Victor Popovics – From Starting Over to a Business He Could Sell

So this is where you learn that nothing lasts forever

is that Google decided to change the algorithm and their famous penguin update that

they did literally put us from page one to page three.

And that was overnight.

I've learned one thing is that founder memory is not a system,

right?

so It's it's selling the business gives you freedom,

but also you have to learn after that what to do with that freedom.

That's a this that's a big big part.

Welcome to From the Ground Up Show.

Honest conversations with people who have built their lives,

careers, and businesses with heart,

hands, and hustle. Your host, Erick Loden,

acquired and scaled his family's roofing company,

growing annual revenue more than eightfold and operating profit about 15-fold before

choosing an internal sale and retiring from the business at 37.

Join Eric and his guests for the hard-earned lessons behind real success.

Today should be a pretty fun show here on From the Ground Up Show.

Our guest is Viktor Popovic. He is the co-founder

and president of Avendo, a financial technology company working

to bring transparency and real-time competition to credit card processing.

His current work grew out of more than two decades as an entrepreneur.

After coming to the United States as an immigrant and refugee,

Viktor built a

Ultimate Washer from limited resources into a nationally recognized e-commerce

business. Learning how to earn vendor trust,

compete through search, navigate Amazon and other platform changes,

and build the systems that made an eventual exit possible.

He is now taking those lessons into a very different and highly regulated industry

where Avendo aims to let merchants compare processors and route transactions

Towards competitive rates without changing the way the customers check out.

Viktor's story connects immigration,

resilience, early e-commerce, operational discipline,

succession, and the challenge of starting over after a long company building

journey. Today we will explore what shaped him,

what nearly stopped him, and what he is building next.

So Viktor, man, what a great intro.

You you seem to have had an awesome journey and awesome life so far,

and I'm excited to learn more about it.

Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah,

that that is a great intro and thank you for having me on the show.

Yeah, I'm excited. Well, we like to start off every show just getting to know

you a little bit, learn about your background and where you came from.

can you tell us a little bit about where you grew up,

how you grew up, and what the world around you taught you about

work and opportunity?

Sure. So was born and raised in former Yugoslavia.

In my early life, things changed very quickly.

at 17 my father passed away and soon after the civil war in Yugoslavia has started,

this is back in in the nineties.

And so I had to really make the decision to leave because I did not want

to take part in in in the war.

And so that experience shaped me deeply.

when you're when you're forced to to start over and I don't even know

if you'd start over when you're eighteen or nineteen.

You're just you're literally just starting and you're you really learn quickly

things, and one thing is that the security is not guaranteed,

you know. and so

Initially I've I've I've claimed my status in in Hungary.

I left to neighboring country north of Yugoslavia and I I was

a refugee initially and then started building my life from there.

And you know, you adapt, you you when you move to a new place,

you don't know the system, you don't know the language,

you have no friends or network to help you,

so you you're pretty much on your own.

And but thinking through back then it's it's

when you have nothing to really to go back to,

I think that's what really kept me and and and my wife back then,

my my my girlfriend, 'cause we we went together,

in and it's just st starting from zero really didn't

s you know, mentally bothered us because we knew going back was was

was going back to zero or worse going into the war.

So eventually, you know, we came to United States in late nineties and

we both got our degrees here in in in the US and I started the business

in early two thousands and and that's how the that whole beginning went on.

so you you left twice. You left your home of Yugoslavia to go to Hungary

and then eventually immigrated to the US.

can you tell us a little bit about what that was like mentally,

emotionally, leaving a a culture,

a system that you were used to and like you said,

either starting all over or maybe just starting to begin with at seventeen,

eighteen years old.

W what did that feel like? What what were the specific fears that you faced

or maybe what was most difficult to leave behind?

Yeah, so th that's that th th the the the biggest part is the unfamiliarity,

right? You you don't have you don't have simply the the a friend who

you can call upon and say, Hey,

can you advise me or assist me with something?

It's just you you're really relying on on on yourself and your own resources

and f in those years really money was not about the status.

It was about really food and work and

legal stability and and hope that tomorrow can can be better.

And so you know safety was was the was the n number one concern.

Again, leaving the war, that's what's in your mind.

And and and just by eliminating that that situation,

it's it's already a

you know, advantage. so that really shaped me how I approach things today

and risks and I'm I was I was never reckless.

I was v always very methodical and and I always had plan A and plan

B and sometimes plan C depending on the situation and and you just

had to because you had to be ready if if things don't work out,

you gotta be able to to adapt and pivot.

you said that you you came to the US,

you achieved a degree here and education here,

and then kind of dove right into entrepreneurship.

what was it that gave you the confidence to show up in a a new place,

a new culture, and you know,

not only just dive into functioning in a new culture,

but to to launch a business to kind of do something that not everybody does

and most people are not successful at?

Yeah. I I do not think that I woke up one day and said,

Hey, I wanna be an entrepreneur.

That's

Ha ha. That's that's not something how it happened.

Really, I was lucky in in a sense that being in the right place at the right time,

as they say, a friend of mine,

really we were just acquaintances back in the day.

we were speaking on the phone and and he asked me outright,

you wanna start an e commerce business with me?

And this is Yeah. right after nine eleven 'cause my degree was in aviation business

in airport and airline management and after nine eleven

aviation was really in a in a bad shape so it was it was very tough time

for me to find a job and so without thinking without asking what are

we doing you know what what's this about I said yes I'm ready let's do it

and so what happened was I came up with about 40 products related

to aviation industry because we wanted to do e commerce related

to aviation supplies and

One of the products that that I listed was these surface pressure cleaners

for cleaning airport hangar floors.

And so my my f my partner he ran a a keyword analysis.

Now we're talking about back two thousand and three.

Very early, super early in e-commerce.

and he determined, he says, there's a very high number of searches

For anything with word pressure,

so pressure cleaner, pressure sprayer,

pressure washer, he says, and it looks like it's a very few number

of websites competing for those keywords.

And he says, why don't we focus on pressure washers?

And if it doesn't work out, we'll go back to the original idea of aviation parts.

Well, it worked out.

And it it wasn't like we we loved the product.

As a matter of fact, I never held a pressure washer in my hand prior to that.

So you so here I am, you mein

know, being a an expert writing articles because back in the day,

you know, it was very little content available.

So we learned Mm. that if you if you put out our c like how to and do's and don'ts

on your website that that

Would get traction. And so I've I sat down and I've read every blog,

every article out there about SEO and search engine optimization

to educate myself to see how how do we write this content?

And so that's how it was. I would call vendors and I would literally

ask the questions: you know, how does this work?

You know, you have a battery, how does this connect it?

You know, what do we do over here in this situation?

And they were going nuts because.

It's like it was unheard of, right?

And as a matter of fact, I'll tell you a story.

It took me six months to get first vendor

to agree for us to sell their product online.

It was super new. And they were like,

what do you mean sell online? Because they used to have stores or they would have

regional reps.

who would in a morning load the equipment in a van,

they would drive around the city,

make certain stops at different shops,

they'll pull out the equipment,

they'll demo it, and then they'll sell it.

That's how they used to sell pressure washers.

And so we come along and we're like,

we're just gonna slap some pictures online and we're gonna sell and they're like,

but how are you gonna demo? Who's gonna see it?

How you gonna like it was unheard of. Yeah. And so

it took me six months to to convince the very first vendor,

so it's okay to sell online your equipment.

That's awesome. So when you were a kid growing up in Yugoslavia and maybe even

it you know, going to school here in the US,

you said that you you didn't have a plan to become an entrepreneur.

That wasn't where you were headed.

You you got an education in the aviation business.

W what was the plan? What did you imagine your life being like back then?

Really simple. A a house,

being married, have a couple of kids,

regular job, eight to five. That's it.

I I really didn't have any any high dreams or expectations.

And again, coming from you have to understand,

you know, coming from a communist country where everything is controlled,

where they they control what you buy,

how much you when you can buy gas.

You know what you breathe. simple situation of just being able to because

you could you can't even in in in in socialism,

the government decides who gets an apartment,

where you're gonna live, practically.

you don't have that option. It's not like,

I like this area, I'm gonna just move here,

I'm gonna get a loan and I'm gonna have mortgage,

and like it doesn't work like that.

So Having just that freedom, like,

yeah, I'm gonna pick a house that I like and you know I'm gonna decide what

job I'm gonna get. It's not gonna be government that's gonna assign the job to me.

Just that alone is like, yeah,

I'm a free man, right? So you don't think beyond Ha ha ha.

that, coming from one of those countries.

you said you started your business kind of almost on a whim.

