[Fully Managed] Igor Dubov from Vortex Foundation Ep. 179

Daniela: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the first one hundred podcast. This is the podcast where we’re going to be exploring the journey of entrepreneurs, business owners, agency leaders and so many other cool people as they share with us the strategies, the challenges and the triumphs that have led them to secure those first one hundred customers. I’m very excited today because we have a great guest. Igor Dubov. Hi, Dubov. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to actually pronounce that.

Igor: Yes, it’s right. Definitely okay. Good.

Daniela: Hi, Igor. How are you?

Igor: Doing great. Maybe kind of tired because it was an impressive year, honestly, but it’s okay. I am waiting for a holidays.

Pre-Interview Chat

Daniela: You don’t have vacations? At the time of filming, it’s December, right now for people. This is not going to go live right now, but you know, it’s the holidays right now. Have you had any vacations or anything?

Igor: I’m going to have the next week, the whole next week. I’m going to rest, just be at home, have friends, some parties in a row, I guess. So this kind of stuff. Maybe some ski. I’m not sure because of snow. Not enough snow around me.

Daniela: Where are you living right now?

Igor: I’m living right now in Serbia, near Belgrade. It’s close to Alps, but in this area it’s not enough. So it’s cold, right? The second day is very cold. I mean, it’s around plus one Celsius.

Daniela: I can’t. I live in El Salvador and here the weather is hot. We don’t have snow. We don’t have like winter. It’s just a little chilly in the morning.

Igor: Oh yeah. We’ll imagine about it but I like snow.

Daniela: I’ve never like I’ve seen small amounts of snow but I’ve always wanted to see like a lot of snow like enough to ski and stuff like that. I’ve never been on that much snow.

Igor: I remember, I mean, members of snow around me a lot, especially in my childhood. Right now, it’s very, very rare to see it, honestly. I mean, once or twice per winter. But in my childhood, it was, I mean, six months in a row. Snow was everywhere. With global warming, I mean, that’s so concerning.

Daniela: Yeah, I guess. Especially in some areas, north areas. Oh, wow. Yeah, it’s hotter and hotter. I hope one day I get to see the snow and how it is.

About Igor and Vortex Foundation

Daniela: So when we start, Igor, just so that our viewers can get an idea of who you are and what you do, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Just for context, you are currently working at the Vortex Foundation. So can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what your job is, anything?

Igor: Firstly, thank you for having me today here. I am Igor. I’ve been in B-to-B marketing all the past thirteen years already. It was a very, very impressive journey for me with exciting challenges and rewarding experiences, honestly. And currently, you said, right, I am CGO in Vortex, Chief Growth Officer in Vortex. So we are Web three market making. We’re focusing on pre-listing strategy, treasury building, and post-listing support. That’s our focus and core business, honestly.

Understanding the “First One Hundred” Concept

Igor: Yeah, and you know, when I saw that it’s first one hundred, I thought, okay, in B to B, even sometimes ten or twenty clients can mean huge success honestly. Yeah so really depends on your industry or segment but one hundred clients in B to B business usually it’s a lot.

Daniela: Yeah I know the first one hundred we use it as kind of like a benchmark but it honestly just means your first milestone you know like if you start a business what was the first time when you’re like okay we’re doing really good is when you got your first whatever thing that you did, right? Like whether it’s the first five customers, the first twenty, whatever, it’s just first one hundred sounds cooler than than if you said it’s true.

Igor: Sounds cool. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You know, yeah, it’s kind of as the first one million dollars, you know, it’s the same. Yeah. It already means something. Yeah. It sounds like, OK, you got, you know, you got those.

Daniela: But I totally agree with you. I’ve spoken to a lot of different people who work in different sort of segments of the industry. And, you know, the numbers are different. Because if they’re also selling a product, I’ve noticed like if it’s B to C, it first makes more sense because they’re trying to just put out as much product towards as many people as possible. Whereas with B to B, I think I’ve seen a lot of people who are a little bit more picky with the customers and the clients and the people that they’re working with.

