So Igor, tell me about your vision. Well, I have many, but I'll talk about the main one, which is,
you know, it comes from my entrepreneurial journey, which has been long-winded through
many mountains and many even more valleys, right? A lot of failures along the way.
And so my big vision is really to bring this concept of crowdsourcing entrepreneurial
experience to the world. So to kind of put it into context, there are about 8% of the
population's considered entrepreneurs. And there's probably different definitions of it,
but let's go with that, right? That's about 600 million people that are entrepreneurs.
And then statistically speaking, one in nine businesses fail. I'm sorry, one in nine succeed,
eight out of nine fail. So if you kind of do the math, there's five billion failed businesses out
there. And I've added to that tally, I've started over 20 and most of them fail. Like, you know,
my ratio is about one in nine actually, you know, but I've also exited, I've had multi-million,
exited, I've lost millions of dollars. And so I had this idea to crowdsource all the
entrepreneurial experience out there and try to make a difference on the entrepreneurial
population in the world to try to reduce that failure rate, to try to just help people like me,
maybe like you, maybe the listeners out there, right, to just notch the number a little bit
in terms of that success ratio. Because I see entrepreneurship as, you know, not just business,
but it's kind of the engine that drives the world, you know, that drives innovation, new technology,
you know, this thing we're doing, podcasting, you know, cameras, you know, internet, all that stuff,
that all came from great entrepreneurial minds that to get to this point, they had to,
you know, most of them have, you know, have hit so many rock bottoms, right. And so that's my vision
is really to take all of that knowledge, kind of like what Wikipedia did for knowledge and bring
it to the world. That's awesome. What is crowdsourcing?
Crowdsourcing, you know, the way I see it is really taking knowledge that's out there in the
world in some shape or form, and load it up to the surface, make it accessible to other people.
So the way I achieved it, and, you know, don't want to dive into it too early and kind of give away
the secret, but, you know, I developed the board game, that was my way of channeling this, right,
around called entrepreneur. Really was around taking all the, you know, with my experiences and
the people I knew, the entrepreneurs I knew, and the entrepreneurs I read about, and putting it into
like a gamified version where you can, you can experience those things. And then this kind of
vision came to me of what if I took that knowledge, not just from me and the people I know, but what
if we took it, you know, the whole world, like all the entrepreneurs out there, and make it
shareable, so create like a community that can interact with each other in shape or form,
but also experience those moments, the highs and the lows. So it's kind of eliciting that knowledge
from, not knowledge, it's knowledge and it's an experience, really eliciting the experience.
You know, and books is one thing, books is a very one way, one, you know,
monodirectional, whereas I wanted to find an interactive way that takes all that knowledge
that's out there in the world and makes it available to others, including myself, to try to
help succeed in our entrepreneurial journeys. Does that make sense? It does, it really does.
And you put all that in a game, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, games are fun, you know, I mean, I've been
in love with games for a long time and I used to be, you know, I used to play with my board games,
and obviously it was, you know, a bit of a gamer, like I'm sure many of us, but I just find
gamification, and it's not just for me, it's been, you know, proven scientifically that
gamification is one of the best ways to learn. And thank you for bringing it up, that's it there.
And so it's a great way to really, to experience something and, you know, as you can see in that
video there, you know, you're learning by using an income statement, a balance sheet, you're picking
up cards, you're experiencing, you know, events, you know, things that happen to you, people you
meet, all those things. And all of that has really come from, you know, my experiences and there's a
card in there, for example, right? I got two great cards, you know, you've made a great mentor,
and your profits improve by 10%. Right? So, you know, you're learning, you're learning,
right? That's great. That's a positive, right? You know, you meet this other person, they end up
being a con man, they fleece you for 100,000. Right? Both of those things happen to me.
And so, I'm trying to find a way to help others, you know, for example, how would you experience,
you know, if you're in your entrepreneurial journey, and you get a con man, you didn't know
there were con men, so what's the impact and how would you deal with it? Those are the kind of
experiences that that's the kind of knowledge that I want to, I want to elicit from all these
entrepreneurs and, you know, I'm here in Vegas today, you know, I've had three entrepreneur
meetings in the last 24 hours. That's kind of what I love doing is really fills my cup meeting
other entrepreneurs and discovering their stories as well and I want to take that to the world.
