Speaker 0 | 00:09.582
All right, welcome everyone back to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. Today, we have the very good-looking Stan Meshkov on the show. Of course, you’ll never know how good-looking he is unless you meet him in person because this show is pretty much always audio. Welcome to the show, Stan.
Speaker 1 | 00:29.900
Yeah. Hi,
Speaker 0 | 00:31.301
everyone. And so I’m excited to have you on the show for numerous reasons. One, you’re a hard worker and no one seems to want to work in America right now. It’s very hard for me to even go to the gas station after eight o’clock at night. I went to what we call Cumberland Farms over here and there was a sign on the door closing. due to staffing shortage at eight o’clock. So for whatever reason, no one wants to work over here. And you’re a hard worker and you seem to find a lot of really, really good hard workers. But we’re going to talk about software development. Before we get into that, why don’t you give me just a brief background of kind of how you grew up in technology. I’d love to hear what your first computer was or what your first coding exercise was and why you… decided to do that. And then just give me kind of how you grew to where you are now, because it’s a pretty interesting story.
Speaker 1 | 01:33.914
Yeah. Thank you very much that you invited me here today. I got my first computer when I was like 12 years old. It was Pentium 1, and the main thing that here was a game, Heroes 3. I don’t know if you have ever played Hero 3. It was the best game that I have ever played.
Speaker 0 | 01:58.268
Okay, look, I had a 386. Well, a 386 was my first PC, so to speak. I had a Texas Instruments and a couple Apples before that. I guess people would get mad if I didn’t call the Apples a PC. But on my 386, I had Heroes Quest 1. I don’t know if that counts, but anyone that ever played that game knows. They loved that. You play it over and over again.
Speaker 1 | 02:21.588
but keep going yeah and then i just built my first application on that it was based on basic it was a game a game like you just drive the car and i was so much excited that i’m able to create the game of course it was pretty simple game when you just like moving like a big dot and so but it was so much excited i decided to be the IT guy. And I started my IT experience with that.
Speaker 0 | 02:59.726
So one thing that you do really, really well is find experienced, very good software developers and I guess you could say coders, so to speak, and in a world where… Many companies, especially in the United States, need really good software development that’s hard to find. So we’re always looking for, you know, I guess, top software dev guys. And if you’re a company in the United States, it’s hard to find. So a lot of times you end up outsourcing that and that could be a mixed bag and you end up with, you know, anything. Like, who knows? I think sometimes you end up with coders that, you know, get the job done. And… You don’t really want to just get the job done. You want to create efficiency for your business. You want to do whatever the application is that you’re trying to build or make better or replace or integrate with, you know, said CRM or ERP or whatever it is. It’s hard to find good people. And that’s something that you’ve been able to do. And I’d love to hear just a little bit of, you know, what your current company is. how you’re finding the right people. And maybe that could help some of the other IT directors sitting here within the United States or running a manufacturing company or logistics or anyone that’s looking for good software development guys. What’s the general philosophy or how can you help here? All right.
Speaker 1 | 04:38.446
Yeah, my general philosophy was always so simple. It’s like, I just need… to get one more contract or I just need to hire one more person. That’s it. I see that today a lot of people, everybody dreams to build a big corporation and that means sometimes that they shouldn’t work. so hard today to just do the simple things like just hire one guy. Yeah, my company, Ambro IT, it’s a company…
Speaker 0 | 05:10.399
So hold on. I just want to restate that just so I make sure I understand this correctly because we have a saying, keep it simple, stupid. And it sounds very much like that’s what you’re saying is we’re not looking at, we’re going to be billionaires in this space and we’re going to do this, this and this. And… like Elon Musk. No, we’re just looking for the next great hire that’s in your business as software development. So you’re just looking for the next great guy every day. That’s what you’re looking for.
Speaker 1 | 05:40.093
Absolutely, absolutely. Every day for the next great guy or the next great contract, that’s it. Because again, every day if you try to find to be a billionaire or to build a unicorn corporation, It’s great, but sometimes you can just be in situations that you have no money and it’s not what I am doing.
Speaker 0 | 06:02.297
No, it’s a bit, this could be a bit troubling for a CTO, CIO or IT director inside a larger corporation because their department literally is a million different things going on at one time. Uh, so if they’re looking for a good software development guy, they should probably either put someone in charge of, Hey, this is your only job for the next 30 days is to find the one guy that we need. Um, or they should just call you, but we, you have to prove yourself first. And when you’re an external company and we’ll get to that later, but, um, you’d tell me a little bit more about, you know, you, this philosophy of finding guys.
Speaker 1 | 06:45.241
Yeah. Yeah, sure. My philosophy is that first I just allocate a good region for finding the developers. To make this happen, I’m looking for what is the average salary in the region. Like, for example, right now, Armenia, Kazakhstan, they are really perfect regarding the sales. And then I’m trying to find the quantity of developers because this region must have the good technical universities.
Speaker 0 | 07:14.189
Okay, so Kazakhstan, what was the other one?
Speaker 1 | 07:18.399
And Yerevan, Armenia.
