Corp Eh! Diem
Join Dom and Léa as they cut through entrepreneurial myths, deliver actionable advice, and dive into the real, unfiltered stories of Western Canadian builders. Corp Eh Diem isn't just another business podcast—it's a rallying cry for the proud, resilient entrepreneurs shaping our economy.
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Corp Eh! Diem
From Rocket Science to Financial Freedom with Pavel Bondarev
In this episode of Corp Eh! Diem, we sit down with Pavel Bondarev — engineer, mathematician, and entrepreneur — to explore his journey from Tajikistan to Canada and the path that led him from mechanical engineering and mathematics into data science, analytics, and entrepreneurship. Along the way, he built multiple AI/ML platforms and founded companies designed to help organizations save time, money, and resources through smarter, tech-enabled solutions.
Pavel shares what it takes to bootstrap without a safety net, the lessons he carried from both corporate and startup life, and how adaptability is key when building in a constantly evolving market. His story is one of resilience, innovation, and the relentless drive to keep climbing — offering both inspiration and practical insights for entrepreneurs forging their own ventures
Hi, I'm Lea. Welcome to the Corp Eh! Diem podcast. Today I'm joined by my co-host.
Dom Kingston:I'm Dom and welcome to the show.
Lea Lavoie:Pavel is originally from Russia, where he earned his MSc in Mechanical Engineering and PhD in Mathematics. He has over 15 years of experience building and leading data modeling, advanced analytics and data science teams, developing solutions that have brought organizations over $200 million in revenues and savings. Developing solutions that have brought organizations over $200 million in revenues and savings. Currently, he is developing Zane, an AI-powered app designed to help everyday people achieve financial independence by answering their personal finance questions and managing their money on their behalf. Honestly, that resume is intimidating in the best way. Let's dive in. Hi Pavel, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
Pavel Bondarev:Hi, I'm doing well and thank you for the invitation.
Dom Kingston:Nice to meet you, nice to see you again today, pavel yeah.
Lea Lavoie:So we were just talking about this, but how many podcasts have you done before in live events like this?
Pavel Bondarev:I would say like a couple of thousand.
Lea Lavoie:Wow, okay, okay. That's a lot more than I was expecting and you have a pretty cool outfit on today. Can you tell me about your t-shirt?
Pavel Bondarev:Oh, I just you can see it. Yeah, I have like a bunch of t-shirts with different like moods. I use their moods.
Dom Kingston:Every time I see you there's always a different shirt. I'm not sure if I've seen you wear the same t-shirt twice, so you must have quite the collection.
Pavel Bondarev:Don't ask my wife, she hates it. Because she said like, yeah, like you have nothing to wear and you have no place to put your new shirt so this has been going on for a while the t-shirt collection um, I guess it's like a couple of months that's it.
Dom Kingston:No, I've known you for a year.
Pavel Bondarev:Every time I see you, there's something like oh, I mean this one is new, but yeah, I have big collection got it all right.
Dom Kingston:well, welcome to the show. Um, I met pevel as a client of mine. Uh, uh, he came to me. It was like for a rebranding exercise on a FinTech platform and then from that I've got to know Pavel a bit over the last year, yep, and he's got a fascinating story and I'm building a very cool slash fascinating app.
Lea Lavoie:So Well, I have lots of questions because for me this is only my second time meeting you, so if you can just take me back, so you're originally from russia and now you've been in canada for how many years about?
Lea Lavoie:17, yeah, almost 17 so did you move directly from russia to canada? What was the trajectory like? How did you choose canada too? You know a lot of people think it's the american dream. If I want to be an entrepreneur, be successful, I have to go to america, but you chose canada uh, it a long story.
Pavel Bondarev:I'm just trying to keep it short Because I was born in the USSR, not Russia. I was in Tajikistan, like a tiny republic, the part of the USSR, and it was, by the time, probably one of the best places in the world, because it's mountain, beautiful, like Switzerland, if you were in Switzerland and like lots of money, because we created a shield of the motherland and like nuclear bombs and so on. It was created like in our area, so this way we used to live in great place. But back in 1991 the usr collapsed and all this republic became independent country and started civil war. So I used to live like for a few, like almost half a year, like in the war, and then escaped to Russia because by the time it was a better place to live in. But then in Russia it started another movement and for now you know what's going on in Russia. So in the mid-1990s, beginning of 2000, I decided to escape again because I went through war. It's another war in Chechnya and I had to be part of this because in Russia, as you know, like every young man had to serve and after that I decided I don't want it anymore and decided to move away.
Pavel Bondarev:But luckily for me, I am a good mathematician and by the time I participated I graduated at one of the best Soviet and then Russian universities. I become among top 20 young Russian mathematicians. I mean like I was offered a position at the university at the same time offered a position at multiple universities in Europe and dedicated some time moving across multiple countries Germany, switzerland, great Britain. In Great Britain I lived like three years University of Westminster and was awarded by British Royal Society as one of the best overseas researchers. But one day I made I don't know mistake or maybe the opposite got invite from one of my friends to return back to Russia. Said like you're crazy. Said like we need mathematicians like yourself to start building cool models Because the economy has reached a point when advanced businesses need something advanced I mean like technological advanced tool, and math is one of those tools.
Dom Kingston:So just interject for a second, just because you've got quite the pedigree for degrees. So maybe tell us what. I think Pavel's my smartest client that I have on paper. He's got two PhDs.
Pavel Bondarev:Yes, because in Russia I started as a mechanical engineer at my first degree Mechanical engineering, and we created submarines and rockets. So I'm just a rocket scientist, just very casually a rocket scientist. But by the time the math became one of the key elements, key tool for us. Because my boss, a professor, said like as a mechanical engineer, you have to know math better than a mathematician, because they create some artificial math, you create practical math and if you like, make some mistake, the rocket will be going down, and this is not right. So you have a PhD in math and then a like make some mistake, the rocket will be going down, and this is not right.
Pavel Bondarev:So you have a phd in math and then a phd in data science uh yeah, computer science, because when I had an option to go to the second war in chechnya or to go to great britain, obviously my choice was, uh, great britain. So I went to University of Westminster in London, uk, and worked with my second PhD at this university.
Lea Lavoie:And after all that you landed in Canada, did you come directly to Calgary or did you live in any other cities?
Pavel Bondarev:before Calgary, actually, because I said by the time I moved back to Russia. I didn't finish my research at the University of Westminster because my friend called me and said go back to Russia. I said I'm not so stupid. He said we'll pay you 10 times more. Three days later I landed in Russia and I helped build a business.
