The Four Things a Founder Should Never Do, by Anton Krasnyy, former founder and CEO of Murka

hey folks and welcome to the deconstructor of fun podcast I'm your host Miss katoff and in this episode I'm joined by Anon crosne who is a former founder CEO and chairman of SMA which is a Social Casino company originally from Ukraine and was acquired by Blackstone in 2019 now anund wrote four critical Ms for a Founder on LinkedIn uh which are never trust experts never believe in business friendships never allow others to change your vision and never ever ever underpay yourself now these are some strong words and despite these strong words I always found Al to be a very empathetic person that's why I wanted him to come on the podcast and talk about those for Nevers in in more detail because um I wanted him to show his personality uh I think he sometimes comes off a little bit differently in a written text and uh I'm sure everybody who listened to this podcast can agree that uh that he's a he's a very um good

leader so hope you enjoy this podcast I hope you enjoy the four Ms and um by the way istanb gaming Summit is coming in in 30 days on 7th of March in 2024 so there's a link in description do sign up we got more amazing speakers there so without further Ado ladies and gentlemen I'm th CR welcome folks to the uh deconstructor fund podcast my guest as said in the intro in is Anon KY founder and CEO and chairman of Mora and Mora is a Social Casino company that was acquired by Blackstone back in 2019 and Anon you recently left your position uh and as most Founders you're back at building new companies but in this this podcast we're going to talk about everything and anything that you've experienced during your 15 time 15 years of uh of heading Mora so

welcome to the podcast Anon thank you Misha thank you for having me it's a real pleasure so uh I we shout to you because I think your LinkedIn profile is um as kids would say fire uh so so you post a lot of um very interesting stuff from founder perspective and um like the recent one the one that got me reaching out to you was uh if I may quote you said this is your this is your LinkedIn uh post so if you are the founder please remember these four critical Nevers number One never never never underpay yourself no one will put a put medals on your chest for for that in the end you should pay yourself first number two never believe in friendship and business people will hug you smile call you bro for years and then screw you most awful ways number three never trust quote

experts especially with those whose quote reputation opens the door before them most likely they don't know [ __ ] there is no such thing as secret sauce and number four is never allow anyone to change your vision don't let anyone else opinions sway you from the original goals and ideas no one knows better than you you have the whole context and this is all based on your hard real life experience Anon these are powerful words so um what what gets you writing this type of a stuff that like I love it first of all my own real life experience and that's kind of a reflection what I went through and also big reflection of my state ER during the time I made this post so it's you can see it full of emotions mhm and I'm like kind emotional person um and also so on

the negative side of things and uh yeah and um but it's all I I I still believe in in all of that maybe I would change the warden if I will be doing that post today but uh the it this PO you know it attract attention and right now we're on this podcast I think because maybe of this post so LinkedIn works well um one one of many one of many that's why I think people should follow you so if I can just jump in a little bit and and talk about in more deeper like what about these four things I'm very curious like uh why do you find it so important to pay yourself um first and not the last like where where does that stem from uh once again it's from my own experience with business and I always during this uh Incredible Journey

I tried to um you know think about everyone else except myself and I've seen this in uh some of the fellow um businessmen's or Founders or entrepreneurs and I found it kind of um um you know the pr because uh as I said in my post nobody will recognize this in the end of the day and uh if I will if I can give myself advice um right now but my past self so if you have ability to cash out and buy nice house for your family even if it will be against someone interest please do so if you have ability to cash out

cash out yeah so um that's kind of a um other side of the post always cash out if you have ability that's that's in line with uh we had on the podcast like it was a few years ago we had gig Levy Vice he's um a partner at nfx venture capital from is yeah of course you know him because he's plka and social and he made the same we were talking more about the history of Israeli startups how they start off with selling always the companies quickly to getting to a position where they ipoed and had these billion dollar valuations and he mentioned the same thing in a more different ways so he said that the the reason why they had the longevity with these companies afterwards was because of secondaries because they were exiting multiple times as well not exiting but they were getting paid as Founders selling their share of the company as the company was growing and through that when they had their houses their cars

their Basics set out they were much more invested into the long-term success of the company rather than thinking I need to sell this because I don't have you know money to live I've been poor for 10 years trying to grind this out making sure that my employees are the first ones to get paid and so forth so actually um getting paid in his terms and with the example of Israeli startup system was the key of longevity and the growth of the of the of the companies yeah it's it's interesting take I'm agre 100% uh and also shout out to giggy he's amazing person um I met him I think in 2013 first first time I was we were on a video call and I will show him my early office of M just yeah my phone like that um yeah so I agree 100% I think it's uh