Speaker 0 | 07:20.060
Okay. Why are they prime territories? And it’s just interesting because, again, in the United States, we’re only looking at the United States. You have the benefit of looking globally, so to speak, kind of. But why those areas? You said something about the universities, but is there a reason why? Is it less political unrest? Is it they’ve got time to learn? They’re hungry for coding? What is it? Like, why not, I don’t know, to throw out some stereotypes, India? Why not India? Why not, you know, something like that?
Speaker 1 | 07:55.643
Oh, it’s a perfect question. It’s because the ratio between the level of developers and the price. For example, India is really good if you are looking for some kind of junior developers or developers who will just do the simple things exactly as they have been described in the task console. But if you are looking for somebody who will be more motivated and who will have a good university, good background, like a mathematics background, for example, I am looking for the city with good universities of mathematics and physics because they have really perfect background for development. And so in those countries, there is a good ratio between the level and the price.
Speaker 0 | 08:45.670
Okay, so we get poor hungry mathematicians.
Speaker 1 | 08:52.241
Absolutely.
Speaker 0 | 08:55.303
They’re willing to work hard. Like the PhD, the poor hungry doctor, you know? All right. So how do you, and then just for the benefit of listeners out there, how do you differentiate good coders, good software development guys versus bad. And when you have a specific project that you’re trying to build or do, what do you do? How do you differentiate? And I’ve got friends that are data scientists and super nerdy and way smarter than me. And they tell me these crazy stories about my interview at Facebook and how they made me code for like two hours. And then the younger nerd told me, you could have done it this way and you could have done it this way. So I’m just curious, how you do it? How do you differentiate the good for the…
Speaker 1 | 09:45.795
versus the bad oh actually we have uh four levels of interview at the first level we just check the soft skills like uh what kind of person is that is he proactive or not proactive is he block problem server or he’s as a person he’s not problem server and so on
Speaker 0 | 10:05.719
uh this is the first level uh then we okay i’m sorry but this is so helpful so i would love to know how you decide whether someone’s proactive or not because i know i’ve done a lot of behavioral interviewing over time i did behavioral interviewing for like three to four years and like you know basically telling people tell me a situation give me an example explain in depth but i would love to know how you find or differentiate proactive versus lazy you versus just the person telling you, oh yeah, I’m a go-getter, I’m this, I’m that. How do you actually know?
Speaker 1 | 10:40.578
Oh, that’s a good question, actually. It’s always about the details. You always must ask the person, what have you done in this job exactly? And then you dig harder and harder. It’s like, what exactly it was? What kind of type of integration with Facebook was? What’s the problem in this integration? How you solve this problem? okay, what in this situation, how you did that? So it’s like you are going very deeper and here a person just, he will not be able to relate you at all.
Speaker 0 | 11:17.739
He’s got to be able to paint a clear picture. That’s exactly behavioral interviewing. He’s got to be able to paint a very clear picture and you can easily fire holes in anyone that’s can’t, you know, I just did a really good job. I’m telling you, it was awesome. But no, you can’t, you know, you’re like, no, you need to hear very specifics. Like where was the roadblocks? What kind of problems did you run into? How did you deal with that problem? I just gave up. Oh, okay. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. So that’s phase one. So phase one, we weed out the, basically the, the, the fake interview people. And I hear these crazy stories about people with literally like there’s a person on zoom and it’s an actor, literally an actor faking the interview being told. And I had a friend hold up a sign while he was on, he held up a sign like this and he was like, I need you to answer this question. And the guy on the video couldn’t because there was a different person talking. It was wild. Anyways. He basically said, what’s in my background? He said, what’s on the wall in my background or something like that. And the guy just stood there and then they hung up the call.
Speaker 1 | 12:23.516
Right now in internet, there are a lot of. a lot of courses which cost you a few hundred dollars how to go through interview for development it’s very funny um because right now uh people can just learn you how to pass the interview for be php developer or our ios developer and so on yeah so
Speaker 0 | 12:51.791
Let’s get to the, maybe skip ahead. So we got, you got phase one. What’s phase two, three, four interview. Someone makes it all the, I want to hear how someone actually makes it to the fourth interview. Give me an idea, maybe paint a picture of one of your guys and how he made it to the fourth interview and, and why he’s been one of your best guys. Now I’m interviewing you. See, although I guess that is kind of what a talk show is. So anyways yeah, I want to hear about your, one of these guys that made it to the fourth interview, you hired them and what the heck has he done now? So this is me now. Now you have to do what you make them do.
Speaker 1 | 13:26.016
Just firstly describe the next steps. Sure. First step of skills. The second step is we need to prove which exactly project person works and what exactly he was doing. Because everybody can say, for example, I have worked for Netflix. But what exactly have you been doing and which libraries you work, which exactly skills you used on that. which task you solved and what was your role in the team because not every person is team leader. Of course, almost everyone wants to say that he was a team leader, he did everything, but usually it’s like we need to find what exactly was the station. The third step is deep technical interview. When we add to that the technical guy who will just interview deeply, like exactly this function in Java works, for example, or how you will solve this problem. He will just talk with you about the hour, and after that, we will know exactly the skill set of person. And the last step is real test. Like, sometimes it’s a two-time coding test, sometimes it’s like we can just give you the test. If you don’t want to make it right now, and you get that back to us in three days, And it should be developed and we will check how accurate you developed and so on. So that’s four steps interview.
