Ilya Fedorovich - Founder and CEO of Xeela Fitness | Building a Successful Personal and Company Brand

Welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network Now if you enjoy success story You're gonna love some of the other podcasts in the podcast network one of them or one of my favorite is the hustle daily show It's hosted by four dynamic hosts Zachary Crockett, Jacob Cohen, Rob Litterst and Julia Bennett Ryla Now they speak about a ton of different engaging offbeat business topics tech topics One of the most recent ones I tuned into was their episode about Amazon pausing HQ two and I can assure you It's all informative, but it's a blast to listen to they cover a ton of different topics They covered the rising cost of dating AI news America's obsession with air friars trust me you do not want to miss it on this show It's a perfect way to keep up on the latest news while enjoying light-hearted comedic takes entertaining spins on things So please subscribe to the hustle daily wherever you get your podcasts Today my guest is Ilya Fedorovich. She has over 750,000 followers on Instagram tens of millions of views on his YouTube channel And he's a regular on David Dobriks of Lodge of 18 million subscribers and over seven billion views Ilya is one of the most well-known individuals on social media today When he's not posting on Instagram He also runs a plumbing company fly plumbing incorporated which he grew from zero to seven figures in revenue in two years He also owns Zila fitness a startup that provides his customers with the cleanest and best-tasting pre-workout plant protein and apple cider vinegar Supplements he is a serial entrepreneur. We spoke about his upbringing We spoke about how he was motivated just to put food on the table when he had to Rebuild a plumbing business from the ground up after his family lost everything in the recession We spoke about some of the tough entrepreneurial lessons that he learned there the importance of sales the importance of customer service And how he grinded it out making a hundred calls a day to make that business successful. We spoke about How he decided to go into a variety of different products after getting Some success in plumbing growing that to over three million dollars in revenue per year where he launched Zila fitness he launched a podcast. It's monetized He's dabbled in a couple other things that have just given up some really great life lessons as well as his latest venture Which is Dobriks pizza and he speaks with some of the nuances of launching a brick-and-mortar restaurant and how difficult and chaotic it could be So let's jump right into it. This is Ilya Fedorovich He is a social media influencer and serial entrepreneur Yeah, so um originally I'm from Chicago and Out of high school my plan was to be some sort of entrepreneur some sort of business owner because My entire childhood I I tried starting businesses Like snow falling businesses and selling headphones or whatever side hustle like and think of And again out of high school. I was like, okay. I want to do something with business I want to become successful in the business world. Whatever it may be So I went to I went to community college for one semester and then my best friend and I David both dropped out Um second semester he moved out to California and I stayed in Chicago and at the time my dad And also at this time at this moment has a plumbing company so early on Unfortunately was it was a failing business And I think we were I think we were like 54 55,000 dollars in debt and I remember They're being a portrait of our negative balance Uh behind my desk to kind of like motivate us to fucking push and move forward Um, that's very fucking motivating and also fucking demotivating Uh, I mean at the time we really didn't have any money and the reason for all that was because Uh in the 2008 recession my dad had had had a very big company very successful and Uh, when all that happened he was in new construction plumbing right so after 2008 No one was building anything and everything kind of went to shit and from that moment on Um, he had a lot of trouble rebuilding Uh What he's what he's already attained right because he lost everything and it's very difficult to do because It's lack of morale, you know, it's um, it's it's a lot of things combined. It's a lot of emotion And so when you get hit that that hard and almost killed, you know borderline Uh, I mean like we lost everything we lost our house we couldn't pay for our utilities I remember this as a little kid I had to move around a ton I'm taking the story like Is that a good yeah, no, I'm not gonna say like like you're not like talking about like okay So you went from like you know 50 million in revenue down to 10 million in revenue and you had to like furlough a few people like you you your family got hit hard Yeah, no, we went from I don't know what the revenue at the time was because I was just the kid But we went from you know being pretty well off to zero. I mean Absolutely And I know I'm taking the story far really far back, but this kind of ties into It's everything that I'm doing now and where I'm at now um, so you know fast forward to again when I graduate Um high school and I drop out of college my dad and I have a conversation. We say okay You know, we're not doing so well. Obviously. We have no money Come help me, you know come help me start a service plumbing business and You know my mind I was like okay If this is my opportunity to to attempt to grow something then I should take it because my other choice was just Stick through school and kind of see what happens, but I took the opportunity and I joined my dad at the time was just me my dad or one employee and We started to we started acquiring customers very very little by little Um, and I think the first year of me just cold calling for like eight months I mean not I'm not joking every day just cold calls because that's all I could do right I don't have any money for marketing. I didn't have any connections. My dad didn't have any connections um So we were we were in a pretty shitty situation, but anyways after after cold calling for about eight months I managed to acquire a few customers And I think I'm first years revenue was six or seven hundred thousand dollars roughly Which is pretty impressive. That's not bad though Yeah, being that like you know, I mean, it's literally Like zero zero experience from me, right? I'm on the phone not knowing what the fuck I'm talking about And my only option is to do it because it's either that or we won't have any food and bear in mind my dad has a Has a language barrier Because we were all born my dad and I were both born in Belarus. We're all first-generation immigrants. What luckily Um, I learned to speak English in school, but my dad and my mom still have that language barrier so it was a lot of me It was a lot of me trying to Understand how to sell something Learning for my