Tonya J. Long: 0:07

Welcome home, friends. I'm Tonya Long, and this is RESET where purpose meets possibility. Each week, we share conversations with thought leaders, innovators and the dreamers and doers who are reshaping the future of work, technology, longevity and purpose. Whether you're navigating AI's impact, reimagining your career or searching for deeper meaning, you're in the right place. So settle in, open your mind and let's explore what happens when purpose meets possibility.

Tonya J. Long: 0:47

Welcome to RESET with Tonya, and I welcome Igor Krasnykh. Thank you, thank you. So you're going to learn in just a moment. Krasnykh is Igor's family name. He's the founder and CEO of TechNW eb and IdealD ata. IO, so that should tell you. This man has tons of history in the tech environment and he helps b2b manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors simplify complexity and scale faster. Now, that just means he makes everything better than he touches, and we will learn what that looks like in a few minutes. He brings some fascinating perspectives. We are all about RESET on this show pivots, transitions and RESET, and Igor has had several. You're going to learn that he moved to the States when he was 17,. Finished his last year of high school here, has been here then for 20-ish years. We won't say how long, but he's been here for 20-ish years had a family here and then relocated. He boomeranged because he went from the Bay Area to Austin, Texas. Was there 15, 16 years, 17. 17 years You're aging yourself.

Igor Krasnykh: 1:54

I know it's okay and then moved. I think at one point you kind of give up on aging yourself and just say, look, this is what it is, you know you've got to own it. Just say, look, you know you gotta own it, you gotta own it.

Tonya J. Long: 2:02

But I met you guys when I met. Actually, I met your wife first at a networking event and then we became friends and then you and she started showing up in all the watering holes that I haunt and it's been wonderful to watch you, in just a few short months, work toward finding your way in your community here. So we are thrilled to have you and I'm excited to have you on the show.

Igor Krasnykh: 2:27

Thank you, Tonya, thank you for having me here and thank you for sharing your audience with me, excited about this conversation.

Tonya J. Long: 2:35

It's all wonderful, so we've got 55 more minutes to unpack the beginning of Igor Krasneff. I put an F on it instead of an H. But, tell us a little bit about how you arrived and what your priorities are.

Igor Krasnykh: 2:50

Okay. So, born and raised in Russia in a small city called Dubna, and when we departed I think that city was about 60,000 people, so very small town Spent my youth there. My dad is the nuclear scientist. He worked at the Nuclear Junior what was it? Junior Institute of Nuclear Research. Oh, thank you, and he was. I kind of want to say this. I mean this in the nicest way possible. He's a workaholic.

Igor Krasnykh: 3:24

He loves doing what he does and I think I inherited that gene from him because I see that in myself and my wife Anna tells me about it quite often that I tend to spend a lot of time at work or working on the new ideas and working on the business, helping people etc. The new ideas and working on the business, helping people, etc. But going back to Russia, so went to high school there and we decided well, my dad got a job offer to come work for Slack, stanford Linear Accelerator.

Tonya J. Long: 3:57

Collider. I think that stands for Not the messenger application, not the messenger application.

Igor Krasnykh: 4:02

So he got a contractor gig to come work here in California and he decided to take all of us with him because the contract was for three years. Wow, and I'm going to age myself with this one. So in 1997, in April, that's when we packed everything, sold whatever we didn't need to bring with us, hopped on a plane and it was four of us it was my mom, my dad, my younger sister and me and we made a trip over to California, with the stop in New York or overlay in New York. And when we got to California, man, I feel like I can talk about this for a very long time, having lived in Russia I experienced two interesting kind of financial times, so to speak, where the first time, when people had a lot of money but they didn't have, there was no products on shelves, and there was a flip of that where people didn't have money but there was abundance of products on shelves, and so it was kind of like experiencing both of those spectrums.

Igor Krasnykh: 5:10

And then, when we came to the United States, I think it was like within the first or second day, my dad asked us to go to the store and get some orange juice and some vegetables or fruits and stuff like that. And we came I don't know if it was Safeway or something similar and there was just such a. There were so many different items on shelves, gazillion of different milk types, gonna have different, like orange juices, like we were. You had a choice. Too much choice, yeah, too much choice. That kind of engraved into my memory when we came to the United States. There was just too much choice and I was like what do?

Igor Krasnykh: 5:46

we buy, but anyways, so we made that trip over to United States, and that's where my journey in the United States has begun.

Tonya J. Long: 5:53

I love it. So I think about you. Have two children, not quite teenagers. Six and ten, and I think about you moving them from Austin and I then I think about your mom and dad making a huge choice to move you when you were a little older, but still definitely their child, and at home and in school, with a network in a community. Did that have any bearing on how you moved? Your children were born in Austin.

Tonya J. Long: 6:19

With the age that they are, yeah did you think back to how it felt for you when you were uprooted right from your friends and your routines? I think kids are a lot more resilient than sometimes we give them credit for, but did you reflect on that when you made the choice to come back to the Bay Area?

Igor Krasnykh: 6:35

Great question and, thinking back, that transition from Russia to the United States was not a simple transition for me, because language is different, schools are different education system is different. We're leaving all our friends and family in the other country and you had five brands of orange juice to choose from.

Igor Krasnykh: 7:00

Yes, that's true, the biggest thing that I remember and I'm still fascinated by it. Yes, that's true, the biggest thing that I remember and I'm still fascinated by it. But when we decided to come back to the Bay Area, I didn't think back to the time when I came to Russia and how it was for me. However, my wife and I, we did talk about when is the right time to move, whether it's at the end of the school year.