Speaker 0 | 14:52.569
So step three sounds kind of fun for whoever’s trying to fire holes in him. So step three is like you take your number one guy and then have you ever had someone… beat up your guy on the inside? Like, have you ever had a guy come through the interview process and he’s better than that guy?
Speaker 1 | 15:09.964
Oh, yeah. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it’s like, for example, we hire the person who just created the core of Symfony framework. It’s like a very popular framework, and this is what the person who just created the core of that. So he absolutely knows how it works.
Speaker 0 | 15:34.312
this guy’s too good for me he passed that’s that’s cool um okay so guy makes it through then um really the
Speaker 1 | 15:47.279
most strong part is find the developer because how to make the interview it’s more simple part because i described its process and it’s so easy but most hard is most hard thing is find this developer in the location well yeah it’s like
Speaker 0 | 16:02.147
I want the number one best sales guy in the world to grow my company. Okay, I just got to go find him. Yeah, that’s difficult. I want the best hip replacement doctor because I’m going to get my right hip replaced. And I have a very specific condition. It probably took me eight years to find this doctor that I need to fly overseas to India for. I’m not joking. This is a true story. People are going to think I’m crazy. What do you mean you’re going to India to get your hip replacement? That might actually be a real thing that’s going to happen to Phil Howard in the future. So it’s not, no, it’s not easy. And it’s a problem for everybody that needs a good developer in the United States, especially if you’re in a mid-market company that has a team of four to five, six people, maybe 2,000 employees, somewhere in that range, and you need a really good software developer. Are you going to be able to bring that guy on staff? Maybe. He might be able to wear multiple hats. You might not be able to, but you’re sick of hiring guys. You’re sick of outsourcing because you’re getting a mixed bag of outsourcing and you’ve got language barriers, which I’d love to talk to you about as well, because I’m sure there’s people, I’m sure you have an issue of dealing with the language. You probably have to overcome. Trust me, I’m not just a Russian scammer. I’m not just… I mean, honestly, you know, I’m not just a guy that’s, you know, and I’m not going to hack your company and steal all of your information and I’m overseas. I mean, these have all got to be things that you’ve got to deal with as well. So I’m just, because you do this a lot, let’s assume you find the good guys. But how do you deal with the language barrier just since that? I just thought of that off the top of my head. I know that that’s going to be an issue. If I was hiring someone overseas and me, and I’m meeting you for the first time, I’m looking at your profile on LinkedIn. I’m going to say, okay, well, first of all, your, your profile is very, very well developed by the way. So, so, you know, congratulations on that. It’s not the guy that just shows up in your inbox and it was like, Hey, by the way, we do this, this, and this, and let me throw you a thousand links. And, and, and can I get on your calendar on Tuesday at two o’clock? No. Um, I actually found you. So, you know, props as they say over here you know that’s just showing you how old i am as well uh you know good job for that how do you overcome um the language barrier um and the other pros that we’ve got over in silicon valley uh in the united states like how do you overcome that how are you better oh uh it’s actually
Speaker 1 | 18:47.683
The first is we need to find the people with a good English level and so on and check that. That’s not so big issue because today every person knows English. That’s a good thing. The more harder thing is kind of soft skills because, for example, in the United States, people who hire developers, they are looking for proactive developers. And actually that’s much different because in the rest of the world, proactive productivity, it’s not the necessary skills. And that’s what we must solve. And when we must…
Speaker 0 | 19:28.768
This is the key. This is the key to America. Doesn’t everyone know that? America is a money hungry, capitalistic society, as much as we’d like to say that we’re not. That is America. It’s… In other words, what you’re saying is in another country, people are used to doing the task that they’re told to do and nothing more. Yeah. They’re used to siestas in Spain or something like this, which is something that it’s probably some advice that America should take. We should probably chill out a little bit. actually not actually not no all right let’s swap that’s all although we just got done saying no one wants to work in america at the beginning of this show so we might be uh we might be catching on we might be catching on to something so okay so you’ve got to teach people to be proactive okay how do you do that in other words you’re saying fix their company give suggestions make things better
Speaker 1 | 20:33.360
Oh, actually, that’s the first time, for example, we are again, as a beginning, we try to find the most proactive guys. But then we add the person who called mentor. And this mentor, he checks, like he checks the general things. He checks the code style. He checks the quality. He checks the security and health checks. how you communicate with customers. Because again, for people, it’s huge insight that they must be proactive because it’s like, they say to me to do this and I have created this, I have created this really great, but they don’t assume that they must do much more. And we learned them and it takes a few months to change and to learn people how to work with the United States customers.