You had a friend that asked if you were interested and you needed a job,

so you said yes. D do you remember at what point in time you realized that what

you were building could be more than just a job?

Being a business owner?

Yeah. I mean, at what point in time did you realize that your business

was was a real business, something that was scalable,

something that might provide more than just that simple life you described,

that it it could be more than just a job.

It might be a greater opportunity than that.

Yeah, the the the first time I believe it might that I might be able

to really build a company when I realized that internet was creating these

new openings and opportunities.

seeing sales orders come through through the website and

you getting the notification in your email inbox and arranging that order,

you know, drop shipping, sending the orders.

to you to your manufacturer and then drop shipping and you tracking it

and and then you recognizing that it's like,

okay, there might be something.

You know, keep in mind the first year,

we only did we only did seventy five thousand dollars in sales our first year

in business.

So my my friend who who also had another business who he that he started

a year prior, he brilliant guy,

he says, Why don't we set up your desk where you work for me,

for his company? You know, I had two phones.

Two, you know, I was working sales,

so I was one phone for his company,

and then the other phone was for our business.

And he says, I'll pay you salary,

and then at at some point when

the Ultimate Washer, our mutual business,

turns into four plus hours a day of your engagement.

We're gonna then shift you onto that payroll.

And that's exactly how it's so it wasn't,

you know, it was very smart. It wasn't like I went in,

I did not have a job, I wasn't paid,

I still was paid, working this,

and then gradually really moving on to the to the to the full-time role with with

our mutual. But I've I've worked n nights,

weekends, holidays, trying to get our business off the ground,

you know, writing articles, doing link exchange.

changes back in the day that was very popular to to increase your page ranks

and bunch of stuff that you had to do.

So you know my days would be you know 15 16 hours bis you know having this first

full time job and then doing this on the back end so and then the second year

we really took off I think I think big contributor to that

was me fully understanding

the products and how they connect,

the fittings and the Mm. the attachments

and the gadgets. So I think my 'cause we were getting al already a good amount

of free traffic from Google and Yahoo.

Bing didn't exist back then. yeah Well it just mentioning Yahoo kinda dates it a little bit. Right? 'Cause they had their own engine, Yeah.

'cause they bought Overture which was another

thing another engine and they they bought that and that's how they were evolved into

the the the

the engine themselves. So yeah,

we were getting traffic, but I wasn't really I was I think my knowledge

was not not not at the level. And then once that clicked,

I think in second year we did just a little over a million dollars in in revenue.

And and I remember sitting with my partner because he's a is also CPA

and so he was doing all our reconciliation.

He said he looks at me says you know people trusted us and they gave

us one million dollars last year.

And when he said that, it was like my jaw drop,

like, wow, that is a lot of money.

Not net. I'm talking about just just general,

you know, income. But it was it was an eye-opener.

So, you know, it was a little bit gradual to to answer your question.

It wasn't like one aha moment,

this is how it happened, but then you s you know,

once once you see the progression,

you s you start to trust what you're doing and what you're building.

And you know, that that's how that whole thing happened.

Are you tired of the customer service provided by big box stores

and national brands? When I need materials or if I have questions about an order,

I pick up the phone and call Josh.

No waiting in line, no customer service hotline,

no wondering who I'm gonna talk to that day.

I call Josh anytime, day or night,

he answers my questions and takes care of me.

That's the kind of service you get from MacArthur Company.

A dedicated salesman.

A local office, small town service from a company big enough to take care

of even the largest customer. MacArthurCo.com

you mentioned you were working for your friend in another business.

what was that business? What was your job when you were working both jobs there?

So the the the job was you know working for him full time.

it w it was in sales role, like a s like a you know,

sales guy answering customer service,

answering questions. their equ their their product was around wirelom

and cord covers. that's actually interesting story as well,

because back in the early two early two thousands,

the only way you could buy, let's say,

a heat shrink was

Dozens and dozens of of yards.

And and then he realized, like,

hey, if I want to do something small,

like on my car, or if I wanted to have just maybe five feet

of cord cover protection for my computer cables,

you couldn't buy short short lengths.

And he says, I'm just gonna do get bulk,

cut into sizes that people want,

and I'm gonna sell that.

So that was just a brilliant thinking.

It's just like out of the box,

right? So that's what we that's what I was,

you know, selling for him. And and yeah,

his business took off much quicker actually than ours and and he

was running it with his wife for many years and then he sold it years years later.

But yeah, that was that was the beginnings of everything.

what a great story. So when you guys were first starting out,

when you're working two jobs trying to get this business off the ground,

what what was the dream? What was the goal?

What did success look like back then?

Well the first years were messy.

You know, we were creative and we were pioneering and we saw that we're doing

something different. it was very hands on.

Operationally I I would in the beginning I would I would end up being we

had a s small small warehouse because as as e commerce you

you typically drop ship, right?

You drop ship directly from the factory.

But some things we it was not feasible to to like little little attachments

and fittings it didn't make sense to to drop ship so so we would

we would stock those in-house.

So I would end up being you know,

I I remember even going on Sundays in

to to work to download orders from you know friday afternoon till till sunday

to print him out prep and pack him put the labels on him and be ready because

i knew mondays are usually very busy for me so i would I would do that work

and so you know all heads on the deck you had you had to you had to

do whatever it takes you know a lot a lot of hours

Weekends like I said, holidays,

you're you're locked in and and you're you're learning,

you're you're figuring out how do you get traffic,

how do you do how do you advertise,

how do you speak to customers,

educate constantly, fixing things when they go wrong and then they sh

you know when things get you know sh

manufacturer may ship to a wrong place or wrong product,

you got you know so doing all that customer.

So in the beginning you're doing everything.

And there's you you you don't pick and choose.

And so that's why I say it's kinda messy because you don't you don't have SOPs,

you don't have protocols necessarily how everything is handled.

and then you just learn over time that you gotta you gotta structure

it a little better.

So you mentioned yeah, things were messy in the beginning.

you said it took six months to convince a manufacturer to even

let you sell online. and then you jumped from $75,000 in sales to

a million dollars in sales your first to second year.

w walk us through that process.

What what were the big hurdles that you had to overcome?

What were the processes you had to figure out those first

couple of years to allow you to grow that significantly and and scale

the way that you did.

Yeah, yeah, just like you said,

you know, in the beginning, I had to convince both vendors and customers,

right? Vendors had to believe that we could represent their their brand

and their product responsibly online.

And customers, you know, had to believe that they can trust us and

trust the website and the website presentation that that they can buy,

you know, relatively expensive and and technical equipment.

And that part

whit which was more difficult,

the customer or the manufacturer?

I would say the in the very beginning it was the manufacturer,

believe it or not. Because industrial equipment,

you know, it's it's heavy duty equipment,

there's a lot of technical knowledge that goes into that and you

sometimes you spend on the phone with a customer,

you know, fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes explaining how things work and

the application you have to understand their application and how they're gonna

use it and what the gadgets or accessories that they can combine with that

and so a lot of time even with customers I would just let me find

out the answers that 'cause I I wouldn't I just don't know.

Like, how do you remove graffiti?

I don't know. Hold on.

Then you call the then you call it the factory.

It's like, okay, here's the problem.

Do you use hot water? Do we use cold water machine?

You know, do we use chemicals?

You know, do you use some kind of a rotating nozzle to scrape that off?

What's the pressure? Like you just you just you just don't know.

And then okay, and then you get back to the customer.

And you know, pe we learned people really appreciate when you tell them.

That you don't know, but you will find the answer rather than trying to guess.

Because people can sense that on the phone,

right? So I think a lot of times,

you know, we say, hey, you know,

I don't I don't I'm not sure about the answer 100%.

Would you mind if I put you in hold?

Let me find out for you. And then you come back and you're doom doom,

you give them and then they trust you.

And so but early days was really the manufacturers

You know, we w we even had a simple thing as getting high resolution photos

challenge. because they would have catalogs and they said,

because hey, can you give us can you send us some high res photos?

Well we don't have it. Why don't you just scan a catalog?

Well, okay, scan, but you know,

that you can't do that. It's it doesn't it's gonna come blurry and

you can't modify it. It's it's a very small res file.

So what we end up doing, we bought a digital camera.

And then we would ship the camera to them and say,

take pictures, this angle, that angle,

you know, lighting, you know. And then this is and then we'll ship

the camera back and with images,

because this is prior to to smartphones,

right? You don't have you can't just yeah. and then you know, okay, download pictures,

okay, yeah, I don't like this angle,

we gotta clean this up. And so it was it was,

you know, antique. But we were just trying to solve the problem at hand.

and some of that that stuff was just you know technology wise.

