Google Wiped Out 76% of My Traffic Overnight

Sean Weisbrot: I actually had an issue with my ex-wife because she would feel like I wasn't having a conversation with her, but rather I was waiting for her to finish what she wanted to say so I could say what I wanted to say. And I was like, look, there's two things going on. One, you're not a native speaker of English. Your English is amazing. I will give you that, but you're, you're not a native. And I think what's faster than everyone around me, and that's not to say I'm smarter than anyone. I, my brain just moves so fast sometimes I can't even handle it. And so it might feel like I'm talking. At you and just waiting impatiently. But like I, this is a struggle. I dunno if you've experienced that. I

Vladimir Gendelman: have. Absolutely. And I gotta tell you, the one thing that helped me with that is meditation. We took, uh, my wife and I, we took, uh, transcendental meditation classes and learned how to do this properly. And at first it was very foreign and I'm like, no, I cannot do that. But then just like riding a bicycle, like when it happens once and you get it, like you can never undo that. And I use meditation in, in a lot of aspects of my life now.

Sean Weisbrot: So this is an interview with Vladimir Gendelman. We'll be talking about his psychology. We did an interview before about his experience with his wife and her health ordeal that they went through together, and, uh, if you haven't seen that episode yet, go check it out. I don't know the number offhand. Sorry. Uh, there's so many interviews. So, uh, just, just search for Vladimir on YouTube and you'll find it. Vladimir, why don't you tell everyone a little bit about what your business, uh, is, what you do, and if you don't mind saying how much you guys earn per year so they get a sense of where you are right now.

Vladimir Gendelman: Well, thank you Sean. First of all, I'm excited to be here again. Um, as far as the business goes, I own a company called Company Folders. We are an online printing company specializing in presentation folders. Binders and envelopes. Uh, we also have another side of the company where we do all the promotional products as well. Uh, in terms of the volume, uh, we do somewhere between three and 5 million depending on the year. Uh, obviously COVID brought things down a little bit, but uh, we are now operating at a much higher level than we were prior to COVID.

Sean Weisbrot: So I'm very proud of that. Congrats. Yeah. I remember, I think last year, well, no, when we were talking about eo, you said that they have to do at least 1 million, so I knew you were already there. That's to get into eo. Yeah. Right. So when I, when I was, when I messaged you about this, one of my requirements was I want the guests to be doing at least a million a year. I. Because a lot of the people listening are not doing a million a year. And so kind of it's like how do people that are generating a million a year and more, how do they think and how do I need to change the way I think in order to understand that and make changes in my business and all that? So this is kind of what this interview is about. So I'm curious, what made you excited for starting this business and what keeps you excited about it? Today? It's like what, 15 years later?

Vladimir Gendelman: No, it's actually a 18. No

Sean Weisbrot: sir, it's gonna be 20 years. Wow. Uh, in fall. So what made you excited for starting it and what keeps you excited about it?

Vladimir Gendelman: What made me excited about starting it? Um, so I don't remember if we discussed it last time, but when I, um, when I started this business, I actually ran, uh, computer repair shop and I came to see a customer for the computer repair. And he looked at me, he's like, Hey, you're a computer guy. Can you help me do a company folder? I said, of course. How hard could that be? Mind you, I didn't know what the company folder was, so I worked out thinking that's easy. I just help him find company folders. Easy. 2002 it was, or three, uh, internet at full swing. You know, I can do it. So I go online. I start looking for, well, first I had to call a friend to figure out what the company folder was. They kind of told me it's, you know, the presentation folder with packets. Great. So I started looking for, you know, what's available out there and there was nothing on the internet. And I'm like, ah, that's strange. So I figured, okay, so I'll just go to print apps here and I'll see what they offer. And I, and I did that and once again, I kind of ran into the situation where they had just some standard options, right? Your, your white folder with some printing on it and, and not much else. And all of a sudden I started thinking of Soviet Union. Since Soviet Union, um, you were very limited with the options because government owned everything. When government owns everything, there are no options there, there is no competition, right? 'cause you don't compete with yourself. So as the result, you had, you know, five different, uh. Wallpapers, you had, uh, three different cheeses and you know, everybody pretty much had the same clothing and, and pots and pants and cutlery and like all of it, right? So you go to people's houses and houses don't look different. Because it's set of one, two, or three, right. That people pick. And when I came here to America and, and I saw the abundance of everything, I, I quickly realized how awesome it is to be able to really express yourself. Right? People, everybody dresses different. Everybody drives a different car and a different color. And, and you go to the store and you have a hundred cereals and, and you have a hundred cheeses and like, oh my God, that's crazy. So I took, I took it as. America has everything and that's it. You express yourself. So now, uh, figure 12 years after I came here, all of a sudden I'm in a situation where I found something, a product that has no abundance of options, and of course, what is the first third? And that is, oh, they have to fix it. Oh, who is they and why not me? That's really how the whole thing went. Right. So I helped him do the folders, um, back then, and after that I started, um, it didn't happen right away. Right. I, I kind of sat on this like thinking to myself, yeah, that's weird that they didn't have the options. You know, they gotta fix it. Then obviously it all took months. Like, who's they? Maybe I should do it and, and so on and so forth. So when I actually decided to do this, I got really excited because I was, I saw this as a mission of fixing the swan aspect of American market that did not have all those options. And to this day, uh, where we really compete, where we are different from everybody else is in options. We have the largest, uh, amount of paper. To be used for folders. We have the largest, uh, amount of, uh, dcas for folder shapes. We do all the printing methods, we do all the codes. We do everything that there is to do right. Uh, while pretty much all the other printers, what they do is they, they have some standard options that you pick from, and that's it, because it's, it's way more profitable to do that, right when you do the same thing over and over. But for me it was this whole idea of self-expression. For people and companies and where B2B obviously. So that's the excitement as far as what keeps me exciting, uh, going forward and, and keeping up with this, uh, at this point it's, serving customers is always exciting. I'm, I have a probably more of a outgoing personality. So talking to people, helping them solve problems is, is really, really fun. Um, of course, business, uh, in itself. Offers its own challenges and working through those is exciting and interesting. Um, and we have an amazing team. We have an amazing team of people who are great to be with, talk to hang out with, and uh, and they really cherish that time as well.