I never thought about this like like like that I mean everyone is asking why why Tel is like new silicon way and it was a lot of successful companies went from Israel globally so yeah and it's it's an interesting take agree 100% yeah he he even went that hard I don't remember who told me from Israel they say every update is a secondary one they said anyway that's that's a bit different but um the the second part is uh never believe in friendship and business so this is a very interesting stuff because usually when founders uh start their companies the first people they bring along are acquaintances friends buddies people in the industry so is this something that comes throughout the time or like what do you mean by by not believing in friendship and business

business I I I still believe in friendship in the business but on more on a team site if you have your fellow um you know like um engineer who is also considered your friend that's very good because you're on a different level of communication you don't need to spend time explain things uh um so but uh the part of the post was more of um let's say business business related friendship because when the the the high stakes and when the lot of money involved the people um Can simulate friendship very good for for for for many many years and you can fall into this simulation if you're open-minded kind person so you can fall into that so if if if if something big on the table and if people

call you bra and the more they do the more aware you need to be of the situation and try to be honest with yourself first and yeah and don't fall into this Brad trap because when things are fine everyone call you bro when things are challenging uh it can you know turn against you so you need to call yourself bro first of all and don't listen to other people because people always lie that's unfortunately the truth I I'm curious to hear thought about this is like so I like history a lot and uh I was reading a book about Napoleon not the uh the one that Mak made the movie about but there was this thing about Napoleon's leadership tactics and he was that with his own generals with the people who reported him the close ones he had very

formal communication and with the troops he would go out have some wine with them talk openly but then go back to and like no [ __ ] you report to me like no ass kissing I know what's happening on the ground because I go in and and talk to the soldiers but then with generals no bros we're all here like you report to me and I need this to be executed like going back from 2000 1,800 to to Common days like is this something that is um that that Rings somehow true to to your thinking like with the closed ones keep formal relationship uh is is that something that that you're yes I haven't read the book but that's uh that's what I I think if I will do this now that's what I'm trying to advocate for so that's that's 100% and reflecting my understanding of how

you need to build this um business and that's what I tried to do in Mora but uh I forgot about this formal part so I try to be uh on a good note with everyone um and pay itself let's say and it's a play role but maybe not in a very beneficial way to myself but uh yeah that's it's I always since the the very early days of morai I tried to be among people I didn't have my office until I think we were um like until we had aund million run R run R Revenue so I didn't had my office I was sitting among just the among teams close to them and um then yeah I decided to like separate myself still

but uh I constantly try to build the this culture of openness and um everyone can text me at any time and ask something and I would I would do my best to to honestly give them the my answers um so and bait it's S I think very much because even now if I will if I will Rim the doorbell in one of our offices right now I think they will ask who are you um but still I think my legacy of this um openness it still plays role right now um so even even now when is I'm not around

anymore I'm not involved in operational stuff for more than four years already uh but culturally I think that's what also part of the DNA of Mor and what's holding right now on on on on that level um so yeah being good with your troops spending time with them you on the on the on the field is nice things to do um so this is a this is culturally like very interesting um have play rcks here on on on the on the podcast as well they talk about very similar culture that that very low hierarchy you can connect with the uh with the founders anytime and often times when people think about Eastern European companies they on the contrary think about them as extremely extremely like um hierarchical like you can't talk to the big boss like they are they are the most and and having worked in the US companies I feel that the hierarchy is much stronger in the more

uh Western companies where it's uh it's like a perceived hierarchy where the uh Executives intentionally pull themsel out of any kind of a conversation and want to be on almost like not take part in anything uh not to feel opinionated not to feel criticized like like it's a it's an interesting approach and and you have the vice versa where you want to be close you can be connected any time like what's the uh what do you feel is the is the benefit of being so connected and so approachable to to uh to the team that a good question um I you know I think uh I did it unconsciously so I didn't have the propose of doing that um and uh I'm a big fan of V uh and I'm I'm a big fan of their flat structure I an early days of M I was reading a book how