Well it it sounds like I I'm inferring a little bit here,

but when you first started the the website was maybe almost more like

a digital catalog. You had customers viewing things online and then still calling

you to to ask questions and inquire about things.

how did you see that market grow and change and how do you adapt to

a market that changed so quickly?

To go from those early beginnings almost as like a digital catalog

to a full e-commerce system. What what was that like?

That had to be quite a ride.

Yeah, yeah, you you you constantly had to think of how do

you make it easier for the consumer?

Right? How do you get them to you know twenty years ago you didn't have

s you know, call to action, you know,

make a Yeah.

video, you know, explain this.

This is you know, this was evolution years,

years after. So you just had to

Be creative, think of ways that will attract the customer and make

it really easy for them to get to that checkout page.

I think variety of product helped.

I remember even us building a section of

comparison, you know, comparing Mm. the brands. Like you know, here's here's the difference between this and this.

And then you you you educating,

right? Educating was a big piece because we wanted to minimize or reduce

the number of hours because we ended up having quite a few of customer service reps.

for that phontering, you know,

we want it to to sort of through education empower customers

to make their decisions themselves and make make decisions

from you know whether it's it's a business or or or a homeowner and then make

the purchase online. so you you you you gear towards that and that's where

you see all these websites coming up later of of with with price comparisons

and and features comparisons. this was all evolution of those early days,

but like I said, you just had to put your creative hat on and and try

it to think of ways. And there was no AI where like,

hey what do I do in this case?

Like you really had to be like

Thinking.

W was there a problem that you guys solved or figured out early on that

you feel like gave you a a significant leg up on some of your competitors?

yes, we were we we relaunched the the idea

of packaging multiple items into one skew if you want to say one one purchase.

so we would say okay for cleaning stain from your driveway ideally

here's the machine, the pressure washer

Here's the surface cleaner, you know,

the really the flat surface cleaner we call it.

And then also a biodegradable cleaning solution.

Right, so we we we made these bundles and made it easier for the customer that

we don't have to be thinking, well,

what pressure do I need?

you know, do I need a chemical?

Which one do I need? So we kinda combined,

you know, graffiti like I mentioned graffiti removal.

That was one of the one of the things that that we also had.

for cleaning and industrial equipment.

So we were very literate and and deliberate about the industries

and categories so that

One, it helped the search engine,

you know when people searched from for certain product in certain niche,

we would come up and then and then we just in the article say this,

this, this and this, and here's the bundle package.

so that that made a big difference for us you know early early few years.

of course, you know, people will look what you're doing and and

and then everybody was was going in that direction in our industry.

but

It's it's good to be the first and pioneer some things that that work

out 'cause you have a little bit of momentum there.

Was there a period of time where your company and your orders were growing faster

than your your systems, your people,

or even your cash and capital could support?

Was it was there a point where it was growing faster than you knew what to do with?

Yes. And and typically when that happens is for us it was really

the amount of calls that we were getting and emails,

inquiries, and we would we would we would we would s we you know

we we was challenging, we suffered.

we we our customers suffered because we weren't getting back to them on time.

We were dropping the ball, we weren't

responding, s CRS system wasn't wasn't at the level that we needed,

processes were written poorly,

and your hiring and then your training.

It takes time. I I in in this industry,

if you bring somebody off the street who's never dealt with equ industrial equipment

It takes one full year for them to be comfortable with with equipment.

Seriously, it's it's n it's not easy to pick up the phone and somebody says,

you know, I have such and such application,

what do I need? Like, you really have to know.

so that's where we suffered mostly,

not having enough manpower to handle the inbound elites that we were getting.

Okay. Well you you dove right into my next question.

you mentioned, you know, early on that you you spent significant time learning these

systems, learning the equipment,

learning everything there was to know about it.

How do you take that knowledge and transfer it to a team of customer service agents

that are working under you to handle the volume that's going in?

did did you find a process or a system that allowed you to take that knowledge

and disseminate it more quickly?

Yeah. I you know, f I've learned one thing is that founder memory is not a system,

right? In the

Yeah, it's it's in the beginning the founder knows everything.

You know the vendors, Yeah.

the customers, exceptions, shortcuts,

and you are the reason behind every decision.

And that feels efficient first because people come to you,

you know the answer and you give them the answer and they're good to go.

But as the company grows, a founder member really becomes dangerous.

And if people have to keep coming back to you for every answer.

you become bottleneck. And so at Ultimate Washer we you know we learned that

if a process only exists in my mind,

it's not really a process. You know,

you you you it you it cannot be trained,

it cannot be repeated, measured,

improved. And so I've joined entrepreneurs organization which is

a kind of networking organization of of of

entrepreneurs and this is where I've really learned the importance of SOPs.

And ever since then I became really adamant about soup being super detailed

and deliberate on having these sales processes written down.

I've always said my my guys, I said I want if if somebody was to if we were

to bring in somebody off the street and sit down at at the office desk

And I wanted to be able to follow the procedure that we have,

like literally I want screenshots,

I want where you click, what it means,

why, like super, super detailed.

Because I I understood that even for just n initial training,

but also for retraining purposes,

because there's there's just a lot of a lot to learn.

And so if you have somebody that you might have been trained,

two, three months has has passed by,

maybe they haven't seen this scenario.

of that you can always they can always refer back to this knowledge base they

don't have to be going around asking and you know wasting time that's

one thing and another thing that that that helped again learning from

the EO organization is for the exit purposes right when you have a buyer that comes

they don't want to be just saying that they're relying on a founder

and founder's knowledge they want to understand that there is these protocols

and procedures that employees can follow and then if they come in

that they can bring in other staff members and that that transition will be smooth.

So those are the kind of the drivers for me where I understood that really having

well documented protocols is is critical to one,

you know, operation and two, potential exit.

absolutely. There there's a lot of wisdom there.

I think that's a a a difficult transition to grow through for a lot of founders.

'cause like you said, when you start off the the founder knowledge,

it's efficient. You you know it all.

You have all the answers. You can spit it right out.

You don't have to go look it up in a book.

You don't have to write it down.

You don't have to take the time to create the SOPs.

You just know it and you can tell people and they can do it.

But i eventually it becomes that bottleneck and that's a transition that

I think a lot of founders fumble.

they do it too late, they do it poorly,

and it it creates a bottleneck in their business.

okay. can you tell us a little bit about that?

I I mean, how did you learn that lesson?

you know, how did your company suffer from learning that lesson poorly or slowly?

The systems are not just about organization.

Systems create freedom and scalability and and and eventually Mm. transferability. So for me, in order for me to go away on let's say

a a week vacation, it's it's preparation.

It's like I'm preparing two weeks just in order for me to leave for one week. Ha ha ha.

And I said, I thi this is hard,

man. Like I I and then you come back and it's just everything is in disarray.

So

You know, I had a v I had a very hard time delegating.

You know, I it's most most business owners,

you know, you do it faster, you'll do it quicker,

you'll do it more efficiently,

and and you you keep it to yourself.

Not because you think you're smart,

but be but because just the bite of virtue of you've done it so many times

and you can you can find it quicker,

you know, and you're just okay,

it's there, boom. so it was really by by hiring people

that I trust. I had to force myself to let it go once delegated

I I had to have them do through through trials and errors and not

not take it over, just just have them handle it.

it's it's growing pains but it's good at the end of the the end

of that that transition period

Everybody's benefiting. You know,

your employees feel more Yeah. empowered, they feel more confident,

they're not afraid of walking into your office,

you know, did I make a mistake?

You know, what is you know, what am I gonna be told?

That am I gonna look stupid? and so they they grow that confidence,

and then of course, for you as as the founder,

you have now time to work on the business,

you're not in the business anymore.

that's huge. it's one of those things that it takes a little bit of extra work

on the front end to give you enormous freedom on the back end.

And most people don't address that problem until they're already overwhelmed.

And so then the extra work on the front end is really some extra work 'cause they're

already overwhelmed. And I think a lot of business owners would be

it would do well to recognize that early and and start prepping before

it becomes a problem.

Absolutely. A hundred percent.

So you mentioned delegating there.

what were the things that were most difficult for you to delegate?

What were the things that were the hardest to give up?

Wow, I have to think about this one.

You know, the one thing that I've always was seeking was having creative minds

around me. You know, I've I've throughout the years I always felt

in a sense pressure that I have to be the one that be that's going to come

up with new ideas, with new solutions and

I sh I should have, you know, that's definitely less learned.

