December, 2008
You see, my journey online started in early December of 2008. I was staring out of the window from our two bedroom apartment that I knew will be taken away soon...
...and for the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to do.
I could hear my wife in the background taking care of our newborn son, while I was sitting there - scared to death. I had just lost everything.
I lost my company that at one point was doing 7-figures in revenue per year and had over 200 employees.
I lost money.
I lost all the connections and friends.
Due to bad timing, a bunch of mistakes, different circumstances and purely bad luck, I found myself beyond broke.
I was in massive debts - I'm talking 7-figure personal debts with no option for bankruptcy because the country I'm coming from didn't have a law that would allow that.
The worst part though was that not only I was in huge debts, without a bank account and zero assets, I also had no real skills.
You see, ever since I was 13 years old, I have been building my business and running my company, so it was the only thing I knew how to do.
But what I quickly discovered was that when you are broke, nobody wants to listen to your advice. Nobody cares about the loser.
And that feeling was breaking me inside: I had done so much in my life, and I knew so much about business, yet here I was, total failure with no hope for a better future.
Thankfully One Article Gave Me Hope.
It was around Christmas time in 2008. I was browsing the Internet, looking for some inspiration and ideas, when I stumbled upon an article.
It was about a guy who was making thousands of dollars online with Google AdSense and affiliate marketing.
I knew nothing about these things, but due to the amount of money he was making, I was hooked.
I felt that maybe this is my way out, so I got excited about this.
I started to do more research and learned that there were tens of thousands of people making money online in all kinds of different ways.
And this gave me HOPE.
So after a few weeks of reading and learning, I finally decided that I’m going to build a website and it’s going to set me free in no time at all (how naive I was!!!)
I borrowed $300 from my sister-in-law and joined a well-known training program at a time.
There was something else....
One of the biggest problems I faced early on was the fact that I had to write a lot of content in English.
Since I’m coming from a small, post-soviet union country, English is my 2nd language so at a time I had ZERO English writing skills. I could speak a bit, but I couldn’t write a thing.
So for the next year, I was working 12-16 hours per day, learning about the website building, SEO, affiliate marketing and how to write in English...
...but I was making absolutely no money with this.
Days, weeks, months went by...
...And I continue to struggle.
I was writing content daily. I was growing my website. I was doing all the things they said I should do.
Nothing happened. I wasn’t making any money from it, and I couldn’t understand why.
After 14 months of struggle and with no results to justify the time, once again I was at a point with no hope.
The guilt of wasting so much time was creeping in, and my family has lost faith in me completely.
I was getting hundreds of emails in my inbox daily with people showing how they are making money online.
It seemed that I was the only one who doesn’t get it and can’t make it work.
At that point, I knew I need something different.
Something drastic. Something big.
I realized I need to clear my mind from the old thinking and bring in something drastically different.
It was June of 2010.
There was a huge product launch going on. It was Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula - a $1997 course on how to make millions of dollars online.
I was watching his pre-launch videos over and over and over again. And the more I watched them, the more I realized that this might be the thing - it might be something that would help me to find my path.
The problem was that I had no money, but my mind was spinning.
I couldn’t sleep.
I couldn’t think about anything else.
With Jeff Walker
I knew this is that something different I was looking for.
Not sure how, but suddenly a thought came into my mind: I have a wedding ring that I could pawn to get some money for the first installment.
I was excited. I went to the pawn shop to get a valuation for it, and it was enough to cover the first payment.
I made the payment and joined the Product Launch Formula.
Now, as I was listening and watching Jeff's videos, I suddenly realized something shocking.
It seems a piece of common knowledge to me now, but at that moment it was an immense discovery.
What Jeff made me realize is the difference between a commodity selling and campaign based selling.
Commodity selling is when you try to satisfy a need.
'It's much like what McDonald's does: you want to eat, you go inside, and you buy food. There is nothing special about it - they just satisfy your immediate need (they do it exceptionally well btw).
That’s not how people buy stuff online though.
If you want to make money online, you have to build a campaign around a specific product or service that you offer.
Only when you have a sequence of events happening during a campaign, you have a chance to get a sale.
This opened my eyes.
...I didn’t know what I’m good at, what’s unique about me. What could I offer? How could I make myself valuable?
As soon as I realized this, I started to notice this campaign based selling EVERYWHERE.
It was happening in my inbox.
It was happening everywhere online.
The cool thing at this moment was that it gave me a justification for why I have been failing for so long, and it set me free.
It allowed me to act without guilt.
I became obsessed to learn about marketing and selling online. I started to read books, listen to audio programs and take in as much information as a non-native English speaker could.
But there was still something missing - I didn’t know what I’m good at, what’s unique about me. What could I offer? How could I make myself valuable?
So about a month later I joined another training program, and it changed my life.
It was the Guru Blueprint by Eben Pagan.
With his program, Eben OPENED MY EYES. He THOUGHT ME HOW TO THINK.
Later, in 2012 when I met him in person for the first time, I said to him that before his program I was blind, but now I can see.
He changed the trajectory of my life like nothing else.
I took massive action to turn my life around.
I realized that nothing’s going to happen quickly and it will take time.
I accepted it.
But with this new know-how, I figured out what I’m truly good at, and I started to build everything around it.
I was learning marketing and personal development every single day. I was improving, and I could literally feel it.
Even though I was still struggling financially, now I had the confidence to act. I knew where I was going.
So it took me another 9 months to experience a breakthrough where for the first time I was able to fully execute what I learned in the Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula program.
Within 10 days I sold nearly 3,000 copies of my eBook and built a massive email list. It was a life-changing experience.
Within just a few short weeks my business was generating multiple 5-figures per month.
I was connecting with more influential people than I could remember and things changed massively.
By the end of 2011, my business has grown to multiple 6-figures in revenue, and by the end of 2013, it was in multiple 7-figures.
Since that breakthrough, I have sold over 50,000 copies of my digital (information and software) products and have designed and executed hundreds of 5-figure, dozens of 6-figure marketing campaigns for other people.
With Aidan Booth
But the journey doesn’t stop.
Today, I’m entirely focused on growing DashNex - a company that creates technology and training to SIMPLIFY everything for those who want to start and grow an online business.
I help people to cut the time that it takes to get results from years to months, months to weeks and weeks to days. And I’m talking about real progress, real results.
Focus is everything, and my journey online is a testament to that.
For almost 2 years I was focusing on the wrong things:
- I was spending time on website setup, configurations, and design
- I was trying every single trick with a hope to get massive "free traffic."
- I was jumping from one thing to another without ever asking WHY.
And there are millions of people who do the same thing today and continually find themselves struggling.
You don’t need to struggle.
It's pointless.
When you know what needs to be done and you focus on the right things, every action leads to progress and results. And that’s what DashNex is all about.
And for me personally growing never stops...
I’m not content with myself. Far from it. I still have the same drive to learn and evolve, and I do that every day.
And that also includes my family.
I have 3 kids now, and together with my wife (we’re together since we were 18 years old), we try to instill that idea of incremental improvement and progress in our kids.
They understand that everything starts small - insignificant, but as long as you put in the effort daily, it can become something huge - life-changing.
And that understanding won't ever stop for me. That's who I'm now.
Life is a journey.
We all get 24h per day.
The game is to use those hours to make your journey filled with significant breakthroughs so that tomorrow is something well worth looking forward to.
Thank you for reading this. I appreciate you!
Stay strong!