how wall is operating and uh what was fascinating that when you're joining W you don't have a team all you have is just like a table that you can put somewhere cuz it's on the wheels and and for a few days you're just wandering through the office TR to find the team you want to join that's the flattest possible structure and I think uh what's the the benefits of this is you need to have like a you know source of um of of Truth flow into you and the more the more horizontal structure the harder is to get the the the you know like a truth what's going on in your company what's going on with the products and when people feel that they are free to tell you anything and

you are feel the same way this mean that you can be informed very quickly of the things that goes wrong right now not two two weeks after and people don't don't afraid to tell you this because this mean that um you can put your hands on something that need to be put hands on so um yeah and uh but anyway I did it unconsciously as I said in the inurance days I was aware of how the businesses operated and I I worked as a manager for a few companies and I hated this hierarchal structure where the big boss is sitting in a in a you know in the office behind many doors and nobody can speak with them um I I was trying to build something completely different than that and uh come on we also in Creative business you need to

you need to speak with people you need to you need to make people feel free I mean on the freedom side and because without Freedom there is no creativity when people feel oppressed you know they create you know like very uh slow and not enthusiastically and we need something completely opposite I've so this is I'm just hoovering around this one because this is a very like intuitive approach uh but it's not something that is easily executed in companies what I mean by that is let's say I'm U like even in my own experience it depends very much on the cultural background of the person uh you could do 101s with your whole studio for example and a lot of the times what would happen at least in for me is is that uh people

from from certain parts of the world even like Western Europe let's say would not be so open at at talking about their issues and challenges to you in a one-on-one setting uh compared to let's say um more Eastern European ones which would be more than open in telling you in in in oneone settings and what would be your recommendation for for let's say heads of Studios or founders to to Really implement this uh openness and this feedback loop with their people uh if because even if let's say they are doing the one ones with the whole studio but they're not getting you know the real stuff people tell them oh everything is good everything is fine everything maybe this one more more small thing maybe we could have a better coffee machine but everything else is great and then like 3 months later that person like resigns or whatever or there's some other issue like why didn't you tell me we had a one1 so what would you tell these people who are not able

to kind of penetrate this um this perceived wall um I would say that you need to treat people the way you want they treat you people are not are not dumb and if you if you are lying to them on the allhe heads meeting H people could feel it they could see it and when you're trying to you know when you're oneon-one and asking uh for the honest answers on your hard questions expecting that they will be honest with you when you're lying to them it's something I think what a lot of people are missing so my advice will be you need to turn on your empathy you need to be C you need to think of what people are going through you need to to speak with them with with with open

heart and it's it's hard in business but when you're doing this um sincerely people also could feel it and then when the hard times will come they will speak with you sincerely they will tell you truths and sometimes it can save your ass mhm so uh that so that yeah that's that's my advice it's it it's once again it's very hard business with the big money involved and when were a lot of people in your team um but at some extent I did this with Moran um it was very hard when we passed through uh 250 people because until then I was interviewing everyone so I did the final interview I was involved in HR very much I was doing hiring myself and and I was trying to you know kind of

build the culture this way as we built our company from Ukraine and we didn't had a lot of gape development experience in real real experience all experience was from the people who consider themselves as a self-taught as myself we didn't have the universities who teaching your game development so this is why my goal was to kind of a build the team of great people great talented people and then they become became experts uh in in in games so and until I think 250 people I was uh I was trying to know everyone by name I was trying to have a small talk with them in the kitchen we had this open Kitchen on each floor and I un propose went there and try to speak with people try to understand what they're going

through not only in in in work related stuff but on their personal site maybe I can help with something maybe I can give advice so but then when we were past the 200 50 people it was really hard so I just lost the the the kind of a close connection and I tried to build it on a on a group level so we did a uh constantly did a all hand meeting I was did a you know like a like Open Table uh conversation so people in the All Hands meeting uh try to answer hard try to ask hard question and uh yeah it was it was really interesting uh and kind of a continue continue to build this openness culture on a on a on a big scale is very challenging but I think somehow we