Pavel Bondarev:So by the time no one used the term artificial intelligence, but we had already. By the time we started working on algorithms, which are called EI right now, and it was like a big company, like an agricultural service company, with thousands and thousands of elements, and if you know agriculture, it's very seasonal business, like ups and downs and so on, and no one could build a model to properly predict it. And I hired students I used to teach at the university. We built a model in three months, then we dedicated three more months to build a platform, like a visual platform, and in six months we helped this company save like 147 million and one of them became mine and I understood okay, it's probably a big market because companies are ready to pay, because supply-demand interlock is the biggest problem any company has, regardless what they do, like develop, like glasses, tables, rockets, like, supply-demand is what any company has to solve first.
Dom Kingston:And that would have been using an AI, a version of AI. How many years ago, in that case?
Pavel Bondarev:Well, again, by the time, it was not AI, it was like advanced mathematical algorithms and I invented them, I created them and so on. So I decided just to leave the company and start my own business, because when I communicated with businesses practically changed everyone's how we needed, because what I did is very powerful predictive analytics which allowed companies to foresee the future. What will happen tomorrow, like next day, next week, next month, year, down to each item.
Dom Kingston:And when you landed in Calgary, was that what you were doing then?
Pavel Bondarev:Not exactly, because I said, like I started this business, it started growing like crazy because everyone needed it and you know like in Russia, if your business is growing very fast, someone likes it. So I was invited to some government facility just to communicate because by the time I was against Putin, it was not fashionable. By the time it's like beginning of 2000s, like 20 years ago, and they said you need to stop it, your political activity, and also we like your business. You can continue to manage this business, but we'll take it.
Dom Kingston:Really.
Pavel Bondarev:I said do you have other option? They said yeah, you can stay here for 10 years. So I came back home and submitted application for Canadian residency. And given all my stuff, like this mathematician, british Royal Society and so on and so on, I got a visa like permanent resident visa, practically immediately. So I said to the guys okay, if you like this business, run this business bye.
Dom Kingston:So you left the business, left a successful business to come here.
Pavel Bondarev:basically yeah yeah, so you left the successful business to come here. Yeah, so I just sold whatever I can sell and moved to Canada. And before going to Calgary again, I'm a mathematician. I built a model of the best place to live in Calgary 24 different parameters like living style, average salary, economics, ecology, crime, like lots of stuff. I built this model, I trained this model and I got three winners Calgary, Halifax and Victoria and Calgary was top enough.
Dom Kingston:Of course, you automatically decide where you're going to move to.
Pavel Bondarev:Well, actually, originally actually, my option was Halifax, but then I just trained model once again. It predicted some oil prices would be going up and I decided, OK, Calgary probably would be the best place for me.
Lea Lavoie:And why Calgary over Edmonton? Because I'm from Edmonton and I'm kind of insulted. It didn't make the list.
Pavel Bondarev:Well, Edmonton was on my list because I said I put like all locations with 100,000 plus population to my list, all of them, because sometimes, like, living in small town is great, and especially these days, like when you have remote job. But by the time it wasn't the option and, yeah, like Calgary won and I moved to Calgary. So, luckily for me, by the time the company I consulted like it was my side side business said hey, we don't want to divorce with you, continue working with us. I said, okay, like six months I would be able to do it and then I will start. So, six months, these guys continue paying me. And then I started seeking a job and that was so this is like digging into your LinkedIn.
Dom Kingston:So back to you. So now you're in Canada in the workforce. It seems like you have 19 jobs, is that correct?
Lea Lavoie:Yeah, I saw 19 different placements on your LinkedIn, which was super impressive.
Pavel Bondarev:Some of them it was like consulting jobs, like part-time jobs, because I can create very cool tools and I'm talking about math, computer science and so on. But some companies they don't meet me full time. Because I create solution for you, I can support the solution, but paying me full-time you just waste of your money. Yeah, it's nice for me just to get like a top, like level salary and so on, but I don't believe it's fair and I believe in karma. Whatever you do always, always comes back tenfold. So I said the guys I can help, you can create it, I can support it, I can find people who can support it. Um, but you don't need, don't need me for full-time, uh.
Pavel Bondarev:But by the time, yeah, like my contract with my company was over and I started seeking new position here, I didn't know anyone here. So I just asked people around do you know any company which might potentially seek a guy with my experience? And some of my friends told me you know, tell us this building, can you department analytical and fulfillment, something like this they might need. So I asked the guys can you find email of vice president? And I sent email to this guy, dave McMone, and it was very simple I'm smart guy, hire me. And yeah, obviously he didn't respond, but he forwarded my email to one of his directors, to one of his managers, and managers forwarded to his assistant. She called me and said, hey, we would like to invite you to an interview. I said, like, who are you? I haven't applied. Anyway, she said I'm from Telus. Oh, telus, okay, so they invite for interviews. I said can you build like graph with Excel Build?
Dom Kingston:a sorry build, a what Graph yeah Like with Excel. Yeah.
Pavel Bondarev:I said I can. It's like you know rocket scientist like can you build?
Lea Lavoie:like scooter yeah.
Pavel Bondarev:I just, I like I can do it right now. Oh, you can take a week. I said let me do it right now, like safe, everyone's time. So I just built it immediately. Can you build some pre-cast model in Excel? I said, yeah, like click, click, click and so on. They said, okay, cool, we'll call you. And they, uh, yeah. So I started working with Stellos. Uh, I didn't like what this guy's doing, because Excel fantastic tool. But I said, hey guys, you trying to manage thousands and thousands of people, like your employees, millions of your clients and so on. What about like more advanced tools? So my boss, like direct boss, said no, it works, don't worry. His boss said the same.
Pavel Bondarev:So I came up, like moved up to Dave, like VP, and said, dave, I have an idea which can save us like $100 million. He said what do we need to do? I said like we need to replace Excel spreadsheets with like more advanced tools. So like by the time I used to use MATLAB, it's like a system for like modeling, mathematical MATLAB, mathematical matrix laboratory. I said like we need to buy this tool and I will create a solution which will automate most of our operations. He said how much cost? He said like $5,000. He gave me his business credit card so I bought it.
Pavel Bondarev:So I bought this tool, created simple solution like window with one button which called like forecast, and you click this button. It said like do you have files with like data you need to attach? And user can choose files, click this button and for your customer maybe. So my peers who used to spend days and weeks building simple model now would be able to build hundreds of models in one click. So it's huge time like time saving. And then we started working optimization because by the time I was in the team which manages technicians, you know, tell us like it's thousands and thousands of technicians?