dad translating into English fucking it up and then you know learning more and more as the days went on So how much how much how many people are you calling how many people are you calling a day like that like I want to like I want to highlight like the amount of hustle required to take this shit off the ground and to hit 600k in one year in a service business like what were you doing like day and day out? Oh, man. I just I'm not joking. I just got the um I just got the shivers from thinking about how many fucking people I called holy shit Probably a hundred a hundred a day at least and when I say a hundred it doesn't seem like that much But if you take into consideration that a hundred doesn't mean just pick up ring hang up It's pick up fucking get to the person you need to get to speak with them and or leave a voicemail Then you follow up like it's not just a call right? It's a call and then there's a procedure after that after every single call. There's a procedure So it's not only about calling it's about following through and so with every call I made sure to follow through and you know Of those maybe 2% maybe 1% called me back and Of those maybe 10% went with us and or tried us. So it's a hustle like you got to understand that most of the time You're gonna be told no and you're gonna be told to fuck off and it's not gonna be pleasant And yeah, I mean that's just part of the game. You don't have money and you you're trying to hustle Whether it be cold calling fucking knock on people's doors Meeting people you're gonna be told no a lot a lot But you know, well, you don't have an option and you got to make money. You got to get down to the grittiness of it But dude like you like hey, so you You put in the work. I think that something that's interesting is like you knew that you had to Call people just reach out to people just hustle like crazy and I feel like When people start a business they don't get how much work is involved So do you think like sales just like is One of the most important things that you could learn as an entrepreneur and where did you get that mentality from like Where did you understand that if this is it's just at a necessity? I think But if you could like give advice to young entrepreneurs that are starting out would sales be like the number one thing that you think people should figure out Yeah, I think I think when you're trying to launch a business it sales and it's customer service So it's it's how it's not only being able to Get to the person you get to but it's also being being personable and knowing your product And at the end of the day not taking no for an answer You know But yeah, I definitely think that that say the thing about sales is it's interesting Uh, I never thought sales right It's not like it's not a it's not a youtube video that I looked up. It's not something that I read in a book It's just you got to want it And I wanted it and to be honest, I really didn't have a choice. I was hungry both physically And mentally so Yeah, you know what I mean? So for me it was a little bit different I was put in a situation where I didn't have an option but If you you know are in okay spot Again, I would say that being hungry not taking no for an answer and just being personable with the customer I'm really understanding what their needs are is super important And also keep in mind in the plumbing business. I was very lucky Because plumbing is not a want right plumbing is a need so If I'm talking to somebody on the other line I'm offering them a service that they'll at 1.110% need and going into that It's much easier to sell than a product like a supplement a protein right where they don't necessarily need it Because they have 15,000 different options they can get at any point But when your water heater is out or they shake them out of your toilet You have to have a reliable person to call So that's the difference, you know Do you think do you think um I was I when I hear like how much you hustled it's sort of just It sticks out for me because I feel like a lot of people that are young in their career in sales in entrepreneurship They end up getting lazy and they don't put the work in that is actually required And I think that one thing that you can learn from your story is how do you if even if you are in a better spot And you aren't looking for like the next meal How do you architect that mindset that hunger so that you can succeed? Because I feel like when you're starting out in your career you don't want to put in the work There's not many people that would jump into a job in a sales job even Or starting their own thing and do a hundred calls a day They would try it out it wouldn't work and they'd give up So I think that that's something that you should sort of take away from this Is the amount of energy and effort that it takes to succeed is absolutely insane When you're trying to start your own thing and I think that a people Sort of gloss over that and maybe entrepreneurship is a little bit um It's like sexy and it's fun and the actual Energy and hours and time required to succeed at it is not spoken about enough Like you just said you got shivers when you thought about how much of fucking work you had to do to get this company off the ground Like question would you ever do this again if you know if you didn't have to do it Um, fuck no No, no, no Yeah, those uh those days are are thank god Uh pass me and there's luckily Many different routes that I can take to acquire business now And instead of cold calling do I still you know hustle and grind my way to a new customer Yes, but it's it's a very very different form and it's much less stressful So no, I would never do it, but sometimes it's necessary, you know um And It's you gotta go into it with the mindset of all or nothing Because if you're not if you're an entrepreneur and you want to start your business if you know In your head that you will succeed you're not gonna take no for an answer You're gonna keep calling until you you get what you need and or you get what you want then you won't fail But if you go into it with like a I'll try it if it doesn't work, you know, whatever then you're gonna fail You know unless you get very very lucky and People that get lucky usually put in our work at the same time, so Okay, so you're so you made 600 in the first year plus minus how do you scale this out and As you grew it out What lessons did you learn about building out a services-based business? Why did you not grow this out to a $50 million dollar a hundred million dollar organization? What was the life cycle of the plumbing business? Yeah, so I stayed My dad and I partnered and we stayed together for I think those six years five or six years and From the first year to the second year, I think we made like one point eight or two and then the third year is like three million um And we never really we never really went past that and the reason is It's very very difficult