Speaker 0 | 21:25.620
Yes, America loathes, hates to have to do the follow-up themselves. We call this a customer-driven installation process or a customer-driven project management is the worst, is the absolute worst. It should always be… We should always be, if we’re providing the service, the vendor should always be the one driving the process, right? And I always say, and I work in one of the most mediocre industries, which is technology vendors, right? Telecom, internet vendors in the United States are notorious for being just providing horrible customer care. And… I believe that people should respond to their customers before their customer knows. And then when the customer does ever make a request, they should respond in hours, not days. So with all that being said, how do you, give me an example of some of your, how do you overcome the, how do you prove to yourself that you’re the company of software developers? Why don’t you just give me a little breakdown of your company, first of all. What do you specialize in? Is there anything that you particularly specialize in? And why would someone over here in the United States hire you or your group of geniuses?
Speaker 1 | 23:01.840
Oh, yeah. It’s like Umbrella IT is a company which provides web and mobile development. And we have three main services like hiring remote developers. And then that’s outsourcing code development, when we just take something and we guarantee the results. And the most popular service is permanent result. It’s when we guarantee that every two weeks, if you already have the application, if it’s already developed, then we can add Umbrella IT geniuses and we guarantee that every two weeks you will get and your clients will get the updated application.
Speaker 0 | 23:41.830
So let me give you a scenario. I’m a, I don’t know, manufacturer in the United States. Yes. I have got an old CRM that’s running on a server on site. I’m looking to migrate this to the cloud. And at the same time, I’ve, I don’t know, I want this, maybe it’s an ERP, sorry. It’s an on-site ERP system. I get a new CRM and I want this old. that we developed years ago ourselves, ERP, to integrate with our new CRM, which is already in the cloud. And I’ve been using outsourced developers and they’ve been very quirkily or not in a very efficient manner developing this code on this old ERP system. And I’m unhappy with them because… They’re an outsourced software development company. And I’m done. I’m done with outsourced developers. So I’m going to find someone in the United States. I’m going to hire them. What do you say to that person?
Speaker 1 | 25:01.544
Oh, actually, it’s not exactly the person which I’m looking for, because for CRM, probably he needs to find the existing and ready one CRM and just move to that. He can’t.
Speaker 0 | 25:13.513
He can’t. He has to use this old one. He has to. Because of whatever reasons, I don’t know. He just has to. That’s just not, it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen.
Speaker 1 | 25:24.502
In this case, I will talk to this person that we must eat the elephant part by part. And we need to find something which will increase his business today. Like, for example, we can say that we can create for you a mobile application where every of your clients will be able to do their new order. And it will be integrated in current one right now, but it will be absolutely new. And you will say to your customers, yeah, download it. You can make new orders. You will get the updates about your new orders and so on. So let’s move one by one. Because sometimes when business already works and you just need to migrate to new CRM, it’s really painful and business will prefer not to do it.
Speaker 0 | 26:14.767
Yeah, I found that in certain niches, which there’s one that I’m thinking of at the top of my head, the customer growth is not the problem. In fact, what they’re experiencing is… exponential growth and the software is exponentially old, right? And they can’t really use like an out of the box, you know, whatever, because I don’t know, they’re just like a unique business platform, right? So they’ve got this software that was built uniquely. But I think the point is, is they’re, they’re, they’re, we’re fed up with outsourced software development. And where, I guess the question. the better question is, where do you see the majority of your competition failing and giving you a bad name? Does it make sense? Like, where do you see the other outsourced companies? How are you easily able to outperform them? How are you easily able to do better? Where are the, where is the majority of the bad, the bad rap, so to speak, or the bad information coming out about outsourced development, you know, overseas?
Speaker 1 | 27:24.712
Yes. For us, it’s always the advantages. It’s always the speed and quality. It’s like at the beginning, for example, we can say to him that we can create something. For example, if you’re growing really fast, we can create the portal for your customer, for your managers in three months. And it will work with your OCRM, but it will be new. replace the back end step by step but the main thing is the speed it’s like our primary uh service permanent result we make the guarantees that in two weeks after start you will get the results or it will be for free because uh the speed is main thing when you meet with when you meet with somebody from other part of the world and you don’t trust them of course we have the great references from the different companies and a great portfolio, but many things that you want to get, it’s resolved as soon as possible.
Speaker 0 | 28:29.109
Yep.
Speaker 1 | 28:30.670
Yeah. Otherwise, you cannot build the trust.
Speaker 0 | 28:32.690
Show me the money, basically. And that’s a good answer. As a fellow business entrepreneur type person, you’re obviously a lot smarter than me. I just… I’m a guy that talks with people. The how do you yourself grow? So if there’s other IT, other technical people out there that are working within a company right now, how do they escape and become a multimillionaire? I want to know the key to becoming rich as an IT guy. What do I do?
Speaker 1 | 29:17.980
Actually,
Speaker 0 | 29:18.560
the secret,
Speaker 1 | 29:21.162
I believe that you know the secret because you are a very successful person. And actually, the secret is very simple. I just need to get one more contract. And I just need to get one more contract. That’s it.
Speaker 0 | 29:33.450
You’re right.