Igor: Yeah, for sure it depends. For example, I guess for e-commerce, one hundred is nothing sometimes. Yeah, for example. And in B to B for Google, I mean, as an example, it’s still nothing. One hundred. Yeah. That’s definitely true. Yeah. And for example, in this year in Vortex, we onboarded one hundred and fifty three new clients. So it’s how much it’s a lot or not. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniela: No, because you guys are also very niche, right?

Igor: Yes, it’s niche. It’s definitely niche. Yes, because we have a very, very target audience. I mean, it’s a token issuer, yes, who is going to switch the current market maker to us or going to list somewhere the first time. So we have not so much opportunity or capacity, yes, but at the same time, we, I guess, in top five by customers amount in the industry. In this year, we started because when I’m talking that we onboarded one hundred and fifty three new clients, it means we grew in three times. For B to B business, it’s a lot.

Business Growth and Planning

Daniela: Yeah, I was taking a look at your timeline and I mean, Vortex started in twenty twenty two. So the fact that there has been so much growth in such a short amount of time is crazy. I mean, I saw the timeline on the website and then you already have plans for twenty twenty five and twenty twenty six. So I really hope that it all happens.

Igor: You know, that’s one of the reason how you can grow, you know, because you have a plan. It’s very easy to talk about, you have a plan, that’s the minimum, but at the same time to have a really, really real plan, you know, which one you can implement or, I know, which one you can implement in the real business, it’s very, very important. It’s one of the way or step you must to do before you are starting to create something new as a business, project. Your idea in personal life is the same, honestly. You can imagine about, I know, to travel more, but if you just sit… Don’t plan something, you know, the first steps. You won’t travel, yeah.

Daniela: Yeah, you will never. Yeah, no.

Scaling Challenges and Solutions

Daniela: Is that like what you guys have seen as the key to success to scaling a business? I think I’ve spoken to a lot of people who talk about scaling and it’s kind of a headache for a lot of people because the strategy that they’re using to just get their name out there and just like be a part of the market is very different than once they get to that place where it’s like okay I have a steady stream of people coming in wanting my service or wanting my product and then I’ve spoken to a lot of people who say that once they get to that place they think they have it all figured out but actually it’s an entire new struggle because now they don’t have bandwidth right now they don’t have enough people to provide the service they don’t have enough people to create the product they’re overloaded everyone is like you know it’s making the product or the service have issues and then they’re sort of having a lot of issues with scaling it can be overwhelming and I think it’s like a huge hurdle for a lot of people who are young business owners or very new entrepreneurs who are sort of trying to get big but there’s no plan for when they actually do get big.

Igor: Yeah, definitely true. For example, we did this result with three talented people in my business development department that I manage, for example, just three. So it’s not usual thing for our industry. Usually it’s half of the company, you know, but we have just three business development talent.

The Freelancer Strategy

Igor: And, you know, you were talking about how we can scale and grow and this kind of stuff, especially when they’re talking about the team. My, let’s say, rule is to test with a freelancer, firstly. You can test it. You can calculate a little yes about in forecast how much you need to invest in this project for example I know let’s try for example for our industry let’s try the gaming industry there are a lot of gaming companies but I don’t have an experience or skills in my team to I know don’t have enough network in this industry and this kind of stuff Let’s onboard the qualified person who already has really big network in gaming industry and let’s try. Okay, we maybe overpaid for some weeks or months, but we tested it. It was a success or not, and let’s scale it. Onboard the in-house person and et cetera, et cetera.

Igor: It’s every time you can do it really fast because to onboard a new teammate in your team sometimes you need some months yes with HR department or with the hunters freelancer hunters depends on the role and but with freelancer you can you can test faster and generally you spend less time and money for that.

Daniela: In your opinion, is freelancing the best way to start with scaling? Or do you think it’s better to find dedicated people for certain roles because freelancing I think I’ve heard a lot of people have problems with it because they’re not maybe with the freelancers that they’re working with maybe they’re not the top priority of that person figuring out pricing schedules and just like having to go through a bunch of people can be overwhelming a lot of times but I think there’s like a place to get freelancers and then there’s a place to not In your opinion, is it better for the beginning and then to transition into a full-time employee or does it depend on the industry or what?