to scale a trades business and the reason is You rely on tradesmen Unfortunately as of right now there's a huge huge huge huge lack of tradesmen so The number one thing to scale ability in the trades business again is tradesmen when you don't have tradesmen You can't scale because you don't have enough people to provide the service So that that was the reason that um that we weren't able to scale further now if I if I stayed Obviously, I would have figured out a way to do so. I would have raised money and I would have said okay We're gonna post on every single add or every single job platform We're gonna go to career fairs. We're gonna, you know, put fucking hiring now 10,000 dollar bonus time like well We would have figured it out. That's not the problem. The problem is I was giving the opportunity to Be able to scale my other businesses that I'm currently in much quicker So I saw that and I said okay this business is Scale to where it could be as a right now. It's making good money. You know, I can keep doing that Um, but the opportunity that I have a hand is is gonna be able to Get a return on my time uh Money return on my time much quicker So when you when you when you started this pulling business your motivations were literally eat and survive and pay rent But a couple years later motivations changed so when you started to scale these other businesses What were those businesses? What were your motivations and maybe maybe those motivations have carried through today But what motivated you when you started to go into other avenues? So well my two other avenues right now are zilla Which is my fitness brand and dover's pizza, which we haven't launched yet, but we're launching hopefully this fall um The scalability on those two Are different with the product a because a product you don't require Tradesmen right skill tradesmen. I guess that tradesmen is like uh, it's far and few between So all you have to have here is money product and marketing and people in the warehouse which are much easier to hire than tradesmen Um with with the pizza business Uh, it's a very scalable concept for many reasons number one. We don't have many things on our item number two uh My my friend who's backing it is very well known and has a lot of influence. So I'm able to use that to my benefit right um But I'm sorry. I don't know if I answer your question or raise um No, it's just like no, no, no, you're you're cool like I get so so you have okay So you have you have the pizza business that you're going to launch you have zilla Um, I know you have a like a podcast as well, but I meant like what motivates you like what what gets you excited? So yeah scalability for sure, but there's like a million in one product that you probably could have taken to market So when you when you launch zilla or when you launch the when you launch the pizza business like what's the conversation about like Why are we taking this particular product to market? So when you're sitting down like With for the pizza in particular you're talking to David like why pizza like why is that something that you actually want to get behind because again You already have the influence you can have the money, but there's a reason why you choose those products You choose those services you take to market like what what is the thing that sort of drives you because you know this better than anyone If you don't have that motivation that's going to carry you through You're one you're two you're five you're ten It's going to be very difficult like you have to maintain that so there's something that you had in your head Or you were talking about at that table when you first started that sort of pointed you in one direction or the other And I guess that's what I'm trying to sort of pull out from you Yeah, I think this is a two-part answer and the first part to the answer with Zilla and Dobriks with Dobriks uh, we chose pizzas specifically And it motivated us because pizzas are very friendly and overall known as being A product that makes people happy right and I can get that to To David right, so his videos and his vlogs and whatever he does in his life make people happy so I think I connect that with him and then I also connect the fact that we both love pizza and it's just the very It's so it's such a Generic thing to do that it's like almost perfect, you know what I mean like it's not too specific It's like okay pizza anybody can fucking do pizza But we're gonna do it the best, you know, we're gonna do the best and We're also gonna connect again a person that has a huge following so people know about this pizza and this pizza can make them happy And it sounds cheesy, but that's really what it is like whenever someone steps into our restaurant Into our pizzeria. I want people to walk out happier than they walked in And I know that we'll achieve that by the product that we've made and by the experience that we'll provide There's a dope-ass motivation, man. That's good. That's very good. There's not like it doesn't have to be like complex and confusing It's just like what gets people excited like that's that's perfect. So I'm assuming that on the on the Zilla. Yeah Um, sorry, I'm gonna say on the fitness side Yes, yes, so I'm the fitness side um As weird as it sounds I love pizza and I love fitness, right? So um I was like fuck it. I'm gonna do both, you know, I don't see why not I love I love taking good supplements. I love taking things that I know are Don't contain lead for example don't have toxins and then don't have shit yet, you know most products do have and so I decided to do that because I am the number one seeing the number one Passionate fitness person out there like a hundred percent and So yeah, I was like I'm gonna make my own product Uh, again, I'm gonna make it the best I possibly can and I'm also gonna challenge myself because My product is Plant-based my proteins plant-based. Yeah Most plant-based proteins are not that good. I'm sure you know and they're not that good because of the grittiness or the texture the flavor our combination of all of them And so I found a luckily of a very very good manufacturer that can Provide me a very good product and I went with it. I was like this is this is the best protein I've tasted on the market Including plant and weight and I I truly firmly do believe that And my motivator for that was getting clean healthy and tasty protein out to the public which in turn Makes people healthy When you when you launch these products um we can we can pick Zila for to start um You already have an audience and I actually think it's really interesting You probably have a lot of Because you've lived it and you've seen the power of personal brand and social and using that as this Huge kickoff point for a product, but we can go into that in a second. I just want to understand like the entrepreneurial Taking a product off the ground from scratch. That's an at the true product So and not just