our strategy is to build, product, locally in European Union because this market is pretty huge right now.
[00:43:49] it's more than $200 billion, you know, like at this. amount of money that companies spent on, you know, like a travel, in Europe. So, but [00:44:00] yeah, you know, like, yeah, we understand that. Potentially U S markets, it's very interesting, but yeah, right now our main focus, it's European, European Union. What stops you from, entering the U S market?
[00:44:13] Is it really the competitions there, lack of experience, product readiness? Yeah, very, very great question. And I think, you know, like it, you know, like, this information that I will share that will be very, interesting, you know, like, and useful for the, our auditory. one of the reason it's of course, it's the money because you need to really, you know, you need to really, of course, you know, like why you need, you know, like a big amount of money because you have, A lot of competitors, because a lot of companies, you know, they understand that us market, it's very juicy market because a lot of people and, you know, they have high salary and et cetera.
[00:44:56] So, it's, called red ocean. Yes. many [00:45:00] competitors in this market. And if you want to compete with them, you need to understand that you need a lot of money. So, right now we understand that our. It's, to build product in Poland after these going to France, Spain, and et cetera.
[00:45:13] And when we have, a lot of revenue from the European union market, we understand all our mistakes, in this market and cetera. after this, I think we can deep dive to the U S market because, we have. This experience over the different countries, different cultures, different strategy, and et cetera.
[00:45:32] Because right now we have only one strategy in here in Ukraine. We are not multicultural country. So, yeah, I hear the same sentiment from a lot of. non American companies that are planning on expanding in the U. S. market is like, we just don't have any infrastructure there. Like everyone believes that in order to sell, which I agree with, in order to successfully sell in the U.
[00:45:55] S., you kind of have to have some presence there, whether you have partners that can [00:46:00] sell for you or represent you locally, whether it's, the founder needed to move to the United States. and now he spends his life in between two countries, Germany and the United States, because you have to be on the ground in order to feel the competitive landscape, understand how to position things, participate in conferences, really build up the brand there.
[00:46:22] And it's very hard to do when you don't have, like when you stay in Europe or, you know, whatever you are and you like trying to. To grow there. Like, I feel like that's, that's the biggest fear. And obviously when you talk to startups and you're like, Hey, why wouldn't you start building your infrastructure in the United States?
[00:46:39] That's the cashflow issues, right? That's the money where like, Hey, just hiring someone in the ass, especially for like sales roles, that's just. Very expensive, you know, very expensive, you know, from really all the roles from lead generation, sales development, salespeople, marketing reps, everything's like [00:47:00] huge, which is why a lot of European companies kind of.
[00:47:03] You know, leverage outsourcing, and you know, obviously us, in, you know, we hear a lot of, we see a lot of demand here too, is like, how can I grow in the S without growing my presence and team there? so, but I hear you like, and I think for some of the companies in Europe and, around the world, I would recommend.
[00:47:23] You know, gaining some maturity locally, like, Hey, figure out your, product market fit, gain some traction, not just in your country, but try, neighborhood, countries as well, see if you get some traction there. And then with a little bit of product knowledge and market knowledge and, money in your pocket, you can expand in, in the S because, you know, I think one of our clients said they were like, Hey, what was the main reason you decided to expand in the U S?
[00:47:55] And he goes, well, the economy of [00:48:00] California. alone is bigger than, you know, three countries that I have presence right now. So I can't ignore the region if we really want to grow. And then as we expand and we raise more money, more investors kind of asking us the same question of like, guys, at some point, we need to figure out how to get your product into the U. S. market. the competitiveness of it. typically makes it very hard to get things launched. it's very interesting because, one of the, I don't know, problem that, you know, like maybe faced, many entrepreneurs that you mentioned, you know, like this person from Germany, yeah, they need to be on the ground in United States.
[00:48:42] So, I think, You know, like many people, they know about us market from the, you know, like from the books, from the films, Oh yeah. It's very interesting market, et cetera. But it's very, different, when I went to the us, [00:49:00] when I was my first time, in California, I understand that, it's something different.
[00:49:04] so one of these, you know, like a cultural, problem, I don't know, but yeah, it's, you know, like in Japanese, I think, yes, they have very interesting phrase, called, Kuki Jomenai, it's like, that means that person is, unable to read, this atmosphere can't clearly understand what's going on.
[00:49:23] so I can call that many, founders, entrepreneurs, they like these cocky Gemini in us market, something like this. Sasha, I really appreciate your time today and thank you for sharing your wisdom and your feedback and experience with us.
[00:49:38] just to wrap up this podcast, if you have a message to deliver to all the startups, in the world and all the founders who are planning on launching their companies or, growing their companies, the floor is yours. You have a few minutes just to, give them piece of advice.
[00:49:55] so I have a few tips for the people. I call it, embrace the [00:50:00] American hustle. for any non US founders, considering the US market. my biggest. Piece of advice is to immerse yourself in the American business ecosystem, to be on the ground, to understand that network with other entrepreneurs, you know, like who has this experience in this market, you know, like, understand how it sells attend industry events that you mentioned.
[00:50:25] Yeah. It's very important to understand all this, environment. Really? It's very different that you, saw from cinemas, articles, YouTube, and et cetera, you need to, get to feel all this culture, all these, feelings or the people, and soak up as much knowledge as you can, the more you understand the lay of the land, the better equipped you will be to succeed.
[00:50:49] Yeah. So, yeah. Another interesting tips, of course, it's maybe like something philosophy. so it's like, limits are in your head [00:51:00] that, you know, like, remember that the biggest limitation are often the ones, we create for ourself. So don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone, and take, calculated risks.
[00:51:13] So, you know, The U. S. market, offers incredible, opportunities, but it also demands a certain level of, greed and, determination, you know, like, because when I was in United States, I joined, San Francisco Tech Week, one event, I signed agreement for their consultations, services.
[00:51:35] And, with this contract, I cover all my expenses, for this trip. And I understand, Oh my God, very interesting. So yeah, it's, I think as a main, you know, like a tips for, for this, of course, maybe some helpful resources and strategies to wrap up our conversation, of course, partnering with a local expert, join accelerator program.
[00:51:59] [00:52:00] Yeah. it's can be game changer for you. Of course, you know, like it was local expert, for example, they can provide invaluable guidance, you know, like, navigating the. legal, regulatory, landscape, you know, like all this law stuff and et cetera, which is super expensive in United States.
[00:52:18] So yeah, something like this. Awesome. Awesome. Hey, and, to all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in to Selling America today. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us, subscribe and leave us a review. And, we will see you in the next episode of Selling America.