How Remote Work Has Completely Changed The Entire World And What Will Happen Next With Mitko Karshovski | TNE 077

Companies and employees in many industries now know that it’s possible for them to work outside the corporate setting. This is a topic that I covered previously with fellow digital nomad and remote worker podcast host Mitko Karshovski. That conversation happened a year ago. Now,  we get together again, and this time we talk about how drastically the landscape of remote work has changed since we last got together on this podcast.

Mitko Karshovski is the host and founder of That Remote Life. In this episode, Mitko joins me to talk about Parable, his newest venture, and how it can help digital nomads and their businesses. We also pick up on our previous conversation where we discuss what the future for remote workers will look like, and what steps we can take to prepare ourselves and our businesses for adapting to the constant and major changes the remote work landscape will be seeing in the near future. Brace yourself, nomad fam, this week’s episode has a lot of value for you to takeaway! 

Timestamps:

[3:07]Meet Mitko Krashovsky

[14:14]This Is What You Really Need To Focus On For Your Business To Succeed

[15:50] The Business Ladder

[19:39]This Is How Having A Podcast Can Help You Get Ahead

[25:41]It’s Time You Looked At Online Job Platforms Differently

[37:37]The Rise Of The Digital Nomad Connoisseur  

Mitko's Links:

Learn more about Parable: https://thatremotelife.com/joinparable/

Connect with Mitko: https://www.instagram.com/mitkoka/?hl=en | https://www.youtube.com/c/mitkokarshovski | https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitkokarshovski 

Omar's (Host) Social Media:

Instagram - @nomadables

TikTok - @nomadables

Facebook Group - NOMADABLES - Accountability & Growth Community for Remote Workers- Perfect to meet fellow online entrepreneurs, remote workers, and digital nomads.

YouTube - Omar Mo

LinkedIn - Omar Mo Nomads Cast

Twitter - @nomadables

Pintrest - @nomadables

Clubhouse - @pods

WEBSITE: https://www.nomadables.com/

Transcript

The Nomadic Executive Episode 77: How Remote Work Has Completely Changed The Entire World And What Will Happen Next With Mitko Karshovski

Omar  

Here is a big question. What will the future of remote work look like? How will it change industries across the world from real estate and technology to insurance and finance? On today's episode I sit down with another digital nomad podcast host and someone who's been on this pod before: Mitko Karshovski. 

Mitko runs the ‘That Remote Life’ podcast and has been a digital nomad himself along with his wife for quite a few years now. If you want to listen to the original episode that I had him on, go check out Episode 22 of The Nomadic Executive. 

Today we dive into entrepreneurship, his new nomad entrepreneur community Parable, and the future of the remote work landscape. If you want to go check out Parable, go to that remote life dot com slash Parable. 

Remember, nomad fam, we've got some incredibly value-filled episodes planned out for you so please hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Your review helps this podcast become more visible and ultimately inspire more people just like you. My name is Omar Mo and this is The Nomadic Executive.

Intro  

You're listening to The Nomadic Executive hosted by Omar from no madables.com. Join Omar as he sits down and speaks with leading online entrepreneurs, remote workers and digital nomads about everything from business strategy to travel and lifestyle design. Together, we're here to help you achieve a life of happiness, health and freedom. And now here's your host, Omar Mo.

Omar  

All right Mitko Karshovsky, back for round two on The Nomadic Executive. Host of That Remote Life, founder of Parable and an incredible digital nomad who's really deeply ingrained in the community and really knows his stuff when it comes to online business. So, welcome back, Mitko.

Mitko Karshovsky  

Thanks, man. I feel like I need to buy a drink after that intro.

Omar  

I think I've been killing it on my intros lately. I get this like a low and sultry voice and kind of sound like David Attenborough whenever I speak, and then I start talking really fast like this again. 

Mitko Karshosky

Yeah, we need to give you some Marvin Gaye background music, you know, and you'll be set.

Omar 

I think by the time this episode is released, there's an episode that I just did about maybe two weeks back, that's going to be released soon. And it's funny because in the beginning of that one, I experimented with something different. And I threw in like Discovery Channel music, like the sounds of zebras and hippos in the background, and kind of did the intro that way and it sounded awesome. So maybe I might throw some Marvin Gaye music in this, you know, I'm feeling a little experimental. 

Mitko Karshovsky

There you go.  

Omar

Right. So just for my audience members who haven't heard of you yet, and I think you were in episode... somewhere between, I think 36 or 37 in the past, but for those who have... or like, newer to my audience, why don't you give a small elevator pitch about who you are and what you do?

Mitko Karshovsky  

Yes. So for the last three years, I've been working at a completely location independent agency with about 25 to 30 team members. It was something that, you know, I jumped on board for very early on and just kind of like, helped build up. 

And then for the last two years, I've been running a podcast called That Remote Life, which you mentioned, which you know, we’re 120 episodes deep. And we interview all kinds of just really thinkers and doers and entrepreneurs and just anybody who is in this space, because I think there's so many interesting things happening in this work from anywhere, location dependent scene, and we still don't quite know what's gonna happen. But something's definitely happening. 

And there's just a lot of interesting things happening. I really love to discuss those. And so on the podcast, I talk with a lot of people like Phil Libin, who's the co-founder of Evernote to, you know, just a whole bunch of other really interesting people. I just had Eric Jorgensen who wrote The Almanack of Naval. So a lot of really interesting people who are focused on this topic. 

And yeah, like you mentioned, I recently launched my new startup called Parable, which is one of the first if not the first program that's going in deep and really lifting up the hood on how online businesses are built. 

And we create these really in depth case studies that really show people exactly what makes these businesses tick so that they can take those strategies and implement them in their own businesses. So that's kind of like the quick three part elevator pitch.

Omar  

I like the elevator pitch, what made you get the idea of Parable?