like a service or a trade. So when you launch Zila What are the different things that you have to think about are you going like e-commerce? Are you going direct to consumer? Are you going on Amazon? How do you Source out the actual manufacturer to make sure that they're actually delivering a quality product like Walk somebody through the process of what you did when you started off Zila Like you can go into like the really the nitty gritty like the granular because There's a lot of people that Are trying to launch different things as side hustles like now It's not so difficult to find a manufacturer or to drop ship a product But I mean to do it successfully is not easy and I mean you already have to find the quality product You have to find some sort of marketing engine which you have but then you have to build the website you have to Maybe figure out distribution into retail. So all these different things are all hurdles But I mean you're figuring it out and where is Zila at right now and how did you figure it out like from the ground up? Yeah, so originally I had requested samples from about 10 different Plants 10 for manufacturing plants I taste that all of them and to be honest, I didn't like any of them So then I got connected with a gentleman named Sean Sean's my partner currently and he is a Protein specialist. Let's just call him that I was very lucky to to be connected with him He is the one that handles the recipe for formulation the manufacturing the packaging Everything he has connections for all of that and he Was again introduced to me by by another friend of mine and so After after I decided that I didn't like any of these other proteins Um, I went with him and he he currently does his own protein supplement line But it's it's a very very different Market that he has you know versus what I have so there's no conflict of interest and for people that are wondering again Like why would he do that the people he serves are very different from the people that I serve So I went with him Um, we figured okay We probably shouldn't be focusing on spending marketing dollars at first being that I do have a following my Friends have a following and we can utilize that so that's what we decided to do off the bat and um I think In the next two to three months will be utilizing paid media and moving into amazon and the only reason we're doing that is because now we understand what power we have and how much power we have Uh, what the ratio for what the ratio of the power versus power and influence versus how much money We can make so Yeah Okay, so okay, so when you that makes a lot of sense um and you went direct to consumer first you're going to go into amazon Are you going to try and do retail distribution as well? Are you just basically focusing on like all directing consumer right now I would love to do retail the problem with retails that you obviously sell wholesale to retail and you know, I'm selling the product that uh 30% 40% less so It doesn't really make sense right now um If I had the opportunity a hand for a big box retailer to come in and give me a really good offer on my terms I would do so, but I just don't have that leverage right now um To make a good deal so when I do have the leverage definitely uh, I think if I would I was gonna say how do you not have the leverage yet because like I feel like If you shop and I'm just just spitballing now like take to market business ideas But like if you had like if you shop this around to retailers and you said hey listen I'm going to put this product in your store And then look at we're going to do this huge marketing push and you're going to be seen by like Three million four million five million people because you have that immediate exposure You think that would like put negotiating terms in your favor It Would the problem is I don't have three to four five million people seeing this um You know david Again my partner in and doberich pizza He helps me you know push zilla. I push it myself Um, I have friends push it, but at the end of the day the influence is So we based on me and my my audience is not three four five million people Could it could it get their home point you know based on our Our socials or tiktok and our Instagram. Yeah, but we just don't have we're really new We don't have that power quite yet a person that was able to do that very successfully was Logan fallen prime Um, now obviously yeah, yeah, he's much bigger than I am so He can pull that off and I and I can't I just I don't feel confident in doing it Now it's not to say that I can't get in the retailers I just don't think that they would take me as seriously Uh right now as they would in a year or two where I come in and I really show some big numbers and I say look We're fucking big you know, I mean like this in your store. These are our terms Yeah, and if I were to do something right now, it would really just be a flex Because it's cool to be you know in a Walmart or if I get 7-11 or whatever the case is I think it's cool to be to do that, but on the It doesn't help your bottom line, you know on the money side. It doesn't really help Um, no, okay, so as you as you go to direct a consumer obviously you leverage like paid you have your own you have your own audience you go into um When you were when you think about like the the way that you've built your own brand because that's something that I think you can also teach people I think it's very useful right The ability to create a following the ability to create content that resonates like you've worked with With David who has an enormous brand. I mean you have a big-ass brand yourself It's not like you have nobody following you so if you had an entrepreneur that's looking to take a product to market What advice or how how would you suggest they start to build a personal brand because we're already gonna be on the same page about You have to have a personal brand to some extent I think it's very I think it's very important as opposed to just building a company brand You have a product and you have a CEO or a founder that puts their self out there and they they're not just an invisible Founder CEO. I think that it makes a huge difference in the company So when you look at how David built his channel when you look at how you built your channel your content your Instagram following your TikTok What are the things that at home because you've obviously you have like some sort of formula that works I mean you see it you see it with your friends. So somebody's trying to figure this out for the first time. Where do they start? I think the number one thing The number one thing is authenticity. I think being authentic Being yourself and truly like truly Taking a step back and asking yourself did did I love that do I love what I'm doing in this post video story or whatever the fuck it is Um, I think that's number one. That's key and whether you're goofy or whether you're Super intelligent and upright whatever your brand is is what your brand is and Not everyone's gonna like it And that's just what it is. So I think that if you're authentic to yourself people will will see that and if you're both Shading people will see you right through that and that's when it doesn't work when people are like okay I don't know how I feel about this like even even through a screen. It's really weird people tell people can tell You know what I mean when you're not being authentic people can tell I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot now I have a question for you Are you sick? 