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Founder's Story
Breaking the Mold: Reimagining Entrepreneurship with Igor Vainshtein, Creator of the Entrepreneurpoly Board Game | S2 Ep. 179
00:21:05
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- [00:01]
Igor von Stein
Wow.
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- [00:30]
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- [00:35]
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Igor von Stein
Hmm.
- [00:47]
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- [00:50]
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- [01:06]
Host of Founder Story
Welcome back to Founder Story. Today we have a special guest who has been on this show. It might have been three years ago now, but Igor von Stein. Igor, I, I want to say it was like three years ago when we first met, maybe even four at this point I'm not sure. But you are a best selling author inventor of an entrepreneurship board game which is behind you. You're the founder of 247 Golf, which you sold to GolfTech. I want to find out all about that. And I know you have the Golf Track app. You've got a book coming out, a TedX. I mean you got a lot of things going on in, in your world and you and I haven't spoke in a while. So why don't we just kick it off with you have this exit now to GolfTech and then what? So let's start with there and then let's move forward to the game. Everything else you got going on.
- [01:56]
Igor von Stein
Yeah, no, great. Great to see you again. It's been, it's been over three years because I remember it was in LA at this conference. Right. This with bitcoin and all of that. Right. And that's where I met Matt and, and we. We've stayed friends. Thanks for that connection. You know he's been. I'm a good friend as well, but. Yeah. Wow. A lot has changed since since that day. So. Yeah, that was before the exit. So I think what happened was, you know, I was. And I can't quite place exactly when there was on that journey, but when I first moved to the Us. Obviously I was trying to scale the business and you know, like halfway through that first year of, you know, my, and I called my, my world expansion domination plan, you know, the leader, the evil plan. Like halfway through that, I nearly went bankrupt again. I had this, I remember this July 2021 or somewhere. Like I had like no revenue for the month and I'm like, oh my God, I'm screwed. And I'm just like, I just get, I, you know, you have nothing else to do, right? I just keep fighting and fighting and I turn it around and six months later I sold the company, right, to a public company, Golf Sticks, owned by a Japanese listed company called GDO. Amazing company. Both amazing companies, you know, they acquired SkyTrack, which has been a really, you know, a huge name in the golf business. And so then, because I was, I was kind of pitching them to, to be like a reseller for my products, you know, do you remember I brought the golf simulator to that conference. We put it out the of the back so that like I was pitching for them to sell that thing, those products to their customers. And then they kind of called me and said, hey, you know what, instead of selling it, you know, your stuff, how about we just make it our stuff and buy you? And you know, went through a whole thing and, and NPC came to a great deal which, you know, left a lot of, you know, risk on the table. We shared the, the risk and the upside. So we, you know, we came to a deal where basically we could both share in the, in the growth of the business, which, you know, it's grown, I don't know, 10, 15x to, you know, when I, when I sold it because of the name, the brand, the marketing power, the, the resources, the team, etc. So it's been a hell of a journey. And that kind of triggered all these other things that happened after. And you know, one of the main things psychologically that's happened after that is, you know, the kind of the veil of the imposter syndrome came down a bit. And all these things I had in me for years before, like the board game, I actually wrote that or like invented the first version of that 2007, 2008, it just sat on the shelf because I was like, who, who wants to know what I have to say when, you know, I'm some loser out the back, you know, back in the room. And, and so that was an interesting transition. And that, that first book, that's that one up there as well, you know, again, wrote that in 2007 never published it just had all this imposter syndrome stuff built up in me and that exit kind of trigger this outflow of stuff and that's been really amazing ever since. So that's the exit. So I'm still there, I'm still helping grow the business which is doing really well. We had like a three to four year deal to kind of stay on and help, but I also have other things I'm doing and yeah, just being a typical, you know, entrepreneur with attention span of a kitten.
- [05:11]
Host of Founder Story
Let's go to the exit real quick. We had a recent guest talking about their advice around the learnings that they had when they were exiting their business and the ups and downs of the process. You have a different spin than they have because you had more of a partnership and a, and a longer stay on and you saying you, you were enjoying the risks together and, and the rewards as well. Do you have any learnings of that process for others who might be, you know, looking at an exit and maybe a similar situation?