Sean Weisbrot: It's really interesting. I heard the other day someone say, I'm sorry to tell you this, but the best businesses are not sexy. Right. The most profitable businesses are the ones that you just re, you do it over and over and over and over again, and you get really good at doing that thing. You can make shit tons of money and you're an example of that. So that's really cool. I also love how, so you really hit on the first part of psychology that's really interesting is the thing that drove you is your experience with the lack of ability to express yourself and your youth. To then go, Hey, wait a minute. There's this opportunity that Americans are just not taking advantage of. And you said, I'm gonna out American and an American, which is, well, I am an American. I know. But at the time you were a lot younger. Maybe you didn't identify as an American so much then, I imagine, right? Right. So at the, so at the time you were, you were in between that Soviet mentality and that American mentality, and you were like. I've discovered an opportunity, which was interesting because the thing that really drove my entrepreneurial passion to get started was living in China and as an outsider looking at how they did business and going, this is ridiculous. They're making silly mistakes that could easily like triple their profit if they just, you know, I. Treated their people better, treated their customers better. Things like, like I, I noticed these little nuances and you as an outsider, you noticed a nuance that Americans didn't pick up on and that was your opportunity. It's fantastic. I love it. Thank you. So what has been one of the hardest decisions you've had to make so far in this business?

Vladimir Gendelman: I would say there was two when they first started the business with started online. Um, and online. I started with SEO Organic, SEO, and I actually found a company in former Soviet Union, um, that was helping us doing SEO. And as it turned out later, it wasn't very correct way of doing it, according to Google. And as the result in 2012, in March, I think 2012, we received a manual penalty warning from Google for, they called it unnatural links, and we lost a lot of rankings. To give you an idea of what we lost was we ranked number one. Number two and sometimes number three at the top of Google for most of our keywords. And when that happened, we kind of went off the first page, went off the second page, fifth page, 10th page, and we ended up losing 70, I wanna say 76% of our traffic, which is, you know, devastating. And that was the only. Uh, marketing strategy that we actually had. So we had nothing else going on. And at that point, uh, the, the decisions, the questions that were going through my mind, a what do I do? How do I tell my family? Right? Because obviously the, the, the first response is, that's it. The world is. Engine, everything is closed, and then on you it's bankruptcy. It's the worst of it. It's embarrassment. It's, it's as bad as it gets, right? You're letting everybody down. So, and then of course, about my team. How do I, you know, I gotta let the team go. How do you do this? However, the, the latent people go is just really one thing I, I. Don't like to do, I cannot do. Right. Unless it's a merit of poor performance. Right. I just, I just don't think it's right to let the people go just because you don't have the money. Um, so the decision I ended up making is that if the team gets behind it, we'll figure it out. And as I said, they have an amazing team and everybody got behind it. Uh, we worked day and night. We learned all about the problem and then we found the solution. It took us about a year to get out of it, year and a half, maybe even, uh, lost bunch of money, but I didn't let anybody go. And we changed their marketing strategy and we became a much better. Much stronger company as the result. So that is probably the biggest decision. The second biggest decision was actually when COVID started. We, once again, we lost, uh, the first month we lost. Ironically, uh, ironically, COVID started in March, just like when we got the penalty. And in April we lost. Right around 70% of revenue. Only difference is that at that point, we had nothing to do with this. There was nothing to fix on our end. Right? Just because the demand went down and I didn't know how long it would last. And once again, I, I just couldn't let people go because I don't have the money. Like it, it's just not the right thing to do. Uh, so we figured out all these different things that we could do. To increase the amount of money we make, and most of it came down to increasing conversions on the website and emails and on phone calls. I hired a sales coach and we upgraded a lot of stuff and um, and it worked out. It worked out amazingly well, and we are doing way better now than we were prior to COVID.