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It is a conversational growth assistant that connects your HubSpot CRM for Beatable support with chat-based commands you can manage contacts run reports even ask for status updates The easy-to-use CRM just got easier head to HubSpot dot com slash artificial dash intelligence to get early access today Yeah, I feel I mean like even with like Like when we do interviews and shit like that like I I think that as I've progressed like my show I've like toned down the formality of the shows just because when I first started to do it I was like three-piece suit fucking doing this like Like I felt like that's what you had to do like you go back with the original ones It was like it was like dressed up and now I'm just wearing like it. Well, it is because it's hot as live as still It's it's like it just feels more fun And I think when things are more fun than come easier And then you don't stress as much of the content you make People resonate with you more. Yeah, when you're when you're not authentic people don't see you for what you are So they can't really connect with you, right? It's hard to connect with somebody that has a fucking wall in front of them Did you like when when you first started creating content? I mean like I feel like people put up a wall because they're stressed because they're stressed and they're nervous and Yeah, you have this you have this like thing, you know this voice in your head telling you people are gonna perceive me a certain way and You know, I don't want them to think that I'm full of shit. I don't want them to think I'm stupid or I don't want you know my boss to Think that I'm acting like a clown on on social so you you put up this like facade, but When you first started How did you get over that because obviously everybody has that stress when they first record their first video or they first put out their first post seriously Yeah, so I'm gonna I'm in a very interesting situation because My followers my following Mostly was given to me and by giving I mean like literally handed over to me How was handover was I was in David's videos I was in David's post and obviously he's one of the biggest influencers in the world So when they see him and they see me with him they go follow me So again, I was I'm in a very very rare situation where I I have attained these followers through a handout essentially. I didn't necessarily earn these followers now It's it's interesting because with Zilla right and my Instagram page on Zilla like those followers I consider earned And the reason is because there's work behind that brand My personal brand my personal Instagram for example, I don't I didn't give a fuck about and I was just kind of like I'm gonna post shit that I think it's funny, you know the simple is that and and I hopefully people liking it If they don't whatever, but I thought what I posted was cool people thought it was cool And that was kind of that there was never there was never a moment where I had a wall in front of me I was always open. I was always like I fuck it These followers are following me then I might as well have fun Do you get like at the level like the david's at obviously he gets some of it, but I'm sure you get some of it too like You get like a ton of hate with the shit that you post or like at that level where you see like like millions of people see you like What does that come with? Uh, I mean, it depends I try to keep things pretty neutral because I just don't think that um Going on the offensive and or Making a statement that allows someone to Necessarily already like polarizing statements and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah, because the thing is about social media. It's like It's like it's so it's so it fake isn't the word. I mean it is fake, but fake isn't the word. It's very toxic It's very very toxic. Yeah And you know, it's just It's even hard to talk about because There's so much nuance. There's so much bullshit that goes on Um, that like you know, yeah, sometimes people get hate um And if you know, someone's listening and they're But basically you don't let you don't let that affect you basically like you you have this you have some sort of thick skin or No, I don't let it affect me because I don't I really anything like that. I don't let affect me like if there's if there's a comment that is constructive criticism Totally Totally. I'll take that any day. I'll take that. I'll fucking seven out of I'd rather know what I'm doing bad than what I'm doing good But when it's like hate like petty hate Like that. I don't pay attention to that. It's just like it takes up way too much of your of your of your head space Way too much mind share. Yeah. Oh, you definitely have to let those people go And you know, it is what it is people again, not everyone's gonna like you, you know And that's just days what it is and the people that fuck with you fuck with you and the people don't fuck with you Then you know, whatever go find go look at somebody else. No one's forcing you to fucking look at my my story or my video or My advice. There's tons of other people out there go ahead 100% um no, I think I think it's a healthy way to look at it I just sort of I want to bring this I want to bring this out because when people do put themselves out there like we're trying to like Eliminate all the fears they could have about putting themselves on social and and when again, you know Yeah, you don't have five million people or 10 million people that follow your every move But you have like millions and you've been exposed to that so You just have to be in the right house based going into it and build your tribe because again If people if everybody likes you're probably not doing something right anyways I mean right You whatever you build somebody will hate it no matter what um, okay, so You're building Zila uh, you also have a podcast. What is your like and you also trade and then you're doing the pizza thing So you have like you like do a lot of shit. So you have uh, so what why why podcast what was that for you? Why did you for example not go and try and build something like a massive youtube channel based on Just pure vlogs like what was the podcast play? So I just like podcasting I like talking to my friends. I like sharing information. I like sharing stories