Viktor Popovic - Washing Away the Fees, Markups, and Fine Print

Credit card processing feels simple until you’re the one paying the bill. Statements show one “rate,” then, when the month closes, the real cost is buried under layers of fees, markups, and fine print that most busy operators do not have time to decode. We talk with Viktor Popovic, co-founder of Avendo, about why that lack of transparency is a real profit leak for e-commerce businesses and how he’s trying to fix it with a fintech SaaS platform built for online merchants.

Viktor also shares the long arc behind the startup. He came to the United States after the civil war in Yugoslavia, studied in Florida, and then built Ultimate Washer from scratch into a nationally recognized e-commerce company for over 21 years before exiting. This has given him a real understanding of what e-commerce brands deal with in credit card processing.

If you’re building a startup, running an e-commerce business, or just tired of hidden credit card processing fees, you’ll get concrete ways to think about preparation, execution, and scaling. Learn more about Avendo at https://www.avendo.tech/

Transcript

Welcome And Viktor’s Origin Story

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, my name is Nick Ford, and I'm the host of the Transparent Podcast, where we believe in bringing transparency to the world of small business. And this week I am joined by a guest, Victor. I will let you introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Yeah, thanks, Nick. Appreciate you having me on. I'm Viktor Popovich. I'm a co-founder and uh president of uh Avendo. It's a FinTech SaaS company uh focused on uh helping online merchants access more competitive car pricing outcomes. Um yeah, my uh my entrepreneurial journey started long before Avendo. I came to United States uh uh through really uh a bad situation. It was a civil war uh in our country in Yugoslavia, and uh I left that um mess, uh moved to neighboring country, Hungary, uh in hopes that I will maybe one day return. Um so I've stayed there for a little bit as a refugee, and then uh things just uh started evolving. So I ended up staying in Hungary for four and a half years. Um after that I had uh an opportunity to come and study in the United States, and um so came here uh to Florida. Uh and then soon after uh graduating, I started uh my first uh business in e-commerce. Uh it was uh company called Ultimate Washer, uh, which um I uh built pretty much from from zero and into a nationally recognized e-commerce business and Amazon seller as well. Um I've exited from that business um uh after 21 years of running it. Uh so about a year ago, I've I've uh sold that business and uh now I'm on to uh new things and new uh new development. So that's kind of in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yeah. So you've had you've had a long career already as uh as an entrepreneur, 21 years uh running a business. That's exciting. I'm sure we'll get more into that and more into a vendor as well. You know, and that that was the idea kind of behind the podcast was to bring people like you who had been in entrepreneurship, some that are you know newer into their business, some that have been in the industry a while and have you know teams of employees, um, so kind of a variety, but just to let people hear from other entrepreneurs and just kind of see where their journey was so that you know people will relate and be able to you know maybe pursue an idea that they've had and you know by hearing from people who have done it you know before them. So, you know, when getting started with transparent staffing, I started transparent staffing about five years ago now, and uh kind of had a similar idea as the podcast of bringing transparency to the staffing industry, and I was able to get it started as a side hustle. You know, I had kind of a unique circumstance that allowed me to do that. But what do you recommend to people who are thinking about getting into you know starting a company? Do you recommend the side hustle or do you you know kind of go with the shark tank mentality of dive all in, you have to be all in your business?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Sure. Yeah, I do not believe

