IAM2398 – Founder Helps Companies with AI-Driven Solutions for Marketing and Operations
Podcast Interview with Volodymyr Panchenko
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko is a seasoned entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in the gaming industry and artificial intelligence.
He's the founder and CEO of Portal.ai, an AI-driven platform designed to act as a COO and CMO for businesses, transforming how companies approach marketing and operations.
Vlad founded DMarket, a platform for trading in-game items, which was acquired by Mythical Games in 2023.
Vlad highlights the significance of managing mental health and building a solid, supportive partnership.
He discusses the importance of surrounding oneself with smart, supportive people and investing in good partnerships.
Website: Portal AI
LinkedIn: Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
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Transcription:
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Volodymyr Panchenko Teaser 00:00
If you want to create the creative, you will go and try the Chat GPT, then the prompt for Suno to generate music, then the prompt for runway to animate photos.
Then like, that's a lot of work. Under the hood, we stitch it all together seamlessly for you, seamlessly.
And there is an orchestrator, and every time he's choosing, because we connect like 20 different best AIs for photo, video, text, animation, voiceover, everything. We under the hood stitch it for you to generate content.
Intro 00:30
Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?
If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
Gresham Harkless 00:57
Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have an awesome guest on the show today. I have Volodymyr Panchenko. Volodymyr, excited to have you on the show.
Volodymyr Panchenko 01:06
Thank you very much for the invitation and a pleasure to be here to converse and I hope to share some interesting ideas with you and the audience.
Gresham Harkless 01:16
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you for taking some time out to be on the show. You're doing so many awesome things.
And of course, before we jumped into having that great conversation, I want to read a little bit more about Vlad Volodymyr so you can hear about some of those awesome things.
And Vlad is a seasoned entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in the gaming industry and artificial intelligence.
He's the founder and CEO of Portal.ai, an AI-driven platform designed to act as a COO and CMO for businesses, transforming how companies approach marketing and operations.
In 2023, one of his ventures, DMarket, was acquired by Mythical Games. The following year, Vlad launched Portal.ai, bringing together top talent from Silicon Valley to explore new applications of AI in business.
Before Russia's evasion of Ukraine, Vlad proactively relocated over 100 employees and their families from Ukraine to Montenegro, prioritizing their safety and well-being.
And this forward-thinking decision reflects his commitment to both his team and his values. With a focus on practical innovation and responsible leadership, Vlad continues to drive change in the AI landscape.
So one of the really cool things I heard before we started to record for this when I was doing my homework is his current mission is to chart the course for the in-game items industry with a keen focus on meeting the expansive needs of the global community.
And his entrepreneurial veins go really far back. I think I read that it was the age of 16 or so when you started your first business and in 23, so you had already had some successful ventures.
So Vlad, I wanna hear all about all the things, your story, what led you to get started? Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
Volodymyr Panchenko 02:49
I'm totally ready. My first ventures were in high school, even in middle school, but anyways, high school and from like collectible like cards and stickers and trading that.
[restrict paid=”true”]
And it ended up, well, I built the whole guild and Ultima Online, where I was actually like, it's always, it was always about a curiosity, something I liked to do, but I always needed money.
So, and so in a way, it was always combining into something I was able to envision, put together and make it work.
So and it started, I still remember that Ultima Online Guild where we've been, It's weird, but getting a lot of raw materials, then putting them together, reselling on different markets.
Volodymyr Panchenko 03:38
And I actually remembered the whole story like 2 weeks ago and I was like, what, why? But it's so much connected now to whatever we're doing.
And to double down on what you've said, probably, actually 100%, that entrepreneurial stuff was in my veins from the very beginning. And you can relate, I'm telling you.
Gresham Harkless 04:01
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We were speaking the same language for sure. So I would love to drill down a little bit more.
I would love to hear more about what led you to start Portal.ai. I would love to hear about DMarket.
What kind of led you and how did those seeds get planted so that you eventually built Portal.ai?
Volodymyr Panchenko 04:17
I'm a geek, as you could probably imagine. So I've been reading sci-fi books since I was, I don't know, 10.
This is how I lost my vision, had to do some LASIK because I was reading with the, with the flashlight.
Yeah. Well, under the blanket when mom was putting me to bed, but I love it. So that was a moving force.