I should have started that process earlier.

just you know, having the staff be able

to bring solutions to the table,

whether it's a new software. I think I was maybe too granulal,

too critical of

know, something was a w you know,

it was o I would always like go so deep.

And I think that might have stumbled the growth on growth on some of some

of the staff members that I've had.

Maybe maybe I kinda overshadowed them and overwhelmed them with with just

me with my follow up questions like,

How did you check this, did you check that?

And I think they ended up being more afraid to think outside the box.

And so yeah, I've I've changed that with my with my with Avendo,

my new business. Go with it. I we just put the skeleton,

the structure. You know, just recently marketing team were launching these marketing

campaigns. I said, this is what we want to accomplish.

Show us the road. And that's it.

It and they'll love it.

And so you have to, you know, some of the things come to you as as

a person or business owner naturally,

and some people might, you know,

that's could this could have been like an easy thing for them.

For me, it was a hard thing to do,

you know. scaling back, holding back,

and let them do that part and and let them develop and grow themselves.

And so

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are there some things that you would still hold tightly to that you think need

to remain as kind of the the founder's responsibility,

things that you should not delegate?

Yeah, of course, you know, things like getting the reports from departments,

KPIs, you know, how companies performing,

you know, budgeting, planning,

you know, certain individuals can be can be still part of those individual

parts and projects, but overall,

you know, st you still as a founder you need you need to have a whole picture under

s the understanding of the whole picture.

so yeah, those are the kind of the the main things that I would that I still keep

to to mys to myself and and of course you know I will have accounting and

we have I I still have a you know a CFO so you know you you discuss these things

but you don't have one person in the company

that that's what I do, meaning oversee all of it.

Gotcha. Yeah. So y we talked about you started pretty early on in

the e commerce game when nobody was really doing that and and you

ran your business through a lot of change,

a lot of development. one of the biggest maybe being Amazon coming online

and and kind of changing the world of e commerce.

what was that like? Did that present a big hiccup for your company?

Was it a good opportunity?

w what was it like coming through those big market shaking changes?

So just so that the audience understands,

so what happened was, you know,

for nine or ten years we enjoyed free organic traffic from

Google. and I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of of visitors a month.

and we never had to advertise on Google.

It was crazy. We just

You type in anything related to pressure washers,

we would come up top three. Everything was just s just coming our way.

So this is where you learn that nothing lasts forever

is that Google decided to change the algorithm and their famous penguin update that

they did literally put us from page one to page three.

And that was overnight.

No warnings, no heads up, no and it wasn't anything,

you know, later we found it wasn't anything that we did incorrectly because

we always it was always like white hat SEO,

we d we didn't want to dabble into gray areas and it just just

the mathematical algorithm started to prefer large box stores and that's still true

today.

You know, talking about you know Home Depots and Lowe's and

and marketplaces such as Amazon,

now Walmart as well. and then so th those will come come up first and then

and then interestingly enough,

it was the manufacturers. And only after that you could see e commerce businesses.

Now here and there you can still see today very large e-cars businesses come

up on page one. but that has changed significantly since then.

So you're going from a lot of traffic to nearly zero traffic,

and you need to make the decision what what is next.

And so, and of course, like like like like it it wants to happen.

My partner sold his.

f first business he wanted to retire so he says I want out

so he's like do we sell it do we sell the business together and you know

in other words the whole business or do I want him buy him out I said

I can't sell the business now my share because now we're on on downturn

and we're not gonna get no money for it

so I ended up buying him out and then I decided to pivot on Amazon

as as a recourse of of action.

again, web traffic dried up,

so you have to do something different.

I I hated it. my god, I hate I did not like going on Amazon.

Because now you're putting all your baskets there and it's someone else's website

that you're building and someone else's store.

but that just simply had to happen.

there were at the end of the day,

there were benefits to it. but we had to make a lot of changes.

We had to go from

drop shipping business becoming an inventory management business right because

now you have to stock so we had to go get a lot bigger warehouse

for with more warehouse space.

We had to now get the buy inventory from the factories,

get that in the warehouse. Now you need more warehouse staff to pick prep ship.

so the model changed.

You know, being strictly e commerce now it was it was you we have to get

the new new management software for inventory,

order management system, all that had to change and we I ended up hiring

a a consultant, an expert on Amazon,

which was a really good decision and good move that we did that,

who guided us through the whole process and and he really put all

the SOPs in place or helped us get SOPs in place for Amazon.

And we really ended up being

Becoming a seller authority on Amazon in our category.

repeatedly we we we started coming up on on page one on their search results page

inside Amazon. I'm talking about so same way we we we started getting that that

traffic. but now we were sharing the revenue with Amazon,

right? They take 15%.

but there were advantages and you know we had more buying power now.

we started we were able to get some some factories from Asia and we were getting

getting a better price than we were getting products for here in the US.

and so yeah, it was quite an evolution and and change,

a shock to the system.

I bet so. It's it sounds like you had to reinvent almost a whole new business.

a and at the same time you were retiring a partner and taking over.

were were there any moments that you were afraid that you weren't gonna make it?

Were were there any moments where you really questioned the path that

you were on and and thought maybe you'd be better off somewhere else?

A hundred percent correct. I you know when when things go bad they seem they

really wanna go bad. I remember my lease was expiring and in in in in

for the for the office warehouse space and I'm sitting I'm like in order

for this to work we need a lot more warehouse space.

I was just starting to see a little glimpse of more traffic on Amazon.

you k this it's like maybe a month,

month and a half of like we're a little uptick and now you're like trying

to look at your crystal ball and I'm like,

does that mean something? It's like is that gonna go up?

Was this just a fluke and this little bump and then it's gonna flatten out?

And I I remember telling my wife,

I said, I don't know if this is gonna work out.

I s I may have to go back to nine to five job.

And she, you know, w talking about l you know,

life partners and so so important.

I had so much support from from her over the years and this was one

of those moments when she says,

It's gonna work out. I I I trust you.

You did it one time, and then I don't know,

this it's weird thing. It gives you s it's you some some weird strength that you're

just like, you know what?

I'm gonna I'm gonna do this. And so that was that was enough for me

to get that boost and I'm like,

okay We're gonna sign that three year new three year lease with a bigger space,

a lot more money for for the space,

and you just bite the bullet. So sometimes you just don't know,

you don't have the answers. And and that's why I tell you,

sometimes when I speak to startup business owners,

you're not you're not gonna have a perfect answer.

But you try to make a decision based on the information that you have at hand.

and yes, the the risk is necessary to be taken,

and it's not gonna be smooth.

sailing. you you may buy you know something,

you know, you may see, this product is gonna sell.

I've I've failed many times. We we bring thousands of it,

we buy from from bring it from from Asia and and then it sits for a year like

my god we we bought too many like we can't sell you know so things like that happen.

You just gotta figure out how how to mitigate and not repeat those mistakes

and and and keep growing.

W were there any moments where the company maybe looked like a success from

the outside, but you were questioning it on the inside?

I think as the time progresses

Every little hiccup in owner's mind becomes like a mountain.

I don't know when when you're when the the business is younger,

you seem like more flexible, like it does things scare you less.

As the things I guess stabilize and you have certain patterns

and assurances that things are working,

even smallest bumps.

stress you out. It's crazy how this this mind plays with you.

And so, you know, I would talk to my my my CPA and he'll be like,

Yeah, you have a great thing going on,

like like

you know, w because I would cause like,

do we have a problem with this?

And you know how that and he was he was he would try to kinda calm me down that

it it it doesn't look that bad.

So you're asking a question, does it look yeah,

it looks better on the outside than on the inside,

but it's also inside your head sometimes.

It's like might not be that that necessarily bad.

so it's it's it's a it's a process that you have to work through

and and

Trust trust your staff, trust what you built.

and there's no other way o explaining it.

It's just you gotta you gotta be present in a moment that that that

what you've built is is a success and you just of course you can't be stagnant.

You can you can't just sit and sit back and say,

yeah, I'm gonna relax. This is because stagnancy means you're gonna you're gonna

sink. So you have to be always trying to come up with something something different,

something new. but yeah on the outside it looked better I think they they told

me that I I think there's something to the the more you have,

the more you have to lose. The I mean,

when you're a a twenty year old straight out of college,

you own nothing, have nothing,

and you're trying to shoot the moon on a new business,

like man, if it goes bankrupt and they come and take everything you've got,

like, okay, whatever. You know,

like it's not much. It

Yeah, it's not mu exactly. And then that's why I say,

you know, going from zero to maybe something and a little bit and then coming back

to zero doesn't doesn't doesn't affect you.

