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- 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
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But it was a fad/niche that faded quickly
They couldn’t grow their business after a certain point due to the decline in the market
Put it on autopilot to find a new idea, which took about a year
Lots of ups and downs being an entrepreneur
Created a list of 10 things he wanted to do if he was independently wealthy
B2B sales were on his list and he was interested in it
Which one has good financial potential?
For nine months he immersed himself into the B2B sales space
Did some outbound sales for a friend of his who was also a developer
He built what he wanted for himself and saw the need and saw little competition
Took four months to develop Reply.io
Go fast. Make the “minimum viable product” to make the first sale. (Took him just four months.)
Then nine months to polish it
Found the early-adopters to buy his beta software
Spent time on Q&A platforms like Quora
Sold at a big discount at first
Hired a developer right away to go full-time into production
He moved back to Ukraine to cut costs
He would call and do his demos at night since he was selling into the United States
Once he got to $10k MRR he hired a sales rep in Toronto
He was looking for a VP of Sales at the lowest compensation possible and offered an ownership stake in the business
He wants to build a global company
He was spending three months in the U.S. but he didn’t need to be here but came to meet customers, attend conferences, and meet with investors
A multi-channel platform for marketing and messaging
Can be standalone but it is usually used to augment your CRM
Be transparent about your pricing
Links Mentioned In The Sales Podcast
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