And I love the new technologies. I always was trying everything new and trying to imagine what is going to happen actually.
So, and every time, whatever I've built in the last venture, so it was always a new technology and I was like amazed.
Like the first business, like there was a new tech where before you had to go to the game stop and buy the game in the DVD box, Blu-ray.
They put together a service where you just have a scratch code, and then you download it and play it.
Digital delivery. Well, it was interesting. I wrapped and did the whole business around it with the official contracts, with Electronic Arts, Activision, Blizzard, Quadmasters.
I still remember a lot of stories over there where I didn't know nothing about how to run a business.
So I just was just doing it. So there were a couple of times when everything was blocked, banned, money frozen and it was not all of my money.
But I still remember the conversation with the bank where they wanted to block the account and freeze the money.
And they've been saying like, at least show us the pictures of the warehouses with the video games.
And I'm like, there are no warehouses. They send me an Excel spreadsheet. And he's like, we're not gonna accept that.
So I just had to put together a warehouse and print the labels and just make photos. Oh, now we will approve.
Okay, well, I knew that I'm 100% legit, but whatever they needed, I provided. And then the next thing was also built around the new tech where they allowed us to actually gift each other our in-game items.
So now it's not just me, I bought the new very fancy like eSports gloves. I can give mine to you. Oh shit.
So now it's instantly like comparable value. It's an item. So what should we do or what we can do around it?
Was a tough choice because immediately in 12 months, the gambling industry was built around it like worth like almost 9,000,000,000 dollars in a year.
But I love video games I like gamers I didn't want to do it this way so we invented this idea where we put together an algorithm under the hood to predict prices.
And we'll be buying items from you for our own money and then resell it on marketplaces in like 6 months.
It worked much better as a business, much better than a product. I have a friend who is now a co-founder in CTO.
We know each other for like 10 years. It's an interesting coincidence, but before we started Portal, 5 years of his life, he was actually building and shipping AI products in all the big tech, like Amazon and Google.
And now part of what portal AI, which we're building is actually like much, much, much multiplied something, which he was already investigating and building like 5 years ago at Google.
Yeah. New technology. I've been thinking, okay, what, how can we put it together in the product and then to give as much value as possible to as much people as possible?
It's fun along the way. Yes, AI overload. And I know very well what was one of the significant reasons of the price of sale of the market, a very good price, is that it was built to the point of operational almost excellence.
But it took a lot of time and a lot of very, very, well, people was like London School of Economics and NCI degrees, let's put it this way, and they were not like cheap, to turn a fancy startup into an operational company.
We started trying and trying and trying and we actually got to a magical result. I don't know, again, I'm not sure everyone on this, who will be hearing it will be happy about me saying it this way, but even I myself, like we build it.
When I see the results, I can't believe. So now when we talk to the new design partners, we onboard or to venture capitalists, I stopped pitching.
So I start with the demo, like a live demo. They just click me up because whatever happens in 2 minutes, yesterday.
So what we do is a seamless product to sales cycle for entrepreneurs. Because what the customers see is that you can make one photo of your product.
And it started with requiring a physical product to make a photo. Well, we didn't have it. So We just made a photo from a website we opened on the laptop.
It still worked and brought like 15K in the first week. But you make a photo of a product. Now we can do even if it's an app.
So we don't care anymore. We don't need the physical. It could be an app. It could be where now work was, for example, the biggest barber shop network in LA.
And what we do is end to end content creation, iteration. Then when you approve, that's the moment when you can uncheck some of the videos, you don't like the music or you don't like the caption after you.
Well, after the first try, I haven't seen anyone disapproving something, but it's like, we give this freedom because it's your product and your brand.
You can disapprove something. Then you click go. What we do, we start a marketing campaign. We post a video and then under the hood, every 12 hours, we iterate.
So we see what works, we disable what doesn't, we recreate the content with the best pieces of it for the best audience.
And in 36 hours, we'll… And there is a very smart algorithm put together by Hamoudi, where we usually start with 48 videos for one SKU, which will end up usually with around 8 videos in 36 hours.
But we've reached things like 8x rows or $1.16 for the conversion to like $300 basket automatically.
So never before it was possible at all because technologically it wasn't. Because under the hood, what happens, and it's patented, so we have 4 patents fully approved and 3 still pending, it's the AI orchestration system.