Igor Krasnykh: 7:27

It might be more difficult for your kids to adjust to the new environment because everyone goes away for summer.

Igor Krasnykh: 7:56

And when they come back, they all wanna see their old friends that they haven't seen for like two, three months and they would be spending time with them instead of the new kid. And the best time to move was middle of the year, because when you do move you're the only new kid in the class and you get the most attention and that resonated with us a lot and that's so we made the decision to move during the kind of mid of the year to make sure we position our kids kind of blend into the environment and get up to speed very quickly and find friends quickly.

Tonya J. Long: 8:32

I think that was really wise. That would not have been my intuition, but now that you've stated it it completely makes sense and in my talks with Ana she has reflected that she has seen your kids grow so much just in the short time the three or four months that you guys have been here and getting them actively involved. We talked about soccer before we started this show.

Igor Krasnykh: 8:55

So your strategy was successful. Maybe a few weeks back I asked Anna a question how is she feeling and how are our kids feeling from her perspective, now that we've been here for several or a few months? And she said that she is already used to being in Bay Area. She loves being here, she loves nature, she loves going outside on nature walks and things like that.

Igor Krasnykh: 9:27

She settled in and the kids seemed to be loving school. And I also asked Misha if he misses Texas or any of his friends, and not as much. He does miss two of his buddies that he developed a very close relationship with last year. He misses them, but outside of that he developed a very close relationship with last year. He misses them, but outside of that. He found new friends here in California and he's spending a lot of his time after school. He's now starting to play with some of the kids there.

Igor Krasnykh: 9:56

Some of his friends in his class are going to the same soccer program so he's loving it and our daughter is also loving outside good good, so they're thriving and I see.

Tonya J. Long: 10:08

Anna, thriving. So back to you. I think about that transition from Russia to here and all that you went through, and now you will talk about some of your pivots in business. But how did that early life experience of coming from Russia to here shape how you look at business and especially technology? Because you and I experienced technology as a very global, global conversation. It's not limited to a specific geography, because the people we work with are everywhere on the planet. So how did moving from Russia and then and recalibrating yourself when you were 17, how did that impact how you look at the business world now?

Igor Krasnykh: 10:53

I want to blend in two things. So transitioning from another culture to the United States culture and also something that I started to do while I was going to high school in Russia, I think, helped me create this mindset that helped me on my entrepreneurial path. So with which one do I start with? Maybe transition to a new culture? So when you're transitioning to a new culture I've mentioned that you know, language is very different. How people think are different, and many, many people who came from a different country, who speak a different language. I think this will resonate with them, because the way you learn a language, you learn the words, you know what you want to say, but you think about, you think.

Igor Krasnykh: 11:41

I thought in Russian what I wanted to say and translated it in my head and said it, and when somebody responded back, I had to translate it back into Russian, all of that. So that transition was quite interesting and I've learned to now I like even dream and think in English now, given so much time has passed. But being able to pay attention and really listen to people when they talk to you or communicate what they want to say, I think that was a very good skill that I've learned early on. Even I don't want to skip through the school and high school ages. Obviously you have to listen to your teachers, but I think when I came into the United States, I had to put much, much more effort into listening, understanding and learning from that perspective.

Tonya J. Long: 12:29

What a nice byproduct. It is a more focused listener to understand what content is coming to you would have implications way beyond the transition event.

Igor Krasnykh: 12:50

Of course, and it also teaches you patience too.

Tonya J. Long: 12:52

Yes, I wasn't going to call you patient Although I do think you present as very patient but I wasn't going to call you patient. I wasn't going to give you that rope for yourself.

Igor Krasnykh: 13:05

Thank you. And on the flip side, my kind of tech career started from. I mentioned earlier that my dad was spending a lot of his time at work in Russia and he always was looking for opportunities to go to work.

Tonya J. Long: 13:23

And.

Igor Krasnykh: 13:24

I remember my mom was telling him, like, you can only go to work if you take kids with you, and he used that as an opportunity. You went to work with your dad. There's a caveat to that. So, yes, I did, and Don't worry, Russia's not listening.

Igor Krasnykh: 13:40

No, and when he took, so he took me first, my sister I think was too young at that stage, when I went to my dad's work first and he had to do. You know, I can't even describe or explain what he did, but it was something with like accelerators and et cetera. So he said look like, here's a computer. You play with this computer while I go do my stuff.

Tonya J. Long: 14:04

He gave you a toy, a toy right?

Igor Krasnykh: 14:06

yes, and this is going to really age me too. So back then, imagine, like this huge box that sits on the desk, and it had two, five and a quarter inch floppy disks. Oh yes, one of them was the operating system the other one had like video game basic video games and I, and I think back then hopefully I'm not going to make this up, but I feel like the RAM for the computer was like 8KB or 16KB, oh yeah.

Tonya J. Long: 14:34

My first computer was a VIC-20. Do you know what a VIC-20?

Igor Krasnykh: 14:37

is the Commodore, oh, commodore, I've heard of them, commodore.

Tonya J. Long: 14:39

VIC-20. And that would have been about 82 or 84. When I got that, I wrote about that in my book. I've forgotten which year it was, but the age I was it was either 82 or 84. Yeah, I don't know how we you couldn't even open an email now on those computers, right it? Was just command prompt you type stuff in there, right?