Side Hustle Versus Going All In

SPEAKER_01 3:10

everyone has to quit their job immediately and go all in on day one. Uh that sounds exciting, but it can also be reckless. Um if if someone has a family or debt or limited savings or maybe major obligations, um starting a as a as a side business can probably be a reasonable path. Um and there's a big difference really between starting part-time and and and thinking just casually, right? Even if you're going part-time, you still have to commit full-time to that part-time. So you still have to uh sort of uh uh make your plan, um your your business plan, you have to see where your customer is going to come from, uh, you know, what what your uh customer acquisition costs will be. Um so everything still has to align. Um so the more you're focused, even if you are just um doing it as a high side hustle and and part-time, um uh still has to be at the high level. That's actually how I started Ultimate Washer. Um, I was actually I was doing I was working two jobs. Um, I was working in the call center, my full-time job. And um I was also a um ballroom ballroom dance instructor part-time in the evening in one of the little uh yeah, dance studios. And so uh when my my friend approached me and asked me, Hey, do you want to you want to start a business? Without thinking, I was like, Yes, yes, I want to do that without knowing what, what are we doing, how are we doing it, none of that. Uh so just jumping with both feet. And really, what what what what drove the first six months um while I was having those two other jobs, you know, main you know, jobs to were paying for the bills, just any any free time between the breaks, um, weekends, any really little time that I had, I would spend on um really researching initially the industry. Ultimate washer, by the way, is a is a business in water technology. Uh, we sold outdoor cleaning equipment like pressure washers, um, lots of accessories, hoses, and that sort of stuff. And back uh in a day, I'm talking about way back, 2003, uh, people were still very scared to uh to put uh you know credit cards online. And so um that was one of the hurdles that we we had to overcome. Um, but in general, you know, the way it started was just building the website. I would uh speak to different vendors and and try to learn the industry, educate myself. And then we wrote a lot of these how-to articles that we would post on our website, uh, things like you know, how to remove graffiti or how to clean a um a stain from your driveway and that sort of stuff. And and that what really um came to fruition is what brought that all that traffic um to our website. And um after that, you know, um for many years we enjoyed uh really uh free, I call it free or organic traffic to our website. So yeah, I I think uh starting um part-time, uh it's absolutely doable. Um you just have to really uh stay on it and still plan it and and have the the path on how how you're gonna reach those goals.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Yeah, I agree. I think you know, for me, I was able to start my business as a side hustle because I was an employee benefits, and so I wasn't competing with my you know company I was working for. And in that industry, uh, or maybe it's just that company and my boss, you know, I brought up the idea of starting a staffing thing on the side because a client I was pursuing at the time had you know requested, you know, over LinkedIn that they needed some staffing help. And so I reached out to them and it turned out that you know, I initially just wanted to build a connection with them. Like, hey, I'll talk to them about staffing, you know, maybe help them write a job post or something, and then maybe we can open up the door to talking about their benefits. And ended up they wanted to hire somebody to do the recruiting for them. And you know, I brought it up to my boss and he was like, Yeah, you know, you're not selling insurance for another company, so we don't have a problem with it. Just make sure you get your job done for us. Uh so that worked out. And, you know, you mentioned it can be reckless to just jump all in. And I agree. I think you need to, you know, start a business from a position of uh you know, power, I guess, um, a position where you can take the risk, um, whether that be having you know some money set aside, a runway. You know, I I waited until I had a runway in my in my staffing business before I quit my full-time job and had clients already. So I had some things already lined up where you know me and my wife who had kids, you know, family at the time, we felt comfortable with it. Um and you know, I think that the side hustle is a is a great opportunity to test the market, see if it's viable before you try to jump all in. Because I have friends that did, you know, go all in from the beginning and then it didn't work out, and then they're back, you know, uh on the job market again. And maybe if they'd taken some time to build some things to start with, it it could have been different. But, you know, the sound so it sounds like for you, you've started your your businesses, both businesses from the ground up, right? You you didn't purchase uh or franchise or that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Correct. Yeah, yeah. It's um it's something that, you know, uh I would say in a in the first um example with with Ultimate Washer, it wasn't really um something uh unique that we did. It was it was a product available already on the market. It was just how we delivered it, right? Because traditionally uh back in the day, the way you would sell that equipment, you would load it into your van, and then you were drive around the city to different locations, like uh let's say uh uh uh car shops, uh, and then you'll pull out the machine from a van, then you'll demo it. And then people like, okay, yeah, they can feel it, touch it, and then they, you know, then they would buy it. So that's how they used to sell these machines. Um and um, you know, funny story is really uh now, uh after so many, so many years, is that um it took me actually six months to get the first vendor, first manufacturer to believe that we can sell pressure washers online. Because it was unheard of. They would they would come to me like, well, how are you gonna demo it? How are you gonna do maintenance in the machines? How are you gonna do this? How are you gonna do that? And so we had we had a huge hurdle to overcome um convincing the very first vendor uh who then later stayed on. We you know, we we were, you know, they were probably our top three um uh uh partner in in the business uh for the next 20 years. Um but it's it's funny looking back now how how challenging some of the things can be. You think it's it's uh you know, you just okay, I'm gonna call them up and they're gonna sell them. No, it's it's not always like that. So uh like you said, this there's there has to be some kind of a proof um to to to you knowing that going from being a side hustle to a full-time, uh, whether it's revenue, like you mentioned, um client or repeat clients, uh, margins that you you say, okay, yeah, I I have enough room here, profit to pay myself or employee. Um, that there's demand for for your service or your product, um, like I said, uh savings. So some some kind of clear pipeline that you say, okay, this this is what I can lean on. This is my proof that this is doable, and then and then go on and and do it, do it full-time.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Right. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think you have to prove the concept and um have some idea that it's going to be successful. Otherwise, how are you gonna be confident in going into that? Especially if you have a family and um you know, bills to pay, a mortgage, and those kinds of things, you know, you have obligations. But so it sounds like when you were Ultimate Washer, you had a team around you that you were working with. Um, so I you know a guy that I used to work with, he would tell me that to always get buy-in from any team that I was on, you know,