Igor: For sure, it depends on industry or current company. It could depend. But with freelancers, you can test faster. That’s a very important point I want to share. Firstly, for example, let’s take an example from my experience. Business development managers, you can onboard freelancers every time. You can test. You can, for example, pay twice more percentage by the deal, yes, but you can test it because you, I don’t know, don’t spend a lot of time to invest in knowledge, invest in onboarding process, because you need to have two months minimum to onboard the talent in-house. With freelancer, you can do it faster. But again, depends on task, depends on company, depends on industry.

When to Use Freelancers vs In-House Teams

Igor: For example, in some interesting referral programs works very very good but again what does it mean referral program for example you onboard freelancers you onboard you create the process very clear transparent for all of them and then you can have a success yes or you can onboard the in-house team or you can onboard agency or you can onboard new team in-house it’s every time depends your task because for example in marketing Usually, for example, SEO. Why you need to onboard it in-house? Freelancer, or it could be agency, for example, but it’s freelance. As a freelancer, yes, it could be more efficient because they have skills in one very very tiny domain in niche yes you have no time or I know anything else to to improve you in SEO okay just on board agency and just control it how it’s going on that’s it and it’s the same for for in-house team for example okay we have a rule for example development team must be in-house team. I mean, yes, but for example, marketing team, business development team, maybe trading team, maybe, for example, we onboarded the freelance team for AI for half of the year, who really interesting, who really understand data science generally, but onboard this team, five data scientists in-house, it’s so expensive, honestly, much cheaper to onboard them as a freelance team.

Daniela: Yeah, it definitely depends as well on the teams, I guess. I think what’s great about freelancing is that also it provides an alternative I think hiring a dedicated team is a big commitment, right? Because that means that you have to always, every month, you know, you have to like pay this person a monthly fee. You have to give them benefits, vacations. If, you know, there’s like maternity leave.

Igor: Yeah, definitely true. Yeah, and all of this is, I mean, I think unless you have the guarantee that the person is going to be worth all of that, it can be a little bit scary when you’re just starting and you’re barely making ends meet for yourself. Now you have to pay for this other person, right?

Co-Founder Roles and Leadership

Igor: Yeah but you you know that’s it’s for example when you are a founder or co-founder of of all the projects you need to split the the role for example your three co-founders you must have the three different roles and you cannot to to onboard CEO or CFO depends on business it must be co-founders usually in the beginning yes because if some of co-founders will have the CEO except him It means that he will have more time and he will control business more and more in the beginning. For example, the first one year or two years, it could be a very good decision. And after that, you can onboard the person versus you can do the same, yeah? I mean, you can onboard new CEO because you didn’t have enough time already for strategy. Yes, you can keep your time, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, because in the beginning, it’s impossible. Or you will have disbalance, very big disbalance in the C-level team. and it’s not okay. But for example, what you can do manually, you definitely can outsource it. It doesn’t matter generally, it could be house team or freelance team. If you can task well, doesn’t matter.

Process Documentation and Team Management

Daniela: I think just having someone that you can rely on and being able to also give the right instructions, like you said. I’ve actually spoken to a person who told me that they had found a pretty good team for themselves, but it was really complicated for them to actually figure out how to work with them because they had never been a boss before.

Igor: For example, firstly, for me, you need to write I mean in the paper all processes you can imagine you need to implement it deploy it test it again yes how much time your team will will spend on it and etc etc how you can optimize it optimize it and etc and etc etc it’s in a permanent process yes but firstly you need to write for the team how you imagine they need to work you need to explain how you are your I don’t know how you’re waiting waiting for them I mean what what what exactly are you waiting for yes I mean right yes I know some templates, for example, or the process. I mean, generally process. It’s very clear for everyone in my team. What are you waiting for? Weekly, daily, monthly? Yes. And if you have a smart or clever team, or I know some people, smart people in the team, they every time can feedback you that, okay, we can optimize it. It could be better. Okay, let’s onboard some tools and we keep, I know, ten hours weekly, for example. But you need to create this atmosphere in your team when your teammates can share our feedback, everything to you. I mean, that’s the reason. And it’s okay for freelancers, for example. Freelancers are usually more open to feedback you, you know, and it’s okay. Very good sometimes.