So I don't know whether it's interesting, like stop me at some point if it's too much of the details, but I think, because I've been through that pain myself.
Because if you want to create that creative, you will go and try the ChatGPT, then the prompt for Suno to generate music, then the prompt for Runway to animate photos.
Then like, that's a lot of work. Under the hood, we stitch it all together seamlessly for you. Seamlessly.
And there is an orchestrator and every time he's choosing, because we connect like 20 different best AIs for photo, video, text, animation, voiceover, everything.
We under the hood stitch it for you to generate content. And every day we check what's better because, oh, Suno was released. We connect that and then we switch to Suno.
Then there was something new, how much you connected yesterday, we completely agnostic. But for you as a customer, you're getting the best possible product on the market.
And to end, doing nothing, we stitch it under the hood. And also under the hood, we brought together a lot of, and we're putting more and more every day, methodologists, like the best like P&G style, like what specific.
And you don't even know, we'll just do it for you so that the rose is just growing, you don't know why.
But we will check which products are driving the secondary purchase and we will put more money there.
We will check which products we can put together in this as a bundle. We will put it.
Gresham Harkless 12:03
Absolutely. I appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack.
So this could be like an app, a book, or even a habit that you have, but what's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient.
Volodymyr Panchenko 12:16
The moment when I started to exercise and like say manage not just my physical health but mental, like do meditation, like after the gym I usually go to Infrared Zone and do the ice baths I have here.
ROI, well, it's unbelievable. Like 4 minutes, 3 times a week in an ice bath. I'm a completely different person.
Meditating once a day for like 10 minutes, it's… so, I'd wish I started doing that earlier. That's 1. 2, I'd say that a good partner defines a lot.
What I've seen like within friends and within people who work with, like partner, wife, husband, whatever is up to you, but that's the person you spend most time with that shapes who you are a lot.
That's 2 and 3, nothing can beat dinner with smart people.
Gresham Harkless 13:25
Yeah. So what would you consider to be a little bit more of what I like to call a CEO nugget? So this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice.
I like to say, if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self this, or your potentially your favorite client.
Volodymyr Panchenko 13:38
Mental health, I know some people have been telling that to me for years, and I was like, ah, come on, no.
It's like, those like 20 minutes a day will give you so much more energy. Good luck finding some other places. Good luck.
So it's up to you how you use that. I've started just out of curiosity. Every time when I'm not happy with something happening, I just hit the pass, was that like feeling?
And I'm like, okay, I agree. I'm not happy. Let's just put it on the, to the, like, to the left just for a second.
And thing, if there was a reason, what would it be? Jesus, every time when I manage to ask myself this question, very fast I will find it.
And it's like, it was a game a year ago. It's like, I'm trying to make it a habit now, so.
Gresham Harkless 14:23
Yeah, so I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO.
And our goals are to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Vlad, what does being a CEO mean to you?
Volodymyr Panchenko 14:36
Well, there is a, the answer, which, they put in the books and like in the podcast, like being a CEO, that's, you have to, your job is fundraising, bringing talents and vision. So there's 3 things.
So there, this is what you do, but this is the, by the book definition, the reality is that it's 50-50 managing yourself and managing people you work with. Like if you succeed with those 2, everything else will come along. I think so for now.
Gresham Harkless 15:12
Vlad, truly appreciate that definition. And of course I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know.
And of course, how best people could get a hold of you, find out about everything your team is working on, and if you have any demo or anything, any, all the things.
We want to know how we can find out about all the things you're working on?
Volodymyr Panchenko 15:31
Even now, right today, and it's changing and evolving to the better every day, but you can apply on the website portal.ai and we will just manually approve.
We are moving forward now with the businesses who have just a little bit of attraction right now.
So if you already have, for example, like Shopify and Meta account, and you like at least had a 100k turnover in the last year, we will be happy to put our product to work.
So for those who are still like maybe a little bit cautious, just put the tool. For now, it's all about us.
And then AI will amplify and just actually let us do what we want. So that I can promise.
Gresham Harkless 16:10
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I truly appreciate that Vlad. Of course, to make it even easier, we're going to have the links and information in the show notes.
So that everybody can follow up with you and the team, find out about all the awesome things and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Volodymyr Panchenko 16:20
It was amazing. Thank you for the invitation. A pleasure to talk to you.