And that's pretty much it um, there is no specific intent behind it I just I like telling stories like making people laugh, you know So that's kind of the the story behind why I even do the podcast And as like as an entrepreneur like how you've built your your life in your business now you have several streams of income right so you have your I'm assuming Zila is revenue generating you still have plumbing to an extent Podcasts. Do you make money off that as well? Yes, we do yeah, okay, okay Okay, so then and also I was listening to some other shows you're on and you also trade so You do a ton of shit When you when you learned how to trade What was your mindset process strategy for that? Why would you not just not minding some index funds and and stop stressing yourself out? Well, I do know I don't trade uh, I don't day I don't actively trade anymore. I don't date trade. I used to Maybe three years? Why not? Yeah, I just wanted to try it. I think it was just one of those moments where I don't know Maybe I saw a movie or read a book and I was like fuck man. This seems like a rush. They seem. This seems like fun and I tried it and It was uh, it was definitely roller coaster of emotion But I don't think No, no, I didn't make really any money on trading um, it was uh It was more of a learning is but but the thing is like With that I learned about the stock market through trading. I learned about the style I learned a lot of terminology. I learned about a lot about a lot of people um, and so it was definitely worth it But I would never I would I don't think I would do it again. It's very it's just not for me. It's for some people, but it's not for me I think it seems like your personality just like throw yourself into something and then figure it out and learn from that Then you leverage that for like future life experiences, which is like the ultimate entrepreneurship mindset But it's also it's like it's very useful because now you you go into something you try maybe succeed Maybe fail whatever But I mean like you have that shit forever like I wish more people would just throw themselves into shit and starch it so that That experience is like it says learning experience at the end of the day right like that's all that is Yeah, it's interesting because people give me shit actually for like trying so many new things Like oh ilya is doing this today. He's doing this today, but it's like I'm just I'm just trying to continuously learn and evolve as a human So I just have these tools in my toolbox, you know, and I may not be the best at These new things that I'm taking on, but I think I can learn a thing or two and once you put all that together Then you have like I said a pretty good Uh, pretty good toolbox that you can pull certain things out of I think that's an incredible way to like approach life. It's very smart And then last thing I didn't go into yet, which I actually think is very interesting because I know a lot of people And I spoke to a lot of entrepreneurs that have launched Like CPG e-commerce right consumer brands. Obviously, I know people have launched a lot of podcasts I know people in finance at trade. I don't know anybody that's ever started a pizza company from scratch That's like net new to me completely new so when you start a pizza company Yeah, I mean, I don't know anybody who's like done like brick-and-mortar anything actually funny enough. It's like not common It's fucking crazy It's fucking I have no doubt The amount of of oh my god the amount of stuff that goes into Starting a restaurant is phenomenal. It's it's phenomenal man and I'm gonna tell you right now if you're gonna start a restaurant business That should be your only focus unless you have someone that has done it before that has opened a restaurant and that can do it for you Because it's a lot of time. It's a lot of time. It's a lot a lot a lot of time Why did you why did you want to open a restaurant as opposed to like the mr. Beast model where he just did Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah Ghost kitchens work I don't know how how well they work over time though Cuz I'm not trying to I'm not trying to have a cash grab business, right? It's not an overnight Success story. Yeah, I'm trying to build a brand how you build a brand is through customer service and Experience right you're not gonna get much experience when you order through a ghost kitchen Here's not it's it's coming from a fucking Arby's You know what I mean you go pick up your food. It's like it's not even the restaurant that it says I'm I'm like So that being said I want people to really Understand that Dobrik's pizza is not just this Fluke that is here one day gone another this is a this is a business in a brand that I'm trying to Spread nationwide. I'm trying to build as big as possible And again the way to do that is by having physical locations where you can step into the storm physically feel What the brand is about not just ordering out on an app getting it and then forgetting about it So when you do this you got to figure out like you got to figure out first of all here recipe But then you have to figure out leases You have to like you have to figure out cooks like I'm sure there's like health and safety like I'm dude That's a lot a lot of work That's a lot of work. So what so what did you okay? So how many locations are you is I don't know what's public or not So you can tell me to shut up if I'm asking stuff that like is not public But how many locations are you launching like what was the process of figuring this shit out like obviously I'm did you figure this out yourself with David? Did you hire people like I want to understand if I want it to launch Maybe somebody's listening to this and they don't just want to launch like another software business Maybe someone's like oh, I really wanted to do that. What are the steps to launch a brick and mortar restaurant location? So number one Find a partner that's done it before and when I say partner I mean someone someone that sits on your board or is just an advisor It's not necessarily someone that does the day-to-day or does your job for you But someone that you can reach out to with a single text or or call and say hey What do I do in this situation? Hey can you help me with this that is extremely important I highly do not recommend you going into any any business or any entity or any business excuse me or or any Journey without without someone that has done it before So that's number one um We are launching with one location Um, and I want to I have I have a number in my head. It's I've said it before But I want to have one thousand locations of dover's pizza. I think uh, there's not a specific reason as to why I just think the number sounds good Um, and I think it's uh, it's not it's not a bad number man. It's good. Yeah, not a bad number And I think at that point I would feel that we've achieved Uh, a nice level of success if we were