Dom Kingston:Are they guys in the field?
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, field operated guys. It's like home installation, business installation and so on, so on.
Dom Kingston:The biggest challenge was to predict how many people will be required, when, where, why, so you're trying to, in that case, predicting customer demand on service calls, and then obviously there's failures, right? So what's the failure? Demand as well. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Pavel Bondarev:This is what I said at the very beginning. Any business has one problem supply-demand interlock because all the rest is just like support materials, because if you know what your clients will need tomorrow and again tomorrow might be next day, next month, next year down to each item and you can allocate your resources financial, human resources and others to meet this demand.
Dom Kingston:So you're optimizing ahead of the curve.
Pavel Bondarev:You will be the winner. Yes, and like Vatel was a big problem because people, like they, are human beings. You cannot like, click and move these guys from point A to point B immediately, because it takes time for movement, take time for equipment, for warehousing and so on, so on, so on. And if you can predict like, better predict demand, not only like when, but also why, how and so on, you can better allocate your resources mobilizing the guys ahead of the demand, so that way you've got the right people in their field with the right tools.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right and if you remember yeah, tell us by that time when you call, like tell us, maybe some other provider service it. That was like around like two weeks to for technician to arrive and fix something. Yeah, we squeeze it to two hours. Wow, yeah, so like.
Dom Kingston:I did a race for that. Sorry, did you get a raise for that?
Pavel Bondarev:uh, well, I was like, uh, promoted in company, yeah, uh, like, couple of times. Uh, yeah, like when I created it, the problem, one of the problems, was for technicians, how to save their time, because these guys spend significant amount of time for time sheeting, reporting and so on, so on, so on. I said, okay, guys, by the time it was 2013 or 14, siri you remember like? Siri was like new tool like voice to text recognition. I said tool like voice-to-text recognition. I said, hey, guys, this is very cool technology, let's use it. No one understood why. I said, okay, I can create a solution which can help technicians speak out and the information will be going to their reports like time-shared reports. It will save like 30, maybe 50% of their time, especially like wintertime.
Dom Kingston:Yeah, because you see the guy. Typically they come out, sit in their van and in the van for 20 minutes or something doing something right. So I'm guessing, in that time in their van they're Well 20 minutes.
Pavel Bondarev:It's like basic scenario. Realistically. Sometimes it takes more time, but no one was interested. So by the time I decided to leave Telus and create my own business.
Dom Kingston:So Telus didn't take you up on that. They weren't interested in doing it.
Pavel Bondarev:Well, you know, like big corporations, people like their roles, like their salaries, their bonuses, but they don't like nobilities. And actually this is why it's huge like fantastic opportunity for startups to create something new.
Dom Kingston:So let's stay on that for two more minutes. So, because that speaks to innovation, right? So often you'll see big companies buy small companies because the small companies did something innovative and the big company didn't do that. Do you think, why Is that like they're? They sort of have this thing with cows inside the business. They want to be innovative, but politically they don't have the will.
Pavel Bondarev:So somebody else doesn't, Because people like stability. If something works, don't touch it.
Dom Kingston:Even if it's not optimally working.
Pavel Bondarev:Well, if it works, it works, don't touch it. So some companies create some innovation department and so on and so on. And, given I used to work with many corporations, I'm talking like a large corporation. I don't believe they are very systematic, I don't believe they're very obsessed about the problem. They're obsessed about their position, salary and bonuses and this is the biggest problem. Like innovation, yes, if this innovation changes anything, it's cool. The purpose of innovation is to change something.
Dom Kingston:Yeah.
Pavel Bondarev:And yeah, this is the biggest problem.
Dom Kingston:So I'll come back to your innovation or the product that you built in a second. But I think, since we're going down this path, if you think of what AI is doing right now inside corporate right, especially just the rate that it's changing, and given what you just said, that's got to be causing angst at some level of business right, because the change is coming at a bigger rate than it was before. It will be more disruptive than it was before.
Pavel Bondarev:It will be one of the biggest changes or, speaking in a different language, disruptive approach for the past century and actually recently I published an article at LinkedIn about this topic. Companies will change their approach because the current paradigm is one-size-fits-all solution. For example, you create application, you create platform and you're trying to convince your clients like business clients or like consumers use it and it's generic for each and everyone. Now it will be reversed. Companies will create hyper-personalized solution, like the same application, the same platform, like for you, and you will be different Because you are different, you have different needs, you have different purposes, you have different everything and the companies will need. Well, companies who want to survive, they will be forced to like, adopt this practice and create these solutions, and this is why companies, even large companies, who don't want to do it, they will be forced to do it.
Pavel Bondarev:And, yeah, people said well, big company, and so on and so on, nokia was one of the biggest, if not the biggest company.
Dom Kingston:Yeah.
Pavel Bondarev:Blackberry and so on. There are a lot of like this company. Netflix competitor.
Dom Kingston:Oh, Blockbuster.
Pavel Bondarev:Blockbuster, yeah. So there were like lots of large companies who believed they're untouchable and they sit at the top of the Olympus and so on and so on, but finally, like we don't see these companies.
Dom Kingston:So this is foreshadowing to some other questions we'll have about the new business or the new service that you're starting or app that you're starting. So let's go back to you. Lev tell us had a brilliant idea, so take it from there.
Pavel Bondarev:Well, it started when I was part of Telus, but no one was interested, so I decided this is time for me to start my own journey.
Lea Lavoie:Yeah, so clearly you've always kind of had that entrepreneurial brain. If we go back to your time in Europe, you were creating the solutions for agriculture, which is really interesting because it kind of sounds similar to what you were doing at TELUS. You know, predicting things that people can't predict like that's invaluable. It's such an asset to companies and now that you found the solution at TELUS and you went in and you solved it on your own, so I want to go and I want to talk a bit about Mile, which is something that you're actually also wearing today, which I found was really cool. So obviously it's not the first business that you built, but I think it's a really cool and unique idea. So can you tell me a bit about the origin story, explain what Mile is, how you got the idea and what problem you're solving with it?
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, as I said before, the problem was to make people's life easier, and this is why it's called Mile Make your life easier and the idea was to use novel technologies by the time, like novel technologies, voice-to-text recognition and opposite.
Dom Kingston:What year is that? Just for context, it's 2013.
Pavel Bondarev:And use voice-to-text technology. Start using wearable technology. You see, like this little device of my color and cloud technology. All of them were like very new. Challenge for me was like probably it was like two ahead of the market, because everyone said, like wearable technologies, people don't want.