Mitko Karshovsky  

So what really made me do it was that I was having all of these conversations around like, you know, how is this going? What are you doing in the business and you know, it There's some conversations that people aren't comfortable having on the podcast. And I understand that, right? 

Like, people aren't willing to talk about revenue or the struggles or whatever it may be sometimes on podcasts because they don't want that public, you know, going out into the public. But there was so many interesting things being said that were helping me that I really wanted to show to people as well. 

So that's the one reason why we did it. The other reason was that I started noticing that, with courses nowadays, you can learn to do literally anything, like whatever you want to do, there's probably a course out there that will teach you how to do it from baking bread to baking a cake to building a business. 

But one of the things that I kept seeing over and over again with these courses was that people didn't know how to apply that knowledge. They weren't really taking action on it. And it was like this thing that they learned how to do in theory, but didn't really know how to take the theoretics and actually apply it to their business in real life. 

And so the idea with the case studies really was that I went and I looked at really successful business schools like the Harvard Business School, and one of the things that I realized was that that is what they focus on so much are these real world case studies. 

And there wasn't anything like that for online businesses. And so that's why we started doing these case studies is to really get down, nitty gritty on how these businesses are built? How do they acquire customers? How do they scale? How do they hire all of these things that aren't really talked about publicly that much.

Omar  

Makes a ton of sense. I mean, being a podcast host myself for so long, whenever you get any sort of business out there, even if it's a smaller online business or business in general, I've noticed that they, they're always giving towards value, I guess, one, because there's a whole idea of, Hey, I'm on a podcast, and I should give their audience value. 

But also, that information of revenue, that information of like the inner workings of the business, or even some client acquisition strategies, people are secretive about, you know, and how did you differentiate that? 

I mean, you've had this podcast now for quite some time, two years, where you've had all these CEOs, executives at different SAS companies, software companies, online businesses coming on and telling you all this information, how did you get a subset of people to actually come on Parable and want to share that information there? What's the business model behind Parable?

Mitko Karshovsky  

So the reason why people did that was trust, right? I built up trust with some really great entrepreneurs. And I explained the idea behind them. And, you know, it also makes them feel safer in that it's a closed community, you know, these are people who are paying to come into it. And, you know, we take very seriously what we discussed, and it's sort of a closed community. And there's a lot of trust built up inside of it. 

And so, you know, people get vulnerable, they talk about like, one of the things that I was telling you before we hit record is that every single case study includes a problem. So these entrepreneurs are coming on and saying, like, okay, for an hour, hour and a half, we talk about everything about how this business was built in what worked and what didn't. And then, the very end, we get to ask them, all right, well, what's going on right now? Like, what is the real struggle that you're experiencing in the business right now?

And the reason why we do that is that it allows members to hear these problems, and then get to practice solving them in small groups. And it's really cool, because also, that is one of the other benefits of the group is that these entrepreneurs who come on and, you know, open up and share about their businesses, and, you know, give us the ability to create these case studies, we get to then come to them and say, “Hey, here's what our members have said, in terms of solutions. Maybe some of this can help.” 

And so it's kind of like, you know, both parties get value out of it, like on the one our members get to, you know, practice problem solving on real world business problems. And now on the other hand, the entrepreneurs also get to, like, you know, maybe hear a solution they hadn't thought of, on their own before. And then in terms of the business model, go ahead.

Omar  

It's interesting, because when you were saying that it makes me think of like, reverse consulting, for example, you go to a consultant to get your problem solved. They do like a really deep dive into your business and kind of break it down and tell you what their experience with it is, and what they can do to solve it. Here, this is more like community driven consulting, right? Everyone, I'm sure in your community, if anyone was going to join Parable, they probably bring something unique to the table, even if it's just a small skill set. 

And everyone has a different lens, whether it's personality based, or just their worldviews or what they've experienced in business, they come in and create all these different solutions together, I would almost think that's more beneficial than getting a single consultant with a single perspective in a single worldview, right? But it's, I'm curious to see how that plays out for you, but do go on.

Mitko Karshovsky  

Yeah, I mean, you're totally right, because we all come with different perspectives on life and different experiences. So you know, you and I even like looking at it, we have had different business experiences. And so hearing the same problem, we might come up with different solutions based on our experiences, right? 

And so the whole idea is like we want to practice in public. And one of my big things is like, look, 100%, the best way to build a business is to just go build a business, no amount of courses, no amount of books are ever going to teach you what it's like to build a business.

It's kind of like riding a bike, right? You can read what it's like to ride a bike, or how to ride a bike all day. But when you go, and you sit down on that bike seat, and you know, you try to pedal, that's when you're going to really learn. And so the best way to build a business is to just start it and not be scared to eat some - for a little bit, right? 

And Parable is a safe place for you to practice that. It's somewhere in the middle, where we want to do is we want... Yes, go out there, take the courses, learn how to do those specific things, learn the theories of those things, yes, go out there and build the business. But we want to create a safe place for entrepreneurs who are building their businesses to practice and to sort of train that muscle before they need to use it. 

So you're totally right. It's sort of like, we really want both sides to benefit there. But you asked about the business model, really, the way the business model works is it's just a community. It's a membership that people pay into. 

At the moment, we have a yearly plan. And so yeah, we're just building up the very first case studies, which are gonna be published, not this month, next month, depending on when this is going live. But yeah, so that's kind of the business model behind it.

Omar  

It's interesting, because I think the community solves a pain point and thinking inwardly to myself, there's a pain point that I've been kind of dealing with. And so I mean, you know, Gary Vee's - Gary Vee, and probably everyone in their mother says build in public, build in public, and it makes great content, right? 

I've thought about going down that route. But the one, I guess, reservation that I have to that is that potential clients might see that, and then I might have to justify my pricing, or I might have to, or they might think, Oh, I'm not as experienced as they want to want me to be, or I'm too expensive, or all these different objections that can come if my client sees me building in public, right? 