to have a thousand locations obviously that's you know done the line But that's that's my goal and I will achieve that goal. It's just the matter of how long it takes Can you can you go into as specific as you feel comfortable like the the financials about setting up a restaurant like how much does the cost to get one of these open what's like the payback period um All the all like the nitty gritty because that's very interesting to me. I'm sure the costs are insane So it depends on where you have your location our location is in a very marquee spot Meaning it's kind of center of everything The Closer you get to the center of everything the more expensive it's going to be Now it's in that case. It's kind of more money spent The more money you get back because you get more people more traffic more eyes etc Um, if you're opening a restaurant in a you know kind of more of a low key area I would I would anticipate you to spend anywhere between 250 to $500,000 if you are in a more marquee location anywhere between 500 to a million and That depends also depends on the square footage So if you're over a thousand square feet I would probably multiply that number by about one and a half if you're over 2000. I would probably double that number And then um is that just the the cost to get or is that including like the lease and everything like that? So That is construction Architectural fees okay design Recipe formulation that's everything, but that does not include the lease Typically on a lease on a restaurant lease you either get ti money which is tenant improvement money Or you get a certain amount of months for free to be able to do the build out Okay, gotcha gotcha and then uh what are you forecasting for your like how long will it take you To make your initial investment back are you expecting one year five years six months. What does it look like? So we're anticipating between six to eight months to make our investment back That's not bad. Yeah, it's not bad And I mean the thing is again, it's just it's there's so many different variables that go into it How much money you're spending on marketing what you start with who's backing you what you're what location you're at What do you have on your menu? There's so so many different things um That go into into that question, but yeah ours is is roughly six to eight months And then you just copy you copy and pays that strategy again and again um when you when you started this You said you had the board or you said you you found somebody or you wanted somebody on your board That is sort of done this before or you would suggest as somebody would find that person if they were gonna Go into this and start something new start a restaurant or any startup in particular when you do this Do you go and raise money or do you just bootstrap it yourself? So this was self-funded this first concept was self-funded and the reason we did that is because we want to prove to people what we can offer So if I were to come to a investor right now and say hey, I want five hundred thousand dollars Obviously we're not we're nobody we're not worth anything But when our business is generating for example five million dollars now we have again leverage And it's not going to be the same the same deal. So I want to I want to do a couple locations first And then and then raise money and then franchise that that's kind of the the plan You know what um I respect I respect how you look at entrepreneurship because Like you're you're very you're very grounded like you you said this a few times where you like show the results Before you try and scale which is the way that you should do it But I mean I know a handful of people that would just go and raise money before the first location even goes up Because they don't want to put their own money into it. So it's a respect Yeah, it's an interesting. I don't know. It's interesting because you even mentioned that with I don't want to go into I don't want to go into you know retail until we prove out sales I don't want to raise money from an investor until We actually show sales. So it's just an interesting. It's your personality. That's it Our our slogan for Zila is show don't tell. So you're you're exactly right That's good. Um, okay All right, uh, I want to go into like some rapid fire to pull out like some insights from your life and your career Is there anything else that we didn't go into that you want to chat about um any to do with uh I think we went through most of the projects you're working on some advice from From your lessons building out those projects, but anything else that you wanted to to leave with No, I think I don't think we got uh, we push on on everything. Yeah Cool. Okay, um So if you wanted to if you wanted to give uh advice to your 20 year old self What would you what would you tell them? Oh, man, I give a lot of advice to my to my 20 year old self Oh, man, let me dig with this one um You Build better systems I would say build better build yeah, okay, so I'll explain I think that if in my very early 20s I somehow found out what I know now um, I would have been in a very very different situation and position So there's uh There's a book that I read and basically I read it a while ago, but it talks about building million dollar systems and making everything autonomous Now there's different ways to do it um But the basis of it is building procedures that basically say If this person leaves or if I leave It could be taken over by somebody else automatically, right Whereas in my early 20s most of what happened was if someone left uh and or I wasn't able to do something we were shit out of luck So I think that's so so crucial is having Your team and having you be Very very easily replaceable and also you not having to worry about Is this certain task got to get done if I'm not there? I think that's so so so crucial and it It saves a ton of time and makes your business in your life Much more efficient and I honestly honestly wish I knew that before you know I turned 24 or 25 Um, did you build systems with people or with processes or with automations um, what was your biggest lever that you pulled for that? I built systems with people and with processes uh I'm still actually working on Perfecting that I I haven't Haven't done uh what I need to do just yet But I'm you know, I think it's it's a it's a constant thing that you have to work on you have to understand Where your weak points are but what's taking up most of your time what's annoying to you that can be automated Um, but yeah, it's uh, I think Until I'm maybe 40 out. I'll probably be working on it even maybe for the rest of my life You know, I think I think I think it's I think it's whenever I think it's whenever you start something like I mean like You're a serial entrepreneur. You're gonna be building shit for the rest of your life. It's just your personality I feel like even if you have a thousand pizza plates. I mean you can