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Igor von Stein
Absolutely. Yeah, it's, it comes up a lot like there is. What I find is a lot of people have an idea of an exit where you basically you get a check, you sell off into the sunset, they take over the, you know, they get the keys. Buying a house, right, you move out, they move in. That's it. Right what I found. And you know, my involvement with entrepreneurs organization has been a huge help in kind of figuring out how these things work. That's generally not how it works, that works in a small percentage of time, but most of the time, you know, there is some kind of handover period and the great benefit of the type of exit I had, which is a strategic sale. So I sold. Actually let me give you a story as an example of kind of how I wanted to sell and how I ended up selling. So I started the Masters of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Melbourne at Swingford University back some years ago. But the guy that ran it, the lecturer, the head of the school, he is big claim to fame. He sold this company to Oracle for $12 million right back, I don't know, 25, 30 years ago, interestingly enough, he was losing $2 million a year when he sold it for $12 million. And everyone's asked how'd you do that? And his whole theory was, well, Oracle could take his company that was losing 2 million bucks injected into all of their customers and make a hundred million in the first year. And that's exactly what happened. So they 10x their money in like the first year right because there was a strategic acquisition, it was a strategic play, and that's what I, you know, ultimately my dream was to do something similar. And that's kind of what happened where they saw what I had, which was a small business, but I had, you know, I had manufacturing, I had, I had the value chain, right? And so that value chain was valuable to all of their customers. And so when you combine those two, you go, well, their resources, their name, the brand, the customers. With my value chain, all of a sudden, it doesn't matter what your EBITDA is, right? What matters is how much can they make with your product selling to their customers. And then you go, well, if they make this, can I, you know, if I sell it at, say, 20% of that value, that means as soon as they buy me, they 5x their money. And if at that number, that the 1/5 of the value, that I'm really happy because I have a great exit. Hey, all the power, right? And that's kind of what. What I went through where they were able to just push that. And, and we, we shared in a success. And so it ended up being a. A great deal for both of us because they didn't have the risk upfront, right? They didn't have to write a massive check up front. And I also kind of didn't have a limit to what I could exit for because, hey, you know, the more they sell, the. The better I, I do and the better they do and all that, but obviously they get a bigger slice of the pie than I do. But that's fair because they're putting in the resources to grow that. Does that make sense?
- [08:24]
Host of Founder Story
Yeah. No, I love that. The strategic sale, finding a company, you work with the company with the thought in your back of your head that maybe I could exit to a company who's basically a vendor partner, however you want to define it, and then you might be able to get more for it because it's not based on, you know, a P, an X times ebitda. And even if your company's losing money, then obviously you're like in a negative ebitda. But this is, this is great. I, I think that's amazing. So you got through that. You're now like, okay, what's next? In my life, I don't want to become one of those lost entrepreneurs after they exit and then they don't know what they're doing. We all have adhd, so you, you know, I love the. We're looking for that, that shiny thing, but you got this. You look back in your history. And you see this game and you pull that out and you're like, okay, I'm going to launch this game, then what?
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Igor von Stein
Well, so the game was one of them. It actually kind of became. It's part of a bigger foundational kind of process that I'm going for. And I was very lucky to, again, golf is just such a great connector. If you remember, you know, at that conference in la, was walking out of the room and he saw my top with my brain, and you just literally walked up to me and said, I love golf. And I said, me too. And, you know, that's how the friendship started. And what I love about that is golf is such a great connector. And so one of these other moments that I had was I met a great entrepreneur. You may have heard Kevin Harrington, right? The first shark on the Shark tank, you know, what a name in the industry. And we met over golf, you know, and we've become friends. And he's actually written the preface to my second book, But Beside, which is coming at an end of this month. But besides that, he told me the story of how he has built all these amazing businesses. You know, the late night shopping network that he basically invented, you know, the whole as seen on TV thing. But, you know, he told me so how he was having lunch with Richard Branson, and Richard Branson says to him, everyone knows all these entrepreneurs you built up, but no one knows your name. And he said, go write some books, you know, get your brand out there. You never know what's going to happen. And so he followed that advice. And one day he got approached by the producer of this new show called the Shark Tank, and the rest is history. And so he was sharing the story of a dinner with me, and I'm like, you know what? I was kind of on the fence about the whole personal brand thing. And obviously I got to thank you for that as well, because you really encouraged me to do that back three years ago. And I kind of started, but I wasn't ready. I had too many demons. And, you know, so we did a little bit of work, but then I kind of, you know, went on a different direction. And now that conversation kind of pulled me back to that conversation you and I had. And I was like, you know what? I feel I'm ready for this. And so I looked at what I had, and I already had this. I had a book already written, and I had a game already written. So the book I basically I repackaged, you know, published that. The game I looked at, I'm like, you know what? It doesn't reflect who I am today. It doesn't reflect the lessons I've learned. And so I went and I found as great entrepreneurs we got to find the right people around us. I found this absolute genius in, in Bangkok. This, this young, young man, Jackie. He's got a name that no one can pronounce, so we just call him Jackie. You know, you can see him on my website, a little profile of him. But he, he's his side hustle is designing board games and he's so passionate about it, right. And he's a lecturer at university for game theory. But he's side hustle is this. And so I hired him and we spent a year of rebuilding the game, redesigning it. And then the main thing behind the game was, you know, I was inspired by Robbie kiyosaki's Cash Flow 101, which I used to play 25 years ago. And it changed my life and it allowed me to go on this journey of, you know, investing and, and that's how I bought all these properties I had, which I lost. You know, that's a different story. And I want it to be that catalyst for, for the 580 million entrepreneurs that are out there in the world. I wanted to take all the lessons I learned, the people that I know, the books that I've read, and make it a visceral, gamified, low risk experience. How do you go through the process of being punched in the face on a daily basis, being an entrepreneur without the risk necessary, without losing the kind of money I've lost millions, multiple times, and I dusted it off and I put it together and I put it out to the world and one of the main things I'm doing with it is actually I'm donating it. I'm donating to all these non for profits and schools because these are the lessons, you know, I, that's what I have to share with the world now. And, and that's kind of how it came about, if that makes sense.