manage this through this network of people inside of the team try to spread this openness and uh kindness but um yeah did you when when you were building a certain I mean culture evolves with new people coming in and and that's why it's very important to interview people and make sure that they're you know fitting the culture and bu and evolving it to the right direction did you have some kind of a a manual like valve had a very clear employee manual did you approach in that perspective or or how were you uh steering the culture Evolution to the right direction uh yes we had something like that so we put we made our like a values and we put them on the walls in the office uh but it's it's it's it's very hard to follow this value even on your own because the

business is like it's like a living organism it wolves and where when you put the values on your wall the next day it may be to rewrite them so and uh but we did it anyway and we kind of tried to crystallize our approach in in business and hiring in products in in that values but uh I think the the most valuable experience was um your own example as as I said previously when you are asking people to be honest with you you need to be honest with them and like building this honest culture was kind of um you know from the early days it kind of a um easy for me because then you need to just hold one thing in your head when you're constantly ly to people it's very cognitive uh hard task for you so and I

remember very and you can you can do this only in I think in the Eastern Europe or Ukraine so we had it uh because when I told this story some someone in Israel they had this wrong eyes like so the in the first period of mka I wasn't hiring people who who are smoking mhm because it's just uh very um you know we counted that the engineers who smoke spent like 15% out of the office and they also smell bad so and one of the first question in the interview was are you smoking like if people say no then we continue people say yes I was asking are you willing to stop uh like today and a lot of people said I I okay just because I want to stop and this is like a motivation for

me because I want to join you uh and I remember the one example when I hired engineer and he said yeah I I I'm smoking but I want to stop and this is this kind of a um situation and then the on the First on his first day he joined and we were on the meeting room and this meeting room our like one of the first offices for mess we didn't have the designated meeting rooms so our meeting room was in the hall and all the people who are coming or exiting the office went through this meeting room so and uh and and and this guy he this was his first day and he she was just constantly going through this our meeting room and on the second time I asked him why what where have you been and he was like I want to show I went to the supermarket and and it texted security like uh is this guy was smoking

on the porch say yes and the next time he went through I stopped him and I said that's your first and last day in the company you fired and the people who were in the meeting room they were just like well you can do that uh app yes and this was kind of an example for everyone if you want to be honest you need to be 100% honest and even in this kind of details and uh yeah so we tried to build this kind of a company it was very hard because when we reached once again 250 300 people HRS gathered around me and said okay we need to drop this rule because we we we are missing hiring of really good Engineers who are smokers and said okay yeah let's do that so we dropped the Dr but that I think that's the only thing you can do in in Eastern Europe because if you ask the question I don't know like in in hey in

UK If you will ask personal question you will be in a trouble but yeah yeah and and there's definitely that that context of of being fired not necessarily because the person was a smoker but even more because they weren't honest and if they aren't honest about such a simple thing of please don't smoke there's a reason why you can't smoke and we don't have SM ERS here and if you don't follow that type of basic rule how are you able to follow other more complicated rules so I understand from that perspective and of course being a day one that person wasn't very tied to the company so um so it's also a show of of that the rules apply so so yeah yeah I understand that fun time fun times yeah yeah um then I mean we talked about the the friendship in business we talked

about paying yourself how about the um the experts so you called [ __ ] on Experts where does this come from um through once again experience um I think it was a kind of um thing that we were missing for for many many years I mean being like isolating in Ukraine and building the the the Multinational Global business and uh you always think uh try to think about uh competitors and what they're doing better than you and we we were strong Believers for long period of time of the kind of a secret saw thing someone has a like a cookbook and they are all open it daily and there was like do that don't do that and you will be

successful uh people can have this cookbooks but they're working only in their environment so and we tried many experts um and uh the with all of them we had this fun funny experience when they came they for the for the big check they spent like two or three days in in in with the team asking really nice questions and spending time uh near the whiteboards in meeting rooms and in the end of the day said okay guys it seems like you're doing everything right and we had this constant experience uh with experts uh and uh we were kind of a disappointed because we thought that they will give us you know list of advice do that and don't do that but it

seems like you know your business much better than any uh outside expert and uh the people who have a reputation as I said that uh you know when reputation open the door before them these people are just building their own brand most of the times and they don't want to you know even if there is a secret and they will tell you this mean that this kind of a um image of them are ruined because they need to constantly come to the meeting rooms and maybe two times three times uh listen to you and just like telling you you're doing right maybe just with some adjustment um but um I I don't believe in this expert thing uh just because we haven't seen any experts and we've seen a lot of people and we had a kind of a