Sean Weisbrot: It's, it's interesting you mentioned that you hired a sales coach in the middle of this, this problem. I think a lot of people are afraid that coaching and consulting get thrown out the window when people are trying to tighten their belts. But you are a good example of how these Black Swan events like the pandemic are actually an opportunity for growth because. Most people go, oh, well that's it. My business is over. But you said, well, hold on a minute. It's not over. I've got an opportunity. I just don't see it yet. Let me see what a sales coach says. Let me see what this person, let me figure it out. That's. A really good way as, as you've experienced, you got a tremendous amount of growth by investing in your business at a time where most people would go, let me just make sure I've got enough cash to pay salaries. Let me try to like, let me just hunker down until whenever and figure it out. And you took the opposite approach. So that's a really amazing lesson for people that like when you think things are bad. You should still be investing 'cause there is opportunity on the other side.

Vladimir Gendelman: I believe that as long as you do the right thing, you will always get a good result. It might not be result you expect it to begin with. It might be different result, but it's still going to be good no matter what. Sure. And, uh, in, you know, there is an old saying, uh, that the more stones you throw in the water, the more splashes you're gonna get. True. And you just don't know which splashes is the one you needed. So,

Sean Weisbrot: hey, just gimme 10 seconds of your time. I really appreciate you listening to the episode so far and I hope you're loving it. And if you are, I would love to ask you to subscribe to the channel because what we do is a lot of work. And every week we you a new guest and a new story, and what we do requires so much love. So that we can bring you something amazing and every week we're trying really hard to get better guests that have better stories and improve our ability to tell their stories. So your subscription lets the algorithm know that what we're doing is fantastic and no commitment. It's free to do. And if you don't like what we're doing later on, you can always unsubscribe. And either way, we would love a, like if you don't feel like subscribing at this time. Thank you very much, and we'll take you back to the show now. So there's another question I ask, and I, I'm not sure if this ties to your first decision. Uh, the question is, what is your most expensive mistake? So would you say hiring that company in, in the Soviet Union, former Soviet Union, was your Yeah.

Vladimir Gendelman: Uh, well, choosing this whole SEO strategy was probably the, the, the most expensive mistake. And, and of course in the way of. I would not be able to afford the proper SEO, but of course, I didn't know much difference back then.

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm.

Vladimir Gendelman: So hiring this very inexpensive company turned out to be the most, uh, expensive mistake I made.

Sean Weisbrot: So at the time you didn't feel like you could afford someone, let's say, in America or in Western Europe to do SEO for you? No, I

Vladimir Gendelman: couldn't afford it back then.

Sean Weisbrot: Okay.

Vladimir Gendelman: Because the company was charging, you know, $300 a month or whatever it was, and the results were phenomenal.

Sean Weisbrot: You said what? Oh, do you mean the, the other company was charging 3000 a month. 300. Oh, the

Vladimir Gendelman: company in former Soviet Union. They three, $400 a month. And you were at the top of Google.

Sean Weisbrot: What were the other companies charging in, in local area? Thousands. Hmm, fair enough. Like 3000, 5,000. Right. Makes sense. Well, that's, that's another good lesson for people is don't, you know, you get what you pay for. You get what you pay for. Absolutely. So have you ever regretted starting this business?

Vladimir Gendelman: Have I ever regretted starting this business? Ooh. No, no, absolutely not. Um, entrepreneurial journey is, to me personally is extremely interesting. Uh, and all the ups and downs that come with it, I actually embrace it. Uh, I love, they're very high highs and they're very low lows, but I love that, right? Because low, low allows you to appreciate the high, high. And the highest high kind of has meaning

Sean Weisbrot: because you experience the low low. Would you say there's cycles in that or are they just random events that appear?

Vladimir Gendelman: I think it's a combination of things. Random events definitely playing big role. But from the cycle perspective, uh, I think a lot of it has to do with you cannot always be all in and you cannot always be all out right in your business. And depending on where you are in that, uh, cycle is sometimes things go better or worse. And at the end of the day, like as entrepreneur, you own everything, every good and every bad thing. As a matter of fact, every time we do something, well, that's because of the team. And anything that happens that's bad, it's, it's on you. It's all me.

Sean Weisbrot: Of course, I get that all the time. Yeah, uh, I, I totally understand. Uh, there have been times where I felt like I was working too hard, and I would feel like for, for the podcast, for example, there was, um, a time, I would say like last October, November, December, I had already done like 60, 70 episodes, and I just felt like I'm, I, I didn't feel like I was ready to stop, but like I knew I didn't have it in me to continue at that moment. So I took a few weeks off. I didn't publish anything for like two or three weeks, and I felt like a lot better. So I, I get that. There's periods where you go, like, where you're passionate in periods, you're like, I just need a break. Yeah. We're old people. Have you ever thought about stopping this business for any reason?

Vladimir Gendelman: No,

Sean Weisbrot: I actually,

Vladimir Gendelman: um, you know, I was actually thinking about this, uh, the other day and I, I think a lot of my identity tied into this business. I can't, at least at this point, I cannot see the separation. Do you think that's healthy? That's a totally different question. Probably not. Probably not.

Sean Weisbrot: Uh, it's just where I am right now. I'm curious then, how many people are you employing? We have about 20. Do you have any people that you. Allow any like high level decision making for, or do you make all those Yes. No, no, no. How many people do you have in that position?