So it's, I think it would be much more fruitful, if I fell down the road, maybe five, seven years down the road, and I had maybe a team of 20 or 30 people, then you have clients like, Okay, this is about what I'm looking for. 

But with that community that you're that you have, it's behind closed doors, yet I have access to a community where I can also build in public and get good content out there, pick and choose which content I want to make public, and also get a lot of good ideas from people that are around me that are probably going through the same things. 

So I really, really, really like that idea. And now, with the business model itself, I mean, you're building out this community and stuff. Have you started getting some interviews and things like that in there? And if so, what have you learned so far?

Mitko Karshovsky  

Yeah, so we've had, obviously, we've done interviews for the case studies, the case studies are being developed. But it's been really interesting to sort of one of the things that I've really learned from both of the case studies, one is from my friend Mitch, who built this incredible agency in a very short amount of time. 

And it's kind of shocking, because it's like, Listen, if you're not supposed to be able to do that, like that goes kind of against everything that I believe in terms of business, where my friends over the Tropical MBA have this really great theory called the 1000 day rule. 

Where essentially, they say, and a lot of the data support says it's going to take you on average, about three years for you to build your business to a point where it's sustainable, and it's something that you can rely on. Not that it's gonna take you three years to like, make money, but it's gonna take you three years to kind of, you know, take a breath and be like, this isn't gonna burn down tomorrow kind of thing. 

Omar  

It's funny. This guy, I don't know if anybody knows in the agency space, Eamon Godsey. He was on my podcast, maybe a few months back, and he said exactly what you're saying there, but he called it you grow a pair of balls finally in the agency, like after three years, right? 

Mitko Karshovsky

Right. 

Omar

It’s funny that the years match up there. But my bad, carry on.

Mitko Karshovsky  

Yeah. And what Mitch did was, I think it took him like six or seven months to get to 100K. And like, when I hear that I'm like, Okay, why? What's different here? 

And one of the really interesting things is, and this is kind of like what we were talking about before we hit record is this idea of this like business ladder where whenever I work with students, because I do some like business coaching on the side. And so many people focus on what they do, like, what is my business? What is the problem that I'm solving? 

And really, what I try to push people to do in this case study kind of supports this is, it's far more important deciding who you do it for, than what you're actually doing. Because what you're doing can change. But if you've already established this base of who these people are, and you've already built a trust with them, and they believe in you and they know what you do and you've solved problems for them before?

The problems that you solve for them can change And then you can kickstart something new very, very quickly, right? And so that's why Mitch was able to build this really successful agency and successful meaning like in terms of like revenue, you know, pretty impressive in a few months to, you know, half a year get to $100,000 in revenues, like, you know, a pretty incredible thing. 

And the reason why he was able to do it was, he had already built trust with the people who that agency, you know, was helping. And so that's one of the things that I really focus... And I advise people, if anybody's listening that, you know, you're trying to build a business, it's like: stop and think about who this business is for? And are these people that you want to serve for the rest of your life, or at least for the foreseeable future. Because what you do for those people can change, but try to keep the same who.

Omar  

Right. So let's go down this business ladder of yours then. Right? I really liked the concept. I know, it's a similar concept to what was the guy's name?

Mitko Karshovsky  

Rob Walling? Yeah, so he has this idea of the, yeah, he has this idea of a stair step approach, which is, I mean, I don't know the exact year, but maybe in the, you know, like, let's say, 2012, or something like that? And it was really focused on like SAS, and kind of like the lifecycle of a software as a surface founder and how to bootstrap it. 

And I looked at this, and you know, I come from an agency, like a service background, like yourself, and I was like, I think this applies here. And so I took this concept, and I kind of made it for, you know, kind of massaged it a little bit into working for services, I think it's worked out really well. 

And basically, the whole idea is, start offering a service, you know, this is kind of like the elevator pitch for it, but start offering the service yourself in something similar to like a freelance setting. And then how do we take that and move it up the ladder, or up the stairstep into something that is more productized that doesn't rely on so much on you and is more systematized so that you scale it you gain higher profitability as you move up the ladder?

Omar  

Sure. So let's break down the steps here. What's the first step here on the business ladder? I mean, even before, I think I think you mentioned that, finding that product audience fit first, right? So how, let's say you were starting from day zero here, and you had the knowledge that you have right now, but you wanted to start an online business of some kind. And I'm sure there's plenty of my audience right now that are aspiring online business owners or want to be online business owners, and don't know where to start. 

That - something that you said there with the audience is key. So how would you go ahead and find who you want to serve? And what problem they had that you should solve?

Mitko Karshovsky  

Yeah, great question. So like I said, start with the who, not the what. So one of the things that I always ask people is like, name somebody that you've really enjoyed working within the past, right, somebody or something that you're really passionate about? 

So maybe in your previous work, you know, who is a client that you really, really liked working with? And then who is a client that you just hated working with? Right. And that is a really good starting point. Because from there, what we can say is like, Okay, what was it about client A, that you really enjoyed, you know, that time that you worked with them, and you know, you can name a few different things about it, like, “Oh, you know, they were really nice,” or like, “The business was really interesting,” whatever it may be. 

And then the same thing for the client that you didn't like. And all right, our plan here, like what I want people to do is to essentially come up with a few different ideas of who that might be, right? So, you know, one, somebody that I was just working with recently, you know, that she really wants to, you know, help teach people English, right? And so it's like, Okay, cool. That's a really great who. 

Now let's dive in a little bit deeper on that. So really think about, who are people that you've enjoyed working with in the past or industries that you're really interested in. And then the next step to that is, let's call them up. And this is always a really hard thing for people like, Oh, I actually need to pick up the phone and like, go talk to these people? 

Because the next step is to find out what their problems are. And then find out if that's a problem that you can solve with your skill, right? You don't want to invent because one of the things that happens is like, you know, people have these conversations, and they can kind of almost like, insert the answers into their mouth, if you know what I'm talking about, like, oh, have you ever had a problem with like, this very specific thing that I'm good at?