Winning Team Buy-In For Change

SPEAKER_00 11:26

before implementing an idea. Because he would say that a B plus idea that you have buy-in from the team on is better than implementing an A plus idea that you came up with on your own. So, what do you what do you think about that idea uh you know, as far as implementing you know new processes and things like that?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Yeah, um, I think it depends on the decision and how much experience the owner is bringing into that specific situation. Um there are plenty of projects where I have strong experience and can make decisions quickly, but there are also projects where I don't know anything yet, and I'm very open about what the what the team um thinks about the the solutions. Um and you know, my my approach is when uh if if we have a situation where neither the team uh nor myself, you know, the executives know uh the the the the the right direction is to do the research. And thank God for AI, right? Uh today. Um you can you can you know usually we'll assign the the the the research project to one of the uh one of the uh uh staffers and then uh they'll come and they present it to to the whole group. Um and you know, I'm I'm fortunate enough that after 20 years the solutions and and solving problems kind of come, you know, I guess I've learned to for it to for them to come naturally to me at this point. Um, but I still uh even with once I make, let's say, a suggestion of how we should approach, uh, I always ask the group for their constructive opinion and what they think about the solution itself. So this is not because for me at least it's never been, you know, I'm this is the decision, we're going with it. Uh especially like I said, if it if it requires further research and and us all getting educated, uh I always want to um get a confirmation from the group because people that that do the research, they may add some additional information that may not have been disclosed during you know their presentation. Um so even the solution may not be the right one if there's some additional information be added to the to the conversation. So I think uh having the the the team buying um is important because when they buy in into the project, there's ownership to that, right? Um they will they will um they will own it, they will live with it, and um they will build upon it. So um have having having those the combination of those, I think um gives a better chance to the company to to uh make you know to to make that project successful.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Yeah, I think that's the most important thing is is the buy-in from the team. They need to have ownership of it. Even if you know, in that meeting where you're discussing uh, you know, the idea, giving them the opportunity to contribute to it. Um now you can't just you know have everyone meet in a room and and then not do anything that the team talked about. But but because I've been in a room like that where I had an executive vice president come into a room when I was in a s in a staffing and recruiting company, and there was probably 30 of us on the team, and they came in like, hey, we're gonna whiteboard a new new a new process for how we're gonna handle you know the recruiting and sales process with with the team. And we whiteboarded for probably two hours and had this whole big plan together on how we were gonna do things. And then they were like, all right, well, we're gonna put you know, put this all together and get it on paper and then roll this out to everybody, and you know, everyone's real excited about it because we all had contributed to it. And then you know, the next week they come in to roll it out, and it's completely has nothing to do with what we talked about. Like it was a completely different plan and a completely different process. And we are all like, did he already have this done before he ever met with us? And like, why did he even talk to us about this? Like, why were we even brought in? And then what happened was no one had ownership of it. Even if it was a better idea, it didn't matter because no one no one did it. We just went back to our desks and kept doing it the way we'd done it before. It just failed.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Yeah, yeah, you're you're absolutely right. You know, getting team um buy any ideal, you know, as long as the situation allows for it. So people execute, I feel better when they understand the reasoning and and and and and and they feel they had a voice in shaping the solution. So yes, it's it's uh it's gonna be a team effort uh because you know, people like to be recognized, people like to feel that they're part of something important, and if they feel that they contributed to to the direction or path or something you know important for the company, um they'll feel feel proud. And I I emphasize this, you know, I I tell my guys, be proud of what you do, be proud of your your decisions. And and even if we made a mistake at the end of the day, you know, we made a decision together. And so, you know, we're not gonna call out anybody. This is not, you know, situation we we we want to blame anybody. We just we regroup, we we reset, we come up with a different solution, and we go on.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yeah, and you move forward together, yeah. Yeah, so with with the Vendo now, what you know, I know you're it sounds like you're still kind of in the startup phase of things. So what what challenges are you having right now with with scaling and building? And because it's that this is you're in the stage where a lot of people listening

Scaling Avendo And Landing Partners

SPEAKER_00 17:11

probably would be in, you know, the beginning stages of getting it launched. And I know you've spent a lot of you know work on it already, but yeah, what are your challenges right now that you're going through?