retire whenever you want But I don't feel like you're the personality that's gonna be okay just sitting at home I know a lot of entrepreneurs that have an exit event they really don't ever have to work again and they're like Itching to start something new in like six months after they just got the wire from You know what I mean like that I think that it's a it's a forever thing But when you can do it again and again and again when you understand like hey listen I'm starting to think from the ground up. I have to figure out these processes these people you start that implementation from day one so that it isn't Hell in like a year from now like you automatically the way you go into starting something new is even this restaurant, right? Even this pizza place even even even dober's pizza when you start this You're thinking okay, like if I'm gonna franchise this out like everything that I'm learning right now I have to find somebody or a team of people that will eventually be able to copy and paste this this exact process again and again and again so That's you're already thinking you're already thinking how do I build a process for this so that I can you know copy paste it Um, that's a good lesson. No one's ever brought that up. That's a really really good lesson. That's a very very smart lesson. Okay. Yeah Uh, what keeps you up at night now stresses you out Oh You know, I'll be honest. Uh, what keeps me up at night Is where I'm not where I want it to be When I was 20 So I'm very far from where you want it to be No, I'm not where I want it to be. I want it to be Uh, at a point where My family and my friends are kind of taking care of and by that I mean I I wanted my mom and my dad at this point to not be working a single day In their life anymore. They've really really taken care of me and I wanted to repay that favor at an earlier age But unfortunately, I was not able to do that uh, and that's my own error my own fault And I'm you know working Working at that every single day, but I think that's the one thing that really just I think about all the time where I'm like fuck I really really like I have to my parents my my family my my close ones that You know truly love me. I have to take care of them as soon as possible. That's kind of what I That's kind of what I work for. It's kind of what I live for dude And like dude, that was the answer to the first question. That was the motivation question dude. That was it That's like that's all like Yeah, pizza makes people happy, but like fuck that like take care of your family like that's like really what's gonna drive you, right? Yeah, no totally. I mean that's what it is and yes Essentially, I should have I should have asked her like that, but yeah, it's um it's it's taking care of my loved ones You know, I that's that's what I live for that's where I work for I love that man, and that'll that'll carry through like I think what I was trying to elude to before is like yeah, you can you can have a lot of passion or something, but man like Passion dies after a while like Passion passion passion dies when things are hard and then like passion seems to Motivation seems to come back when you're making a shit ton of money Like if you make a shit ton of money or something you'll be motivated. You'll be passionate for it But it's like that period in between starting it and not making money where it's like all right I don't know how fucking motivated I am to like work 14 hour days and still like worry about right like that's that's the thing where I'm doing this provide for my family is really gonna like push you through I mean like you're not at that stage now, but I'm talking about somebody that Is like very early just starting on doesn't have extra money coming in from other things That's what you actually have to sort of tap into Totally yeah, okay What else what else I got for you? Who's a mentor or somebody that's taught you something in your life and what did they teach you? Um I mean, I don't think I have I don't think I have one specific mentor where I really love towards I think throughout my life there have been different people that have inspired me and motivated me one of which was Timothy Sykes and Timothy Sykes, I don't know, you know, he's a He's a pretty trader. Yeah And I don't know his his attitude to me is just so interesting and I really I really respect people that say I don't give a fuck what you think you know, I mean in in the most respectful way possible It's like You know, well, I don't think I would ever I would ever say that But I really respect people that do um And I don't know. I just think there's there's something about it But anyways, and now Timothy's like just It's like the radical candor it's like the pure it's like the pure honesty like Whatever whatever the fuck is on your mind like it's love for you, but it's just like Like very candid ruthless love like that's really what it is Yeah, and I think that's that's what he taught me right is I obviously taught me how to finish raid But his attitude and the way he went about things Which is very different. I really love that Very cool. Um, what was the biggest challenge you overcame in your life? Um The biggest challenge I overcame in my life There have been a lot of them for sure Um, I don't know if this is the biggest challenge, but this is it's interesting This is probably my biggest motivator and I'll maybe this will help answer the question, but uh When When I had started the plumbing business with my dad The challenge obviously was to obtain sales to get money and to grow And at the time my girlfriend broke up with me and um I was pretty fucking distraught and heartbroken So I use that energy. I'm sure you see it on like tick tock all the time where it's like you know Girlfriends break up with their boyfriends and then their boyfriends are at the gym going hard and like using that that energy Um On the relift that was kind of me Um with my plumbing business My big my biggest motivator at the time and like I guess it was the biggest challenge for me to overcome was The fact that my girlfriend had not done me. We had no money and I had this fucking whole business I had to bring up but I use that as my biggest motivator I put my head down and I pushed through it, you know, so That's that's that's that's not easy um, okay last question uh last question. What does success mean to you? Success to me means achieving what your your ultimate goal is um And I know that's very vague, but you know my goal is very different from what your goal is And if your goal is to do one restaurant or two restaurants and you successfully achieved that And you think that you did the best that you could then that success right my success is a thousand restaurants Why because I just think a thousand is what my goal is all right that's that's my challenge So I think that once you get past the challenge that you've put towards yourself I think that's the successes oh