Omar  

Right, you kind of pigeonhole them into that? I get it.

Mitko Karshovsky  

Exactly. And it's like, you're almost like falsifying your data. In that case, it's like a scientific terminology. You know, it's like, yes, the data says that that's something that looks like a problem, but it's really not a problem. 

You just kind of put the words in their mouth. And so that's the first step is like, ‘Alright, let's decide on who that person is. And then let's go and talk with them and really understand what their pain points are.’

Omar  

On a side note there, I think, an excellent and organic way to actually learn about those pain points in conversation outside of if you're going to start cold outreaching to people and saying, ‘Hey, could I have like five to 20 minutes of your time?’ is starting a podcast? 

Honestly, like that, if it wasn't for the podcast itself, I wouldn't have had all the online business ideas that I did throughout the time that I've had these 70, 80 episodes come out. 

So, yeah, I think it's a really organic way. And we're in a time where it's super easy and mainstream to be able to do that. So just a side note there.

Mitko Karshovsky  

The other thing about a podcast is that it's a really interesting tool for client acquisition as well. And this is really I'm kind of, you know, this is something that I don't know if I've talked about on the podcast publicly before, but it's a really great strategy that I know some clients that I've worked with have used in the past. 

But startup podcasts that interviews your ideal clients. So once you find out who that who is, right, nd it's like, I don't know, microbreweries, for example. And you have a specific skill that you help work with microbreweries, right? 

Start a podcast, interviewing microbreweries, it doesn't matter how many listeners you get, right? Like, it could be five, it could be 10, it could be just your mom listening, it doesn't matter. It's kind of an ego boost, when you get asked to come on the podcast, and your... you know, your competitors are going to be cold calling, you know, sending whatever kind of advertisement to those people. And you get to lead in with value. When you call those, you know, customers and get to know you a little bit better on this interview. 

You build a little bit of value with the fact that you you know, share their business and their brand. And it's a really great way to start building relationships with your ideal customers and clients.

Omar  

Absolutely. There's something called Account-based Marketing, and well Marketing. And it's podcasting, honestly, it's probably one of the best strategies to do that. Because your average corporate environment takes about six to 18 months to close a deal would be to be in at least in the B2B space. And I think that ABM strategy works the best in the B2B space, right? 

So usually in that six to 18 month time window, a lot of corporate environments, get their first meeting with the person after sending a gift, and then maybe running them towards some ads, and then retargeting them with some more ads, and then finally, hey, let's have a conversation after six months, right? 

With the podcast, you get to have that, cut that six month period, that little warm up period, you get to have a conversation with your ideal customer where they build, know, like and trust. And then after that it's much shorter sales cycles you get in front of your ideal customer. And then even that's a great way to test even if you don't have an offering yet, right? 

So like you said, if you're trying to find the audience that you can best serve, maybe just reach out to like 10 to 20 different niches that you might want to work with and see if there any problems in there that you would like to solve that you think you might enjoy solving, or you think you have a good solution for, right? But yeah, that... the ABM strategy, I think is excellent. It's something that it's a service that we actually sell some of our clients. 

Mitko Karshovsky  

It's like you said, it's like starting at step five out of 10 instead of one out of 10 in like, the client acquisition. 

Omar

Exactly, exactly. So what happens after that, let's say, hypothetically speaking, someone has now found the audience they want to serve, they've nailed that down. And then they also found out their biggest pain point, and they've created a solution for it, that they can probably do better, faster, cheaper than other people, what happens next?

Mitko Karshovsky  

So at this stage, what I tell people to do is don't make it more difficult than it has to be. Begin in freelancing, find a way to, you know, solve this issue over and over and over again. And like, really work with a whole bunch of clients. Because, you know, and you've probably had a similar experience with this, you know, you find that pain point, you start offering a service to work in it. 

But then you start learning, right, it's like, you've already learned a bunch from like, the initial conversations, but then when you actually start learning, and you sit down, you work with a client, you work with the primary, like, Oh, this thing that I thought was the case, at first actually not the case. 

And, you know, you really get to learn a lot more about the client and about the service that you're offering, and a problem that you're solving. So this is where I tell people is like, don't make it more difficult than it has to be. Don't overthink it, go out there freelance consult, you know, get a little bit more confident in what it is that you're doing. And, and just do it over and over again. 

And the reason why I suggest doing this, and while you're working with clients, the important thing here to do to prepare for the next step is keep an eye out for patterns. Because patterns are places where products or productized services can be created. And that's what we really want to look for. 

Because wherever there's a pattern, it means that we can build a system around. And if there's a system, it means that it's something that's easily repeatable, and that we can actually, you know, create some scale around a product or a service on afterwards. 

And so then the next step is once you know you're working with these clients, you've done a bunch of work with them, you know, maybe a year or two really depends on how many clients you can get under your belt in that timeframe. 

Spot the patterns and either build a productized service or some sort of product around that. And that's, you know, I'm assuming I don't know if your business is, you know, if what you're doing is productized but that's really in my opinion, where it gets really Really fun because you improve your profitability. 

A lot of times, it's easier to close clients because you're selling them a product, as you know, as opposed to like a very niche, customized service. So that's really where I think scalability hits for services, like when you can create a productized service there,

Omar  

You get back a lot of your own time to one of the best part. Going back to just a freelancing aspect, though, if we were to recommend some people how to get their first clients, what would you do? Or what would you say rather. 

Mitko Karshovsky  

I mean, it really depends on what it is that you're offering. But nowadays, with the internet, there are so many ways to find clients. So I mean, it really depends on what it is that you're doing. But like I said, Don't make it harder than it has to be, you know, go to Upwork, go to Fiverr, go to all of these different platforms and look at them as marketing channels, and client acquisition channels. 

Not as, like, Oh, I work on Upwork, right, you shouldn't just say like, I'm a freelancer and Upwork, you should... It's a marketing channel, and it's a client acquisition channel, but you should be on all of those. And building a brand on all of those and using them as funnels for clients. 