SPEAKER_01 17:21

So for me right now is uh partnering with um payment processors, um, because they're um you know, you you need the clients, but you need the processors in our situation where uh they will be uh uh active participant on our platform so that we can achieve our goal, which is to get the merchants the um the best outcome uh and the best rate possible that's available in the market. So, you know, I I think with with the sort of the the payment processing world has been has been evolving and has has added a lot of um additional functions and things that are uh useful to the consumer. Um but the part of how they operate the business of back end has hasn't really changed in decades. So uh that mentality of owning one merchant um and just just uh being able to have uh sort of uh guaranteed uh uh income uh from from one merchant is is the mindset that we're saying we uh the break, but we we this is a totally different approach where you're not guaranteed you know a hundred percent of all the transactions for a particular um merchant or website. Um that's one of the challenges is really uh getting through to them. I initially when I when I was you know when we're setting up this uh we're planning this out, we thought that the biggest challenge will be talking to the right people, like getting to the the COOs and CFOs and CEOs. Actually, that's not a problem. We we I I we get to them pretty pretty easily, I would say. It's just changing how how they think and just thinking, you know, in this lane where we're at today. Um so that's one of the things, you know, and just just uh overall marketing campaigns and sales funnels, you know, just that predictability, you know, how do you how do you you know build these marketing campaigns and you know reverse engineering or how many, you know, where do we start? Do you start at revenue, do you start at clients, you know, how many pitches you need to do, how many, you know, networking events you need to go to and kind of reverse engineer all that so that you can get to the numbers that you are hoping to get. Again, these are all assumptions you're starting with. Uh there's no crystal ball that you can just uh pull out of your drawer and say, Hmm, what do I need to do today, right? Yeah, exactly. Um you start with assumptions and you tweak along. Um so those are kind of the couple of things that are uh forefront for us right now, just uh getting those things done.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah. So for people listening that aren't as familiar with merchant services and you know what you're trying to build, can you give us a little uh overview of how that works?

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yeah, absolutely. So um the I the idea um with

How Avendo Lowers Card Processing Costs

SPEAKER_01 20:25

with Avendo, it was born really from solving the pain point that I had as a merchant in my first business, where it was very difficult to um number one, really know what your rates are, right? Um you you you may get a a rate where they say, oh, you we we're gonna be starting at uh 2.9%, but at the end of the month, that that really fluctuates. When you look at your statement, uh your credit card statement, and you look at all the settlements that come in, there's so many fees, there's so many different things that you just as an entrepreneur you just don't understand. And you're in a situation where you're chasing your customers, you're building your processes, you're building you know automations and scaling, and you don't have the time, or I never had the time to um shop for rates. And so I've always felt that there was lack of competition, especially on a transaction level, right? And so you know, um, I've always thought there has to be a way a better way, there has to be a better way. And so after I've sold the business, I'm like, okay, here's here's what I would like to do with this. So basically what it is is when a merchant, let's say uh you have a website and you are selling shoes, and so when the customer comes to your website, they go to checkout page and they enter that card information. We as a vendor, we take that card information and we uh send it out to multiple Credit card processors, uh, and this is real time. This is all happening in the back end. Um, we get these uh rates back from the processors, and then we choose the best available rate at that moment for that transaction for that card, and then we route that transaction to that specific processor. Um, so this way, uh again, the idea is for the merchant to um pay the lowest cost possible um based on the card being uh used and not um use whatever rate the the the processor has assigned during the underwriting, which happens on you know day one when you when you sign a contract with them. So that's kind of uh where we at. We we're hoping to uh get more more competition and uh initial feedback from from from merchants is is unbelievable. Um just last night I was at the event um down in Fort Lauderdale, and um people are asking how how do we how do we start this? How do we get this one? And this is different businesses, and we kind of have to kind of put the brakes right now because our rollout will be e-commerce businesses. Um it's just more controlled than something that's familiar. And then later, probably the next three to six months, we'll also uh go to retail stores and card present type um uh businesses.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

That's what I was gonna ask, is if you're just gonna be in e-commerce or in retail too. Because so, like for you know the average consumer, um, you know, you go into a restaurant or you go into you know a pet store or whatever, and they have you know card readers and stuff. So like you know, there's like clover and stripe and square. Are you are you working with those type of providers or are they a competitive would be a competitor?