bias that someone knows like a real secret nobody knows [ __ ] nobody knows what's going to happen tomorrow nobody knows what where the market is going and nobody knows any prediction people can guess and sometime they can guess successfully it's because a lot of people a lot of opinions yeah be right yeah I I would agree on on the secret Source part that's uh that's 100% true it's a it's it's I've done Secret Sauce presentations but they're more like you know just get to get people to listen but they were inside the inside the company that I was working for talking about the other company so that they would listen like okay let me tell you how the company where I worked before like what was there just kind of like aligning our thinking so that I'm not just coming with the these ideas out of nowhere this is how we work at this company and I want us to work like this

way so not as a consultant but more like a like you would talk about valve like this is their secret sauce let's yeah let's let us follow the same Secret Sauce but interestingly enough like I've noticed the same thing and and I've noticed that the biggest help when somebody comes as an outsider it could be your investor it could be a consultant it can be uh an adviser the the the challenges of a company in my experience I just want to know if this is true uh the ones that I've seen are usually interpersonal or organizational and then they bleed into the operations but when it comes to the work itself the uh what they're doing how they're thinking how they're approaching different functions different genres Etc seems to be universally the same like there's seldom these sort of a major gaps in understanding of your business but there are something that refers back to your

don't work with friends there are organizational inefficiencies when people have interpersonal relations and I've you know seen in some companies where people can even get certain divisions in a in a laring company for themselves just because their relationship with the founder CEO and so forth that don't make any sense in the holistic sense and and uh and actually hurt the company as a whole so it's have you seen s like am I on something or like what do you think um so um maybe I I I I didn't catch you quite well so um is it possible to rephrase let me let me let me put it this way um there's so there's seldom help from Consultants or Experts of a specific genre let's say Social Casino who would tell you how Social

Casino is done even though you work in Social Casino but I found help with people who are looking at your organization from third perspective and giving you help on how you organize yourself rather than how you do your business MH um that's i' I've seen this but also I've seen that the people um trying to wrap really simple things in a very complicated way like uh the uh like for example if you are doubling in head count you need to rework all your process this very simple thing and I haven't thought about it until I heard someone tell me maybe it was even giggy uh so but people can build separate business

just on this simple principle they can be consultant they can come see your or chart try to re build the processes but that in the end of the day it's very simple thing so I believe in and uh don't get me wrong about this the secret source and expert I also seen many uh experts who were and I think usually it was not part of the official show part of the expert sessions but more of just like in the kitchen uh thing when the people drop something really really interesting and it was kind of a secret Source let's say uh for example we had a very nice conversation with Joe Kinko I don't know do you know him no so he he's an expert in Social Casino he I think he buil he was part of the Zinga I think until now and in his early days he built

half of the pinball machines in us so he was a pinball machine designer he's he's amazing person and we were in Neo and he told me like really tiny thing about the slot machines about the particular like very small things that you haven't thought about uh and you can implement this really easily and we did it and it worked so but it was not a part of the session it was not part of the it was just like a small talk thing so um when people once again but the people out of their framework when the people are kind to you when they people are sincere they can drop some secret things but if you are in the framework of this meeting room expert uh Consulting session it's more of a just ring simple things in a very complicated way so people are

confused um but makes sense yeah makes sense I was just I was I was trying to find like the the middle ground because I know that a lot of people who have consulted or have you know advice in some ways kind of like no I'm I'm useful and so forth so so now I understand a little bit more your thinking like these sort of a formal here I'm coming in with the Playbook that I'm sharing with everybody and this is some kind of a secret yeah yeah that's a that's a Playbook that is shared everywhere it's sold to everybody you're not getting anything unique but if you're interacting with different advisers in a more casual setting or or um you know having them visit your Studios and kind of spend some times with your teams maybe there in the informal ways when when you can ask freely and have conversations you can get something out of it would that be okay all right that's I agree with well the the fourth point was never allowing any anyone to change your vision I think this is a very very