- [12:54]
Host of Founder Story
It doesn't matter how successful someone has become, if they, everyone I think would tell me, at least they have here that you have to get dragged through the mud. It's a part of the process but I think that's where you know, either you quit and you move on to something else or, or you keep going and that that might be the differentiating factor between, you know, entrepreneurs and maybe non entrepreneurs. I'm not sure how you would define that, but how do you have the melt the mental fortitude to keep going. What is it in your mind? Is it just that entrepreneurs are crazy or is there something else in there? Because most people, I was, we had another guest on that was saying basically that, you know, like, you're, you're doing something that has you, you know, that, you know, one out of every 10 are successful or whatever, you know, whatever the rate is. So, you know, like, okay, the first year, 50% fail. Year two, 75% fail. You know, year by year five, it's like 90%. I'm making these numbers up. But, you know, you get the idea, like, you know, up front it's probably going to be a failure, that you're probably your, your chances are you're going to fail, but yet you continue doing it over and over again. What is that?
- [14:09]
Igor von Stein
That's a great question. And I recently, I feel like I've really kind of cracked it, at least for me. And this is one of the, like, one of the messages I share in my keynotes about that exact concept, what you just asked, like, how do you keep going? Because that really applies not just to entrepreneurship. It applies to whether you're in a relationship, whether you're in a career, whether you're, you know, just starting a career, whether you're at the top of the ladder and you, you know, whatever it is, right. I, this is what I learned about myself. I, I had this, as I told you once, I, especially once I had the exit, I had this time and moment to really reflect on the last 25 years. You know, this overnight success that took 25 years to make. Right. And. Cause I started my first business when I was 17. And to me, it, the big shift came when I stopped focusing on the outcome. Like I wanted to be, you know, when I was 20, I wanted to be a billionaire by 30, you know, when I was 30, I wanted to be a billionaire By 40. It's like none of those things happened. I was so focused on the outcome as I got through the process. I got older, as I had kids, I had a family, and I matured and kind of my risk profile changed. The thing that really changed in my outlook is my obsession with the inputs. So I talk about, you know, I was so obsessed with the outputs and it was however I can get to that output. But then the shift happened to in me where I started focusing on the inputs, I started building the habits. I wasn't doing this consciously. It's just in reflection, I saw that what I was doing and I could actually pick up on these cues where I got To a point in life where I love what I do so much that I can't imagine doing something else. And that is the key to that crazy that entrepreneurs have. We get this passion, this love for what we do so much that we'd rather do that than anything else. Even if it's going to fail, even if it's going to give us potential suffering. But there's always that one in a million chance that you're going to hit it out of the park and that keeps us going again like a golf, like you hit that one shot that always keeps you coming back. Even if you had a horrible round, there'll be one shot, that round that will just keep you coming back. And entrepreneurship is a little bit like that. But it's the focus on inputs, it's creating those, making those inputs, your habits. When you, when you go in, day in, day out and you like, you know what the outcomes will take care of themselves. If I focus on building a great company, building a great product, a great service, hiring the best people, building the best culture and you focus on those little steps that make those things happen, that's what creates that step after step, I think success. Even if that success. I've always said this. I knew that I would succeed. I just, deep down I just knew. Like I just, I don't know how I just knew. What I didn't know was when.