Vladimir Gendelman: Well, so we have different departments and people who are, um, I believe that you hire people because you believe that they're smart based on, you know, what you see and, and you believe they can make a difference in your company. And the worst thing you can do is hire those people and not let them make decisions and tell them what to do. So, um, for example, we have a COO who makes decision. We have managers who make decisions, uh, and really everybody else also is allowed to make decisions and people are allowed to make mistakes because that's how we all learn. The only requirement is like, you don't get to make the same mistake twice.

Sean Weisbrot: So if you have someone like a COO, which I would recommend everybody, get an operations person. Especially as a C Like if, if everybody is like me as a CEO, like I'm great at a lot of things, but when it comes to the daily management of things, like I'm just not interested in that. Um, so if you have an operations person, what do you do on a daily basis? Like what does your, what is your routine look like for the business?

Vladimir Gendelman: So right now, actually, I spend a lot of time working in my business, uh, head down, customer service, sales, all of that. Um, and I think it's important to do that periodically just to kind of get back to the roots of it.

Sean Weisbrot: Sure.

Vladimir Gendelman: Um, outside of that cultures partially on me. Um, external marketings partially on me, and

Sean Weisbrot: there are always things that come up. So let's say there's a period of time where you're not doing customer service and sales and things like that. How do you kind of spend your days then?

Vladimir Gendelman: Strategy is definitely an important aspect of it. Culturally, spending time with employees, I believe that's also very important to have that connection. Um, especially when bad things happen, right? So COVID bad thing happen. You gotta spend more time with people. Now we have employees in Ukraine, and the war started, so from the beginning of the war, so February until. Beginning of May, most of what they've done was Ukraine related. And, and it, it kinda cycles through, uh, all these different options, but a lot of it, most of it comes down to culture, comes down to strategy, uh, markets and PR and sales everyday

Sean Weisbrot: stuff. When I'm in that. So when you take the time to do something like strategy, 'cause the other ones are a little bit more related to the team or engaging with team. Mm-hmm. Things like that. But like the strategy is really where, like, you've gotta be super focused and, and oftentimes, I, I don't know about you, but when I do strategy, like I am just, I, I isolate myself for a little bit. Just like, Hey guys, I'm, I'm gonna be out. Um. How do you handle strategy and like, I guess, how do you think about strategy? How do you plan for strategy sessions? How do you handle distractions around trying to think about this stuff? Like how do you just handle all of it?

Vladimir Gendelman: Yeah, that's actually a great question. So to me that a lot of it is ongoing thing. And, uh, in, in, in company folders, because our brand is very well defined, our values are very well defined. What we're doing is very well defined. So you don't have, your strategy cannot change like drastically, right? So it's, it's a constant ongoing of improvements. And as new things come up that I don't know or I think of. This is where I go to either podcast or a book that could help me with that information, uh, or something relating to that, right? Uh, sometimes it might be, hmm, it has nothing to do with us, but I wonder how Amazon address this or how did that Zappos address that? Or how did this other people do this? Right? And then I would listen to their book. I would listen to their podcast. Um. And through that, you sometimes get an idea while they talk about something unrelated to, to your situation, right? You can still get an idea based on what you have going on right now. Um, sometimes I take a walk, like I can't, I can't really just sit still and do stuff, so I, I think better when I'm in motion. Um, so I, I take a walk and, and I think through things and, um. And sometimes I take out my phone and I make notes in a, in a way of sending an email to myself with whatever ideas I come up with. And of course other party with this, uh, communication with the team discussions.

Sean Weisbrot: It sounds quite similar actually to what I do. I. Like I, I have listened less to podcasts recently. 'cause oftentimes they're like three, four hour interviews. Like Mm. They're great information sources and, and their stories are amazing. But like, I just, I'm, I struggled to sit there for four hours. Um, but I, I was, I was on a walk the other day and I came to a conclusion 'cause like, so I'm, I'm working on, we live to Build now this company, it's been a podcast for almost last two years. And I was like, I don't want it to just be a podcast anymore. I've put thousands of hours into this thing and I want it to be something that makes money. What can I do? And I, I was like, okay. Like I was working every day. I was like, okay, I'm gonna stop and I'm just gonna spend the day. I'm gonna do nothing. I'm gonna go for a walk. I'm gonna see what happens. And within an hour I was like, that's it. I know what it is. Consulting. Consulting is what I did before. My tech company and consulting makes a lot of money. It does really, you know, if you know what you're doing. Like for me, the, the marketing, the sales of, of all of it was just really easy. It's like there's no reason why I can't use the podcast to do something in consulting again. Where now I can also try to get equity and, you know, if I go for smaller companies, I can get some equity and that kind of makes up for the retainer. You know, I don't have to charge much. So like. Whenever I wanna strategize, I think going for a walk is amazing. Put the headphones on, put some like some random music, like lo-fi whatever, chill hop, something that's like really low key and just go for a walk, observe the world, and then something hits you and you're like, oh, that's right. That's it. Perfect. Yep. That's exactly

Vladimir Gendelman: how it happens. Or sometimes you think about it, nothing comes to you, and then all of a sudden you go in the shower and it all just manifests from there. Exactly. I love it. But when it comes to books and podcasts, I actually listen to them at at least 1.5 speed.