interesting one because there's I I feel like there's almost um there's like a demand for two different types of leaders almost like it's divided in into two there's demand for the Steve Jobs's of the world the Elon musks who are like like laser focused they are at the Forefront they are at the uh they know what needs to be done they have the Clear Vision and you can either help with realizing this Vision or you can get the [ __ ] out of way and and then there are uh those that I feel like is is more um celebrated these days are you know the word inclusivity seeps into everything and everybody has to be heard and everybody has to have the opinion and everybody has to be brought brought into the journey and those are two very very different ways and I'm not saying which one is bad or good but what what are you uh trying to say when when you as a CEO

as a Founder have has to have the vision is it like like what do you mean by that um uh first of all I agree with that there is a think two different approach and uh I think it they just you you need to understand who you are and your strengths and weaknesses and if uh the pro produ in in in our sector is a primary so that's the number zero right so if you have a product vision and you 1 million per believe in it um you can listen to people with this all inclusivity you can gather around different opinions uh but and and at some point something can tick inside of you it's like oh it makes sense it can influence your prodution if you agree with this

but if you don't agree with what you're hearing from experts from um anyone but you kind of a forced in some way to change your vision or to adjust it please don't because if you are this kind of a person if you have a laser beam uh out of your head and you you believe in what you're are doing and just try to like Ted loso was saying believe it until the end um and and and build this everything around this so but if if if you understand that you don't have product vision and it's okay you can build businesses without prodution you can gather great team around you you can organize them you can give them let's say their Direction and they will build product vision for you but for me it just doesn't work um and the all all the times that I kind of uh trade with

myself on this it was a not a mistake but it was a wrong direction from for myself so that is why that's the the basis of that part of the PO so if you have a Crystal Vision of what you what you are trying to bring a new market what you building just go to the end with it and try to to um just try to spread it should try to tell people why you think that that that's the right thing but once again if someone on the team and I did that many many times so uh I think I kind of a complicated person in the product when when there is question about product but when someone is giving you advice you're kind of a biased because it's your idea you want to build it but if someone is bringing something on the table and it really you know just like reflects on your maybe hesitation in your mind you're like yeah

that's the right thing we need to do that and you produ Vision change and everything is uh going on and everyone is happy because people also try to um if if they believe in this small part of the of the product and they believe that that's the the thing we need that's great that's what the companies needed if someone from the team who are not the founder who are not the shareholder bringing something valuable that's that's the amazing it's amazing moment in time because yeah it's just yeah I I I do agree with with this quite wholeheartedly I think I've I've personally had this challenge as well is because it it it you have to be pretty bold to to take the ownership of the vision like usually it is expected but nevertheless it's so much easier to to uh to Dem critize the vision get everybody's opinion Buy in add this add

that and like we all believe in this this is our thing and and then it becomes watered down because now everybody had a say in it and it's not really what you're driving for but it's much easier to to just you know be a like this shared thing so I think that is something that that makes it quite common these days that the vision is less concrete and less uh tied to the uh the leader and and um and also the other part is like I feel like the founders who have this strong Vision um very you know and are quite strong leader like not necessarily able to work with every everybody but they just want people who support them um they are vilified nowadays more like they are hard to work with and toxicity is the number one term that is thrown around like a like a salt and pepper on on everybody and everything just because you feel like it's toxic because you wen't aable to do whatever you want it to do and like like what would you say

you know when when I was a CEO I I had different CEO advisers as well and I had some successful CEO advisers who always said like do you like do what you feel like be like exactly what you're saying so what would be your advice to to the founders and the CEOs who feel the pressure of letting go of their vision and kind of bringing more people along and democratizing and reading the books that tell them that they need to be inclusive leader uh like what's what's your advice for them or like how were you able to keep your vision so strong I think communication is the key because where from where all this tox toxicity things go in because people just don't understand they don't have a full picture they don't have a bird View

and in in in many cases the only person who has a bird fear is the CEO and so my advice will be to try to find the right words right setting to just deliver the the message to the people who needs to hear something and even if you're fighting on the vision I mean on the product vision try to find the the right framework let's say to to describe what you are thinking about and why this is the truth so try to build this kind of a uh hierarchy of the things that crystallize in Your Vision because you are you're full of context right you you've been with a company from let's say my experience you've been with a company from the day one when you were TR employee so you've seen [ __ ] you know