Igor Krasnykh: 14:58

like start games and that's what I did I just. My first introduction to computers was playing those like kind of basic video games. I started to like computers because they were fun and as I grew, as I transitioned. I remember a time when my dad came to our house from work and he said I have a friend who has built a webpage that anybody with internet access.

Tonya J. Long: 15:26

Can see, I was like oh my.

Igor Krasnykh: 15:28

God, what is that Show me? And he opened up our browser, punched in the URL and this website came up. It was just super boring text, loud colors and things like that. So I was like, oh, that's cool. And in my head to me, that was the trigger where I started asking myself questions how can I do this? How can I learn? Back then, like again, I didn't have access to any books, there was no youtube videos on how to do this stuff.

Igor Krasnykh: 15:54

So I just opened up the page view source and the rudimentary path and just, you were pretty deep.

Tonya J. Long: 16:02

You were deep into the structure for html. Yeah back then it was probably not yeah.

Igor Krasnykh: 16:07

So I had to figure out like what does this tag do? Are there any other tags? And just through trial and that's what I want to highlight here is through trial and error I kind of reversed springboard for me into my career, where I anything that was fascinating to me, exciting to me, I went in deep and I was trying to figure it out again later on. I was like watching videos, reading, reading books, experimenting with things, not being able, not worried about failing I'm going to take a sidestep here. So Thomas Edison, he had a nice quote. Oh yeah, another one. I have not failed. I found 10,000 ways of things that don't work.

Tonya J. Long: 16:57

That takes patience too. You mentioned patience earlier it does. I don't think people have the same tolerance these days for iterating. People want instant success and results.

Igor Krasnykh: 17:08

Yes, and to now segue back into the founder-entrepreneur world, I think that is what sets successful entrepreneurs and founders apart is the ability to you stumble, you fall, you hurt yourself on this journey, being able to quickly get up and continue to walk and even maybe run, have patience, and where other people give up, you don't and you continue to push forward. That's what my motto is and that's what I live by.

Tonya J. Long: 17:42

I love it. I love it. I am going to grab a point that you've made and do a quick public service announcement, because you learning what you did when you were in your early teens by following your dad to the office and him having to occupy you Kids. Today it's about to be summer break and I know all the parents out there are looking for how am I going to schedule my kids so they're learning during the summer and they're having fun. And we have an opportunity this summer. Here at the radio station we are doing radio camp starting in June and kids age 13 to 17 can be in camp and learn how to do their own radio station, learn how to do their own podcast. So I think that is a very cool camp. I did not have those kinds of camps when I was growing up.

Tonya J. Long: 18:28

So, it starts in June. Go to kpcrorg online on that internet that Igor was talking about and get more details. But I think that would be a great camp to send a kid to to learn the mechanical skills of operating this mixer board. A lot of kids do want to build their own podcast these days and there's a lot of moving parts to that, so I think it's a great camp for kids to sign up for the summer.

Igor Krasnykh: 18:52

Are there any age restrictions on that one?

Tonya J. Long: 18:54

13 to 17 is our target audience. So, yeah, there's got to be some level of decision-making skills and intellectual capability. I think with some of the tools and applications we use, thirteen is the youngest at this point. Yeah.

Igor Krasnykh: 19:08

Awesome.

Tonya J. Long: 19:09

Yeah, fun. So that was a good segue for me to do a public service announcement for the KPCR Radio Camp. Let's bring you into adulthood.

Igor Krasnykh: 19:18

Okay.

Tonya J. Long: 19:19

You've done really well hanging in there with the impact of your teen years. But if we look at your adulthood, you did all the normal transitioning things into adulthood, but then you ran fairly large digital transformations at companies like Express Scripts, I think, general Motors. So, for you, what prompted your RESET? Because you've talked a couple of times already about entrepreneurship you had some big corporate experience and then you RESET back to entrepreneurship. What triggered that for you? Great question, yes.

Igor Krasnykh: 20:01

So as my career kind of started from high school, I feel like when I first started to build websites.

Tonya J. Long: 20:06

Yeah, nothing wrong with that.

Igor Krasnykh: 20:07

And I've always had that drive to go build things and throughout my early journey through end of high school here I went to Woodside High School. Okay, shout out to Woodside Shout out to Woodside, then spent some time in a Foothill College community college and from there I feel like and maybe this is the wrong way to say it, but I got sucked into the corporate sorry, not corporate world, but into the world of entrepreneurship, because a friend of mine and I, we decided that how about we? And I think it was around the dot-com boom time frame.

Igor Krasnykh: 20:47

We were like let's build our own digital agency where we do design and web development. I was taking computer science or focusing on computer science when I went to Foothill College and a friend of mine also was kind of expressing interest in computer science and he was more on kind of technical sales side of things back then. So we're like, let's do this, let's do this together, and that was the first start of my true entrepreneurial journey. Long story short, there was a time when we couldn't really crack the knot on sales and marketing because we needed to build our pipeline. And then families started to occur girlfriends and all of that. We basically said, look, maybe this is not the right time time. And at that point I said let me maybe go get a part-time corporate gig or something like that just to make sure that financially I'm able to grow and things like that. And that decision sucked me into the corporate world. So I put my kind of idea, entrepreneur idea on the side for the digital agency.