So that's the one step you know, is like, find out maybe there's some that are custom for your, for your niche or your industry, those are really good places to be as well. I also love when people can find strategic partnerships. So and this can even be like some like, I don't know if you've ever heard of the concept of like a software with a service before?

Omar  

So a SAS company?

Mitko Karshovsky  

a suas. So a software with a service. Yeah. So…

Omar

Software with a service, interesting…

Mitko Karshovsky

So nowadays, there's so many of these software's that have become so big that they have such a big client base, and they're so bulky, that you can easily run a business just about working that software within a company. 

So one of the very first ones that did this was Salesforce, right? Salesforce is this massive software that does so many different things that actually when people buy into the Salesforce suite of products, they're like, What is going on? There's so many things, how do we actually adapt to our business? 

And so there's an entire industry of consultancy businesses that are like, Hey, you buy Salesforce and you apply it to your business, and we'll come in and work with you to make this work for you. 

And so nowadays, there's examples of people who do this with a whole bunch of other software's, you know, there's people who do this with softwares like Asana, like HubSpot. Like, my wife does this with Kajabi, click whatever it is, right. 

And so it's really interesting, because if you can do that, you can actually use the software themselves as a client acquisition channel, because a lot of times, you know, not only can you build a relationship with them, say, like, Hey, I'm an expert in what you do, you want the people who use your software to be successful, if anybody's having issues, let me know, because I'll come in, and I'll help them it's a win-win, right? 

And also, a lot of them also have nowadays, you know, the software companies are intelligent enough to know that this is a win win. So a lot of them are also building marketplaces for experts. 

And so that's a really great way to niche down and create a, you know, a client acquisition sort of channel for your business. And for your freelancing…

Omar

I've seen that, I've seen that done for like MailChimp, lemlist, and a couple of other softwares that I'm currently using, and I see those marketplaces. 

And in fact, I had a guy on my podcast a few months back, his name is David, who built a strategic partnership with MailChimp and Klaviyo. And because of that, he was able to scale his business that they get about 15 or 20, recurring a month, just off the back of those partnerships, right? So they can be very, very, very valuable partnerships. They're just…

Mitko Karshovsky  

Yeah, and I mean, like - 

Omar

Go ahead.

Mitko Karshovskky

If you're listening to this, like, we, we currently exist at a very interesting time in business, because we're going from a period in time in which business was mostly people driven to now I really believe that we're, we're slowly, slowly and also not so slowly moving into a direction where we are now becoming a far more service, or, like app driven business.

Where I know businesses that are basically glued together services apps using Zapier or whatever, and there's far less people that you know, are running this thing and is actually just like this very complex automation. 

And so I definitely think that there's a service around like, hey, there's these businesses that like, operate this way. And if you are the expert who ties the services and the apps needed to make that thing happen. That's a killer business right there.

Omar  

Absolutely. The systems integrator, I think it's an you return I don't know, there's a couple of words for it now, but I'm seeing more and more businesses needing that service specifically. And I have thought of it myself to actually bring someone on to actually zap like automate everything using Zapier, IFTTT, whatever else that software's exist out there, you know, and it's a fantastic line of work. 

Now, the question is people, I know there's a few services out there that are actually offering, ‘Hey, we'll train you for X amount of money on how to do this. And we will even place you in businesses to be able to do that.’ 

That could be another killer business idea. But that's something I want to touch base here in a little bit. I know, you probably know some stuff about automation, I would assume? Right?

Mitko Karshovsky  

Sure, yeah.

Omar  

We'll get there in a minute. Just a few other client acquisition strategies that I wanted to give my audience here. I mean, Facebook groups are phenomenal. Just going into Facebook groups and offering your services. Cold outreach is phenomenal. I always talk really highly of cold outreach on here like, Instagram DM like 100 people or send cold emails to 100 people, and there's bound to be people that respond back, especially if you're leading with value. 

I mean, Facebook ads can... no, paid advertisement can come later on down the road when you have some money coming in. But I mean, there's so many ways to generate leads in 2021. Right, so what's the next step of that business ladder?

Mitko Karshovsky  

So like I said, the next step, and the one that you could really like, hang out with for as long as you want is to productize the service. So once you've, you know, figured out, you've worked with a whole bunch of businesses, and you figured out what the patterns are, you can productize and systematize, your service, or at least parts of it, right? 

You're not going to be able to systematize everything most likely, but look for where, you know, there is a pattern of something that clients are asking you for over and over and over again. And it's something that is profitable, right? And then what we want to do is really, this is like if you've heard of the term SOP before…

Omar

Standard Operating Procedure.

Mitko Karshovski

So what you want to do, yeah, what you want to do at this point, is create a really, really strong SOP of how to deliver that service, and then bring people in to actually do the parts of that. And so that's kind of like what a productized service is, where, you know, I always give the analogy or metaphor, I don't know the difference. I always confuse the two. 

But it's like, you know, when you go to buy a Coca Cola bottle from, you know, a vending machine, it's not like the vending machine asks you, “How much sugar do you want in this Coke?”, right? It's like, no, it's like Coke. And like, that's what you get. And so that's the idea of productizing. 

A service is like, we take this service, like, for example, web development, and you don't say, how many pages would you like? And you know, how do you want this to be structured and all this kind of stuff? You say, hey, based on our expertise, because Don't forget, we're niched down. So we are experts on your niche. And we've done this dozens and hundreds of times. And we know that this is the website setup that works the best for the clients in your industry. 

So because of that, you get this five page website, and this is how it's set up. And this is how it's built. And here's the funnel or whatever, and you sell them as a product. And that is the next step. And then you start to cut out the things that are like the, you know, super customizable, because those tend to not be as profitable.

Omar  

Definitely. I think every business kind of goes through that at first, right? When they're first starting off, they're trying to get as many clients as possible. So they're doing some things like, let me do this. And then here's something in the same vertical, let me do that for you as well. 