everything from many angles and uh and people tend to think that they they also know some things and that's true but for that's just for the one segment of of of of something and you have the full full picture so try to communicate try to build uh on improve your communication skill because uh it's it's it's really hard when you're trying to deliver Vision cuz words are kind of a you know just um can describe your thoughts so uh really well so sometimes the people hear what they want to hear and they are biased with their own ideas with their own beliefs so try to sit and um sincerely convince people just through the through the dial so that but also once again be honest with yourself so try

to try to be as much clear with you with with your own vision and with your own beliefs and and try not to shap them so yeah it's uh it's like these are all good advices but it's very hard in in the dayto day like when when these challenges come in front of you it's it's hard to keep them in mind when when you were the CEO and the founder did you have advisers and how did you work with those advisers um you mean in internal or external both both like like how how because even though you write in a very um confrontational way in a good way aggress like default aggressive confrontational discussing with you you're very calm very con conversational person very smiling person so how were you um like like that what

I'm trying to say is like you're you're not a bulldozer you clearly want to talk to people want to get people on your side and how were you how are you able to keep your stance and your vision um like who were the people you were talking to and and how did they affected like especially advisers usually advisers are the ones who you trust um people in the industry or or your investors and you can you can kind of be very open with them and they can help you to formulate your message and your opinions like did you have that type of advisors or was it more internal work or was it the work with your leadership team like how did you how did you find the conviction in your visions and in your beliefs I mean I tried to to um had a conversation with external advisers let's say on a different level and in in in some way it

help but just a little in in in my own experience and most of the time uh um if I may so say so like internal advisers is your is your generals right is your is your top managers who are you spending most of the time with in in in in meeting rooms in in conversations and um once again I think our culture PA all here and our friendship like and family alike um teams uh work great because everyone could say anything during this hard situations and this just save you time and money in the end of the day so there is nothing like a secret here we try to build this on all the levels uh with the with the people and I think when you are

when you're honest with your general right let we'll continue this Napoleon dictionary right when you're honest with the with your generals they tend to be honest with with with their soldiers and so on and so on so um for us and for my experience that was the key so um this internal advisors stop when people really feel the situation and they feel that they can influence it and bring some value they did and when this paid all when they saw that what they suggested implemented tomorrow and brought something good to the company or to the business the day after mhm M the that's that that's the whole point that that means that your business is working that

your culture is working so openness and uh honest approach that was my uh experience but maybe it's not true for anyone so because it really depends on what people are around and uh I think and try and getting to know the culture different culture from the inside out right now I think it's it's not going to work for example here in UK or in the US it's not going to work in my opinion so it's just different culture it's look and feel culture and uh not the truth culture well with with that in in in mind and and like different cultures and different companies at different stages do you think that there are some essential qualities a Founder CEO should possess when leading a company to success and do those qualities change

along the stage like from the early startup to a scale up to a mature phase like do you do you believe the same um CEO qualities should are applicable to All Phases or do they you know do the requ like the qualities change I think some of them are useful all over the way like um risk tolerance cuz yeah sometimes the only person who can truly risk is the CEO and uh I think that's the the one of the important qualities resilience also help you need to be strong physically mentally uh all over the way um also I think the the best HR in the company have to be CEO so the CEO is

really HR position so you need to have a high hiring skill also on the early stages of startups uh I think that's my opinion you need to aim to the break even as quickly as possible because that's what one of the one of the diseases of of startups so Mora was profitable all from the from the early days every every turn every quarter we have been profitable so that's kind of where we achieved this as a team so it's very important uh when you have this Things become much more easier all the way down um also h um understanding your audience

better if you if you if you're working on b2c site right if you're doing product for the for the audience I think you need to understand audience much better than anyone else in the team and I did this by doing support myself I mean I was reading the reviews of our games like uh I was addicted to that so my day started from reading reviews and trying to understand what people behind this reviews because when the the some some lady in aoba telling you something like really useful about your game like like you know two paragraphs and this mean that she's onto something so she had this she decided to stand time telling you about your product and so try to think about this as as you know as a as a CEO try to to to to to just