Outro 16:24
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNation.co.
Also, check out our I AM CEO Facebook group. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
00:00 - 00:29
If you want to create the creative, you will go and try the chat DBT, then the prompt for Suna to generate music, then the prompt for runway to animate photos. Then like, that's a lot of work. Under the hood, we stitch it all together seamlessly for you, seamlessly. And there is an orchestrator, and every time he's choosing, because we connect like 20 different best AIs for photo, video, text, animation, voiceover, everything. We under the hood stitch it for you to generate content.
Intro
00:30 - 00:57
Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.
Gresham Harkless
00:57 - 01:06
Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast and I have an awesome guest on the show today. I have Vladimir Panchenko. Vladimir, excited to have you on the show.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
01:06 - 01:15
Thank you very much for the invitation and a pleasure to be here to converse and I hope to share some interesting ideas with you and the audience.
Gresham Harkless
01:16 - 01:50
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you for taking some time out to be on the show. You're doing so many awesome things. And of course, before we jumped into having that great conversation, I want to read a little bit more about Vlad Vladimir so you can hear about some of those awesome things. And Vlad is a seasoned entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in the gaming industry and artificial intelligence. He's the founder and CEO of Portal.ai, an AI-driven platform designed to act as a COO and CMO for businesses, transforming how companies approach marketing and operations. In 2023, 1 of his ventures, Dmarket, was acquired by Mythical Games.
Gresham Harkless
01:50 - 02:31
The following year, Vlad launched Portal.ai, bringing together top talent from Silicon Valley to explore new applications of AI in business. Before Russia's evasion of Ukraine, Vlad proactively relocated over 100 employees and their families from Ukraine to Montenegro, prioritizing their safety and well-being. And this forward-thinking decision reflects his commitment to both his team and his values. With a focus on practical innovation and responsible leadership, Vlad continues to drive change in the AI landscape. So 1 of the really cool things I heard before we started to record for this when I was doing my homework is his current mission is to chart the course for the in-game items industry with a keen focus on meeting the expansive needs of the global community.
Gresham Harkless
02:32 - 02:49
And his entrepreneurial veins go really far back. I think I read that it was the age of 16 or so when you started your first business and in 23, so you had already had some successful ventures. So Vlad, I wanna hear all about all the things, your story, what led you to get started? Are you ready to speak to the IMCL community?
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
02:49 - 03:38
I'm totally ready. My first ventures were in high school, even in middle school, but anyways, high school and from like collectible like cards and stickers and trading that. And it ended up, well, I built the whole guild and Ultima Online, where I was actually like, it's always, it was always about a curiosity, something I liked to do, but I always needed money. So, and so in a way, it was always combining into something I was able to envision, put together and make it work. So and it started, I still remember that Ultima Online Guild where we've been, It's weird, but getting a lot of raw materials, then putting them together, reselling on different markets.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
03:38 - 04:00
And I actually remembered the whole story like 2 weeks ago and I was like, what, why? But it's so much connected now to whatever we're doing. And to double down on what you've said, probably, actually 100%, that entrepreneurial stuff was in my veins from the very beginning. And you can relate, I'm telling you.
Gresham Harkless
04:01 - 04:16
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We were speaking the same language for sure. So I would love to drill down a little bit more. I would love to hear more about what led you to start portal.ai. I would love to hear about dmarket. What kind of led you and how did those seeds get planted so that you eventually built portal.ai?
