• Ana's Newsletter
  • Posts
  • From Ukraine With Love, Oleg Bilozor Shares How He Launched Fast

From Ukraine With Love, Oleg Bilozor Shares How He Launched Fast

Branding Tips you’ll learn on this episode of The Sales Podcast

  • 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

Related Posts:

  • 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