Sean Weisbrot: Oh yeah. You have to, 1.5 is two x,

Vladimir Gendelman: then it goes faster. And I find that retention is better because sometimes people talk very slow and when they do it's, it's like almost like dragging feet. Like, come on, get to the point. And if you listen to the faster speed, just easier to comprehend. 'cause were you ever diagnosed with a DD officially no. But I'm sure if I took the test, I'm

Sean Weisbrot: definitely there because I swear I hear myself in you. Yeah, that's because I, I'm sorry. That is entrepreneurial makeup. Maybe we all have a DA very well possible because like when I listen, when I listen to the average person on the street talk. I think everybody talks too slow. My brain has already moved on. Like they start their sentence and I've already thought of the next thing. Yep. And I actually had an issue with my ex-wife because she would feel like I wasn't having a conversation with her, but rather I was waiting for her to finish what she wanted to say so I could say what I wanted to say. And I was like, look, there's two things going on. One, you're not a native speaker of English. Your English is amazing. I will give you that, but you're, you're not a native And. I think much faster than everyone around me. And that's not to say I'm smarter than anyone. I, my brain just moves so fast sometimes I can't even handle it. And so it might feel like I'm talking at you and just waiting impatiently, but like I, this is a struggle. I dunno if you've experienced that.

Vladimir Gendelman: I have. Absolutely. And I gotta tell you, the one thing that helped me with that is meditation. We took, um. My wife and I, we took, uh, transcendental meditation classes and learned how to do this properly. And at first it was very foreign and I'm like, no, I cannot do that. But then just like riding a bicycle, like when it happens, once I. You get it. Like you can never undo that. And I use meditation in, in a lot of aspects of my life now. That's really good. And it's really, really helpful. When did you start before COVID? So probably a year before COVID. So figure 20, what is it, 19 then in the spring. Perfect timing. Yeah. I'm sure that was maybe

Sean Weisbrot: 2018. I'm sure it was helpful for you. Yeah. I started when I was 18, so it was about 18 years ago. Oh wow. And. It's been very helpful for me, but I still struggle with a lot of that stuff. Like I, I, I struggle with keeping focus. I struggle with, uh, waiting for people to catch up to my own thoughts, and sometimes people feel I'm arrogant, but I'm like, I can't help the fact that like, you like it, it's difficult because it's like if I say it's not my fault that you can't keep up with my brain, it sounds arrogant. The goal isn't arrogance. The goal is explanation. I'm sorry. Like that's just how my brain works, so,

Vladimir Gendelman: so the best thing I learned is to listen. When I was younger, the moment you start talking, I already had an answer. And in reality, I really had no idea what you were gonna say. I thought I knew, and a lot of time I was right, but to me it was this like, okay, finish. Second answer. A lot of times I wouldn't even let you finish. But then at some point, and now that I'm thinking about it, maybe it did happen around the same time I learned meditation. Maybe it happened before I just literally learned how to listen. At first it was very painful because you just physically make yourself listen. But now it became, um, a habit. And when I talk to people, I let them finish all the way. Before I say anything and when they're done, when I think they're done, I'm gonna wait a little bit longer to see if there is anything else they wanted to add. And what that does is, and most of the time I knew exactly what they were gonna say prior, but what that does it, it helps those people feel that they were really heard and understood. And because of that, anything I say becomes more impactful.

Sean Weisbrot: I completely understand that. I've heard, I've experienced that myself. And the thing that's been helpful for me is doing the podcast because I literally have to listen to what the person's saying until the end. And what's even better is that I don't know what people are going to say because I'm asking questions that I usually don't know the answer to. And everyone has their own way of looking at it. So of course they're gonna say something different than somebody else. So I'm like. I'm gonna listen to the end and I don't know what to say until you're done, so that I think if anyone has this problem, go start a podcast. It's like perfect therapy for like handling this, uh, these kinds of things. So what's the first thing you do in the morning? Let's talk about your routine a little bit.

Vladimir Gendelman: First thing I do in the morning after I, you know, wash up, I go either for a walk. Or for bike ride depends on the weather. Um, and that happens every day, seven days a week. Uh, rain and shine or snow. Uh, that doesn't change.

Sean Weisbrot: Oh, I couldn't imagine doing snow.

Vladimir Gendelman: Oh yeah. I would rather not imagine, but, you know, comes with that living in Michigan. Um, however, I'll tell you one thing that walking in the snow, uh, on a very nice crisp morning where you can actually hear the snow under your feet. Is it the best working experience beats anything else ever? Um, but uh, so yeah, I, I do at least one hour during the week and on the weekends I go longer and, uh, most of the time I do listen to a book or podcast. Um, and a lot of times I do take that time to think through some of the things they have going on or, or learn something that they need to or would like to learn. Um, so that's the first thing I do. Then I come, well, prior to that, I also drink, um, three bottles of water. So 500 milliliters each? Yes. Okay. Um, and when I come back, I make myself a bulletproof coffee. Okay.