- [16:55]
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- [21:00]
Igor von Stein
And that question is so frustrating, right when? Because you think it might be tomorrow, it might be a year from now, and then it's like 10 years go by and you're like, should I give up on this? Like, am I crazy? Am I like, live in a delusional world where I think I'm going to succeed, but the reality is I'm not. And I think that if I look at all the entrepreneurs I know, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, you've met so many, you've spoken to so many. Do people realize if you take care of the process, if you build the best you can build, that nothing's ever guaranteed in life, but your probability of success is high? The only thing you don't know is when.
- [21:42]
Host of Founder Story
I like that it's, it's the when. It's the when it might be also that that's a good one where you stop saying that you're going to be a billionaire by X time. That that might not. That might hold you back. You might be disappointed. You know, the inputs, those are really good takeaways. Igor, I appreciate that. I wanted to, to dive into your book, your next book. Can you share what it is and then how is the process? Because I'm currently, we're.
- [22:13]
Rosetta Stone Representative
We're over a year into writing a.
- [22:14]
Host of Founder Story
Book, but we went the traditional publisher route and it's a very long and painstaking process and sometimes I want to give up.
- [22:24]
Rosetta Stone Representative
But how has the process been for.
- [22:25]
Host of Founder Story
You and what is this new book about?
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Igor von Stein
So the new book is called. It's kind of second in the series. So the first one back behind me is called Practical Manifestation and it's really. So that book was about how do you as a project manager? Which is what I was running IT projects and then I watched the Secret and all this Manifestation thing was very popular, the self help section, but it frustrated me because it was too much. You sit on the couch and imagine you're steering a dream car that doesn't put a dream car in your driveway. I wanted to take a project manager approach to that. The second book in the series, it's called Agile Manifestation. In that time between those two books, 15 years have passed. I really embrace the Agile methodology. I use it in my app development for my app. I've used it in multiple projects. All these great companies, Spotify, Amazon, SpaceX, Tesla, they all use agile methodology to create the most amazing technologies in the world. I look at people who want to achieve amazing things in their life. They put their things on the vision board and then they manifest whatever that means. And I wanted to take that and go, listen, these companies achieve these crazy things. Why don't you just take what works? You may even be using it in your day to day job, but you're not using it at home, so why not? So I wanted to take that and write it into a methodology of how did you achieve the things you dream about in a way that a company would achieve things that they dream about. There's a moment when everyone said it's impossible to land a rocket back on Earth and they went about and they did it. There was also, you know, impossible to stream movies over the Internet. There's all these impossibles that become possible. And so the book is really a very practical way of how to use this proven methodology in a way to achieve your dreams, whatever they may be, in a practical way, in a step by step way kind of reverse engineering those dreams versus just hoping that it happens. Hope is not a strategy. And, and, and that.
- [24:23]
Host of Founder Story
So that's my second book, Hope is not a Strategy. No, that, that sounds amazing. You have Kevin Harrington in there. I mean I, I can't wait to read this. Thank you for sharing all the updates. I mean we could go for another 30 minutes here. Always great chatting with the Igor. I'm, I'm super happy for you that you got, you did it right like you did it, you did what you've been dreaming about for 25 years and now you're giving back, you're helping others. You know, it's like your legacy of creation things and people are going to always remember how, how you made them feel when they do your, when they read your book or when they play the game. And then they're going to think in 20. Can you imagine that? 25 years, just like you with Robert Salty's game. They're going to be like, I remember when I played Igor's game and how that changed my life. But really appreciate you coming back today. If you want to find out more information about you, they want to get in touch. How can they do so.
- [25:24]
Igor von Stein
So the best way is I'm very active on LinkedIn, so follow me on LinkedIn. You probably have my name, which is a mouthful in the show notes or just IgorWeinstein.com. you can find all info about the game, the books on my personal website. But yeah, please reach out. I'm always. I love talking to entrepreneurs. I love the stories that are out there. I love sharing those stories. I love hearing those stories. So yeah, please you know, to your audience. Just reach out and follow me on LinkedIn.
- [25:51]
Host of Founder Story
Well Igor, always appreciate chatting with you. Great to update even though it's been a few years and I can't wait for the game and the book and everything to come out. But thank you so much for joining us today on Founders Story.
- [26:04]
Igor von Stein
Thanks. Wow.
- [26:11]
Carvana Representative
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- [26:38]
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- [26:44]
Carvana Representative
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- [26:57]
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