SPEAKER_01 23:48

So they they are uh uh a credit card processor themselves, obviously. So um right now we are partnering with processors. There are uh banks as well. So we're the closest that you can get to the network, which is the visa and the master card. So there's a lot of layers in between the agents and referrals and um ISOs that we're basically um uh skipping, you know, the middleman. So just um will the square and and uh the stripes and the likes uh uh join one platform? That's our hope. If if they can they can jump in and be part of the the process and offer their pricing uh transparently to to the customers and and uh compete with the rest, we would love that.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's that's that's really interesting. That well, it sounds like you're gonna be offering a really great service that customers uh they'll benefit the customers and the retailers, you know, the the companies that you're gonna serve. So I'm all for that. Let's cut out some of those fees and make things more affordable. I think every everyone needs that right now, as much savings as they can get. So um both on the small business and consumer side. So um, well, so you know, you've been in business for a long time with Ultimate Watcher, you know, 21 years running a successful company. I'm sure you've you know interacted with other you know entrepreneurs. When you when you look at people who have been in business uh for someone like you who surpassed the statistics of like most small businesses failing within the first few years, um where where do you see the differences in the people who've succeeded and maybe for you personally, what do you think has set you apart to to help you succeed?

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Sure. Yeah, um I think one major difference is how people respond when things do not go according to a plan. Right? Every entrepreneur starts with assumptions. Uh

Handling Rejection And Setting Real Goals

SPEAKER_01 25:55

the market will respond this way, customers will understand the product, vendors will cooperate, ads will work, the president, the presentation will land, the pricing will make sense, right? All of these things we think are gonna work out because it's a perfect plan. But in real life, things usually do not go exactly according to plan.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Yeah, yeah. So I think that's that's very true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah. So the the people who succeed are the ones who are willing to adjust without giving up too quickly. Um they do not take first rejections as the final answer. Um, they look at what happened, they learn from it, they improve. In in our particular case with the payment processors, um I can say it took us a little bit of a time and tweaking our presentations and our pitch. I think we went through probably about six or seven slightly adjusted pitches. Um and it was not, it wasn't the product or the service for us. It was the language. We weren't exactly speaking the language of the payment processors. Yeah. Um when we started, we didn't know that. You know, we just used the regular merchant, me again coming from the merchant side. I was speaking the merchant language. You gotta speak a little different language with them. So we tweaked, we know, we had rejections, we had rejections, we had rejections, we keep going until we probably our 30th um uh presentation. We're like, oh they like it. Okay, cool, let's do it, you know. So it's really um having that uh um sort of ignoring that stop sign when it comes in front of you. It's it's only a visual, right? Just keep going, just keep revising, keep tweaking. Uh it again, it does not mean that your service is not good. Just it could be as simple as just how you're presenting it to the client. And this could be true with sales or just getting a vendor. Um and so that that experience, you know, me from again, I'm referring back to my early days with with with the e-commerce business where you just you got you go through these things, uh, you're gonna find obstacles, um, how you adjust, how you adapt, what do you change, and not get scared from oh, oh, okay, yeah, maybe this is not ever gonna happen. Um so uh that's kind of uh my mentality, and I think uh um it it it worked in in in some cases for me.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