And the more in... the deeper you go into it and you The more you realize it's easy to get clients, but it's hard to upkeep all these different types of services, the more you cut things away and automate and delegate everything.

Mitko Karshovsky  

And that's totally normal, by the way, like, you know, going back to like case studies, like that's why they're so interesting and so informative, because like, that's, that's what you want. Like, if you're in a service, you need a period of like, I'm going to eat for a little bit, to really understand what's happening here, you need to taste enough things to, you know, be sure that, you know, you are headed down the right path that there isn't something you know, out there, it's a bigger problem.

You just need to taste a lot like the same way that like I did a like a not a sommelier class, but like a wine tasting. I'm terrible with wine, but we went out once with my wife and we do this really interesting wine tasting class. 

And one of the things that the sommelier that we were working with said is like, when you're trying to learn to be able to tell what a wine tastes like, you need to go out there and literally lick the rock or lick dirt. Because if you don't have that flavor profile saved somewhere in your head that you don't know how to describe when the wind is earthy, or whatever. 

I don't know somebody who knows why it's probably isn't going like no wine tastes earthy. I have no idea. But you know, what I'm saying is that you basically have to taste enough in that industry. Enough of working with that client to really understand everything before you productize.

Omar  

Makes a ton of sense. I think also With service based businesses, a lot of them, no matter what niche or industry, you're in, follow a specific pattern, right? So there's a lot of things that you can automate with slash delegate, right off the bat, no matter what industry you are in, for example, your onboarding sequences, or basic things like your client acquisition methods, right? If you found something that works, you can automate that as soon as possible. 

And I mean, every business needs some way to acquire clients. I mean, these basic structures, and then internally when it comes to the actual service delivery, and I want your opinion on this, too, right?

Because the first thing that I automated and delegated was all the service delivery for my business, right? What would you suggest it would be, and just looking at the basic structure of any service based business. Onboarding, or client acquisition, onboarding, service delivery, and then repeat, repeat customers, slash keeping the customer happy. Which one of those would you go ahead and want to systematize? First, if you were just breaking in those big sections?

Mitko Karshovsky  

So I think the rule is to systematize and delegate the thing that's making you the money, you know, it's because A, like, it's the easiest to see the return on. And you want to, as the entrepreneur, as the founder, what your job is to really problem-solve. 

So when you figure out the problem, right, you want to create the system and then hand off the system, right. And then that way, you can go and solve the newer problems. So whatever it is that you figure out, and you kind of alluded to this, whatever it is that you figure out, like if you figure out client acquisition, you figure out that you can do it over and over and over and over again, then hand it off to someone else to do, right? 

Omar

Right.

Mitko Karshovsky

I would, I would lean in the beginning on like, the service, the actual delivery of the service. Because in the beginning, you want to be having, you know, when you start handing things off, you want to continue your conversation with the clients for as long as possible, because you're still going to be learning in my opinion. 

And you're... and a lot of times, you're still going to be like the expert in the company on whatever this industry is that you're working on. So hand off the actual service delivery, but then stay on as the person who's like talking with the clients, bringing them on understanding what they want, and then hand it off afterwards to somebody who can actually deliver the service.

Omar  

Nice. That's a great idea. I think it's a great trajectory, for anyone that wants to take that online business path, I think we really covered quite a few things. So… Go on?

Mitko Karshovsky  

Yeah, I was gonna say, this is just a theory as well. But for anybody who's thinking about this, I think that we're gonna have a boom in this would actually be really fun to listen to in like 10 years and see if this played out or not, I think we're gonna have a boom of the sort of like, business models where we tie-in experts, right? We're seeing more and more, the working class is being kind of squeezed out from two different directions. 

One is from, like, outsourcing and the other ones from automation, I like we just talked about, like, there's businesses that are just automation stacked together. And so what I think is going to happen is in the middle we're gonna have is, these experts that are going to be like, ‘Hey, I'm one of the best at doing this for this industry.’ 

And I think it's gonna be really interesting to see if this happens, where you don't necessarily deliver the service. But you're the guy that knows which service and which service provider needs to be plugged into this, and you sort of become more as like, kind of sort of the service side of the project,

Omar  

Like a middleman?

Mitko Karshovsky  

Like a middleman. So you oversee the project, and you talk to the client, you understand what they want, because you understand that service. And you go great. And you pull in Lisa, who's an expert at this thing, and you pull in Joe, who's an expert on this thing, and you assemble the team. 

And then you say, this is your team, these are the people because these are the best experts. And then you bring in the the supporting stuff like the automation, like the outsourcing

Omar  

So like a de facto project manager almost.

Mitko Karshovsky  

Yeah,yeah. I've been going with the connoisseur description because Yeah, because you're essentially like, you have the teat. Like I've kind of been thinking about the Avengers, right? 

Like not every Avenger is needed for every situation, but you might bring in different heroes for like, whatever the situation is, right? And it's okay, we really need the Hulk for this because something needs to get smashed, right? And so you bring him into that, you know?

Omar  

It's interesting when you're mentioning this, because I have been in talks with the client for a month now. What they're not a client just yet, but they've already pretty much dedicated and we've been talks for a while and what they basically wanted when I first got in touch with them and showed them what I could do for them. They wanted a bunch of different things done. And they said, ‘I don't want to hire a full on digital marketing agency. Instead, what I want is just like a team assembled that can do ABCDEFG for me.’

Now obviously, I could probably only do A,C and D right. So what I started doing was I started reaching out to my network. And as you're an entrepreneur, you get a bigger network of people that can do so many different things, I reached out to my network of close friends that I know are really good at what they do. And I brought two people on board, one to handle LinkedIn automation slash cold email outreach, another one to handle all the funnels and the webinar management that he wanted. 