Igor Krasnykh: 22:00

I spent many years in the corporate world but throughout that corporate journey I've always I was always excited when I thought of different ideas on different products that I wanted to create and bring to market and those typically came from, like me, experiencing some gap which I couldn't figure out how to do. So a couple of kind of my early failed startups are one was the B-List, the business listing, which is now kind of like Yelp equivalent. So early in that I built that platform. I was even advertising it on Craigslist and at one point got an email from Craig at Craigslist saying, hey, you shouldn't be advertising this stuff on my platform. I got in trouble.

Tonya J. Long: 22:44

Oh, I think that's a great story. So you got a message from the Craig.

Igor Krasnykh: 22:48

Well, I don't know if it was him. I'm assuming it was, yes.

Tonya J. Long: 22:52

They were a pretty rogue little group.

Igor Krasnykh: 22:54

I think it probably was him, maybe, maybe, so, anyways, it was that, and after that, there was a platform that I wanted to create, which is find what to do. It's basically like in the evenings, like where do you go and hang?

Tonya J. Long: 23:06

out.

Igor Krasnykh: 23:07

Like pre the, what is it? The event websites and things like that. And the last one was the Adroid Nation, which was kind of social tech, a whole network for tech community, because at that point when you met with people you didn't know what their skills were. So, my idea was okay, let's bridge that gap. But in all of those kind of failed startups, the big problem that I came across with because I didn't possess any marketing knowledge or experience I didn't have anybody within my network who could help me with those things, and even sales after the platform is done.

Igor Krasnykh: 23:39

I was like one of those entrepreneurs who are like let's build it and then customers will come. Oh my God, that was a difficult realization when, yeah, the product is ready and then go to market is even more important.

Tonya J. Long: 23:51

Wouldn't you say that's still the biggest challenge.

Igor Krasnykh: 23:53

It is.

Tonya J. Long: 23:53

And the founders that we work with, the entrepreneurs that we help advise. Of course they want to build, and even for myself, when I've done my own things, I want to build because it feels good. You can get that done, what you're trying to create, and it's so. The unknown and the rejection factor is 20 times higher.

Igor Krasnykh: 24:11

It is so those hard lessons and I know I'm deviating off of the original- question.

Tonya J. Long: 24:16

It's fine.

Igor Krasnykh: 24:19

What I've learned is and the way that I'm starting to not starting is the wrong word to use here doing things now is testing the market first, doing pre-sales, making sure there's demand, and you've got to create all of that even before you start building prototypes. Like a lot of the products now can be started with just a conversation, saying, look, I'm building this awesome fee, I think it's awesome. Would it be beneficial to you, Tonya? And then you say, yeah, I could care less. That could be one answer that you get.

Igor Krasnykh: 24:54

Save me a lot of time, or it could be. Look, I love this idea. Yes, I would totally use this product when you build it. And that to me, is step number one of multiple steps on that journey, because then you interview your close friends, see what's the demand, average it out. To jump a little bit ahead of myself here, you can, even these days, do paid Facebook advertising social media advertisement to test the idea further how much demand there is, media advertisement to test the idea further, how much demand there is.

Igor Krasnykh: 25:23

And from there the next big question, which even more founders typically leave until the very end, is how do I make money off of this? Because I need to feed my family, I need to eat. I need a roof above my head. So the question of money, based on what I've seen, comes towards the tail end and it should be one of the first questions that you get.

Tonya J. Long: 25:46

How do we monetize this before you build it?

Igor Krasnykh: 25:49

And a good way to do this and I shared an article on LinkedIn in my weekly newsletter was how to do this right. So you first go to your 10 close friends and say all right people who said you love the idea would use it. You say what's it worth to you, how much? How much is this problem gonna save you time and how much are you willing to pay for?

Tonya J. Long: 26:12

it and.

Igor Krasnykh: 26:13

I've done this several times with some of my friends and you get a range of numbers right. Some people say oh, I only use it if it's free or it's only worth like two bucks for me, or five bucks or $15. So now that you're starting to aggregate those digits and numbers, together and you figure out what should the price of this product be right?

Tonya J. Long: 26:36

Based on the value that you're providing. What's Edges?

Igor Krasnykh: 26:39

And from there you ask the next question, saying all right, so if you really want this product, let's say it's available tomorrow. Can I get your credit card for this?

Tonya J. Long: 26:52

Now you sound like a swindler. I was going to reflect that. For people who don't consider themselves salespeople, what you just described feels a lot more natural and easy. Hey, I'm building this, I'm in the middle of doing this, what would you think about this? What would you pay for? This Is to me, for whatever reason, just a lot simpler than saying, hey, I've got the best blue pen ever. You want to buy it?

Igor Krasnykh: 27:17

That's a horrible fact. Well, I'm just doing it for effect.

Tonya J. Long: 27:21

But still, even when you've softened your entry into the conversation, you're asking somebody to buy something, and a lot of people are very reluctant to do that. And I think if you do it as you're collecting feedback, then you have, hopefully, a whole list of people to go back to to say, hey, that thing I was talking about three months ago, I've got that ready.

Igor Krasnykh: 27:42

Do you want to try that? I think this is something that I want to unfold or peel the onion on this one because I've been in the situations where I got positive response saying, yes, I would use this product so much I'm going to pay you. Whenever it's ready, just build it. I went and I built it and then half of more than half of those people say, ah, don't need it anymore. And that's the ugly truth that you stumble upon very frequently.