Speaker 1 | 29:35.032
It’s like, for example, if you want to get the million dollars, it’s not a question how to make the million dollars tomorrow. It’s a question, how can I get the contract tomorrow? And when I get it tomorrow, how can I get the one more contract tomorrow? one more contract tomorrow, one more contract tomorrow. That’s it. So there are no many kinds of magic. It’s like getting you more contracts and that’s it.
Speaker 0 | 29:56.500
Did you ever have like a scared moment where you’re scared to go do that and get your contract? Because to me, what I call that is hustling. In other words, every day hustle, every day get up and run, every day get up and do what you need to do to get where you want to be. So you obviously had, you must have internally inside you some great desire to be successful and or to build something, which I don’t know if that was always there. I don’t know, for me, it might’ve been when I got married and I was living in a low-income two-bedroom apartment complex and my total expenses was $90 a month and my wife got pregnant and I thought to myself, I can’t just keep working at Starbucks. And I don’t know, and I need to… raise a family. Maybe that was the moment that I realized like, no, now I need to really get my butt in gear. And, uh, uh, I don’t know, maybe that, that for me, that was that moment. But for you, what was it like, is there, is there some, something that creates this burning desire to then go hustle and, and, and create something? Cause there’s IT people out there that are very, very smart that, and I ask this question a lot, what’s your end game? I’ve asked many IT directors, many CTOs, CIOs, what’s the end game? I’m hoping it’s not, I’m going to cash out with my 401k because I don’t think that that’s a very safe end game here in the United States. I don’t think it’s going to be, I’m just going to make enough money at this job to one day retire. And maybe that is the answer to, for a lot of people, but that, that would have to be the answer for like 99% of all of them. So I want to give people an alternative. which is, I’m in IT, how do I get rich and cash out? And I think you might have a little bit of insight into that. Or maybe it’s not cash out. Maybe it’s like, I just need to be all the way up until I hit the grave making money. And some people are like that. Some people are crazy like that. I’ve had some, like one of my partners is like, shame on you, Phil, shame on you, Phil, you never give up. You never give up. And he’s yelling at me like, never. And I’m like, what is… You know, like, no, like I want to, yeah, no, I, I’d like to relax a little bit. You know, he’s like, don’t you want your kids to go to the best schools? Don’t you want your kids for this? You know, some people are like that and that’s not me, but, um, I don’t know how we get it. Give me, you know, so we work hard, we find the next client, whatever it is, but there has to be a vision. There has to be some kind of starting point. There has to be some kind of vision for something that you want to build.
Speaker 1 | 32:41.415
Um, The first thing that I need to say is that I was from a very, very poor family. And when I was young, we lived as a whole family for the amount like $100 per month. So I’m not so much afraid that I will die because I have no money, because I know what it means to live for $100.
Speaker 0 | 33:01.951
Worst case scenario, I’m just back at the beginning. Worst case scenario. Yeah, exactly. Don’t you love that? It’s like if you’ve ever lived on a mattress, If you’ve ever slept in a room on a mattress on a rug, right, which I can remember that time, you know it’s going to be okay. Yeah. But keep going. I love this.
Speaker 1 | 33:22.364
The second thing, it’s just my goal is the game because I like this game. Entrepreneurship is the game when you try to be faster, smarter than us entrepreneurs. And that’s not the question’s simple answer. Like I just need more money or something. It’s a game. And that’s very, very interesting.
Speaker 0 | 33:48.662
I love it, man. Make it a game.
Speaker 1 | 33:52.084
Yeah. Because I do want to pass through IPO with one of my companies. And it’s very interesting because it will open for me the opportunity to create a new company and go over the IPO again and again. That’s very interesting. And every time when you are going up, you meet the other interesting people. It’s the most beautiful thing that when you make more money, you meet the new people. New people from other companies, from your advisors, your mentors, just people who want to help you. And they all just share the experience and you understand how you can play better. Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 34:34.802
Isn’t it amazing how it gets smaller once you get closer to the top? The group of people gets smaller and you get, it’s kind of actually surprising. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it is weird. Like, and it also gets a little bit more lonely too, because there’s less people that understand what you’ve gone through. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you, but to me, I’ve found that as you get, and it could just be, oh, you’re just older. It could be that. Okay, so we’re going to make it a game, make building a business a game. That’s very good. So find a game that you like to play, I guess. Find a business game. Find a business game that you like to play.
Speaker 1 | 35:15.734
For example, right now in outsourcing business, it’s a little bit hard to find the new client because it’s kind of red ocean. And I know that, and that’s why I have created a separate business, Ansport. It’s a business for booking of workplaces and scheduling the workplaces in hybrid work for people.