support uh users and I think the COO can do it really better and he can feel you know he can do gather like a field data right so he can be on uh put his hands on on the first line and I think it's a very good quality if people can do that what else but I think that's awesome so risk tolerance resilience being the uh the first people manager or the uh the HR aiming from for profitability from the get-go I think this is one of the key elements because profitability gives you autonomy and autonomy allows you to build on your vision if you are not profitable you need more funding if you take more funding fing you bring in more people and give them stake of your company and if you bring more people with the stake in your company that

means they get a part of the vision and the bigger the part the less Vision it will be yours and more Vision it will be theirs and in the end you'll be working for somebody else yes by way but you know it's easier to tell the story when we start it in 2009 2010 where when you can spend half a million dollar building two three games ftin it with the with the marketing even MH today it's the started from 10 Millions I think to do that so today is much more challenging environment to to implement this advices but anyway you need to aim on early profitability as much as possible yeah um I mean there's there's way if you put in that as a Target you can start working for somebody else as a as a as a partner you can aim at different genres where you can find those ways a little bit faster uh but but I think it's just overall very

important and something that that I think during the last 10 years company totally forgot about that profitability is actually a key for any type of a company to to be valuable there's a lot of unprofitable companies nowadays and then the the final part was very interesting is the understanding your audience better than anybody else I've seen this not being the true in most big gaming companies like the CEOs are mainly just talking to like they are just managers of the leadership team uh but and managers of the key stakeholders in the board even more so than they are um users of their own products and usually the founder CEOs are the ones who have been in this genre forever like whether it is like those you know renowned AAA Studios or whatnot it's like they are the uh the key people there so um that's an very interesting point well andon thank you so much for

the uh for hopping on on the podcast to discuss the uh the the four Nevers uh of a of a Founder CEO it it was pleasure one hour went very quickly yes but we just like half an hour in but it was a pleasure um yeah and uh I'm glad to do that uh another time yeah so definitely most definitely um I wanted to just end up on what are you doing right now what are you working on and uh so that the listeners can can hear more about it and um for all the listeners by the way uh there's going to be link to anon's uh LinkedIn page I think you should follow him he's uh very unfiltered but as you can hear through this podcast he's very thoughtful and kind person that's true but I was filtered Rec recently

so yeah I need to I think the style of my folks will change a bit no no no no no they're perfect um yeah thank you for the for the pr um yes it it is really pleasure and and also I think I maybe we'll try to I to be more um you know like precise with my advices later uh in my post um to be more applicable to become an expert and maybe share a secret sauce at some point but yeah I but actually yeah I wanted to share as secret uh on your podcast in the end for the for all the listeners who are who are in the end so so yeah from my observation from from all this experts with the NBA from the

top notch managers they uh as I said before they try to wrap really simple things around in the complicated way and what I found the simple things that I want to share there is no secret Source but some secrets so uh if you look on your business and try to understand what's moving the nidle in your business try to do this or this more uh I mean at some point we thought that there is a no secret Source but when um when we heard like what's bringing money in your in your business and the answer was liveops right and the the the the the next question was uh how many of the liveops you are doing like we're doing 100 liveops okay can you do 300 liveops and

the and and it was like a secret source and the and the the the we answer was no we can because it's very complicated that the process was was coll will collapse but in the end of the day we made 200 of live Ops and this kind of improved the Top Line significantly so the secret for all the listeners look on your business understand what move in the needle and try to do all this more uh that's really simple but it's very effective advice and answering your initial question about the the new things uh I I I'm in love with the games so and that's my main skill i' I'd like to do new games i' like to innovate on this and try to combine and combine things so uh I will continue to do this

uh so my um my next thing is very early to to speak about it I'm into that but it's very early to share something so but definitely you will see some of the games that I will put my hands on later also there won't be Social Casino at anyway because I'm tired of this um and also I spend a lot of time in 3D printing now so it's on the opposite side of the of the world let's say and but I cound it and um invested in a company that are building the 3D printer machines and we are building the medical devices we are building part of the Rockets we are building a lot of interesting stuff so that you can read about it on my LinkedIn I also will share something maybe it's not relevant to the audience

but well excited to to uh to see what what you make next apart from the other 3D printing stuff and um always a fan of your LinkedIn page and always a fan of people who are very you know bold in their in their statements and in their opinions because they come from a heart and and um and thank you Anon so much for for joining the podcast and thank you everybody for listening hope you enjoy this all right byebye everybody thank you very much bye