Igor Krasnykh: 28:07

And to me how to do the pre-sale. It's all about the how you phrase it, how do you position it. It doesn't have to be like buy it right now, but, look, I'm looking to raise some of these funds to invest into this platform, and any contribution right now, even like two dollars investment right now, will help me because it's money towards that solution which you said you need. So, again, like this, what I just came up with. It's may not be perfect, but that's where I would try to position it to and say who is early enough can help you at least generate some cash to help you continue to invest that cash into finishing and building that product.

Igor Krasnykh: 28:46

Because if and the how much money you collect from those individuals that want that solution, it really doesn't matter, because it takes a big effort, just like you said, for somebody to take their credit card or write a check small check and that's where you get the true qualification of your service or a product. If somebody is willing to do that, then they will. There's a much higher likelihood for them to purchase your product compared to yeah, I'll buy it when it's ready.

Tonya J. Long: 29:16

I've heard that a dozen times. Yeah, I love it. I'm going to do a quick station ID at the bottom of the hour place. Yeah, I love it. I'm going to do a quick station ID at the bottom of the hour. So we are listening to and I usually do a weather report, and it is a gorgeous, bright, sunny day with beautiful blue skies here in Los Gatos, as we broadcast live from the studio of KPCR LP, 92.9 FM, and we're also going out over sister station KMRT LP, and that's 101.9 FM out of Santa Cruz. So we appreciate all of our listeners being here for the conversation of RESET with Tonya, here with Igor Krasna. Did I get closer? Yes, good, if I just do it a hundred more times, I should have it Right. Sounds good, awesome, awesome.

Tonya J. Long: 30:04

You were just giving very wise advice about qualifying interest, even in the smallest $2. And I know we're just giving an example, but I do think you're right to commit people, because there is a lot of people want to support you. People want to tell you your idea is good, their intentions are good, but you don't need good intentions when you're about to spend a lot of time creating and money building something. You want to know. Can I monetize this? So I think the solution you just offered is very helpful. Do you have any interesting stories from when you've done that? And it was a real game changer for what you were developing.

Igor Krasnykh: 30:47

It's a whole mind shift because I did not think this way and I am still kind of engraving that into my neurology to make sure it's like natural and consistent. And it's tough neurology to make sure it's like natural and consistent it's in its stuff. But at the end of the day it all starts with practice and as long as you practice and practice those ideas, I think you will be far better positioned to grow your business or grow your idea beyond just an idea and hype verbal hype, so to speak even if you do a prototype.

Igor Krasnykh: 31:23

But then it's like I'm reflecting back on my early days of those find what to do and other things like okay, you build a product, there is a chance you could get lucky and demand will be there. People in your network could help you grow it. But you know it's a lot easier when you put the necessary kind of fundamental pillars into play and build that foundation early on.

Tonya J. Long: 31:46

You just mentioned network and I'm wondering. You've had these transitions that we've been talking about more broadly, but how important is your network when you are starting a new journey or a new venture? Not, just the move you've just made. But when you you're building something, when you're an entrepreneur creating a company, what's your advice for tapping into those networks and getting useful responses, not just supportive ones?

Igor Krasnykh: 32:11

oh man, there's a short answer and a long answer, of course, but network. Network is extremely important. It's a short answer. The long answer is having walked that entrepreneurial path, there is time for everything. There is time where all you need is just laser focus and building, experimenting with things and just saying is this possible, I'm thinking, and if so, which tools do I need to use to do this? If you are able, if you're successful on that path and you're able to figure things out on your own, great, that's the path.

Igor Krasnykh: 32:47

You don't need to, in my personal opinion, if I know how to I don't know peel a potato, I'm not going to go ask after I've done it. I don't know, I'm not going to go ask somebody else on how to do it. To me, that's inefficiency from my perspective. That's inefficiency from my perspective.

Igor Krasnykh: 33:04

But when you are running into a wall and you see yourself spending a lot of time trying to get the answer to your question, and given where all the social media and YouTube's are, there's a high chance that you can probably find on how to do something online through those videos, or at least get a general idea and I'm gonna dive super technical here and even like complex integrations and coding.

Igor Krasnykh: 33:29

You can throw documentation into chat, gpt and ask a question and see if it can help you accelerate your journey from start to finish. But there are times where your network comes into play and helps you break down those walls that you're unable to break down on your own using technology or just based on your knowledge. And one of the big misconceptions that I see is it's not just who you know and whether or not that individual if that individual can help you solve the problem, but it's who they know. It's like multi-level, deep right and it's just being able to. Your network in ideal stage would be a network where you are able to connect through maybe one or multiple individuals to the right person and help you on your journey to take that one inch forward step.

Tonya J. Long: 34:30

Let's have this conversation. We are in an environment where there is a lot of connecting.

Igor Krasnykh: 34:38

And I've noticed.

Tonya J. Long: 34:40

I've experienced a lot of people announcing to me I'm a super connector, because it's a thing. Here we do invest a lot of our time, but to the point that you just made it is so important. You can't just brand yourself a super connector. You and for you people who are listening yeah, I'm talking to you. We're talking about one of my favorite super connectors that you met with earlier this morning. But I just really trying to help people understand. It's the quality of the connections that you make over the quantity so many people are chasing a number they 20,000.

Tonya J. Long: 35:17

LinkedIn connections or they're chasing the wrong things, and it can be very expensive from a time perspective for them as well as for the people that they hook into conversations that aren't relevant, conversations that don't appear to have a strong purpose for the connection.

Igor Krasnykh: 35:36

And I want to kind of piggyback off of that and echo saying that when you're a super connector, it's not just. Look. Here's the person in my Rolodex. Here's an intro.