And now it's us three, making this de facto like, I don't know were-digital marketing agency that's now serving his exact needs, right? And every one of us has this specific expertise that we bring to the table, and I see what you're coming there, where I served was, I guess, to kind of connoisseur and someone that's a service expert matter. 

But I think what you're saying is, there's going to be even like an external force somewhere, that's just going to be bringing us three people together to be able to serve this guy. And then he probably gets a cut of the pie. Maybe on affiliate commission or something, I think that is very, very true. 

Because the more... the further we go down this already inevitable path that we're going down, there's going to be more experts that pop up everywhere and a lot of different things. And people are going to be overwhelmed and choosing who I should pick for this one service or who's the best or am I going to screwed over with this guy or not. 

And then boom, all of a sudden, this guy comes out of nowhere and says, hey, I've been matching people for ages like Tinder. Matching service A with people like you let me help you out. Right? I can see that happening when he mentioned it like that.

And that was very well said, I wanted to add an additional layer to this. Right. So this is something that I spoke about with someone yesterday on my podcast, as we go further into the whole gig economy side of things, right? The expertise, the expert at is something specific. 

And with the same fact that people are now more than ever wanting to hire good talent, but are having difficulty doing that. What do you think is going to happen now that I can hire somebody from the Philippines for like $4 an hour that might be even better than the American person who can do the same thing, but charges five times as much? What's going to stop me from hiring from there or from Ukraine for a web developer or any of these other places? 

Do you think there's going to be some global competition and people's salaries are going to start matching up equally? Or what do you think's gonna happen in that regard?

Mitko Karshovsky  

So, I mean, you're, you're asking the million dollar question here, you know? What COVID did was, it really shattered this illusion that we need to move for jobs, right? Like I was talking with somebody a few months ago, and the example that I end this, you know, it's very near and dear to me, because when I was 10 years old, my family immigrated to the United States from Bulgaria. 

And the reason why we did that was because my parents believe that by immigrating to the United States, they could provide my family with a better chance, you know, they could give me a better quality of life. They could make more money, all that stuff. That's not the case anymore. 

You know, we're living through the first period in human civilization, where your economic growth is not connected to your geographic location. If you think about it, for the history of our existence, we've always moved wherever there was, like, you know, whether it was ‘Oh, we got to move because the herd that were like, you know, hunting has moved. And so we need to move locations.’ 

Or, you know, in the 20th century, when we moved countries, because that's where the jobs were, that's what drove immigration. But it's not going to be a big jump for companies to realize that Sally can work from her home 30 minutes outside of the city, to well, if Sally can do that, 30 minutes outside of the city, that what's stopping us from hiring somebody from seven hours away to on the other side of the world? 

And especially as we get more data gathered around more data and experience with asynchronous work, it's going to be even easier to hire somebody on the other side of the world. And so I don't know what's going to happen. I believe that in the long term, we're gonna find a decentralization of work. 

And I think, you know, you're already seeing companies that are hiring people, doesn't matter where they are, I see some things where it's like, they adjust the salary based on the cost of living in that location. That's interesting. I don't necessarily like love it as an idea. 

But, you know, this is, without making this a three hour podcast, this is touching the much deeper conversations as to what happens to the nature of the way that we live, in terms of like an organized living when we become far more decentralized, right? Like we're seeing this already with our financial systems that are moving towards a good crypto. 

You have certain initiatives at the moment of launching digital countries, because there's people who are working completely online that are like, ‘Well, I was born in this country, but there's really not much that connects me with this country, but I'm just kind of like restricted by it.’ 

So there's an initiative right now by SafetyWing, if you've ever heard of them before, to actually launch the first ever digital passport, that they're trying to get recognized by governments. So these are very interesting subjects that at the moment, we don't know yet enough. And it's almost like it's, it's starting to bridge this thing of like, it's kind of science fiction, but it's actually starting to become more real in some ways. So it's very interesting topics.

Omar  

It really does feel like that doesn't like complete science fiction. We're living in such a pivotal moment in history. And it's also interesting, honestly. It's something that I was thinking of, as you were actually speaking about, that is, let's say work gets all decentralized worldwide, right? 

Then it's not going to be a matter of finding that one service expertise that just does it really, really well, if Person B does it almost as good, but maybe 80% is good. And has... I mean, naturally biggest, the biggest companies are only going to work with the best of the best, but anyone below that. And that's also why they can price themselves really high. But anyone below that, like medium to small businesses might work more out of convenience, right? 

So like, Person A does, or is an expert at A, B and C, it is about an 80% expert in all three of those, when we bring him on board, instead of paying that one person was really good at a but it's 100%, one of the best in the world. Right? 

And because it might become one thing will stay true, right? Whoever brings the most value to the marketplace is going to get paid the most. out, instead of just being really, really good at one thing, it might become a necessity to become good at multiple things, on top of that, perhaps even be really, really good at speaking English, which could be the cherry on top for some people that could differentiate you in the marketplace in the future. Right. But like you said, it's way way too early to tell.

Mitko Karshovsky  

I will say that. So I think job marketplaces like Upwork are gonna play a much bigger role in the economy of the future, because this is actually something that Naval Ravikant kind of predicted is that he said, in the future, which you're going to do is you're going to be you know, on some sort of marketplace, you're going to have a profile with a rating, and you're going to get a job for fifteen, twenty thousand dollars. Because it's a very specific thing that your expertise can solve. 

Because the rest of it is handled by automation, or, you know, whatever it may be, and you get called in for this job, you go do that job for a month, and then you go do whatever you want. Because you know that, you know, in three months, when you cash again, you're going to just log into that app again and get the job. That's essentially Upwork on steroids. 

The other thing that I think is really important is that as automation, and computers continue to expand and improve at a quicker and quicker rate, they will be removing more and more of jobs. And so I think the skill that's actually the most important for the economy of the future is learning new skills, and entrepreneurship, right?

Because you're going to need to like you know, you're going to develop a service, you can develop some sort of business, you're going to do that for 10 years, and then just through the nature of, you know, advancement, it might not be as necessary anymore. 