But you're right. Once you build something,

then you're you're more concerned about the livelihood.

And of course you you have employees,

you know, you you owe it to them to keep keep thing alive,

keep thing going 'cause they work for you and they they they put

you know eight hours a day in into into the success of the business

and the company and so

you you you have responsibility for them to to pay them and to help them grow with

the company and and promote them and get them bonuses and all that good stuff.

So it's it's all part of the it's all part of the game.

I I love the way you worded that and I can relate to that a little bit.

I think almost all bonus systems are usually put in place to try to build a team.

You know, it's, we all, if we win, we all win together.

And it's supposed to encourage those that work under you

to get on board, to help be part of that team

and to help build that. But as a leader...

Man, y you have a great year, you set a standard,

everybody gets a bonus, and then you feel the pressure to make that happen again

the next year. Is that is that how you felt?

The w just the wording there made me think that.

yeah, I mean our KPIs were ver very fair every time and

it c creating KPIs is is one of the hardest things by the way if if

you as a business owner try try to make it and these bonuses how to s

how do you structure them and to be fair and and still not to have these targets

to be to be too far out so that that that they get discouraged.

but once we locked it in, we just kind of kept that that system and that worked.

employees loved it. so we didn't have necessarily a need to up the game.

Obviously when when we grew everybody was benefiting,

right? So you you know as Mm-hmm. as management they they everybody knew if if we're paying this much

you know employees, that means that the business

has grown and and the business benefited in the end.

So we didn't have that much growing pains once we had the system what worked

for us and our industry. it was it was something we kept f for for a while.

Yeah, I guess I just running my own business,

I felt like, you know, we'd put these these metrics in place and

the guys would work hard, they'd earn a bonus,

and we'd have a great year. And then as the leader,

I felt like it was my responsibility to like I had to make sure that that

opportunity was very much available and on the table the next year.

You know, the the guys still have to do their part to kind of follow through,

but like

Man, a a down year, a down economy.

I've I felt personally responsible for that.

that maybe I wasn't providing the same opportunity that they had in previous years.

did you experience that at all or or did you guys just have upward growth?

we we were really fortunate that way as far as the growth.

Even the the worst years there,

you know, recession 2006, 7 and 8.

we grew. We we we n

Okay. we never in t my 20 years had where we had to recuperate losses.

We've we've we've were always profitable.

But you're you're right, as far as employees,

if they make a certain bonus this year,

it's kind of

Their plan for next the the the the their That's now the floor. Yeah, exactly. It it's

mindset is like, I'm gonna make this much this year.

So I can see what you're describing that the pressure falls on your shoulders

as the business owner, like, are we gonna have this much traffic next year?

Are we gonna get this particular Yeah. contract? You know, 'cause we had a GSA contract and which which really paid

paid dividends for us the

were one of the preferred vendors for for the government.

And so you you know you you just don't know what's gonna what's gonna come,

what kind of solicitation is gonna go now.

Are we gonna win it? Who else is gonna bid on it?

so yeah I can definitely see the the pressure of you know these people made this

much money, you know, are are we gonna be on target with that?

Are they gonna exceed that, you know,

for for their benefit. So

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's it's definitely a a pr upward pr pressure that the business

has to keep keep bringing the leads and you know,

I think your translation is to what what I said earlier

is me constantly needing to be creative and this creativity is

not just how to make the website look nicer,

but How do we get those leads, right?

How do we get more Yeah. paying customers? What channels can we distribute into so we can get these sales?

so I think that ties Yeah. with with that what you're saying is the pressure.

I in my brain I'm translating it as how do I get creativity going?

And I think we're talking about the same thing here.

Yeah, absolutely. well I know it we're we're working towards talking about your

new company. I know you're really excited about that,

but I want to learn a little bit more about your exit of Ultimate Washer.

you mentioned that when you started building the SOPs you realized that that

was kind of a a key part

of being sellable and facilitating an exit was removing the bottleneck that

is the the founder knowledge and creating SOPs that disseminate that.

you also told us your your partner was ready to exit before you were.

complete that story for us. How do you how do you go from a down economy when your

partner's ready to exit, your platform is kind of falling apart,

getting shaken up. connect the dots between that and your eventual exit.

The decision really to sell did not happen overnight.

You know, after more than twenty years I had built something meaningful,

but I also understand the the pressure,

the dependencies, the platform risks,

and amount of energy that it took to really maintain that.

then that Google experience taught me that like I mentioned,

nothing nothing lasts forever and you cannot be successful forever because you're

vulnerable. and you you're dependent on on a a platform that can switch overnight

so once we rebuilt ourselves through Amazon having because years prior,

if you would have asked me are you gonna sell the business,

what no way I'm not selling it.

Well good. But this this will last forever.

Why would I sell? This is this is a good business. Ha ha ha.

So that changed with that with that pivot,

with that loss of traffic, that pain,

that's a painful situation to go through.

And this is years. This is not like,

okay, let's just it took us two years really to perfect our systems for Amazon.

and a lot of money paid to consultants.

And so once you you you go through those growing pains,

you recognize that now you're on other platform and that's working.

But is this gonna last? And how long it's gonna last?

And that really teaches you, like maybe at some point it will be okay

to let somebody else run it. I give it my all.

I if if you ask me, like, is there anything that you would

I gave it a hundred and ten percent.

Like I gave it mile for that business.

And yeah, the opportunity came along and we I took it and

and we were at the very height of our of our business and the you know

the the opportunity came along,

like I said, we we I got an offer,

I found a broker

who helped me broker the business sale and it it happened in the

end of twenty twenty four.

congratulations. That that is an incredible story.

what did that or I guess maybe at what point did you decide that this

was something where exiting could be a a good idea,

that it was sellable and that the the sale was a worthwhile goal?

you said when your partner wanted to sell you were still not on board yet,

that that vision had not yet connected.

do you remember when it was that you decided

Okay, I'm I'm ready. I I can sell and that that is a worthwhile goal,

that that's a good end to this story.

Right. So at some point I started asking myself

whether it was the right time to protect what I had built and move

on to a next chapter. And selling was not only the the financial decision,

it was emotional. It was strategic,

it is personal. you know you you it is difficult to separate the business from your

identity and when you build something for twenty one year years.

But I also understood that timing mattered.

so It's it's selling the business gives you freedom,

but also you have to learn after that what to do with that freedom.

That's a this that's a big big part.

we can talk about that as well because that's that's something that

you know everybody who's a business owner thinks about selling.

It's you gotta prep for what comes after the sale.

You have to. Mentally for sure.

I do want to spend some time chatting about that,

but to kind of to wrap up the arc of growing Ultimate Washer,

you know, you mentioned that you did seventy five thousand in revenue your first

year, you broke a million dollars your second year.

where did you end up? What what what was the peak?

Can you give us an idea of how big you built that business?

because of my buy sell agreement I I won't be able to share that with you.

unfortunately. but it was it was v it was it was a profitable business.

I can I can say that I I wouldn't have to work a day for the rest of my life.

Well, congratulations. That's awesome.

so you mentioned the yeah,

the loss of identity that selling a business that you've put your whole life into,

put twenty years into building.

you know, what what was that like?

Did you have a plan for that coming in or did that catch you off guard?

yeah, as as far as the you talk about it after the sale.

yeah. The emotions of having put your whole life into building this thing

and now that's no longer yours.

They they you don't have to go to work tomorrow.

had you thought about that ahead of time?

Did you have a plan? Were you prepared or was that kind of a a rush

of emotions you weren't prepared for? Yeah, I I really prepared and I think the the membership in the EO organization helped

me with that because I I was hearing and I actually read a lot

of articles about entrepreneurs that have exited and

the the difficult transition that they have been going through in the mental state

Where you go from being super busy,

answering emails, answering questions,

you know, full day and then to the next day when it's just quiet.

And that's that's hard for the brain that's working tirelessly to keep things going,

and then all of a sudden you don't have anything going on and

So I've I've I've educated myself on that a lot prior.

So I really created for myself a list of things that I want

to do after after the sale and one of the things was I wanted to learn

a new language. And so I decided to learn Spanish.

I'm s Far from speaking Spanish, but I'm I'm learning,

okay? I'm getting there. Yeah.

But I I was I when I set these goals,

I told myself I'm not going to put pressure on myself that my

day needs to be full. And I even said,

if I study one lesson,

Spanish, learning Spanish.