Tonya J. Long: 35:47

You might find something in comments.

Igor Krasnykh: 35:49

It goes much deeper and you touched on that, because as a connector you have to understand how that connection let's say person A and you think person B might be a good connection to each but knowing exactly how and asking from their perspective, saying for person A what's there with him, what's in it for me. And for person A and B. What's in it for me?

Tonya J. Long: 36:16

Is there mutual value.

Igor Krasnykh: 36:18

And if there's mutual value, then connect them, but in often it it happens more than you probably think, or you probably seen this. But it's just look, I just met this person here. You, you guys talk, and it's like what do I talk about?

Tonya J. Long: 36:32

I and I've started refusing those. I have a little canned LinkedIn thing that I send. Now that seems very personal, but when I meet someone at an event and two days later they ask me to introduce and I meet them, I shake their hand, I connect on LinkedIn. Two days later they want me to introduce them to someone way above their pay grade that happens to be in my network and I try to coach them through a LinkedIn message to say my curated network came at a price and I don't just introduce anyone into those higher levels unless they're ready to have those conversations. You get this a lot out of less experienced people who are just going to the top of the stack to meet a CEO of a company. And it's no, you're in an early stage in your career. If you want to go to company X, let's figure out how to get you introduced. But I can't lead that connection point for you because I really don't know anything about your work.

Igor Krasnykh: 37:32

And maybe a different way to kind of look at it too, is when you make an introduction, your reputation is on the line 100%, and if you make a wrong introduction then you're losing that person out of your network. Every introduction that you make, it's got to be genuine.

Tonya J. Long: 37:50

And the people I introduce to people take it seriously, because I'm not constantly overfeeding or oversubscribing to that relationship with non-quality. And it's not non-quality, it's just a mismatch of skills and needs you were talking about. Does person A need person B? Does person B benefit? Is there some mutual exchange of value? So it's up to us to help mentor people who are coming into these environments and very much, are ambitious and want to do big things, but you don't start at the top to do those things typically.

Igor Krasnykh: 38:26

Yes, and thinking back from my perspective, it's all about I'm a giver, I'm not a taker. I know a lot of takers, unfortunately, and even if I want to meet somebody who is above my pay grade, I am instantly thinking like what is the value that I provide to them before who is above my pay grade, I am instantly thinking like what is the value that I provide to them before I ask for anything back. And maybe that value is so small that I need to provide multiple touch, multiple values to them before I can feel comfortable asking for something in return. So I believe that if you have that mindset going into a networking event or whatever the situation, is just be aver, be a giver.

Tonya J. Long: 39:03

I'm writing that one down that I think we could write a book on be a giver. What do you think you want to co-author it?

Igor Krasnykh: 39:09

be a giver. I'm a horrible author. Maybe with help of Jeff Gpt, maybe a few ideas, but I think you would do just fine.

Tonya J. Long: 39:17

So this topic there are other topics. If people that are listening, if they knew you on LinkedIn, they would know you, like I know you as someone who there's a lot of meat on the bone. You're not just lounging in your backyard with the dog and the soccer ball and saying, oh, it's a beautiful day in Los Gatos. You're not a social poster, you are. Every post is like a micro MBA lesson.

Igor Krasnykh: 39:48

And oh man, I want to touch on that too, and this is something recent that I started to do because with the fast moving pace of AI, and everything like that need for a brand, a personal brand, is becoming more and more important.

Igor Krasnykh: 40:08

I want to call myself, like I am, an introvert by nature, because in order for me to recharge, I want to be on my own with my own thoughts and stuff like that. And when I go to events, I think the other I'm a Gemini, so the other twin kind of kicks in and saying all right, so your birthday's coming up. My birthday is coming up Because I'm a.

Tonya J. Long: 40:25

Taurus, I'm right before you, all right.

Igor Krasnykh: 40:27

Okay, lost my train of thought where I was going with this.

Tonya J. Long: 40:31

I apologize. I did that my fault. We were talking about you evolving to this brand. I want to say personality, but it's a brand, and on social media you are. I don't want to call it rigid, but you are. You're declarative, you are guiding people on business principles and practices.

Igor Krasnykh: 40:50

It's a wealth of information you're sharing yes, and I remember where I left off. So we I'm an introvert, so me being spending time on social media this is new to me. I feel like it's a little bit scary to some degree, but I believe that it needs to be done and you just have to be consistent. There was a lot of lessons learned and things like mental mind block that I had to overcome to get to where I'm at today, but I am happy that what I do today on social media starting to become a little bit more natural and it just it's a flow, it's becoming a flow.

Igor Krasnykh: 41:32

I love it and where I was going with. All of this is, at the end of the day, if I rewind back how product knowledge or sales or education was done. Like you know, thinking back, it was a lot of cold calling going door to door, asking do you need a new refrigerator or a new roof or whatever? It is so. I feel like with the world of AI, there's an abundance of information available on social media.

Igor Krasnykh: 42:00

And cold calling for many industries no longer works as well as it used to be. Emails. I have my one of my emails that I never check because it's just a spam box of trash that like.

Igor Krasnykh: 42:14

I don't care about so it sounds like we all have one of those. So to me it's how do you, how do you stand out, how do you generate that demand or how do you continue to educate? And to me, it's all about sharing what I've learned, sharing the mistakes that I've made on my journey and sharing how I solved those or overcame some of those challenges with the world. And I'm not looking for anything bad, but what kind of naturally starting to happen is people who follow and read that content.