Speaker 0 | 35:37.443
It’s a sick app, by the way. Everyone, if you haven’t seen this application, say it one more time. Do you have like a, what was it again? Onspot.com. Onspot. Onspot. U-N-U-N? Yes. U-N-S-P-O-T.com. So this is pretty genius, actually. So this application takes basically like a blueprint map of your workspace. So if you’ve got different offices and you know where all the desks are, Stan’s application basically maps out your workspace and allows people to check into work, integrates with teams. Do you integrate with G Suite or anything like that yet? It integrates with all your normal everyday scheduling applications. But it’s cool because you can see who’s in the office. So if I don’t like working with Mary and I see she’s sitting at that desk, I’m definitely not going into work and working in the office that day. Or I’m going to schedule my desk down the street. So imagine like an open concept workspace where you’ve got different people and different open concept desks. You can schedule… wherever you want to go. And it’s genius for the fact that during COVID, a bunch of workplaces kind of broke up. And now that we’re going back to work, for example, my son-in-law, who is an engineer, works for a huge, massive electrical company. And so I know he goes into work sometimes. Sometimes he doesn’t go into work. Um, it just depends on like whatever’s going on in the day and, um, you know, and, and like what the projects are that are going on and who’s in, who’s at work and what they’re doing. So, and so for example, and he, and he’s at ABB. So ABB is like a massive, massive global company and he’s got to go into the workspace. So where is he going to work? Well, he can see, oh, so-and-so is at work today. I’m going to go in, I’m going to clock in at that desk. I’m going to go sit down there and you can do all this through Stan’s app. So. I’m sorry, I just described your own app as an end user would describe it. Was I accurate? Yes. What am I forgetting? Am I forgetting anything?
Speaker 1 | 37:49.249
No, that’s it.
Speaker 0 | 37:51.130
Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 1 | 37:53.632
And right now, as I said, in outsourcing business, it’s a little bit hard to get the new client. For me, it’s much easier to create a new application, get more clients, like much, much more clients. And then upsell to them on BroIT because it’s like you use our application every day. It’s really good quality and so on. We can just try to help with your business.
Speaker 0 | 38:15.127
You’ve already proven yourself. Yeah. It’s kind of like me too. Like I don’t really, do you know how hard it is to talk to someone like you? It’s almost impossible. Like if I messaged you on LinkedIn and I said, hey, I want a job or I want to help you find more clients in Uzbekistan. Or I want to help you do that. You’d ignore me. But if I called you and I said, hey, can we just talk on a podcast? You’d say yes. And then after we’re done talking, you can say, Phil’s a moron or Phil knows what he’s talking about, one way or the other. So it’s kind of like the same concept. You can use my application and if you see that it has a bunch of bugs in it, you’re not going to hire me for software development. But if you use my application, like, wow, this is pretty slick. And I didn’t realize it. It integrates with all these different things. That’s cool. By the way, hi, I’m calling you. My name is Stan. I developed this application. I wanted to know what you thought about it. Oh, I love it. It’s great. Cool. Do you have any problems or need help anywhere else? It’s genius. What other stuff? Do you ever give these apps, is there like a free trial period or something? Can we plug your application and make thousands of people maybe download it because so many people listen to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds. I wish that was true, but go ahead.
Speaker 1 | 39:33.558
Yeah, sure. We have some kind of fry trial.
Speaker 0 | 39:37.444
But you’ve got a couple applications. This isn’t the only one. So you’ve got Unspot, right? Yes. U-N-S-P-O-T dot com. Unspot dot com. What other applications do you have?
Speaker 1 | 39:48.820
Actually, there are applications I am trying to build the platform for the United States CTOs and so on, where they are able to just hire the developer by one click and then they will be able to easily track everything that person does for easy management of them because it’s sometimes it’s really hard to manage the person. from other parts of the world, from other time zones. Yeah, you know that you can save a lot of money, like 50% of salary, if you compare it to, I don’t know, to a developer from the United States, but it’s a little bit hard to manage him.
Speaker 0 | 40:28.399
So essentially a project management platform for managing outsourced developers. Yes,
Speaker 1 | 40:34.745
yes, yes. And it provides the developers also, because it’s hard to find the developers, so it provides the developers. And…
Speaker 0 | 40:42.712
So basically a very niche Upwork or Fiverr for just for… Now, here’s the cool thing, because I remember when we spoke earlier, you said it has a way of monitoring their activity and actual productivity level. Yes. So you can actually see if someone, like they say they’re going to work 20 hours on your project, you can see if they’re basically blowing smoke, you know.
Speaker 1 | 41:12.176
And also it has, for example, sometimes it’s really hard to find this person who wants to leave your job, who doesn’t want to work for you because, again, he has other mentality, he works in other parts of the world. Right, right, right. So artificial intelligence, which shows this happiness of work for this person, it’s less than normal and you need to talk and just try to find what’s going on.
Speaker 0 | 41:37.683
So for everyone listening, I did a short demo of this. of this platform with Stan. And basically, the platform takes random screenshots every now and then of your end user’s computer screen. Now, whether you want to be that much of a big brother or not, can you turn that on or off? Can we tweak this? Can you turn certain features on and off? So you don’t have to do that, I guess, if you don’t want. But, you know, if it takes a screenshot and the guy’s playing Call of Duty, I guess that would be a problem. This could happen, correct? Am I describing this correctly? Okay. And then it also… does it show any type of engagement, like level of engagement on a task for your end user? So you can tell, in other words, could someone actually use this platform for all of their company? I’m just curious.