It's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. I love how unique that is and that's awesome.
So, how did you get started in this journey? So, I mean, my journey started back a very long time
ago. I was born in the former Soviet Union, USSR, a little plus Kamal Dover, you know, communist,
you know, environment, etc. And I was, you know, I would say I was born a little bit different,
you know, I wasn't really meant to be in a communist socialist country. So, I moved to Australia,
so moved to Australia and, you know, I had this entrepreneurial sort of drive from a very early
age. And really, the whole journey started really just with entrepreneurship. Like I was,
you know, I had the drive to start my first business when I was 17, 16, 17. And I've had,
you know, many, like I said, over 20 that I've started. So, I've always had this desire to build
things, you know, and I love this startup. Like, I call myself the startup addict, right? I just,
I love going from blank page to a multi-million dollar business. So, that's my sweet spot.
And as I went through my journey, I had some, you know, I had a success early in my 20s, you know,
made my first million, you know, in my very early 20s, 22 or so. I lost it all by 23, made multi,
you know, built a multi-million dollar company, but, you know, from 24 to 27, lost it all again.
So, I've done this massive yo-yo. And I actually wrote the board game, well, it's just the first
version of it back in 2007, so 15 years ago. But I just, I couldn't bring it to the world. I had
all this, you know, imposter syndrome and I had so many failures. I'm like, who's going to care
about what I have to say? But as I went through my career and then, you know, a year and a half ago,
I had a great exit and I sold my company after moving to the US and expanding my company
internationally. I kind of got over that imposter syndrome. But I also realized that so much of my
success, so much of it, is because of the failures that I went through. You know, in hindsight,
when I look back, people often ask me, like, would you change, you know, this or that? And I say,
you know what, I actually would not change a single thing. Because if I change something,
it's that sliding doors moment and I wouldn't be here right now today. I wouldn't have what I have,
I wouldn't have the family I have, I wouldn't have the values that I have in my family and all of
those things that are truly important to me. And so my journey went through these ups and downs.
I felt like it kind of closed with an exit and all the things that come with that.
Then I felt, you know what, this is the lessons, this is the truth that is there from that
experience. And that's when I realized I want to, you know, dust this off, bring this to life,
bring it to the world. And that is how I arrived with the game. But really, the game is just an
extension of just the experiences I've went through. Does that make sense, the connection?
It does. I'm actually very intrigued to take how can, like, I don't know how it's,
how possible is that to take someone's experiences in all the entrepreneurial lessons and put it in
a board game. I'm actually very intrigued about that. So, I mean, it sounds challenging in some
ways, but it's actually very simple. And the simplicity of it is that there's a structure.
All of our experiences, so the game is broken into several cards you can pick up, like opportunities,
which makes sense, right? There's opportunities, there's property, there's business, there's this,
whatever. It's kind of standard. But then there's some of my other ones that I actually, my favorite
is encounters. It's a card caught on camera. And encounters when you meet someone, because I have
personally met so many amazing people in my life. And some of those people had a very profound
effect on me. And when I boil it down to that effect can be quantified. There's something that
happened or had an effect on my business or my personal life or et cetera, both positive and
negative, actually both, right? This is a duality of life and entrepreneurship. And so I created a
structure where I could, the way you would write a book, for example, and I'm sure you've read
many entrepreneur books, right? Stories, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, whoever, right?
There's a structure to how they tell that story. There's a narrative. And all I feel like I've done
is I've taken a narrative and just narrowed it down to a very, very tight sort of block of
information. And they fit what, not just this is what happened. That's okay, that's interesting.
But what's really interesting, like what you can actually take away from and learn and apply it
for yourself is what did that mean for you? What did that mean for your business? What did it mean
for your career? And so that's the latter part. That's what I wanted to elicit. And that's what
I wanted to share. And that's how I want to elicit with you. So I could take you, for example, right?