Which is maybe like fifteen minutes,

I would still consider that day a successful day.

Like I really did not wanna go through like,

my god, but I didn't do anything.

Like, my god, like I have to be busy,

I have to, you know, I can't waste my time.

Because I I've I've done it for twenty years.

Let me give s give myself a little bit of freedom and think what I'm gonna do next.

Maybe I will do something, you know.

I'm I'm still very attached to aviation because I worked in aviation

in in Budapest in Hungary. My degrees in in aviation.

I have a passion for that. And so I said maybe I'll do something with with

aviation. Maybe I'll go back. Maybe I'll maybe I'll

Maybe I'll get a a part-time job at the airport just to be around the big birds.

I don't know. Like I really wanted this to be about me and not thinking about

am I contributing? Am I being you know,

taking another business to the next level?

No. Relax. Don't worry about it.

And that's how it was. And I think that that mental state really helped me bridge

fairly easy that that transition of being super busy to not having business

or employees or or anybody to answer to.

I I think that's great. I think our culture conflates being needed

and being busy with being successful.

And to me those are two different things.

but i it's really easy to feel that success when you're busy,

when you're needed, when there's activity and that's awesome.

It sounds like you were able to relax in that success and enjoy

it instead of lamenting the

Maybe not being as needed.

Yeah. I call it a micro retirement that I was in because I quickly after and and Ha ha ha. it it wasn't a again where I was seeking d to go back,

but it it just it's I'll I'll I'll I'll tell you the story,

but I call it a micro retirement because I was really literally six months from when

I sold the business until I started a new thing.

So six months, it's okay, you know?

Doing nothing.

man. Well, I want to learn all about your new business and your your

six month micro retirement there,

but I want to kind of close this discussion about the sale.

I know selling a business, especially one of scale,

is a process. man, they the due diligence that most buyers perform is extensive.

was there a moment in that process or a a

Point in time that you considered walking away from the sale and

not giving up that you thought maybe it wasn't worth the hassle?

Yes, I actually even walked away from a sale.

I I had a buyer. but yeah, I wish someone had told me that

how emotional and uneven the exit process can be.

You know, you one day you feel on top of the world,

you just had a call with the buyer,

everything's going, you answer all the questions,

they're happy, and then crickets.

You don't hear from nobody for two weeks.

And they're like, okay, it's done. They're not interested. That's done.

It's done. It's done. I'm you know,

forget it, forget it. so you just have to,

again, I I I keep repeating, but you have to stay the course.

you know, buyers go through through due diligence process,

they go at their own pace. you know,

some are more prepared than others.

I had one company.

that my god I was just like like an x-ray machine that I went through multiple

times. It's like th they p they patted me down and then put me again.

but you just you have to be you have to be prepared.

I really kept my books clean.

you know I hired a CPA consultant prior to the sale,

so we really cleaned up anything,

so there were no what ifs or what happened here.

There's no gray areas of of accounting,

everything was super duper clean and and straightforward.

that that helped tremendously as a matter of fact that company

that was that was putting me through through through those motions they they said

you know this is one of the best books that we've seen so that was

a a good compliment to to our accounting team that the the way they they kept

the books but yeah I had that offer that I had to walk away because that kept

postponing and postponing postponing and I just had to cut it.

I said okay I I can't you know I think it was a third or fourth time when they said

it's in three months and this is what needs to happen and you need to grow

it like almost like

It felt like they were trying to run a business without even being like I said,

no, I can't do that. so I ended up really hiring a different broker

who who was excellent and and they specialized in e commerce businesses

and he got us multiple offers and and the process was pretty pretty smooth.

That's awesome. what advice would you have for a founder that's running

a business and is looking at a sale far into the future?

what can they be doing today to make sure that that is a smooth process

and that they get that exit they're hoping for?

I mentioned keeping your bookkeeping clean.

It's very important. I've ha I have some business owners friends

and they're running r eight figure businesses and

I you know, they the the bookkeeping is is c critical.

It's if if it's messy and people can't identify what you're doing

and how you're recording your your sales or expenses and if you're including

a lot of your personal expenses into the business,

it's hard to track and it becomes a concern for some buyers,

you know, because they just don't know what what's hidden,

what's underneath.

inventory if you're an e-commerce business keep keep inventory clean clean.

you know, sell stale inventory because no buyer really wants

to buy stale inventory. You'll end up bu selling it for pennies on a dollar

or some cases they won't even take it.

and

So critical choosing the right broker.

So important. I actually created a scorecard.

That's how that's how detailed I was I created and I interviewed different brokers

and I would score based on based on the questions and the answers they were giving

us giving me. And

So I've I've hired only the ones that really really were shining on the scorecard.

so yeah, those are the things that I would that I would recommend.

Just making sure your bookkeeping is is up to date.

you know get your SOPs, you know,

that's that's that we talked about that and having written procedures,

well document everything that you do.

and that that'll that'll that'll get you a a good good s good sales price.

Well, Viktor, you you built a a massive company,

a successful company. you had a successful exit.

you mentioned that you came out of that financially independent.

You didn't have to work if you didn't want to.

And you took a a micro retirement and dove right back in six months later.

w what's the appeal? What's the drive for starting over instead

of just making that a permanent retirement and

living with your feet up on a beach somewhere.

Yes, You know, there was one thing that that came back or or followed me,

after I sold a business, and you know,

as as an e-commerce business you you have choices when you're buying something.

Let's say I wanna buy a thousand hoses,

I can go through t three different vendors and I can ask for a price.

and you get competitor price and then you decide on based on that

who you're gonna buy the product from.

And most most businesses and and most things are like that you have

a competition and however the payment processing is different

the statements are confusing pricing hard to compare and you never really know

whether you're getting the best available rate

you're just trusting that you are getting the best trade from what you're told.

And so that frustration from being a merchant through an e commerce really followed

me with with Avendo. And so the problem was not that I

That I I was not sure if I was getting the bad rate,

it's just that I didn't know if I was getting the best rate.

And so that became a second chapter of my life because I cared about really solving

this meaningful problem for business owners is how do we

get payment processors to compete on a transactional level.

You know, they compete initially when you're choosing a payment processor,

like you you'll get three quotes.

And then you s you sign an agreement with one and and then you're locked in.

And so that's what really followed me and and that problem and I I wanted

to solve it.

So it it sounds like you're diving head into a fight there.

You're you're kind of going head Ha ha ha. to head with these payment processors and putting them on notice.

Hey, y you guys are gonna have to compete.

w what was that like? I imagine it was challenging to get them to come

on board and participate in your program.

How did you go about that?

definitely challenging because it's a new concept.

you know just so that the audience understands what Avendo does,

we're basically as as a fintech as a platform,

we let credit card processors compete on a transactional level,

allowing merchants to get the best available price in real time per transaction.

And so in order for that to happen,

we as a platform we had to partner with several payment processors

and then in order for these transactions to go through to multiple processors

and then they return the rates.

And so that was one of the biggest challenges.

I would say even

developing right finding the software engineers and developers

to develop the algorithm and the back end and failover strategies

and and whatnot that didn't feel hard as as much as really getting processors

on board because it's a new concept and

It's it's it's it's foreign to them.

You know, they've they've done it the same way for for fifty years.

and as simple as you know how do you well why you you're saying that

now I'm not gonna get a hundred percent of all the transaction from

the merchant that I underwrite?

You know, how do you answer that?

You know, how how do you how do you address Yeah.

the question like that? So we w there was a l really big learning curve where

we had to really

speak well until we understood that we were speaking merchant language.

You we have to learn the credit card processor language.

Those are two different worlds,

right? So that was one one thing that made a difference.

And then the other thing was really that we had a pipeline of

the merchants who really we were not just on our wish list but they onboarded with

Avendo already so they were ready to switch because it's so appealing to a lot of

business owners the concept of having really somebody there to get them

the best rate every time. And so once we had the the pipeline and

the language when that aligned,

that's when we started getting these PSPs,

we call them payment processors on board.

And so for the the layman that's not in that world or maybe doesn't understand it,

I mean, what is the typical process?

What actually happens in that payment processing system?

What are those payment processors getting paid for?

What do they do? How do they get paid?

And then how does your platform fit on top of that to improve it?

Right. So typical process is that a merchant will normally choose

one processor who will then process all of their transactions.

Right. So the merchant will fill out the application form,

and then a processor will underwrite that merchant based on risk factors,

type of industry, what type of cards typically they process,

what's the average ticket item,

things like that.