Yeah, I think you know, I think that's great. And I you know, I studied sales in college, my degree was in a business degree in professional sales, and I've been in some sort of sales type uh role since I graduated from college. And I what I've learned is you know, one of the stats I learned is the average sale doesn't happen until at least nine touch points. So, you know, you're gonna have at least nine on average times that you touch someone, you know, whether it's an email or you've connected with them on LinkedIn or you've called them before they you know do business with you. And so if you make only one ever to each client you're trying to pursue, you will not probably sell anybody. It's just it's not likely. And you know, I I relate it you know to baseball as far as success. You know, with baseball, you look at a you know, a major league baseball player, a hitter, they're gonna fail seven out of ten times. And they're and that's a good hitter. They're that means they're hitting 300 in the major leagues. That's so they failed seven out of ten times. And you know, learning how to deal with failure and move forward and learn from it, I think is the probably the most important thing an entrepreneur is gonna have to learn. You know, you're not going to, unless you get lucky or you know, really know what you're doing when going into it, you're going to have times that you fall on your face and have to get up and dust yourself off and move forward. And like you were kind of alluding to, uh adapting. You know, it's changing your pitch, changing your methodology, not getting so focused on I have the perfect plan, it's it has to be this plan, and I'm gonna carry it forward. Because I've had a I had a friend that was like that, that was an entrepreneur. He had worked on his idea for a long time, and he spent probably a year and a half trying to push a square peg through a round hole and didn't want to you know adapt and change it. And so, you know, I think that you know, learning how to deal with failure, and then second, as far as you know, people who succeed, I think are people who are goal-oriented. They're people who know where they're headed and where they're going. Because if you don't have goals, then you can't what are you gonna reach for? You know, you have to have goals and and milestones that you're aiming for. Uh, you know, that's what I've seen from you know the people I've seen that are successful.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

So yeah, absolutely. As far as the goals, and they have to be broken down. It's not enough to just say, oh, I want to get to $100,000 in sales. Well, what's your plan? Like what what what are the what are the postmarks? What are the stage gates, right? So you want to break it down to um what what does that take to get to $100,000 in revenue? Okay, well, I need if my if my average ticket, let's say for e-commerce, if my average ticket item is $50, what does that mean? Okay, that means I'm gonna have to have 2,000 sales, maybe 2,000 customers. Okay, how do I get in you know in front of customers? Okay, then you know if you if you get 2,000 people to a website, it doesn't mean all 2,000 will convert. Okay, what's the conversion rate? Maybe that's 5%, maybe it's 30%. So maybe I'll need 40,000 people to come to my website so that 2,000 will convert. That will then get me to you know $50 average ticket item sold, $200,000. So you have to break it down in in granules on how you're gonna reach that goal. Uh, and then you're you absolutely I agree with you. Without that, it's just it's just an empty empty promise to yourself. And um, and so yeah, uh for the way I see it, successful founders do not uh push harder, they're just faster, right? If if you see something's not working, adjust, change, be creative.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, as far as for you now with a vendor, and you know, I think about it all the time for me too, as a as an owner, how do you figure out how to spend your time? Like where should where are you the most valuable in your business and how how do

Delegation And Using Founder Time Well

SPEAKER_00 32:26

you approach that?

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Yeah, um as an owner, um, I believe your time is most valuable when you're working on things only you can do. Um of course, in in the beginning, at early stage, that may include sales, partnerships, hiring, you know, interviewing, financing, product direction, uh, setting company standards. You will be doing all that. Um separating yourself in a later phase, and and took me a while, and I I'm I'm guilty as as it as it gets. Um I have to learn how to delegate. It it was such a hard thing to to do for me because it was the mentality of I'll do it faster, I'll do it, do it quicker. Um, by the time I explain to someone, I'll be already done. And that's not scalable. You just cannot cannot grow from from there. So um again, yeah, I think in in early stages, you'll be you'll be doing everything um including uh cleaning bathrooms. If you have uh if you have an office and done that emptying trash, it's it's it's part of the uh job description that you signed up for to do. Um so for me at Avento, uh my time is most valuable in in few area areas, really. Um talking to payment processors and partners, uh, shaping the business model, uh, protecting the company from strategic mistakes, um, and just uh making decisions on on uh to not to overcomplicate the product. Like we we we have a lot of moving parts and elements, but we want to kind of keep it because we built the dashboards for merchants and dashboards for PSV, you know, processors and admin. So we wanna because sometimes you get overexcited and you can just explode in all the things functions and features, but that just becomes too much and the clutter. So keeping that on the under the under the hood is is also important. Uh and then building relationships, just networking with people and and um you know putting the word out.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Yeah. Yeah, I think I mean I think about a few different things. Like, you know, uh you have to find a way to stop working in uh in your business and start working on the business. And that's a very hard thing to do as an owner operator, because you know, like you said, it's hard to delegate because you s you start to think, you know, are they gonna are they gonna do it the way I would do it? Well, no, no, they're not gonna do it the way that you would do it, but they may find a better way to do it. Um, and even if they're not as efficient, you know, you being able to work on the the vision of the company and and bigger uh things in the business uh is important. But at the same time, you you also need to realize if you're going into business, everything falls on you. What if something doesn't get done, it's it all ultimately is gonna fall back on you, and no one's gonna have ownership over different tasks the way that you're going to. And you may be the one that's mopping the floor or taking out the trash. You probably will be, and you need to be comfortable with that until you get to a point where you know you have reliable people you can delegate things to and you can focus on you know bigger picture things. But you know, that that's yeah, kind of where I I look at it.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