Sean Weisbrot: And go to work. The Bulletproof is like, there's butter or something in it. Like what's the details of that?

Vladimir Gendelman: Well, yes, it's, uh, powder and coconut oil, but. I only put MCT oil, which is a extract of coconut oil. Mm. And I don't use butter. And the whole premise is that it fills you up with this really, really good fats. Mm. That give you energy. And to your body. And to your brain. Right. And I'm good until lunch. Okay.

Sean Weisbrot: So you intermittent fast oil as well and that Yes. And the MCT oil or coconut oil does not break the fast.

Vladimir Gendelman: Right. Do you feel hungry at all and during that, that weight and you can work through that time?

Sean Weisbrot: Oh,

Vladimir Gendelman: absolutely. Oh man. I work much better this way than when I eat because when you eat, you a lot of times have this like, uh, like little heaviness and. My mind is so much sharper

Sean Weisbrot: when I don't eat in the morning. Interesting. So then do you try to tackle the hardest thing in the morning before you've eaten? I try and do that, yeah. Okay. That's interesting. I don't, I, I do intermittent fast, but funny enough, I stop eating at 4:00 PM A lot of people, they're like, what the hell's wrong with you? I would rather do

Vladimir Gendelman: that, but I cannot once I start eating. I can't stop. So if I eat in the morning, I'm gonna eat the rest of the day. If I eat at one o'clock in the afternoon, I'm gonna eat until the rest of the day. I can't just eat breakfast, lunch and then like very early dinner and be done. I, for whatever reason, I eat late.

Sean Weisbrot: I started intermittent fasting where I would end at 7:00 PM and I would try to go until like 10 in the morning or 11 in the morning, and I couldn't focus, I couldn't do anything the next morning. So I decided to. Go backwards in the evening and then eat earlier in the morning. Yeah. And that, that seems to work for me. Although there, there are some times where like, I, like last night, last night I was out with people and they ate it like nine o'clock. I I was like, they, they got like a vegetarian burger that looked amazing. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna break my fast. Just because sometimes it's important to actually change every schedule or else your body gets used to it. And then like Absolutely. The intermittent fasting does nothing. So it's like, I'll eat, it's like eight o'clock, whatever. Fine. Absolutely. I, I wish I could. Do it that way. So what do you think it is that you, it, it almost sounds as if like you, this is something for you that you have no control over and that's, it sucks, but like, I have my own thing with sugar, so I'm, I'm curious like, is like a lack of self-control? Like what, what do you think it is? I would say it's a lack of desire of

Vladimir Gendelman: self-control because obviously if I really wanted it, I would do that. But I enjoy dinner. Mm-hmm. More than breakfast.

Sean Weisbrot: So then what's like a typical breakfast versus a typical dinner?

Vladimir Gendelman: Well, I

Sean Weisbrot: don't eat breakfast. Right. But like the, the first thing you have in the day, I guess. So you only have, do you do two meals a day then?

Vladimir Gendelman: Yeah,

Sean Weisbrot: lunch and dinner. Okay.

Vladimir Gendelman: And I try to do salads as much as possible. I actually like, um, I really like, uh, beyond burgers. Mm-hmm. I like, um, you know, sushi sometimes, but

Sean Weisbrot: that those rice is just empty calories. Yep. But most of it is salads. Right? But you're thin, so like, it's not that big of a deal.

Vladimir Gendelman: Well, you know, you gotta, in order to keep thin, you

Sean Weisbrot: gotta think of the rice,

Vladimir Gendelman: right?

Sean Weisbrot: So how do you handle distractions?

Vladimir Gendelman: How do I handle distractions? Not very well. Um, I'm naturally very distractible. Um, so what I do is I literally force myself. Into staying on one task. I have this natural tendencies the moment I start working on something. Oh, let me check on that really quickly. And while I'm checking on a, that, before I actually do that, I'm gonna go look at there and, oh, before I do that, I'm gonna do here. And before I know it, like nothing is done and I have all these different things started. Right? And two hours have gone by, right? So. When I start a task now and I have this urgency to do something else, I literally tell myself, Nope. Until you get done with this, you cannot. And I fight my urge to do something else.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm glad you said that because you're like, I think you're like the 10th or 11th person I've done this kind of interview with. Every single person's like, oh yeah, I just turned off my phone. I do this and that. I'm like, you are the only person that, that speaks my language, which is, man, it is fucking hard. It is, it is. So, I, I appreciate that. I, I know they're all being honest, but I guess none of them have a DDI don't know. Like it is, it is a real thing. Well, majority of entrepreneurs are. Like this, maybe they've had to learn. I mean, a, a lot of the people I've, I've interviewed already, they're, they're also doing 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 million a year. So maybe they have better willpower than us. I don't know.

Vladimir Gendelman: Maybe.

Sean Weisbrot: So what's the last thing you do at night?

Vladimir Gendelman: Last thing I do at night is I either watch something on YouTube that teaches me something, or right now I'm watching a show with my son. Called All American.