Tonya J. Long: 42:47

They do reach out when they're ready they engage At least I see them engage in comments. You probably see even more on private direct messages. Yes, yeah, that's wonderful.

Igor Krasnykh: 42:56

It's fascinating, because at that point you no longer need to figure out when do I need to send that marketing or sales material to person A? You know when they're ready, and they're reaching out to you when they're ready, and to me that's a whole new concept. I love it.

Tonya J. Long: 43:13

Yeah, yeah, and again you are doing well. Let me do a quick station identifier for KPCRLP 92.9. We are a community radio station, so that means we are a non-profit radio station. We champion makers, creators, doers and dreamers. Very artistic. I don't consider myself artistic. We're all more creative though today, I think, than we were five years ago. But this station has always been focused on enabling the Sound. Of Pirate Cat Radio is a very eclectic mix of artists and creators who share with the local community and of course, you can also find us online from anywhere at kpcrorg. So it's a pleasure to be here and be part of this radio family. It has been a fun part of my journey. Woot, woot.

Igor Krasnykh: 44:03

Woot, woot, woot. Thank you, Nice. I'll bring an air horn next time.

Tonya J. Long: 44:07

We were talking about that before we started.

Igor Krasnykh: 44:09

Yes, how we're doing on time. Yeah, do we have a hard?

Tonya J. Long: 44:12

stop. We do, okay, we do In about 10 more minutes. Narrow down, because we've talked about so many things with your. One thing I did want to ask, though what pivoted you toward your social media presence? What drove you? What drove you to focus on such specific topics? Where you are actually, you are coaching the masses with every email, and not every email, every post you put out. What inspired you? Put out what inspired you to do that, or motivated you to do that, so that other people can understand, because I think a lot of people there's a lot of lurkers, a lot of people who read our stuff who never we never know they're out there until we see them in an event and they say I'm a huge fan and it's who are you?

Igor Krasnykh: 44:57

Because you know they're just not engaged. I have some of those. It's fascinating, it is, isn't it? In the last two weeks I had two people who mentioned to me saying like I love your content, exactly, but they left zero likes, zero comments. I'm like okay.

Tonya J. Long: 45:12

But for me, that's just how our heart is engaged with what we're doing too. One of my best stories on that front is I had 1130 at night. One night I got a message on LinkedIn from a young woman in Africa. She was in Nigeria or Ghana, I've forgotten, but she and all her little friends, they worked at the equivalent of a Comcast it was some kind of cable broadcasting call center and they all read my columns and they read the comments in my columns.

Tonya J. Long: 45:43

At the time I was a member of CHIEF and we were really supportive and I had this little family, this sisterhood of we would banter about everything, no matter what the post was about, and these young women were reading our posts, as this is how we are going to seek relationships as we grow in our careers, and we look to you, because we don't have female mentorship here in Nigeria, and we watch you and your friends and how you interact. It was a fascinating story. Oh, I cried. It was just. I mean, it was written. It was so sweet and the thing I helped her understand I said because she she asked if she could connect with me.

Tonya J. Long: 46:23

It was one of those where, and and the thing that I shared with her is most of these women I've never met in person. They live across the country. We're in COVID right now and I know them through our interactions online, which should tell you you may be sitting in Nigeria, but you can have a community of support around you from all over the world. Just start, and it was really. It was such a beautiful moment and I realized, when I'm not getting the engagement that I want off of a really meaningful post, somebody out there seeing that and benefiting from it.

Igor Krasnykh: 46:58

That's fascinating because I tend to, from time time to time, think the same way. I thought I just posted some amazing piece of content and like very little, and I got 10 likes.

Igor Krasnykh: 47:09

But I keep reminding myself and this is something I want to give a shout out to a friend of mine in Austin, Sean Dodd. He's the CEO of a social media marketing agency. He's the one who first challenged myself and a few other business owners to do the social media marketing agency. He's the one who first challenged myself and a few other business owners to do the social media challenge.

Tonya J. Long: 47:26

That's where it all came from.

Igor Krasnykh: 47:27

I love it, and he invested his time to educate us every week about what works on every platform, what you should do what you should not do.

Igor Krasnykh: 47:36

He basically said just be consistent and you have to publish every day and make sure that whatever you publish is genuine and it's you. You're not like fabricating something. And just stay consistent and don't worry about the engagement comments or your community for at least a year and I want to say, with AI and oversaturation of content, it might be maybe a couple of years or maybe it depends right on what you're publishing. But just don't worry, because when you're providing value to your community, the community will find you. And it takes time.

Tonya J. Long: 48:18

Wow, we are not patient enough for that.

Igor Krasnykh: 48:21

We're not patient enough, we're Wow, we are not patient enough for that?

Tonya J. Long: 48:23

We're not patient enough. We're not, we are not. No, because, gosh darn it, I want that dopamine hit of people recognizing the value of my work. It will happen.

Igor Krasnykh: 48:35

And I think it was Gary Vaynerchuk who said look. So he said if you're not getting engagement at all, then you need to look. Maybe your content sucks, but at the end of the day, I think his statement about that was like look, if you've already put in a lot of time and you don't see any, the needle is just not moving. It's probably your content, but a lot of I should say a lot a big chunk of content that I see it's all like. Here's what I do, here's what it's all about me. It's all about me. It's not about the audience, it's not about the community, and if you're publishing content about your community, about you know and helping individuals, businesses et cetera, then that community will find you because you're a giver.