And then they assign a rate, and that's kind of looking at a ballpark and say,

okay, this is kind of where you're gonna fit.

And so we're changing that. We're saying we're gonna have a situation where someone

the consumer enters a card number online to buy,

our system takes that card information,

sends it over to multiple payment processors,

and then the payment processors.

return the rate live based on that card information

and then our algorithm chooses the best available rate at that moment

and then routes that transaction to that one processor and then

the processor completes that that full funds transfer as they normally do

So all this is very seamless in the it's in the background,

it's hap happens in seconds and milliseconds.

So the experience for the consumer it doesn't change.

It's the same as it is with one processor or five processors.

so that's where we are and you know again the the the little

bit of a competition on a transaction level also really helps

well one merchant but also processor because now able they're able to

see the factors real time. like I mentioned earlier th they're

not taking into consideration all the risk factors from the card being provided.

So if if let's say there's a customer with a card from I don't know let's

say from France and they're they're buying they're paying a hotel room in the US

That's a different card than if you're processing a US based debit card from

a consumer here. Right? So and these are the things that c right now

in in the current system processors don't have.

We give them the ability to see these factors,

we call them signals, and they make their the available rate based

on that and therefore they're able to

compete on a transactional level as as as we prefer them to do.

And so I think you touched on it a little bit there,

but it you mentioned learning the different language.

it seems pretty obvious from the merchant side,

you know, more competition, better rates,

this is a good deal. what was that language that you learned to speak and

how do you pitch that to the payment processors in a way that they're excited about

the process?

And and I partially explained that I just didn't say that that's what it was.

this this process of them now finally being able to see

the card information ahead of the the the before the transaction really

is processed, right? So in in in in

In existing systems that they're that that that is heavily used or is most

mo used by all all of them, is you a s you you you get a rate ahead

of time and and that that basically that's your locked in rate.

Like you'll have a stripe, right?

I think theirs their rate is three point three percent.

For a card present, meaning in store,

or I think it's 3.9, and don't quote me on it,

but somewhere on there for online transactions.

And so that's the rate, and that's what you're paying.

What we're saying is okay, well,

there's an opportunity here for merchants to save if the card is more favorable,

less risk, or for you to actually charge higher it if it's a greater risk.

Right? If it's let's say somebody's buying

a five thousand dollar equipment and maybe the consumer is in Canada

but buying from from the the website in the US

Well, that's a higher risk. So it's fair for the processors now to make maybe three

base points more on that transaction because they're absorbing higher risk

in case something goes wrong. so that's the language that we had to

pr you know tweak and present it to them that they have benefits from this

platform as well.

So you're you're offering a significant benefit both to the merchant

and the processor. it it sounds like you're probably really kind

of stirring up this marketplace and creating a whole new model,

a whole new system. how has that

been received and I I guess what's the results of stirring up?

Are you seeing competitors hop on board and try to do what you're doing?

are you seeing pushback from either the merchants or the processors

or is everybody kind of excited and charging forward?

it's from the from the processor side it's it's mixed.

some are simply not ready. some don't have the tool because what we require them

is to build a response tool to us,

right? When we send the information over,

we need them to be able to receive that information and then reply with the price.

So some are just not technically ready,

maybe they have other priorities at the moment.

other integrations so we've put postponed some of those we'll revisit them

at a later time as far as the the merchant side nothing but good really people

people welcome this and and I I think I sort of

sh selfishly knew about that because I've been around business owners

for many many years and whenever you speak credit cards everybody's like

no yeah I'm paying four percent yeah I'm paying this much I it's

I'm paying too much it's it's too much right so they understand competition because

in in any really whether you're retail or e commerce there's compet competition

everywhere and the payment industry was the only one that kinda is like kind

of was hidden and this is what what they're really excited about and yeah it's it's

it's a much much easier pitch for the mer for the merchant.

You just say it's it's you know here we have competition on

a transactional level basis and and we're independent because we don't we're we're

not you know we sit between the merchant and processors.

We're not a referral partner because you you have an industry what's called an ISO

and and agents and referral agents where they take a percentage and

in some cases it could be as high as one percent for every transaction that these

resellers. These the people when you if you if you're let's say in a a

a coffee shop and you have these agents coming into your hey can I talk

to the owner? Hey you know can I review your your credit card statement

I can save you this but this is this this is the agent we're talking about.

So

The they can add up these these,

you know, because you there's many layers.

You have I didn't won't get too technical,

but here we go. You have you know referral partners,

agents, ISOs, you have payment processor,

you have issuing bank, you have a acquiring bank,

you have network like Visa and Master Guys,

so all of these in this chain,

they all make a little bit of a percentage on the transaction.

There's a lot of parties involved.

And so we s when we come in, we don't

have these agents referrals like we're cutting out pretty much three layers

and that's why we're able to save so much on top of processors really competing

on on on their rates. and that's why merchants really in in enjoy what what they're

getting from us.

It sounds like you're providing value all the way around,

except for maybe those resale agents.

Capitalism was built on competition, I always say,

you know, so new products come out and and we're not here to kill the jobs,

you know. and we're just im you know innovating something,

introducing something new to the market.

you know merchants will definitely benefit.

But yeah, we can go into more details on what what other benefits they have,

but it's it's been it's been quite quite a journey so far.

Good stuff. Yeah, I agree. competition capitalism,

it produces the best innovation,

the best products and at the best prices.

i man, everybody thrives under good competition.

So I'm in favor. I'm a fan. I o I always said that, you know, healthy competition is good.

E even w Yes. when when when we had you know as e-commerce and we were at the peak

and we're getting like you would think like,

no no. No, they keep keep you on the tip of your toes.

Competition is healthy competition is good.

It's needed because Yeah. If if if if there wasn't, we would be stagnant.

In my previous business we would be like,

okay, we're just cruising. No,

you need that. It needs you need you need a little bit of that fire.

So ha nothing wrong with that.

Good stuff. are there any lessons that you learned builting building Ultimate Washer

that have transferred cleanly to Avendo?

Anything that it it's just a solid business lesson that's the same

no matter what business you're in.

Yes. Planning and designing ahead of time.

You know, we in my my Ultimate Washer business it

was more reactive to the situation.

If we needed a a CRM tool,

okay, let's get that. okay, we need to we want to build this on a on

a back end that's gonna provide such and such service to the customers.

Okay, let's do that.

You learn that these tools need to be able to communicate.

You need to be able to tap into their databases.

And I'll tell you an example how bad it got for Ultimate Washer because

we were trying to build new things,

be creative. We ended up with seven different product databases

at some point.

And that is super non-sustainable.

I'll give you an example. If once a year we would get price updates from

our vendors, like January, February,

they send you catalogs, and here's the new prices.

So our price pe you know,

person that that does price updates,

they would now have to go into seven different databases to change this.

And then if we needed to change,

so we change the cost, we change our selling price.

All over again. That's not sustainable.

So now I'm I'm building Avendo by design.

Like I understand now if if we're getting this tool for cold emails,

right? And I want to get cold email lists from this,

you know, can I have an API integration whether it's with so I don't have

to do it manually? Or if I'm

you know, doing a different marketing approach.

I don't know, partnerships, partnership programs.

So instead of being reactive to the situation,

try to be proactive and do things ahead of time.

that that's my biggest probably one top three lessons that I've learned.

that's a great lesson. It sounds like a smart way to go about it.

how do you balance that with getting overbuilt?

putting too much capital behind things that you don't need too early.

I mean, you'll make mistakes. even now with with Avendo,

we thought that one certain marketing campaign will work.

And it didn't. we we had to well partially adjust.

I'm I'm not gonna name the the software because I'm not trying

to advertise anybody, but we we had we had to make changes because

it didn't it didn't deliver what we were hoping that it will.

but then that's also catch 22.

You know, that's one thing that I've learned from my former business partner is

you do have to spend something in order to try things out.

I was very you know I was raised with first you make money and then

you spend the money. And sometimes you just have to spend a little bit,

you know, may may maybe you'll take a a loan,

you know, SBA loan or maybe you'll you'll borrow from friends or or family.

I know it's a risk. but

You can't do it by yourself. You you y there's a tremendous amount of

of tools and apps out there. it's a jungle,

so you can end up spaying and wasting the money.

So just doing your due diligence with with researching and thank god for AI.

My goodness, right? how much Yeah.

how much AI can help? It's unbelievable and and it it really helped us

as well with this process of just choosing choosing the tools and making sure that

they can communicate. so doing the due diligence research,

what's gonna fit and think long term,

right? I've I've always you know whenever whenever we have these meetings

and we're we're adding something new,

I say guys. Think about scalability. We want to use it today,

but we want to make sure this can be used in three years.