Sean Weisbrot: Is that about the, those Russian spies pretending to be American or something? No,

Vladimir Gendelman: that's an American or Americans. All American is, uh, about the football players. This guy from it takes place in California and uh, a lot of a show has to do with people's relationships and hardships and like all these different life situations they deal with. And my son is, uh, 11 years old, so it's really. Like an example of those people. We can discuss a lot of things that are coming up in his world soon and um, so a lot of times that happens right before I go to bed.

Sean Weisbrot: Okay. Fair enough. That's nice. I mean, I, I don't have any kids, so I don't, I don't spend that kind of time I would with my dog, but he is not here. What is your biggest fear? So I don't know if I can really answer that question, but what's my biggest fear now? Um. For a long time, my biggest fear was that somebody will pull the rug from underneath me, right? That all of a sudden all the employees will be gone, like literally wake up in the morning and there is no more people, no more company, no more anything, and I, which obviously is not even based on anything real, it just. You kinda get to the point where things are working well and now you're worried about that they might break. Um, so luckily that went away years ago. Um, the biggest fear would probably be more with, you know, God forbid kids get into some bad situations and stuff. Uh, from the business perspective, I don't really stress out anymore because I. They're really, I'm pretty confident that anything that comes, I'll figure it out. It's gonna be better, it's gonna be worse, but that's all part of the journey. So,

Sean Weisbrot: mm. That's, uh, how I see it. How do you anticipate problems in your business or in the market, if possible? So, for example,

Vladimir Gendelman: right now. They're talking about recession, right? Huge inflation. And, and, and they're saying that we are in a recession. We're going to be in a recession. Depression might come, whatever. So we are actually very understaffed right now and we do need to fill a lot of positions. And I am specifically not doing that because the last thing I wanna do is hire someone who I would have to let go just because the economy downturn. Um, I. So I figured in this particular case, we'll wait and see what it's going to be like because a lot of these positions would have to do with the investment for the future and, and potential growth strategy.

Sean Weisbrot: Right. So did you have a growth strategy, let's say the beginning of the year and then the war in Ukraine was like, oh, nope. Sorry. And then now the recession? Nope. Sorry. So like you, you had a plan and it's just basically like, wait and see then.

Vladimir Gendelman: No. So we, we definitely have a strategy, uh, for growth. It's not canceled. We're still working on it. It's just that because we can't hire the people, we're working on it much slower. It just delays the execution of it. 'cause it's, it's a longer term project. It's, it's couple years long, which comes down to this new technology. We're going to use

Sean Weisbrot: it. We're developing them. How long of a period do you strategize for usually until you go, okay, I need to make a change. It's not like

Vladimir Gendelman: that since day one. I had an idea of the final result, and the final result is we are a true boutique for folders, binders, and envelopes. We do offer. The largest selection of, as we discussed before, DCAS papers, cos print methods and everything else, right? So from the perspective of being able to deliver that, we are there. But now there is this other aspect of, um, how do we package it properly and how do we make it very easy. For people to understand it, make sense of it, and of course, order. So that is what we're still working on and the strategy that we do, it just becomes a piece of that longer journey. It's almost like the next

Sean Weisbrot: step to get there. Okay, so when you started the company. You already knew that what you just explained is like, the end goal is this, you know, this one stop place for binders, folders, and

Vladimir Gendelman: I didn't know that. I was hoping for that. Mm-hmm. I had no idea how to get there. Uh, I just started with folders and I've heard, oh, sorry. Go on. No, it just was that and, and, um. I just really, um, I, I, I looked at folders as it's a cover for a presentation. Well, binder is a cover for, for a presentation envelope is a cover for a presentation, right? That's, that's where the relationship between those items is.

Sean Weisbrot: How many, I guess, years into starting this business, did you feel like you understood it? Hopefully next year. Okay.

Vladimir Gendelman: No, I, in, in all seriousness, uh, I obviously feel like I understand it and at the same time there's always something new that I learn or I observe. Uh, so from that perspective, I don't think you ever step, but probably, what was it, thousand three? 10. Probably seven or eight years. I really solidly knew exactly like after, after seven years, it was more of a plan rather than a hope, because in the very beginning it was just, it would be really cool. Like, I would love to do that. I'm gonna try and do that. I just don't know if it's gonna work out. You know what I mean? After seven years, it's like, it's, it's gotten to the point where, okay, so I, I know what I'm doing, I know where we're going. Just how quickly I can get there.

Sean Weisbrot: And how many years did it take you to break a million in that year?

Vladimir Gendelman: It took probably seven or eight. It's the same timeframe.

Sean Weisbrot: Interesting. Yeah. I wanted to try to correlate that to see if it was, I've, I've heard that I, I've heard people say three years to understand your business. I've heard people say 10. I'm inclined to believe it's closer to 10. So like people say to me, oh, you've been doing your tech company for four years. I'm like, I don't know shit about technology. Like. I didn't know anything when I started. I still feel like I don't know anything.