Lea Lavoie:That's crazy to me. Even TELUS, I'm like I'm sure they're all right now doing audio messages all the time NLP natural language processing to convert into text, then parse this text, identify purpose and context of this phrase and do something.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, like we started communicating with people. Myself like personally communicated with over 7,000 people in like two years because people didn't believe in this. And I talked to many people here in Calgary no response. Then one of my friends said hey, go to San Francisco, talk to people there, san Francisco in one week I met more people than I met in Calgary for two years actually, I think that's even an interesting point.
Dom Kingston:Just back to culture of innovation, right? So the fact that here you couldn't get traction on it, you go to the valley and you've got more conversations in a week than two years.
Pavel Bondarev:What does that say?
Dom Kingston:about Canada's appetite for innovation or ability to stay relevant.
Pavel Bondarev:I believe Canada, in Calgary in particular, has an appetite for this and the government is trying to help. But money cannot change anything. Only people can. And the challenge is it takes some time to change people's mindset. And when you go to California, like if you know how it works, like you go to Starbucks and in line for your coffee, talk to people around you and next day you have meetings.
Dom Kingston:No, really my case. Yes, I've been to the Valley, so I know this.
Pavel Bondarev:I start conversation with the guy in front of me and he used to be some manager at Evernote and we use Evernote as part of our solution. Next day he arranged a meeting with the vice president. The following day it was the vice president of Google. The following day it was offered a meeting with Google X, like this secret division. So in one week I met lots of people and people said you know, it's very novel, we don't know if it really is in demand, but we would do it a try because wearable I mean miniaturization in general is the next big wave. Voice-to-text is the next big wave, cloud solution, and so on, and so on. By the time, no one uses AI but NLP, it's the next big wave. Voice to text is the next big wave, cloud solution, and so on, so on. By the time, no one use CI but NLP, it's the next big wave.
Pavel Bondarev:And they said to me just do it, give it a try. Worst case scenario you would fail, but at least you'll learn something. And actually it was the best advice, because I asked like I don't know if I need to continue. They said you know. I asked like I don't know if I need to continue. They said you know you can stop right now and for the rest of your life you'll think maybe I shouldn't do it. Or maybe you give it a try, fail and you know exactly, or maybe you win. So this way. For now, I'm just in the same position as these guys and I communicate with many startups I mean beginners, and I say the same thing. So if you have a cool idea, give it a try, but do it like the smart way, not just some dumb stuff.
Dom Kingston:What is the smart way?
Pavel Bondarev:How do you mean? Smart way means you need to plan ahead, regardless of what you're going to do, how you're going to do, plan it 99% you will do differently, but you need to plan out everything.
Pavel Bondarev:Regardless of Like product development, business development, customer acquisition, marketing, intellectual property, everything. And you think, like for like three years at least, Because when you do this mental exercise, you're trying to identify some gaps which you don't know, that you don't know, like, I want to attract like X amount, like a million users, I'm going to do it this way, and to do it this way, I need to do this and this and these steps. Is it possible? And then you start like digging deeper and trying to understand, like if it's doable in general, if you have some roadblocks, if you have roadblock, how you can remove it, and so on, and again down the road. Everything will be absolutely different, but at least you will be prepared.
Dom Kingston:Forcing yourself to think through what you know, what you know, and then what you don't know.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, and planning is number one. Number two people Build a team. Surround yourself with people who share your vision, not people who are contractors who say say like, pay me like 300 grand and I will do it. Try to avoid people from corporations because they have corrupted mindset, like great for corporation but corrupted for startup environment. Find a good advisor, because guys who had this pain before they will ask like most likely the right question have you thought about this, have you thought about that? And so on, so on, so on, and they will make you think thoroughly and build your plan.
Dom Kingston:And you said something interesting as well, which was find people that believe in the vision around the team but not be subcontractors. So that sounds like you really want people that are engaged and committed to what you're.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, engagement. It's critical, especially at the very beginning, because you have no resources or very limited resources I mean financial, human resources. So you need to surround yourself with people who are willing to dedicate like 300% of their time, effort, like network, whatever they have to do it.
Lea Lavoie:So how are you selling these people? What exactly does Mile do and how did you sell them? On the vision to like, give me 300% of your time. This is what we're gonna achieve. I never ask 300%.
Pavel Bondarev:I usually communicate with people and ask to give their thoughts, because I understood Novel product practically well. Whatever can be like sold immediately, right, because it's hard. People cannot build an image in their mind and imagine how exactly this product will serve like their needs, and this is the biggest problem. So this is the reason why I communicated with 7,000 people. I just shared my idea, said, hey, what do you think? Most people said bullshit, I don't understand it. Some people said it's very interesting. Yeah, I'd like to give it a try. Okay, how, we would like to give it a try, and so on, so on, so on.
Pavel Bondarev:So just communicating with people asking questions, and some people said, hey, I'd like to help you. I said, how, I'm a developer, I can create like iOS application for you, and so on, so on. Other guys like FFF family, friends, friends and like fools said hey, I like this idea, I'd like to invest. I said it's high risk. They said that's fine. So I just work in oil and gas. I have some money I can give you like 40 grand, 10 grand, 20 and so on. So actually my first investment came from like FFF surrounding.
Lea Lavoie:So what was your elevator pitch then? If you meet someone quickly, you're in San Francisco, you're having a coffee and someone asks you what are you working on? How do you explain it to them quickly? I know it's a very complex new product, but in simple terms, how would you have pitched it?
Pavel Bondarev:Well, by the time, I didn't know term elevator pitch or pitching people. I didn't know that. I didn't know because, like the businesses I built back in Russia, they didn't require it, like people knew me and I built like businesses for many businesses. Yeah, I didn't know about elevator pitch. I just share, like my vision with people with simple words. Hey guys, I'm trying to combine three novel things voice to text, natural language processing and wearable in one place, a tiny little device, and it will help save you like two hours a day. And people like how, when you have some idea in your mind what you do. So people say said I take my phone, like find the application, like sms, like for my wife, for example, or evernote, or whatever, and you said, how much time does it take? I didn't think let's do it right now. Like send message to me and uh, like my phone, unlock it, find application, uh, send message, okay, I 47 seconds.
Lea Lavoie:Check notifications on the way You're on Instagram.
Pavel Bondarev:I said okay try to imagine you are driving. It's like 101 in San Francisco. He said, well, probably at Postpont. I said try to imagine this little device, send message to Pavel, let's meet in 23 minutes in there. And you're driving Tap, tap, ever not. I have a cool idea do this Top top Calendar meeting tomorrow with Dominic at 3 pm at this place. And this is it.