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
04:17 - 05:04
I'm a geek, as you could probably imagine. So I've been reading sci-fi books since I was, I don't know, 10. This is how I lost my vision, had to do some LASIK because I was reading with the, with the flashlight. Yeah. Well, under the blanket when mom was putting me to bed, but I love it. So that was a moving force. And I love the new technologies. I always was trying everything new and trying to imagine what is, what is going to happen actually. So, and every time, whatever I've built in the last venture, so it was always a new technology and I was like amazed, like the first business, like there was a new tech where Before you had to go to the GameStop and buy the game in the DVD box, Blu-ray.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
05:05 - 05:43
They put together a service where you just have a scratch code, and then you download it and play it. Digital delivery. Well, it was interesting. I wrapped and did the whole business around it with the official contracts, with Electronic Arts, Activision, Blizzard, Quadmasters. I still remember a lot of stories over there where I didn't know nothing about how to run a business. So I just was just doing it. So there were a couple of times when everything was blocked, banned, money frozen and it was not all of my money. But I still remember the conversation with the bank where they wanted to block the account and freeze the money.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
05:43 - 06:19
And they've been saying like, at least show us the pictures of the warehouses with the video games. And I'm like, there are no warehouses. They send me an Excel spreadsheet. And he's like, we're not gonna accept that. So I just had to put together a warehouse and print the labels and just make photos. Oh, now we will approve. Okay, well, I knew that I'm 100% legit, but whatever they needed, I provided. And then the next thing was also built around the new tech where they allowed us to actually Gift each other our in-game items. So now it's not just me, I bought the new very fancy like eSports gloves.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
06:19 - 06:55
I can give mine to you. Oh shit. So now it's instantly like comparable value. It's an item. So what should we do or what we can do around it? Was a tough choice because immediately in 12 months, the gambling industry was built around it like worth like almost 9000000000 dollars in a year. But I love video games I like gamers I didn't want to do it this way so we invented This idea where we put together an algorithm under the hood to predict prices and we'll be buying items from you for our own money and then resell it on marketplaces in like 6 months.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
06:56 - 07:35
It worked much better as a business, much better than a product. I have a friend who is now a co-founder in CTO. We know each other for like 10 years. It's an interesting coincidence, but before we started Portal, 5 years of his life, he was actually building and shipping AI products in all the big tech, like Amazon and Google. And now part of what portal AI, which we're building is actually like much, much, much multiplied something, which he was already investigating and building like 5 years ago at Google. Yeah. New technology. I've been thinking, okay, what, how can we put it together in the product and then to give as much value as possible to as much people as possible?
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
07:36 - 08:14
It's fun along the way. Yes, AI overload. And I know very well what was 1 of the significant reasons of the price of sale of the market, a very good price, is that it was built to the point of operational almost excellence. But it took a lot of time and a lot of very, very, well, people was like London School of Economics and NCI degrees, let's put it this way, and they were not like cheap, to turn a fancy startup into an operational company. We started trying and trying and trying and we actually got to a magical result.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
08:15 - 08:53
I don't know, again, I'm not sure everyone on this, who will be hearing it will be happy about me saying it this way, but even I myself, like we build it. When I see the results, I can't believe. So now when we talk to the new design partners, we onboard or to venture capitalists, I stopped pitching. So I start with the demo, like a live demo. They just click me up because whatever happens in 2 minutes, yesterday. So what we do is a seamless product to sales cycle for entrepreneurs. Because what the customers see is that you can make 1 photo of your product.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
08:54 - 09:25
And it started with requiring a physical product to make a photo. Well, we didn't have it. So We just made a photo from a website we opened on the laptop. It still worked and brought like 15K in the first week. But you make a photo of a product. Now we can do even if it's an app. So we don't care anymore. We don't need the physical. It could be an app. It could be where now work was, For example, the biggest barber shop network in LA. And what we do is end to end content creation, iteration.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
09:25 - 09:58
Then when you approve, that's the moment when you can uncheck some of the videos, you don't like the music or you don't like the caption after you. Well, after the first try, I haven't seen anyone disapproving something, but it's like, we give this freedom because it's your product and your brand. You can disapprove something. Then you click go. What we do, we start a marketing campaign. We post a video and then under the hood, every 12 hours, we iterate. So we see what works, we disable what doesn't, we recreate the content with the best pieces of it for the best audience.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
09:58 - 10:50
And in 36 hours, we'll... And there is a very smart algorithm put together by Hamoudi, where we usually start with 48 videos for 1 SKU, which will end up usually with around 8 videos in 36 hours. But we've reached things like 8x rows or $1.16 for the conversion to like $300 basket automatically. So never before it was possible at all because technologically it wasn't. Because under the hood, what happens, and it's patented, so we have 4 patents fully approved and 3 still pending, it's the AI orchestration system. So I don't know whether it's interesting, like stop me at some point if it's too much of the details, but I think, because I've been through that pain myself.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