Speaker 1 | 42:27.466
Yeah, actually it’s…
Speaker 0 | 42:29.948
Could I actually tell how often someone’s actually doing work?
Speaker 1 | 42:35.084
Oh yeah, you can, you actually can. Because again, there are a lot of parameters, activity as you correctly say, productivity, and for example, the daily reports and the feedbacks from your manager and so on. For example, every day that the report is sent, what exactly are you doing today, it automatically generates on the Giro and so on, and then the manager can just say like or dislike. And it’s also the person is able to get the feedback every day. Because a lot of developers, they’re 100% sure that they do the perfect job and they don’t understand it. But when they get dislike every day, in three days, it’s like, wow, yeah, I just need to fix that.
Speaker 0 | 43:23.338
This is exactly why I quit corporate America. This is exactly why I don’t work. I don’t have a job. because I hate micromanagement and jobs. I hate this, but good for you. And the fact that you can get, so you really need someone that loves their job and is very engaged. I think a lot of people in America might be like, my employees would quit immediately. Anyways, but it’s good to know that another company can use that to manage you and all of your guys. And they can know that. they’re getting what they pay for and that they’re getting a high quality, that they’re getting high quality development. And props to you again for getting people that love to be managed. They must really love you. You must be a very nice person for in order for everyone to go through all of this.
Speaker 1 | 44:19.624
Just I’m a fan of efficiency.
Speaker 0 | 44:25.236
You’re like, trust me, Phil, there’s people that hate me. That’s what you said. You’re like, I’m not going to answer that. So if you had any one thing to, I know you’re going to be in Dubai, what, next month? And then you’re going to be in Palo Alto. So just out of curiosity, what do you like? Do you like Dubai more or the United States more?
Speaker 1 | 44:50.620
Oh, actually, I like United States much more because Dubai, it’s like the city on steroids.
Speaker 0 | 44:57.202
Yeah, that’s what I hear. Because I was looking at a house over there the other day and I’ve got, just because someone told me, hey, you can buy a house in Dubai and, you know, you don’t have to pay taxes and they give you this like lifetime visa. And I’m really into surfing and they’ve got like different, you know, like surfing pools and cool stuff. It is literally on steroids. I’ve never seen a housing development like I saw with a river running through it, an amusement park, and like all kinds of craziness. So I’m going to go over there either before the end of the year or early January and check this out. But tell me, how is it a city on steroids?
Speaker 1 | 45:38.682
Oh, actually, it’s growing by crazy, crazy, crazy speed at this time. In Dubai, there’s not so much people. Again, the population of Dubai is about three to four millions of people. So it’s like one of the states in the United States. That’s it. It’s not something that we can…
Speaker 0 | 46:00.417
In other words, Texas is bigger or something like that. Yeah. Okay, gotcha.
Speaker 1 | 46:04.940
And again, it’s a very good place for living if you are really rich and you want to show to everybody that you are rich.
Speaker 0 | 46:11.805
Yeah, that’s what I heard when I spoke with the real estate guy. I was like, calm down. He’s like, everyone’s very competitive here. Very, very competitive. It’s a great business environment. I’m like, I’m looking to relax. But go ahead, keep going.
Speaker 1 | 46:26.814
But a lot of people who I taught in Dubai, they said they love the fact that I can just drive my Lamborghini Rolls-Royce here and that’s fine. People will take a look at me wrong. And in Silicon Valley, it’s just… It doesn’t look so good if I will drive Rolls-Royce, for example. But I like my Cullinan Rolls-Royce and I drive it here.
Speaker 0 | 46:51.761
Yeah, no, you can’t do that in Northern Maine. To be a one percenter in Northern Maine, just to give you an idea, you need to make more than, I think, $375,000. And you’re a one percenter. You’re in the top one percent. So yeah, if you drive a Lamborghini down the street there, yeah, no. Well, first of all, six months out of the year, you can’t even drive a Lamborghini. You need to be driving a GMC pickup truck for sure. It’s GMC, Chevy, Ford. That’s it. Yeah, no. Or the upper peninsula of Michigan or South Dakota. Yeah, I got you. So anyways, but other Lamborghinis aside, why the US over Dubai?
Speaker 1 | 47:39.068
Oh, actually in Dubai, that’s a very good thing for finding good developers, because a lot of people from different countries like Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, a lot of them look at Dubai as about the dream place. It’s like the other place in the world with Lamborghini and so on. So a lot of people want to relocate here and we allow them to relocate to Dubai because we have the company in Dubai and we can officially hire the persons and so on. So that’s a good place to have the office here.
Speaker 0 | 48:15.070
It’s like this central hub to kind of to the rest of the world. It’s kind of like this central like shipping and like I don’t know it’s just this interesting place.
Speaker 1 | 48:23.912
Okay. That’s interesting place. If you have never been there you need to be there one time because you actually during the week you will see everything here. It’s like because Because Dubai is trying to be number one in everything. It’s like we have the biggest everything that’s possible to be biggest. But after the week it’s like, that’s okay, that’s it. They have no much history because again, 30 years ago, they were a desert.