Igor Krasnykh: 49:25

If you're a taker probably at least I don't engage with content and I yeah, that's like taker content okay, gary Vee is a different conversation for us, for another time.

Tonya J. Long: 49:37

he has just had a remarkable transformation, as far as I'm concerned, with his online presence. That's the seed for you for a later conversation. He he has huge time. He has just had a remarkable transformation, as far as I'm concerned with his online presence. That's the seed for you for a later conversation. He has hugely pivoted, in my opinion, in the last four or five years and he's for those of you who don't know Gary Vee and he has had his hands in everything Wine production, definitely. I put him on the stage as a motivational speaker, but I've seen a real like heart shift in him in the last, I would say, three or four years and it's been pretty remarkable. Let's talk about it. Yeah, I have to bring you back and we'll have a Gary Vee support episode.

Tonya J. Long: 50:13

So, as we start to wind down our time, the final question I want to ask for you, the final formal question, is around what for the future? I think you have a pretty amazing crystal ball. So because you're on the cutting edge of a lot of this and you're doing things that are outside your comfort zone, so you see a lot. So what do you think is the next big RESET that you see coming for businesses and entrepreneurs and in general. How should people prepare so they can optimize that?

Igor Krasnykh: 50:44

Oh, such a loaded question. We only have a few minutes left. Here are my thoughts on that topic. I believe that, with the world of AI, business owners or founders are now able to do more on their own before they need to think about bringing in somebody else, like a business partner or you know, making a first hire etc. And it's fascinating to watch that tools these days, there's tools that it's like stitch AI together, and AI can now do a lot more, not just a repetitive single task, but it's a sequence of tasks. I want to see how that evolves and how that changes everything.

Igor Krasnykh: 51:33

But tying it back to the business ownerships and founders, don't rush to hire somebody, and I first would look at whatever you do, whatever you try to offload off of your plate, can AI do that job well, with quality, obviously important, it's a given and if so, continue to build it. I think before AI, many companies are able to grow from zero to seven figures just by having a single employee at a company. From there, I think with the AI, that number will change. It's probably going to go to eight and nine figures, depending on what your business is. So don't be, don't look to grow by adding more people, but look at the opportunity to optimize and streamline your businesses, to build a very solid foundation for you to be able to grow further, more and further. Right, because you will hit a point that some you will hit a point when you do need to bring a co-founder in, but that point in the entrepreneur founder journey has shifted quite a lot to the future. I don't know if that answers your question.

Tonya J. Long: 52:48

It did it did. I'm going to add something to it. I am seeing more and more platforms being developed with AI for the use of AI. So don't be concerned or scared if you are less technical, because I think people are starting to focus on the shifts in the world of work and the future of work, and the super technical people are building platforms so that you can engage with the benefits of AI. Low code no code has been a thing for a while now, but I think it takes business acumen more than technical acumen to launch. Whatever your product is, whether it's a hard product or a service, I think that the portals and the tools are going to be out there for you to plug in easily. So I know there's a lot of people who still feel like AI. Is this really complex thing? And I think more and more I'm seeing a lot of simplifications being packaged and delivered to people. So I have a and more. I'm seeing a lot of simplifications being packaged and delivered to people.

Igor Krasnykh: 53:43

So I have a question for you. Do you think that the population that is afraid of AI or hesitant?

Tonya J. Long: 53:52

to use.

Igor Krasnykh: 53:52

Maybe is a better way to put it are they hesitant to use AI because they think that their skills may no longer be needed? Or why do you think they are hesitant? Is it security?

Tonya J. Long: 54:07

It's all the things, but I think the real reason is just it's something that they're.

Tonya J. Long: 54:14

Okay when we all got smartphones. There are boundaries with what you can do with a smartphone and, of course, it's grown tremendously in the last 20 years, but you know what it does for you and AI is in my opinion no, it's not my opinion, I'm right it's so broad. I think that breadth of what you can do with AI overwhelms people, because it's not just that the iPhone, smartphones were new technology and we all jumped on board and learned it, because with AI, you've got to decide what you want to do, and I think that's harder for people to narrow in on what they want to do. That is enabled by AI and that's a little overwhelming and it's changing so rapidly. So so people who don't have a propensity for jumping in and rolling up their sleeves with more technical things, all they see is the rapid shifts that are occurring and that makes them kind of stay away from it because they think they could never keep up.

Tonya J. Long: 55:15

That's my opinion. Interesting, yeah, okay, so we can explore more of this later or the next time I see you, which will be tomorrow at the AI Infra Summit. That's right, a big made-up way. Top 750 registrations this morning, so it's going to be a wonderful event over at the Microsoft campus.

Igor Krasnykh: 55:34

I'm looking forward to that one for sure. First time going to be here, I'm excited.

Tonya J. Long: 55:37

Ignite GTM does a remarkable job pulling together communities much like this KPCR community. So, igor Krasnack, thank you. I'm getting better and better at that. Thank you for being here today. It has been wonderful to spend time with you on RESET with Tonya here on KPCR LP 92.9 FM, in sunny blue sky, los Gatos.

Igor Krasnykh: 56:00

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure and love the conversation, looking forward to the next one.

Tonya J. Long: 56:07

We can do it again. All right, everyone, have a wonderful day and we will see you next Thursday at 11 am. Take care everyone. Thanks for joining us on RESET. Remember transformation is a journey, not a destination. So until next time, keep exploring what's possible. I'm Tonya Long and this is home. This is RESET you.