Pavel Bondarev:And you continue driving and people said, like how much time? Like, really, on average, people use their phone around like 200 times a day. If you can reduce it in half, you can save around like two hours a day. And yeah, and everything will be collected in one place. And we're trying to position in this tool originally for, like technicians. I said. Then people start approaching me like real estate agents, sales managers oh, I need it, I need it. Single moms just said, oh, I need it, I need it. Single moms said like hey, I need it because I'm so busy, I'm so crazy to drop skits and I need just to memorize lots of things and so on, so on, so on, and I understood like a market exists. I didn't know, like who's the target audience by the time, because again it was like too weak, was like two weeks, and this is why I decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, just to see who will pay for this product which doesn't even exist.
Dom Kingston:And so how long did it take for you to spill that out, to get the campaign up, and then it sounds like it was quite successful, I think.
Pavel Bondarev:It was, yeah, Like in three hours we collected 300% of required funds. That's crazy. And I stopped the campaign because I didn't even know if we would be able to deliver this product. I decided to stop the campaign. It was more not for the money raising per se, but for validating the idea, the market proof.
Lea Lavoie:Yeah, because I think it's a really cool product because the value really depends on the person. For me, just hearing that people usually go on their phones 200 times a day I'm hearing that and I'm like I probably do like maybe I don't spend that long on it, but I recently noticed that I bring my phone everywhere with me. Like if I'm in the house and I'm going upstairs for two minutes, I'm gonna grab my phone. Why I shouldn't have to? Right, and just the idea of having something that helps me spend less time on my phone. And you started, started this. What in 2013?
Pavel Bondarev:Well, idea was like 2013,. Then like 14, I dedicated time to talking to people and in 15, like beginning of 15, I finally figured out yeah, probably I need to do it.
Lea Lavoie:Yeah, so 10 years ago, yeah.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah and yeah. Like by the time I guess it was very new Wearable devices started appearing on the market. Like I was one of the first guys who bought Pebble, if you know these smartwatches Eric Mikigowski, the guy from Toronto.
Pavel Bondarev:He's with Bike Aminator right now. So I like the idea because I'm just seeing the time like smartwatches always like with us. But yeah, I like the idea of wearable device because it makes our life like much, much easier and actually device which requires no phone, no computer connection, like tap, tap and speak and when your phone is nearby, like network is nearby, figure out like okay, I have connection. All saved messages secured, moved to the cloud and from the cloud like decomposed into specific pieces, contextualized and like sent out into different applications.
Lea Lavoie:And it works for like everything. Then right, like if I'm driving and I'm like, shoot, I have to go grocery shopping later and I forgot to add bananas to my list, I can just say, right then, and there, yeah, grocery list banana. Bananas yeah.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, and when, like we launched current funding campaign, I actually did some preparation, of course. I went to San Francisco like directly to Indiegogo office, met the guy who is accountable for you did.
Dom Kingston:Oh wow, I didn't know that yeah but you need to talk to people.
Pavel Bondarev:I just met the guy, steve Tam, who used to run a hardware division in Indiegogo and ask questions. Give me advice like what and how we need to do to do it right.
Dom Kingston:Did they help you get on the For you page, so to speak?
Pavel Bondarev:No, they just provided advice, recommendations about how to do it right, how to approach people and so on and so on, because if they did it like hundreds of thousands of times before, I believe they have some statistics, some experience like best practice which we can adopt. So, instead of reinventing the wheel, I just talked to the guys. I said it's better to do it Thursday, for example, at 11 am, or something like this and this message and so on, so on. So, yeah, we did all prep work, started campaign and set up application Indigo application on the phone, and it's blinking and zinking when, like some new subscribers come in it was like zing zing, zing, zing zing.
Pavel Bondarev:I said okay.
Dom Kingston:You're doing well.
Pavel Bondarev:Probably it works. Yeah, like in three days oh sorry, three hours I saw like we raised like over 300% and I decided just to shut it down because, like, if we promise like deliver product to a million people and can deliver, it will be terrible. If we promise to like thousands people and can deliver, yeah, it's not good but it's not so painful for us and for people. So, yeah, like it was like crowdfunding campaign, we validated it. It actually helped because after that, practically all government agencies started providing cars with grants, so, like NRCR up Albertinovets and C, CERC and Metax and some others, I said, okay, shut up, take my money Because we see, like you guys know what you're doing.
Dom Kingston:And then was that for the Dragon's Den show. Did that happen before or after After?
Pavel Bondarev:actually, yeah, like there is no correlation or relationship between these guys. Because sometime later one of my friends asked, like why don't you go to dragon's den? I said, like what the hell is dragon's den? I said, take a look, I just dedicated some time like watching some episodes. Okay, I like this idea, and I communicated with, uh, one of the producers, so so they invited me. Okay, you need to sell it to me first. I sold it immediately and they said, okay, like in May-ish, like we would have next season, season 13. And yeah, you're welcome. Do you have any?
Lea Lavoie:questions. Yeah, so I actually just watched it the other day and you had three people interested in your business. To me I was like, oh, that's got to be a huge advantage because those dragons, if you will, they have so much experience, they have huge networks, but also I imagine that they have huge egos and they want to have a lot of say. So we see a lot of dragons then like success stories. You know we see the pitch but we don't really get to see like what happens 10 years later. How is that relationship so immediately after Dragon's Den? What does that involvement look like from the Dragons?
Pavel Bondarev:Well, it was a painful exercise Because for me again Dragon's Den it was more a marketing campaign than money. I didn't expect to get money. I actually didn't expect anyone like any of them would put money. I expected Michelle Romanoff would do it, because she is an expert in this area and I hoped she would understand what I do. And she was the first. If you watched it, my goal was just go to TV and try myself if I am capable of staying in front of like virtually 20 million people and deliver my message. So I just wanted to prove myself like I can do it. And this way, like no preparation, nothing, I just went there, talked to the guys no preparation, you just showed up.
Pavel Bondarev:Well, like the producer like dedicated like 15 minutes or so doing some stuff before this event, and she asked like what exactly like does your product do? I said, like try to imagine like you pour water and like in the bucket full of holes and water disappears or normal bucket. So what we do? We just help people keep all their ideas, thoughts, knowledge, whatever, in some place, some digital copy of their head and like keep it and use it. Said, oh, we have cool idea, we have like heads of people, let's drill buckets.