Daniela: Yeah, obviously, because I think with freelancers, they don’t really they’re not worried about losing their job, whereas like a part of the team is like, oh, you know, I don’t know if this is going to rub him the wrong way.

Igor: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I know, for example, my my girlfriend work in the data industry. And for example, in in auto industry right now a lot of companies as a Volkswagen test slide and all General Motors, they share it and split the task between them. I mean, in industry generally, for in-house team and for freelance team and who can fix it faster than bought in-house, that’s it. And it’s cheaper, faster, and et cetera, et cetera, and et cetera again. They have some value when they are gonna end the process like that. And it’s definitely okay. Because not every time your in-house team is faster.

Daniela: Yeah, it’s like sometimes it helps to just look outside. There’s always amazing people also who can just do things better than you can. And I think that’s like a huge growth for a lot of business owners. I’ve spoken to them who tell me just like, you know, like, I realized I was so good at making my product, but I was terrible at marketing. And then I found someone who was really good at marketing, right?

Igor: Yeah, definitely true. But at the same time, I agree with you, for example, how I onboard the first one hundred clients this year for sure. I onboarded the in-house team firstly, yes, who can present us as a brand, as a business. They know us deeply than freelancers yes but they can work as a team with freelancer for example for lead generation it could be freelancer but close deals yes or share some proposals or trading strategy it’s every time in house team yes so really depends and you never for example I know. You will never agree when your freelancer will represent you in some events. It’s every time we’ll be in-house team, for example. Yes. And you understand it. Why? Yes, every time.

Daniela: Yeah, for sure. It totally depends on what you’re doing as well, like you said.

Fun Quick-Fire Questions

Daniela: Now, Igor, we’re almost out of time, but I do have a fun game prepared for us today.

Igor: Okay.

Daniela: I will read twenty questions in one minute. So let me just put my phone. I’m going to put a timer. They are not questions about work, about marketing. They’re not questions about anything like that. They are just fun. And we’re going to see how many you can get. The person with the most like nobody has been able to say all twenty questions in one minute. I had one person who did sixteen. So.

Igor: Okay. Let me see if you can do more than that. Let’s try. We can start. Let me just set it up. Okay.

Daniela: Coffee or tea?

Igor: Coffee.

Daniela: Early bird or night owl?

Igor: Early bird for me. Yeah, every time.

Daniela: Favorite social media platform?

Igor: Twitter.

Daniela: Go-to karaoke song?

Igor: I don’t know. Maybe I don’t have.

Daniela: Okay, books or podcasts?

Igor: I prefer kind of a science podcast about anthropology, this kind of stuff. I don’t have an exact podcast I like, but about the topic.

Daniela: One word that describes you.

Igor: Thinking.

Daniela: Thinking. we’re oh my gosh it’s time I’m sorry already one minute yeah that was one minute you did let me see how many questions you did five questions okay okay about coffee and tea it was easy yeah I’m thinking every time need to think need need to take a look you know need time to think and this kind of stuff that’s okay because you know for me every time and for businesses the same you need to think good but decide fast you know you need to like have have a good thought process but the decision has to be made like quickly yeah yes yes yes yes you need to be prepared but yeah think yes decide very fast but you know you did okay I’m not gonna say you did too well but it was all right yeah.

Closing and Contact Information

Daniela: Thank you so much for doing this Igor before I let you go I do want to give you the space to let all of our followers know where they can find you if anybody has is interested in any of the stuff that you have spoken to us about today or if you want to talk about people if you want to get them to go to Vortex if you’re looking for employees freelancers whatever you want the floor is yours.

Igor: Yeah. Okay. So yeah. So visit our website and if you have an experience in Twitter or in strategy marketing, I’m interested to onboard a new teammate in my team.

Daniela: Awesome. Yeah. No, I will be adding the links to your website on this description and anybody who is interested in strategic marketing, you said, right? And Twitter.

Igor: Yeah.

Daniela: Here is Igor for you so thank you so much for doing this Igor it was so much fun.

Igor: Yeah thank you for invite yeah it was it was very very fun.

Daniela: Yeah thank you so much and everyone else I will see you on the next episode goodbye.

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