Speaker 0 | 48:53.365
It was desert Bedouins. It was a desert full of, seriously, like tents, guys riding camp, like the stereotype. It was the stereotypical poorest barefoot Bedouin people. And now it has the tallest buildings in the world and like one of the richest things in the world. It’s amazing.
Speaker 1 | 49:15.774
Yeah, it’s an amazing story. It’s an amazing story. But sometimes as a person, for example, you want to get more beautiful places which are not brand new, which have the history, which are interesting and so on. So actually, that’s a good place. Again, that’s a good place, but I wouldn’t prefer to live there all the time. So that’s not comparable to the United States.
Speaker 0 | 49:42.040
Yeah. I’m a northern New England guy. I love the ocean. I love, I’m going to go up. There’s some five-foot waves, supposedly today in Maine. I don’t mind 34-degree water in a wetsuit. That’s like, I love that. And fishing. You know, that’s, that’s me.
Speaker 1 | 50:04.184
The weather here is much different.
Speaker 0 | 50:06.145
Although jujitsu, I really love jujitsu and they got that going on over in Dubai. So I am a jujitsu addict and their national sport, I believe is Brazilian jujitsu. So it has been a pleasure having you on the show. If you had any one message to deliver out to a technology minded people on the fence, wanting to become entrepreneurs, whatever it is, I don’t care what the message is. Maybe it’s the software developers that are stuck in a dead-end job, but they’re really good. What’s your one message that you want to send out to the listeners?
Speaker 1 | 50:37.984
My message will be just try entrepreneurship and just try to get a client. Don’t try to build a billion dollars from the first day. Try to get one as a first.
Speaker 0 | 50:51.348
Get your first, yeah, get your very first one. And that reminds me of my very first job. quitting Starbucks. I started for a Cisco startup. So I quit. I was working in Starbucks. My wife was pregnant with our second child and I was making maybe $37,000 a year with benefits. I was an indentured servant. It was slavery. It was, don’t get me wrong, I love coffee and I love talking to people and I loved serving people and serving their coffee. I absolutely loved it. However, $37,000 a year just wasn’t going to cut it for me with my second child on the way. It was just, you know. And so anywho, I saw these sales guys coming in and I was like, I can do what you do. You talk to people. It doesn’t seem that hard, right? And so I ended up taking this Cisco, this job with a Cisco startup, okay? And we are selling these Cisco 2800 series iAds. It was when Sip Trunking had like just had. been like invented you know like we’re just now voice over ip was fresh it was brand new it was um hosted voice over ip was a definite no-no like anyone that had a full hosted pbx like no way you didn’t do that it was just like no way it didn’t work you know but sip trunking did and you know kind of converting these pris and stuff did so i and i knew none of this at the time i knew i thought cisco was spelled with an s s y c o all right so i took this job And it really was I though everything hinged on Can I get my first client if I can get my first client then I know I can do this That was it and I didn’t know I was like, how long is it going to take me? To and I was like scared. I was terrified. I took a leap off of a cliff I had a bunch of people telling me don’t do it I remember my brother, my brother was like, no way, don’t do it. Cisco, no way. No, no, no, no, no. Cisco, no. They have like a fishing net methodology of getting people to work for them. They hire like 50,000 people and no one makes it. You know, it was like some, you know, like doom and gloom, everything was scary. And so anyways, here I am, I’m like, I can’t, I’m not, I didn’t graduate with a PhD in something. I graduated with a degree in creative writing, right? You just don’t get a job in creative writing unless you’re like a really good writer. And anyways, working for a newspaper, I wasn’t doing that. Anyways, the point was, is I took this job at the sales thing. So it was only about, can I do this? Can I get my very first client? I was scared. I had to put food on the table. And once I’d made that very, I got that very first client, made the sale, so to speak, even though I don’t, it really is about helping other people find. product that can help them fill a need, save money, increase ROI, whatever, all of that. But for me, once I got that very first client, I knew I could do it again. If I did it once, I can do it again. And then I could do it again and I can do it again and again and again. And then it becomes about a numbers game. And I was shocked. I was like, you mean I can do this and I don’t have to get a regular paycheck that’s always the same amount? I don’t have to be stuck. It was about how hard you worked. It wasn’t about… And from then on, it was about… Now it was about how you gamed it. It was a game. It was a numbers game. And every time we said numbers game, numbers game, numbers game. So that was the most powerful thing that you’ve said on this entire show. Make it a game. Find somewhere in life where you can make it a game. And just get that first one and then get the next one. And then get the next one and the next one after that. Whatever that is. Stan, thank you very much. for being on the show. Please, we’re going to put the links to your applications and stuff in the show notes for anyone out there that wants to check out. on spot. Correct. I got this right on spot and, um, some of the different applications that Stan offers. And if you’re looking and you want to make him prove it, um, and give you some kind of guarantee, um, all of his contact information, uh, his, his LinkedIn URL will be on the show notes as well. Have a wonderful rest of your day, sir.