Pavel Bondarev:That happened right before the show, yeah it was right before the show, like two plastic heads, like one like with holes, and I was trying just to use it. I don't know like how it looked, like one with holes, and I was trying to just use it. I don't know how it looked, but it was a funny experience. Like originally these dragons said, hmm, we don't understand. I said, hey guys, think about the future. We're at the very beginning of something big, like let's do it. And then Michelle, then Orlin and Dream, and so on, so on, so on.
Pavel Bondarev:Challenge is when you have aragon, you can handle it, because after this event, not only their lawyers, their analysts and so on communicate with you, because lots of paperwork, and you can handle it when it's like one person. When it's three persons, they need to align it, like with all of them. So it took like four and a half months for back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and by the time we have got half months for back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and by the time we have got money from government, we've got money from investors and it's ended up as nothing. But still it was good experience because it was great marketing.
Pavel Bondarev:Great visibility, yeah, like you see it somewhere like I don't know, like Starbucks, and people say oh, I saw you.
Lea Lavoie:I used to watch it. I probably saw you when I was younger. So just to kind of wrap up Miles, so are you still currently working on it? Did you sell the company? Where is it at today?
Pavel Bondarev:No, by the time it was new business for us because hardware it's terrible. So I recommend many people if you can afford hardware, do it, because producing device like this one it's simple, like technologically simple device, like with, like simple elements and so on, not rocket science, but each iteration will cost you around two hundred thousand dollars and any small changes three more months and like 150 grants to 200 and so on, so on, so on so every iteration on the device would be that expensive.
Pavel Bondarev:Yes, yes, yes, and then you need to certify, and so on and so on. So we did it and we can continue doing this, but we need to raise more money, and so on. By the time the team was tired, and so on, and some guy from Siemens America I don't remember the department appeared and said hey, it's a very cool tool. We would like to use this for Siemens technicians.
Dom Kingston:It's almost like the original. Tell me how.
Pavel Bondarev:And he said like we have, guys, they spent a huge amount of time for time sheeting, reporting and so on and your device because it tracks audio, text, time and location.
Pavel Bondarev:It can solve our problems. I said, okay, cover all our debts, give us some money extra. And we have deal. Because by the time, in parallel, I had an idea of my sibling like focused on the medical space or healthcare or preventive healthcare space, because many people I communicate with said, hmm, it's a cool tool, I'd like to give it to my mom. I said, like, tell me a story. He said like, oh, my mom lives in small town, wisconsin. She's, uh, 83 years old. I call her like three, four times a day just to make sure she's all right, and so on, so on.
Pavel Bondarev:This device will track your activity and I will be able to see if she's all right. This device provides reminders, notifications, like every like hour, beep, beep, beep, beep, john, time for a glass of water. Oh yeah, thanks dear. Or like beep, beep, beep, time for your medication. Beep, beep, beep, time to eat. When you eat something, you tap, tap. I had two fried eggs with bacon and a slice of something and it calculates your calories, your nutrition and so on. And he said, like I need it. And I started talking to people and it happened like, yeah, big problem. And accidentally I was introduced to one of the doctors who what? Who's the head of the rehabilitation center stroke, heart attack and things like this one and he said it would be cool for us because biggest problem for us we can help people when they have like this event. Then they feel better. We, we send people back home. We give them recommendation, people feel better and they don't follow it. They stop following recommendations and for many cases 80%.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, it usually happens like second event and I said, well, we can solve this problem. We cannot save millions of people's lives, but we can reduce it significantly. And we created a new brand called Omela Omela, it's a tree which gives people immortality. And, yeah, we created by the time like conceptual approach and from now we are launching it and we want to help people save their lives. Well, generally, help people live longer and happier.
Lea Lavoie:Wow, you're a busy guy. That is a lot to have going on Because, on top of all that, you and Dom you guys met through a whole different entrepreneurship journey of yours. So how did you two meet? Which project was it and how does that tie into Zane, what you're currently working on today?
Dom Kingston:So I met Pavel through a colleague of mine and I'm a marketing branding consultant, let's say, and I'm a marketing branding consultant, let's say and so Pavel came to me with I think I had a go-to-market when I'm looking for a bit of a go-to-market strategy for a company called Right Financial, which is basically using AI and not to just do budgeting but sort of do lifestyle planning, so more sophisticated than the budgeting app. And how we ended up with Zane, very simply, was, my comments were if you look at the marketplace, right financial sounds like a bank. It doesn't sound like it's modern, it sounds like it's the category, it sounds like every other budgeting tool out there. And, just given the target audience he was going after, I'm like you need to sound different and allow, have a name that's almost like an empty container that the market can create value around. So that's how we ended up with container that the market can create value around. So that's how we ended up with zane.
Dom Kingston:Short, short notes on that, um, and that's why I'm at pavel and uh, I know it's. It's interesting to see how take a rocket scientist from russia, apply to human needs and end up with novel technology and then I think since then it's evolved to using the latest and greatest in AI developments to make more individual. So back to what Pavel was talking about. Large companies will have a one-to-one customized relationship between them and constituents. I think this is where the new Zane app is going. So before we get there, maybe talk a bit about why you wanted to build a financial app for the masses that would help them be more financially set up for life. Maybe start with that and then we'll come back into how you ended up from Zain when.
Pavel Bondarev:I finalized my journey with Mile, I needed something which will be purposeful and beneficial for me, like financially beneficial, and one of my friends told you know, atb has a new department and they have a new guy, welton Holbrook, who is a CTO, and this guy is obsessed with AI. I sent my application, like my resume, and said hey, I'm a smart guy, hire me. That's a good example.
Dom Kingston:yeah, they're creating a team here. Yeah, and actually, hey, I'm smart guy, hire me. That's a good idea.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, and actually next day chart called me like very impressive resume, let's have like preliminary chat. I said, sure, we have interview, like for seven minutes. Said, okay, tomorrow I will book time with a few of our directors. Next or the following day they invited me to ATB headquarter and they said, yeah, we are building a new team like AI. We want to implement Google Cloud Platform and tech technologies to our tool. I said like I don't know what you do, but you do it wrong, sorry, guys. And we had like two hour long discussion and next day they called me and said, yeah, like we would like to invite you and so on. That was great time because, again, I joined, maybe because of the wellington, because he's very visionary guy and I'd like to work with the guy with this kind of vision. So he was able to see the future.