So you almost need to start over again. And so I really think that this sort of thing of like, what was I recently saw something that somebody got a $80,000 job at a company as the head meme creator for that company.

Omar  

Right. 

Mitko Karshovsky

That did not exist 10 years ago, right? And the thing that's gonna exist 10 years from now, we haven't thought of yet. And so you need to almost be good at this sort of repetition of like relearning, relearning, you know, reinventing yourself and what you do. 

Omar

And that's why I don't think there's any more pivotal time, or really, really important time to become an entrepreneur, start learning skills that you can use online, right? And just…

Mitko Karshovsky

Yeah.

Omar

Diversifying and figuring things out, that puts you ahead of the competition when all this goes down.

Mitko Karshovsky  

You know? Yeah, I mean, very simply, you know, entrepreneurship is the art of solving problems at scale. That's all it is, we just make it far more difficult than it has to be. And yes, it can get really difficult as like, if you have a team that grows and you you know, you know, you get investments or whatever it can get confusing, but at the heart of it is just the art of solving problems at scale. 

And so if you learn how to solve problems, how to understand problems, how to apply your skills to those problems and solve them, you're always going to have a job, because there's always going to be people with problems. And if you're the person that can figure out how to solve them, then you’re good.

Omar  

Mm hmm. It's like, I like the fact that you said there's always going to be problems, because I think a lot of people think that one day, everything is going to be solved. But what people don't realize is that every solution creates another problem. 

Mitko Karshovski

Yeah, of course. 

Omar

Right. So it's really interesting. Now, I want to bring this towards the end of the podcast here. What, well, first of all, I want to talk a little bit more about Parable here. What are your plans with Parable? What direction do you want to head? And what's your vision for it?

Mitko Karshovsky  

So my vision for Parable is really I want to make it the premier place for people who are building distributed startups to come and practice and get better and build their businesses. I think that there's I mean, just during this conversation, think about how many things that we've talked about where it's been, like, you know, I don't really know what's going to happen, but something's going to happen. 

And we need a safe place to discuss those things in practice, right, as these new business models, you know, evolve or business in general changes, because of, you know, we're now moving into a very interesting position where blockchain is, in many ways becoming the new internet, we're seeing a lot of the patterns happening from when internet was first coming out to now how blockchain is coming out. 

So how does that affect your business, like all of these things are things that we as business owners, as entrepreneurs need to figure out. And I want to make this into a safe place for people who are building this specific type of business that is distributed, that uses distributed teams that, you know, sees remote work as the empowering thing that it is.

And one of the big things that, you know, I haven't mentioned is, it's really important for me to have people that realize that happiness is more important than millions of dollars, right? 

Research says that we report being the happiest when we're earning between $75,000 adn $95,000 a year, right? Everything past that is gravy, but at that point is this kind of like very happy Goldilocks zone of like, I have enough money to do whatever I want to do. And I don't need to worry about bills. 

But I'm also not like a multi millionaire, where there's a whole bunch of issues that come along with that. And so one of the big values that we have is that people in the community really value happiness over building the biggest, baddest business in the world, we really want people that are solving problems to end that are very happy with their business.

Omar  

Makes a lot of sense. Can... where can people find this just parable dot com or...?

Mitko Karshovsky  

Yeah, so people can check it out at That Remote Life dot com forward slash Join Parable. That's where you know, you can check out the sales page. I - we're running a special right now until the end of August, you can essentially buy for a year at a very low price. Because the moment that we launched that first case study, it's actually going to go up in price. 

So if anybody's interested, definitely check that out. And I should also say if you're interested in that business ladder model that we kind of discussed here shortly, I put together a course that essentially walks people through all of that talks about a lot of the misconceptions that are floating around there in this social media verse about what it's like to be a digital nomad, what it's like to work remotely. 

So if that's something that you're interested in, you can find that at That Remote Life dot com forward slash DNCC for Digital Nomad Crash Course.

Omar  

Great. One last question for you here. Mikko before I let you go. And this is something that I've asked you, or I have been asking everybody that's been coming on my podcast. I don't think I asked it to you when you first came on, because it was a question, probably soon after that, that I started up. 

Mitko Karshovsky

I was too early on?

Omar

A bit too early on. But the answers that I've been getting on this is great. It's very Tim Ferriss ask, so get ready here. 

Mitko Karshovsky

Okay. 

Omar

Let's say you had a billboard in space. And every single time the sun rose, you could see that everyone on planet Earth could see that Billboard and some universal language. And every time the sunset, the billboard went away, what would you write on that billboard? 

Mitko Karshovsky

Why would the billboard go away? I'm curious. 

Omar

I don't know man I just came up with it's just it goes. I guess the idea behind it is you want it to be memorable enough so that people remember it throughout the night.

Mitko Karshovsky  

It's funny, because the first one that came to mind was actually I think, what Tim Ferriss would answer that with, which is that you're the average of five people that you hang out with the most, which I think is very true. 

But I think one of the sort of things that has really hit me in the face the most over the last couple of years was…oh, no, I can't remember, Derek Severs. The founder of CD Baby had this great quote, which is that if more information is what you needed, then we'd all be billionaires with six packs. 

You know, we live in a world in which you can find the answer to whatever the hell it is that you want to find the answer for. Yet, you know, we're not all billionaires with six packs and what it all comes down to is execution and taking action on whatever it is that you want to do. 

You can read all the books in the world, you can take all the courses, you can do all of the theory, right but things only change when you know, you put your neck on the line, you take action, whatever is that you want to do. 

And so for me, I would probably put that up on there because I'm assuming that Tim would put up another billboard that would say, you know, you're the average of the five people so I'd put up you know, that Derik Severs quote.

Omar  

Great. A fantastic way to end the podcast. Thanks for coming on today, Mitko.

Mitko Karshovsky

Thanks for having so much Omar. This is a ton of fun. 

Omar

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