And I also had yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah, no, I had someone that that they the way they explain the way they think about it is they would look at you know calendar year and figure out what they wanted to make in a year, like what do they want to pay themselves and calculate out you know what would that be, what do they want to pay themselves hourly, basically. And then they would think about okay, can I pay someone else less money per hour than I want to pay myself to do to do XYZ task? I thought that was a really good way to look at it too.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Excellent. Yes, absolutely. What is your time worth versus paying someone to do it? So yeah, absolutely. That's that's one of the major parameters that I've that I've learned myself years later. I I wish I've I've I've I've learned it earlier, but yeah, I think if the founder is doing everything, the company cannot grow. So part of the owner's job is to ask, what am I doing today that someone else should eventually own? Right? The goal is not to really disappear from the business, the goal is to stop from being the bottleneck. Because sometimes you know, we get bombarded from different directions, different departments. And if we're doing things, we're too much hands-on, people are waiting on us, and the decision is not being made, uh, that can slow down the company.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, so as we start to kind of wrap up the podcast here, what when you know you think about people who are listening that are you know thinking about getting into entrepreneurship, what kind of uh kind of closing advice would you give those people?

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Uh I

Preparation Mindset And Where To Connect

SPEAKER_01 37:23

think probably one of the best ways uh we can help small business owners is by being honest about how things really are and what it takes to get there and how much preparation is needed. Um I I when I you know whenever we have team projects, I I I've always preach and I've learned this from a consultant a few years back. Uh he says, Victor, 90% is preparation, 10% is execution. And at first I was like, what is he talking about? How is that possible? But it's so true. The the better you prepare, that execution comes so easily. Because you don't you you you've already you've already came up with a lot of different scenarios of what ifs, right? What if if this happens, what that that happens, and so you are prepared for those uh cases. So your execution is like, okay, what if is this case? Okay, we go to A. What if this? And we go to C. Um, so I think really being honest, having those honest conversations with with um uh future owners and and people, you know, guys that have or or girls that have started the businesses, just just be real to them and uh supportive in in every way you can. Um, but don't don't overinflate how uh the life is great in the beginning, right? Because there's gonna be a lot of lot of disappointments.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Right. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, for me, I would I agree with everything that you said, but I'd also just add that just try it. Like don't stop sitting on the idea and and do something with it. You know, test the market or put together, like you you were talking about preparation, um, you know, put together a business plan and and that'll kind of help you think about whether or not it's viable. Um if you can't get a business plan together with AI and all the tools that we have now, then it's probably I don't know if it might need to come up with another idea. Um but uh but yeah, well tell us a little bit more, you know, for people who are curious, where where can we find you? Where we can can we find out more about Avendo?

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Sure. Avendo, it's Avendo.tech. Um it's a it's a simple, simple website. Um the services are are very simple it's uh to use. It's you it's just uh one page, it's onboarding page. If you're a merchant, you have if you're already transacting uh um your uh if you're already transacting on your website and your e-commerce, we we would welcome you. Uh we have a wait list. Uh like I mentioned uh earlier, we will be uh rolling this out in the next few weeks. Um so if you uh have the desire to increase your net margins, uh this is this is probably one of the easiest ways where uh where your net margins can get better from uh from better credit card rates.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Right. All right. Well, I will leave a link in the show notes to the website. Uh, and then of course people can find you on LinkedIn as well if they want to connect with you there. And uh well Victor, thanks so much for being on the podcast. It was a great conversation.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

I appreciate you. I'm usually here. I'm I'm happy to to be part of the the podcast. And um just yeah, I was uh if anybody has questions by by all means, um I'm I'm an open book. Reach me out on on LinkedIn and uh I'll I'll be happy to answer. Awesome. Well, thank you, Victor. I appreciate your time. All right, thank you. Take care.