Pavel Bondarev:so like we had freedom to do whatever we believe is right use tool, which we believe is right, and create solutions and so on. So we created like multiple AI driven solutions for many stakeholders. It was great time Then. Then, like left or left, and actually most of the guys like myself, left ATB as well. But why I started doing this? Because when I was with ATB, covid started and COVID impacted many people, especially here in Calgary. It impacted financially because many people started losing jobs and the challenge for many local guys I mean oil and gas guys they usually have good salary, don't care about the future, they believe it will last forever and my good, like many digit salary will be forever and I will be fine. But it happened.
Pavel Bondarev:Life is very unpredictable and many people started thinking about what and how I can do to save a portion of my money and grow this portion somehow. And many of them they are great, fantastic engineers, but they have no expertise in financial like literacy. Actually, not only they, practically each and every one, 99 percent of the population, not canada, like I mean around the globe uh, have like no financial literacy. So they approach atb, said, hey, can you help us? What usually banks do? They said, like, go to broker or someone like advisor, he or she will help you. So they said do you have hundred thousand dollars? We will invest it. And so so no, I don't have 50. No, get out.
Pavel Bondarev:And I said, okay, we need to help people save more money. Like saving money, there are two ways like making more money or Like saving money, there are two ways Like making more money or spending less money. Making more money is not an option for many people, because when you have, like, some stable job, well, you can have your 2-3% increase and so on. So you need to spend less, but at the same time, you need to keep up with your normal lifestyle. So you need to identify some opportunities which will help you remove some overspending which you don't need.
Pavel Bondarev:And there is a fantastic phrase from Dave Ramsey, the guy who created EveryDollar Many people spend money they don't have for things they don't need to impress people they don't know. And this is true. This is really true, because this is exactly what I did myself. Many people do, and if you can identify this, I wouldn't say like stupid spending, like some unnecessary overspending. You can save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars every month, but you need to build a budget which is not like generic budget. Spend like 10% for this, 20% for that. Now it should be a hyper-percentualized budget.
Pavel Bondarev:A budget for your meal, for your mortgage, for your rent, for your car, for your everything. And a little bit here, a little bit here, a little bit here, and here you go, like a thousand bucks came out of nowhere.
Dom Kingston:So the person is able to save money without really noticing that they're adjusting their lifestyle.
Lea Lavoie:You're just basically catching a leak and Zane's doing. It Is Zane building the budget.
Pavel Bondarev:Well, yes, and this is how the story starts. I approached my boss at ATB, vp of AI, and said hey, dan, there is this cool idea we can help our clients save like 500 bucks extra each month, where this money will go to the accounts at atb so like and we have, by the time, like around million users a little bit below, but roughly we will get half a billion dollars each month and it will be incrementally growing plus half billion, half billion and so on.
Dom Kingston:So the deposit based out basically yeah, and deposit.
Pavel Bondarev:It's like number one for banks. Yeah, they said, we're're a bank, we give people loans, really.
Dom Kingston:Yeah.
Pavel Bondarev:And yeah. So, like I said, probably not interested Started seeking something else. And by the time, guys from my previous organization, from Telus, called me and said, hey, we want to implement GCP and TI to Telus, can you help us? I said, yeah, sure, and TI to Telus Can you help us? I said yeah, sure. So I joined Telus, built a team hired like 12 people data scientists, engineers, data analysts. We integrated the Google Cloud platform, created AI solutions, but it was too slow. So, like in a few months, I lost my interest, almost a year and said no, I don't want to continue because I'm just wasting time.
Pavel Bondarev:And I ended up with RBC, royal Bank of Canada, and yeah, the same solution. So bank wanted to integrate novel tools, like AI-driven tools, and I believe RBC did a fantastic job, like hired lots of people, like over a thousand individuals related to this area, and we wanted to create a tool similar to what I wanted to do to help people better manage their personal finance, identify saving opportunities, identify investment opportunities and help people grow. But challenges like big organization is very slow and by the time, I wanted to use advanced technologies like just novel by the time, like open AI tools and so on so on Challenge was you cannot break the wall between the internal world I mean RBC world and external world, Because to integrate AI you need to build like a whole and move data to like open AI APIs massage this data, do like math and magic and move it back. And legal team said never.
Dom Kingston:To rescue for the bank.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, and I said okay, that's fine, and moved away and actually created my own solution. By the time it's called Wealth Lab and the goal was like help people with budgeting, because I communicate with people and said we help you save more money and we'll help you grow this money. And actually it was the opposite. I approached people and said I'd like to help you grow your money first, because you have like extra $300, $500, $700 a a month. What you can do this money. Let's think about this. You can spend this money like go to restaurant, whatever. It's ridiculous. You can go to bank and like like use like some saving account and grow your money 0.25 you, you can, but it's ridiculous. You can invest this money like Robinhood and other tools like QuickTrade, but 94% of people statistically lose their money in two years.
Dom Kingston:Really it's that high Because they start from some safe, secure solutions that works.
Pavel Bondarev:And they said let's increase risks a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. And many of them end up with some Bitcoin and so on, so on, so on and kaboom, one day something happens, so people lose. You can go to broker and broker said you have 50k, no, get out. I said like when we have like hundreds of thousands of, maybe millions of people like you and we keep all your money in one pot and which is like safe, secure, insured, and which is like safe, secure, insured, and so we work with the world's largest investment organizations and we can grow your money Like 5%, 10%, maybe more, like low risk and high return.
Dom Kingston:So you use the aggregate to basically get to the best money managers in the world, right yeah yeah, and people said it's cool, it's fantastic, but every month we are cash negative.
Pavel Bondarev:We don't have like some extra money, we have minus extra money. And challenge for the current population over half of Canadians and Americans use their retirement savings for everyday stuff, so RRSP or America 401k. So people use this money like for now and they have nothing for retirement. And this is problem. I said, okay, let's think about why it happens, let's discuss what you do and, like after communicating with people again, over a thousand people for almost a year I figured out yeah, people said we need a budget which can help us better manage money, identify saving opportunities and save more money. I said, well, there are lots of tools on the market, like every dollar, ynab, like Rocket something, pocketguard and so on. Why don't you use the tool? They tried many tools Challenge with these tools.
Pavel Bondarev:Well, two challenges. Number one it's too generic. So, uh, the tools give you numbers and you don't understand, like, how, like, for example, like meal planning, 1200 for your meal and people don't understand where this number came from, why 1200, not 15 or 500, and how exactly I supposed to spend this money just to keep this limit. It's number one. And number two it requires too many manual efforts you need to put this, you need to put that and so on. Some of these tools enable you to connect your bank accounts and automatically collect your transactions and then use some math to identify your future expenditures. But challenges like transactions are part of this exercise and budget it's all or nothing. You cannot create a partial budget because the portion of this money which you cannot manage will create some risks for you, and this is why we decided to approach it differently and create a budgeting tool which will identify, not identify, digitize people's lives, like families, their needs, their demand, their requirements, like everything from mortgage and rent to utilities, to Uber, eating out and down to each carat.