Vladimir Gendelman: That's, that's just how it is. But that's the best part, right? If, if, if you have that humility, then you're always open to learning and changing. My CTO constantly points

Sean Weisbrot: out how little I know. And that's why you have CTO. Exactly. Uh, I, I've, I've had to learn to basically ask, just ask questions instead of like saying, Hey, I did some research, and like, here's an idea. Like, I can't do that with him. 'cause he'll be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I have to like now go, Hey, what do you think about this thing? And like, let him talk like, right. So I, I've learned how to communicate with him so that he doesn't just immediately get mad at me for like wasting his time for asking. I'm all about asking

Vladimir Gendelman: questions because first of all, I

Sean Weisbrot: want

Vladimir Gendelman: everybody's ideas before I voice mine. Right? 'cause they. You know everybody who works here, they're real experts. It's what they do. Yeah. Well, you could say you're

Sean Weisbrot: an expert. You've been doing it 20 years.

Vladimir Gendelman: Yes, but I'd rather. Solicit their opinion first. No, of course. Absolutely. You should. So that's, and of course, another thing that I think, um, has helped me from day one is the long term in mind is based of all of my decisions. Like, I don't, I don't like to doing it in short term. Uh, my grandfather used to say, we are not rich enough to buy cheap things.

Sean Weisbrot: What does that mean?

Vladimir Gendelman: That means that when you buy cheap things, you. That pain multiple times over for the same item because it keeps on breaking. Of course, I did not apply that lesson when I selected the SEO company. I was gonna say, but I didn't know better. Um, but fair enough for everything else, I would rather do things. So when it comes to anything in the company, right. I'd rather do things right from the get go. Mm-hmm. Whether it takes longer cost more, uh, and just have it done as opposed to do something, then redo it, do something, then redo it because it just becomes this vicious circle.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you think, did, did you always think that way? And I'll, I'll, I'll preface it with this. I. I've learned from a lot of people that the way they took of the approach in the beginning was to build something that will break, that isn't automated. That sucks, but it gets the job done in the moment. Then when it stops working, then you figure out how to do it better. And by the time it breaks again, you, you'll, you'll have an idea, like basically you just keep iterating on all of your processes and all of your systems and, and all of your tools and, and kind of eventually you're at a point where you pretty much don't need to do too much to it.

Vladimir Gendelman: Absolutely. Iteration is a big part of what we do, uh, and in the beginning, so my, my belief in the beginning is do something halfway. Run with it. Mm. And you'll quickly learn whether it works or not. Right. And if it works, then you can improve and make it amazing. If it doesn't work, there is no reason to spend that much time on it. But a lot of things in business, um, whether it has to do with your team, with the technology you use, with, with how you develop, uh, future, uh, does have a lot to do with doing things right to begin with. So I'll give you example during COVID. Uh, a lot of companies like ours went into PPE, you know, the masks, the shields, right? All those things. Um, and obviously I could have gone the same route and I briefly considered it, but then I thought to myself, well, we're gonna spend a lot of resources. We're gonna spend a lot of time building something out that is going to last a very short term. What's the point? And that's when I identified that if we increase the conversion, then we're gonna be much better off at the time and going forward. Hmm. And as we discussed before, it was a lot of it was conversion on the website at different points, emails, and uh, phone conversion by hiring a sales coach.

Sean Weisbrot: I don't wanna make you feel bad, but I do have to share this. So I, I interviewed an Israeli entrepreneur who's based in Texas In March, 2020, he started a PPE factory and he got government contracts and he turned it into 150 million in revenue in two years. And they're, they've just opened, uh, 250,000 square foot factory in Texas. They're hiring 10,000 more employees, and they're getting ready for another like 150, $200 million contract. So it could have been different for you, but I think he took the opportunity and ran with it

Vladimir Gendelman: and that's great that he did. It's, there are a lot of, I'll tell you one thing right now, there are a lot of opportunities that I missed.

Sean Weisbrot: Mm-hmm. We all

Vladimir Gendelman: do. And most of them I missed by. Choice because just because there is an opportunity doesn't mean you have to jump in every which one of them. In the very beginning I took on way too many opportunities and I learned my lesson. Mm-hmm. And I ended up with a lot of things that weren't making money, but costed a lot. Oh yeah. I know. I've done

Sean Weisbrot: too.

Vladimir Gendelman: I very consciously now. Do not take opportunities.

Sean Weisbrot: True. True. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So would you say that's the most important thing you've learned?

Vladimir Gendelman: I would say that the most important thing I learned is to not micromanage people, because in the very beginning I was more preoccupied with people, with me, seeing people working as opposed to results they produce. And obviously my behavior supported that. And through that, people felt it and the morale was nothing like what it is right now. But then at some point it hit me that as long as the result is there, right, what do I care? As long as they do the right thing and time. How they get there is their thing now they come to me and they say, Hey, I, I'm lost here. There. It's a difference.

Sean Weisbrot: Alright. Are there any final words you have for the audience? Any advice you'd like to share?

Vladimir Gendelman: No, just from my perspective, it's always think long term and, uh, don't micromanage, hire great people and let them do what they do best.

Sean Weisbrot: Okay. Fantastic. Thank you, Vladimir. I appreciate it. Thank you, Sean.