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

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Wes Schaeffer
April 16, 2021

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

 

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