10:50 - 11:27
Because if you want to create that creative, you will go and try the chat DBT, then the prompt for Suna to generate music, then the prompt for Runway to animate photos. Then like, that's a lot of work. Under the hood, we stitch it all together seamlessly for you. Seamlessly. And there is an orchestrator and every time he's choosing, because we connect like 20 different best AIs for photo, video, text, animation, voiceover, everything. We under the hood stitch it for you to generate content. And every day we check what's better because, oh, Suno was released. We connect that and then we switch to Suno.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
11:27 - 12:00
Then there was something new, how much you connected yesterday, we completely agnostic. But for you as a customer, you're getting the best possible product on the market. And to end, doing nothing, we stitch it under the hood. And also under the hood, we brought together a lot of, and we're putting more and more every day, methodologists, like the best like P&G style, like what specific, and you don't even know, we'll just do it for you so that the rose is just growing, you don't know why. But we will check which products are driving the secondary purchase and we will put more money there.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
12:00 - 12:03
We will check which products we can put together in this as a bundle. We will put
Gresham Harkless
12:03 - 12:16
it. Absolutely. I appreciate that. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or even a habit that you have, but what's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
12:16 - 13:19
The moment when I started to exercise and like say manage not just my physical health but mental, like do meditation, like after the gym I usually go to Infrared Zone and do the ice baths I have here. ROI, well, it's unbelievable. Like 4 minutes, 3 times a week in an ice bath. I'm a completely different person. Meditating once a day for like 10 minutes, it's... So, I'd wish I started doing that earlier. That's 1. 2, I'd say that a good partner defines a lot. What I've seen like within friends and within people who work with, like partner, wife, husband, whatever is up to you, but that's the person you spend most time with that shapes who you are a lot.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
13:19 - 13:25
That's 2 and 3, Nothing can beat dinner with smart people.
Gresham Harkless
13:25 - 13:38
Yeah. So what would you consider to be a little bit more of what I like to call a CEO nugget? So this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say, if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self this, or your potentially your favorite client.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
13:38 - 14:09
Mental health, I know some people have been telling that to me for years, and I was like, ah, come on, no. It's like, those like 20 minutes a day will give you so much more energy. Good luck finding some other places. Good luck. So it's up to you how you use that. I've started just out of curiosity. Every time when I'm not happy with something happening, I just hit the pass, was that like feeling? And I'm like, okay, I agree. I'm not happy. Let's just put it on the, to the, like, to the left just for a second.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
14:09 - 14:22
And thing, if there was a reason, what would it be? Jesus, every time when I manage to ask myself this question, very fast I will find it. And it's like, it was a game a year ago. It's like, I'm trying to make it a habit now, so.
Gresham Harkless
14:23 - 14:35
Yeah, so I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And our goals are to have different quote unquote CEOs on this show. So Vlad, what does being a CEO mean to you?
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
14:36 - 15:12
Well, there is a, the answer, which, they put in the books and like in the podcast, like being a CEO, that's, you have to, your job is fundraising, bringing talents and vision. So there's 3 things. So there, this is what you do, but this is the, by the book definition, The reality is that it's 50-50 managing yourself and managing people you work with. Like if you succeed with those 2, everything else will come along. I think so for now.
Gresham Harkless
15:12 - 15:31
Vlad, truly appreciate that definition. And of course I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people could get a hold of you, find out about everything your team is working on, and if you have any demo or anything, any, all the things. We want to know how we can find out about all the things you're working on?
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
15:31 - 16:05
Even now, right today, and it's changing and evolving to the better every day, but you can apply on the website portal.ai and we will just manually approve. We are moving forward now with the businesses who have just a little bit of attraction right now. So if you already have, for example, like Shopify and Meta account, and you like at least had a hundred K turnover in the last year, we will be happy to put our product to work. So for those who are still like maybe a little bit cautious, just put the tool. For now, it's all about us.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
16:05 - 16:10
And then AI will amplify and just actually let us do what we want. So that I can promise.
Gresham Harkless
16:10 - 16:20
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I truly appreciate that Vlad. Of course, to make it even easier, we're going to have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you and the team, find out about all the awesome things and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Volodymyr (Vlad) Panchenko
16:20 - 16:24
It was amazing. Thank you for the invitation. A pleasure to talk to you.
Intro
16:24 - 16:58
Thank you for listening to the I Am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo.co. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNation.co. Also, check out our I am CEO Facebook group. This has been the I am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.
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