If you had to think of, you don't have to tell me right there, but just go back and think
the last person that had a profound effect on your life, on your career, right?
So you met a person and something happened, something that changed something significant
enough. I'm sure you could actually put down one or two bullet points of what that outcome was.
Would that be a correct assumption? Yeah. Right. That's the process I went through. And so I did
that for encounters. And I did that for another card, which is called Deal With It, because as an
entrepreneur, a lot of stuff happens to you. I call it being punched in the face on a daily basis.
And you have to deal with it, right? Being upset about it, being stressed about it doesn't change
the fact that it's happened. And so there's Deal With It cards, there's encounters, like I said,
there's opportunities. You get lucky sometimes, there's that. And then there's spenditure,
because sometimes you have to spend on things. And that's more really the business side of it
than sort of the person. But my favorite is when the encounters, because for me, that's what fills
my cup. My happiness is built around having great conversations with really interesting, amazing
people. And so that's kind of my favorite. So that's how I structured it, to be able to elicit it
into like, and just kind of distill it into one or two key points. Yeah, that's awesome.
That's very, I am very intrigued. I'm very good at strategic board games, and I play them a lot.
Did you play Risk and Monopoly? Yeah, I love Monopoly. I love Risk. I'm very good at Monopoly.
Me too. Well, I have a whole origin story on Monopoly back. I got my first Monopoly back in
USSR when it came out in 1988. And then there's a funny story behind that. But
did you know Robert Kiyosaki, you know, Rich That Poor Dad? So you know his game Cashflow 101.
Mm hmm. Have you ever played it? I haven't played it. I've heard about it. Right. So I used to play
it when I was about 1920, when I first found out about this whole movement. And I will say that
that has been a key inspiration to creating this game, because I felt that that I've seen the effect
that game Cashflow 101 had on a lot of people, it had on me. I first got into real estate because
of Rich That Poor Dad and kind of playing that game. And I thought that, you know, so adults,
lots of adults playing that game. And that that inspired me to think of this gamification concept.
And you know, there's a there's a second part of it, which I just want to mention,
because there's games, you can play computer games, right? Well, I don't play anymore. I actually
want to, but I just don't have the time. I have more fun things to do, like meet interesting people.
And, you know, my son plays, my daughter plays, they play games. And people ask me, like, well,
did you create this as a game, as like an app or whatever? And I said, no, I did it on purpose.
And with a very key, key, key reason for that purpose. And that purpose is what I love about
board games is you get together around the table. And you get to talk and you get to banter and you
get to share those experiences in a very human way in a very connected way, when you're there in the
same place, you know, at the table. And I wanted that to be a key component of my game of what I
bring to the world is it's not just about playing the game and kind of getting those lessons, it's
actually sharing that learning with other people who have the same interest as you. So you can learn
from each other, you can grow together. I think it's a lot more enjoyable. And, you know,
entrepreneurship can be can be quite lonely. You know, 70% of entrepreneurs. So using the stats I
mentioned before, imagine that 400 million people, entrepreneurs experience loneliness
as part of their journey. And hopefully, this is a little step towards alleviating that.
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you. That's awesome.
I have one more question for you, Igor, before we end today's segment.
What is your goal for being on the show today?
Well, actually, it's a great question, because, you know, I do a lot of appearances and guests
on podcasts, and I really enjoy the conversations. And I think it's a great format, especially the
long form, right? And a huge fan. But so one of the things I obviously want to do is I love sharing
the story of this of my creation of the game and also just my journey and all of those kind of
things. But really, I have a specific mission right now, at the moment with the board game. And that
mission is, I want to donate 1000 of these games to two organizations, like schools or colleges or
organizations or whatever, you know, someone reached out to me that day about a there's a
there's an entrepreneurship program in correctional facilities in Texas that they're putting me in
touch with. And so, you know, the game, even though it's called entrepreneur, it's about
entrepreneurship. For me, it's more philanthropic than entrepreneurial, as such. It's not a
business. It's something that that I just feel, you know, awesome about. And I want to spread the
message. So I'd love, you know, help from you from anyone else listening to help me find the
help me find the organizations and people that need this so that I can I can spread this message
and really get it out there and donate it. My goal is 1000 the next 1000 of these games donates to
the right organization next six months. So if I if I can get some help on that, I would be hugely,
hugely appreciative. That's awesome. What if according to you, who is the organization that's
going to have the most impact with your game? I think a lot of it will be for the younger
generation. So definitely, I live in the local high school in my in my where I live in Dallas is
Hebrew on high school and they have an entrepreneurship club, they invited me to speak actually,
last week. And, and I was I was pleasantly surprised to have about 60 or 70 kids in the room.