Now I know things can change, and we're not saying that we're gonna religiously

stick to it even if it's bad. But if we need it,

can we scale it? For instance,

You know, we want to be able to expand into European market.

Can this, what we're building,

scale us to that? We don't have to have a separate database.

Right? So these are the things you gotta,

it's it's hard because you're small,

like, you're just worried about this and this is all I need.

Try to force yourself outside that box and say,

you know, if I wanna go into a different region,

can I do that with the tools I'm I'm I'm having right now?

that's good. are there any lessons that you learned building Ultimate Washer that

have proved false now in Avendo?

ways that the the the systems,

the markets have changed, that business has changed,

or maybe things that were just specific to one business that don't translate over

to the other?

Absolutely. I I think f every a business category requires its own set of tools.

Yeah I don't think you can grab something from e-commerce like in my case

and say I'm gonna use and we loved our tools,

you know, before I sold the business that we had in place.

They were excellent. They were were working phenomenally for us.

but they wouldn't work for what we need for the fintech business.

It it's just a different you need different strategy,

you need different things. I was doing a lot less marketing there because

I was present on on on Amazon and Walmart,

so a lot less marketing versus the the s the SaaS business.

it's like we I think we're like ten different channels that we're doing.

So there are things that

that I'm learning in now, you know,

that I didn't know before. Only because you know,

we were exposed to different different market.

so

Knowledge can transfer, experience is is super useful,

let me tell you. the way I approach problems,

the way you know something it doesn't go your way.

I'm I'm a lot calmer than I was when I was starting Ultimate Washer.

You know, I would I would catch myself like,

you overbuilt me for ten dollars.

Right? 'Cause everything is important.

You handle every single thing.

and you learn that you know, there's other priorities.

Yeah, i maybe you alluded to it a little bit there,

but when you were starting Ultimate Washer,

what was what was the goal? What was the dream?

How did how would you define success and how has that changed now building Avendo?

I think as far as building Ultimate Washer it was really just I I I don't think

we had anything in mind as far as w the size that we wanted to become.

And for your for first business,

I think that's a that's a difficult thing unless you really know that market.

Let's say if you were you know,

employed in a certain industry and you know the size and and then you come

up with a product or a service,

you could do that. But because it was so early and it was so un un uncharted,

it was difficult to plan, you know,

what what the limits are. for for Avendo,

it's different. You know, you have obviously a lot more information today than

we had access to before. And just by the virtual looking at the market sizes

and and the what's out there, you you're able to gauge your your potential success.

nothing's guaranteed you still have to earn it and and and on other s on

an on on the other side because this industry is so much bigger you actually have

to do something different you have to focus on a certain segment

and not overwhelm yourself with everything right so that's why we decided

to to go with just card not present

of businesses in this initial phase and not focus on card present because there's

so many different POS systems and softwares that we would have to figure

out how to integrate, hardware that you have to supply to stores.

So you know we almost sort of had to shrink back without thinking where

do we want to specialize in and not to be all over the place and then lose

the the the focal point.

Gotcha. Is there a strong opinion or viewpoint that you once held

and you've changed because of your experience building now two businesses?

I th I think it's okay to go out and try

and spend the money in order to try that.

I was I was too rigid. and and who knows,

maybe it's upbringing, maybe it's coming from from the socialism where you're you're

just

You're just holding back. I was holding back too much.

I should have invested more into systems and and a lot more into people.

And that definitely ch has changed.

I've I've I've I've outgrown out of that and and you you gotta surround yourself

with with you know as bright individuals as you can.

So so that they all we all contribute to towards the same goal.

You gotta g you gotta give them the authority,

you gotta give them power. but that that's the key.

I think I was holding I was holding too much back for too long.

I I I if I could do something different,

I would have done that differently.

I if you could go back to graduating from college,

getting your degree, and do it all over again,

would you choose the same path again or would you do something differently?

I like my degree. You know, I I I had teachers in in college and

I was super inspired and because they were teaching not only the the subject

But they were doing a lot of experience sharing and I I've I've on

and I've learned that that's the most the best way for me to grow.

I I've I learning from others people's experiences

is tremendous and for s somehow I am able to compartmentalize these things.

So this EO organization which is exclusively built on experience share really worked

for me. You know with this it's an organization that where you're you're

not you're not you're not supposed to promote your business.

it's actually forbidden. But it's really about learning from your peers

and and go you know when you see w what they go through and you go through like yeah

we're going through the same things.

you know, that experience share is really what helped me grow

so much personally and is as a as a as a family man and then in a business.

but I I probably would not change.

I I was happy like I I like I told you earlier,

I said I if I didn't have anything else I'd probably go back into aviation.

I love aviation.

There's something something about this.

You go to the to the apron area and then then you just jet fuel burning

and just there's something about that.

It's just like

I love it. I love the passion there.

That's awesome. well it you kind of have a knack for diving right into

my my next question with your previous answer,

but is there a resource, a mentor,

a book, a a organization that has contributed most strongly to your growth

as a leader? w what has been the

biggest piece to developing as a successful leader.

I I would say in my early days my business partner

Paul, you know, some some of the things that that he thought me,

you know, he's just just simple stuff.

And small small sales lead to big sales.

You know, don't don't disregard a customer that's buying a $1 nozzle just because

he's buying a $1 nozzle. You know,

you gotta give him the same attention just as somebody buying

a thousand dollar item.

that was one of the things that that he used to used to say.

And you know th things like that,

it just always be always tell the truth.

Like to if you're speaking to a customer and we messed up

You know, apologize, say this is what happened?

We dropped the ball or s we lost we lost the order,

let us reship it. We'll send it to your next day air.

people appreciate that. You know,

if you're trying to smudge it and it's well it was the shipping company

and maybe it was the postal service and no need for that.

Just just say how it is, fix it,

move on.

so I think those types of little business sort of nuggets help me grow.

and I feel in the in really the r the right way,

the right path.

So if we have a listener that wants to take advantage of your services with

Avendo, wants to get connected with you,

what's the best way for them to do that?

So for Avendo, you can find us on Avendo.tech,

so A-V-E-N-D-O.T-E-C-H.

if you wanna if they want to reach out to me,

LinkedIn is the best place. I'm an open book.

You'll find me there. If you have questions,

comments, need help with anything,

let me know. I check my LinkedIn daily,

sometimes a few times a day.

I do have one thing I just want to say we are currently looking for partners.

Avendo is as far as the referral partnership,

we're looking for three groups.

Fractional CFOs, accounting firms,

and then business consultants.

Why? Because they sit the closest to businesses when it comes to their revenue

and net margins. They understand what the credit card fees mean to

the business and savings, even just half a percent or one percent

on credit card fees can be tremendously beneficial to merchants.

So if you're one of those, I would like to partner with you on

our referral type program.

you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or there's a page vendor.tech slash deals.

You can check it out there and let's partner.

Awesome. Well, I will get all of those links and all of that information

in the show notes so listeners can check that out there.

if you guys are listening to this episode and have enjoyed any part of it,

make sure you share it with a friend that might benefit as well.

and so lastly, before we wrap up,

Viktor,

Is there somebody you know or s know of that you'd like to see on this show?

Somebody that has a unique business,

a unique story that you'd like to learn more about?

That I would like to learn more about.

Yeah, yeah.

I was gonna suggest my business former business partner 'cause he's he's just

a brilliant mind, but I know about him.

I was I was ho I was hoping that you would like to maybe share his story

and and th the you know. Well, th that would be great as well. I'd love it if you could put me in contact with him. Yeah. we're always looking for people with a great story,

but Yeah, Paul Holstein i is the name,

but yeah, absolutely. If if you're interested I can I can get you in contact.

Okay. Yeah, that'd be great. Is that is there anybody else that you'd

be interested in or or that you know that you could recommend?

Let me think about that. Can I get back to you on that? Okay. All right. I'll connect with you offline here a little bit later.

But Viktor, this has been a pleasure for me.

man, you just have such a great story to you know,

growing up under or in Yugoslavia and under communist rule,

immigrating twice, starting new companies twice.

man, what a success story, the the risks you've taken,

the work that you've put in.

it's just very inspirational. I really appreciate you taking the time

to join us today and share with myself and my listeners.

So thank you. Thank you and congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah, it's been it's been a pleasure.

you your your questions were on point and thank you for letting

me share the story.

Thank you for joining us here on From the Ground Up Show.

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