That was really awesome. And so, you know, a lot of schools, colleges, technical colleges,
all those kind of things, I think that will be that will be great. But also, I'm talking to
someone in Kenya, who runs, you know, schools for financial literacy in Kenya, earlier today, in fact,
I had a conversation with somebody in India, about the same thing entrepreneurial and financial
literacy, because it's not just about the experience that also teaches you financial literacy,
like income statements and balance sheets, which is critical to success in any business and being
an entrepreneur. And so, so it's any organization where people want to grow, want to know more,
want to kind of whether they want to be an entrepreneur, or they just want to
or they just want to increase their literacy in that regard. And from, you know, from 14,
to any age, you know, if you know what, if an aged facility comes to me, say, hey, we've got
we've got people here that really want, want to kind of play the entrepreneurial thing, hey,
I'm there, I'm there for them. Absolutely. So it's just it's scale, you know, the idea is really to
to go to organizations that have people with that mindset that that that feel like it could add
to, to their sort of to lifting up the whole experience and knowledge of entrepreneurship
and financial literacy. That's awesome. Have you thought about churches?
Yes, absolutely. You know, churches, synagogues, mosques, you know, all of those in Yes, in fact,
actually, yesterday, there's a big church here in Dallas that I one of my former my right hand
person, amazing woman named Rachel, you know, she goes to a really great church. And I think she was
mentioning that they have a bit of a business, you know, financial literacy program, great. And
she's a massive board game player as well. So it's a great fit. So hey, you know, I'd love to be,
I'd love to donate that to so yes, it's all of those organizations. There's just so many,
it's not really, you know, you know, I also think, you know, a bit of an aside, but, you know,
I have this very strong belief, and this is, you know, maybe a topic for another day, but
I have a really strong belief that in an enterprise and a corporate corporate, right,
I used to work in corporate as well. I think if people kind of feed their entrepreneurial juice,
you know, feed feed their entrepreneurial hunger or whatever creativity in a corporation,
the whole corporation can actually rise, I think it brings out the best in people. So,
but corporations obviously can afford to buy. I'm talking about more non for profit organizations.
So, but but I think the appeal can be really widespread.
That's awesome. That's great. I am excited for you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah,
I can only think of so many families that can go through this and buy the game and have an
impact with their kids. I think that's great. Yeah. So,
actually, you remind you remind me I want to add a thing to the website where if a family cannot
afford to buy it, just go out of form. I'll send you one for free. Like I'm not even gonna,
like, no questions asked. Yeah, I just you know, it's about spreading the message. Not, not, not,
not, not, not a it's not a real business more of a non for profit. Like I said.
Oh, that's awesome. Well, I'm glad you said something that I think the people who can't,
they'll be when is the game launching because I see it's still in
pre launch. So actually, I'm just waiting for my first big shipment of, of, you know, the pilot of,
I don't know how many five, three, 5000 of these things. So this on the water. So it is launched,
it is available to buy. It's just, you got to be patient a little bit. But as this big shipment
comes in, that's when I really want to start sort of shipping it out to all these organizations
that I mentioned to you. But I'm definitely already starting a conversation because, you know,
Christmas is coming up, you know, not too far away. Right. And, you know, my vision is really to try
to, to get it out to a lot of hands for people that, you know, as I said to you, like if a family
kind of, kind of fought to buy it, hey, you know, let's get it in their hands. Let's get, let's get
them playing it over Christmas break. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you
tuned into Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and
attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.