Pavel Bondarev:And in this case, people have the whole visibility on the expenditures, like by day, by transaction, by item. And when they see a number, they can easily understand where this number came from. And if, like some household income, like five grand and expenditures like $4,323 and a saving, it's 700, something they understand where this number came from because they can look at any day and say, okay, tomorrow I have three payments One is my Telus mobile, another is car loan and another one is grocery and they can dive deeper like grocery, not literally down to each carat. And in this case people started understanding at least Okay, it's doable If we have a proper budget, we have an opportunity to save extra money. But then people said, yes, we see it, but challenges.
Pavel Bondarev:We are human beings, we are psychological creatures, we cannot simply follow it. We are not robots. Can you create a tool for us to make it easier? And again, hundreds of communications. How do you see this tool? Which tools you tried? Which worked? Which didn't work? How would you like to use existing tools but change it a little bit? And we ended up with a solution a debit card which has daily limits, but flexible limits, like today it's $100, tomorrow like $250, and so on, so on, so on, and automated payments.
Dom Kingston:It puts the customer on rails, right, yeah, actually.
Pavel Bondarev:We even launched product. Maybe I even have a cart with me.
Dom Kingston:So one thing that Pavel is very good at, from what I understand from this conversation, is there's a rule of thumb if you're doing a startup, get out of the building and go and talk to customers. Yeah, don't build in isolation, which I think that's sort of a hallmark of your startups.
Pavel Bondarev:So, by the time, yes, we renamed our business Right company was Right Inc. You won't be able to buy Yacht. It has like $200, maybe $300.
Dom Kingston:Which was like do the right thing.
Lea Lavoie:But this is like super interesting to me because I'm at that crossroads where I'm 23 now I graduated university. Where I'm 23, now I graduated university, I've worked all the summers while studying, so I have some money saved up, but I'm kind of hesitant. I have had some meetings with the people at my bank. I'm with CIBC right now but I feel like they're selling me so hard just to get commissions. And I've taken a couple of finance classes I was in business, so I do have some knowledge but I feel like on purpose, they overcomplicate things to make you be like okay, yeah, sure, whatever you say, you know more than me.
Lea Lavoie:So I, because of that, I've put off investing and I've kind of just been hesitant to do it, and I'm not at a place where I can go to a broker, go to a wealth manager. So I think a tool like Zane could be really useful for people my age to help with the budgeting, help control it and also just help not over consume. You know, it's true like we're being sold to things 24-7 on social media, in person, everywhere you know. So it's nice to have something to tell you you can. Yeah, stupid marketers.
Pavel Bondarev:Well, unfortunately, we live in the world of consumerism, where everyone I mean retailers, banks and so on have only one motto spend, spend, spend.
Lea Lavoie:Yeah.
Pavel Bondarev:Right, our motto, even though we position as like banking financial organization, our motto is opposite save, save, save, but do it smart way. And, yeah, budgeting is just one of the like opportunities for you to save money. Then there are other opportunities like money management. I mean operational money management because, like, you have CIBC, atd, RBC, whatever, and you use different financial institutions for different things, right, mortgage or rent payments for this, car payments for that, like daily payments for this, and so on.
Pavel Bondarev:And sometimes people forget you move money across their banks accounts and they have penalties and actually I was surprised when I know over $1,000 a year people spend for penalties alone, for credit cards, for late payment fees and so on, so on.
Pavel Bondarev:So, like, in addition to our tool, like this debit card, I mean like investment account, we said, okay, we can help you automatically, automatically manage all your money Because we build for request for you anyway, like for each day, like next month, like September, you know, like a month ahead, how much money is spent each day and for what Like merchant amount, day transaction, like items within transaction and so on, so on, right, we can notify you a few days ahead and say, hey, jonathan, like after tomorrow, you have three payments. By the way, like your BC account has like insufficient funds, you need to move $300 because it will be your car loan, something, something. And you see, like you had like a few penalties before, like each missed payment, it's $48. Like last year it was four times for you. Like you spent $200. Those Last year it was four times for you.
Lea Lavoie:You spent $200. Those are so frustrating. I've had that before. They're really frustrating.
Pavel Bondarev:It happens with many people. People forget about all this stuff and we said, yeah, we will automate this process. Money will be moved, but all your savings, every day, will grow. We don't want to give you some ridiculous numbers like Bitcoin, whatever I don't believe in it but we're talking about some stable stuff like ETF and so on, which are low risk and high reward like around 10% on average. Some year it might be like 5%, some year it might be 25%, but for the past 30 years it's like 12% on average. So if you have your extra money, extra savings you're like mid 20s by 50, you will be able to generate like extra million dollars.
Lea Lavoie:Aren't you jealous of me right now?
Dom Kingston:Yeah like 50. First time when I was younger.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, like 500 bucks a month, like extra 10% annual growth, it's over a million dollars in like 30 years.
Dom Kingston:So I just want to pivot the conversation on two levels. One is, since you're a rocket scientist and have been in sort of the data science world for an essential period of time and you built right, which became Zane from a brand point of view, when did you start building it? Two years ago, like how long was it? Yeah?
Pavel Bondarev:more than two years ago. But again, like we had like few iterations like well Flap I didn't know years ago how long was it yeah, more than two years ago. But again we had a few iterations like WealthLab. I didn't know about WealthSimple by the time. Then it converted into Write because when I talked to people people said oh, you do write things. I said let's check. I went to register and said I want to incorporate company Write Inc. So the agent laughed, said hey, it's impossible. I said give it a try and I spent like 20 bucks for nuance, like checking company name. Said it's available.
Lea Lavoie:That's crazy. That's crazy.
Pavel Bondarev:Well, yeah, and many people don't try it because it probably exists. Most people think, yeah, probably doesn't exist, but give it a try. It costs you like 20 bucks. Worst case scenario, okay, you'll skip trick office, like next week and so on and it was available. So I incorporated company writing and, uh, yeah, start operating under brand right and actually issued card, like I mean, like banking services, card payments and so on. But it was in america and uh, last year year before it was a big issue with Silicon Valley Bank because, it's a bank for startups.
Pavel Bondarev:When it collapsed it impacted our partners, our partners collapsed us and we had to shut it down. But the problem is still here, even bigger for now, because more people lose money, more people lose their hope for the future and, as we discussed previously, like hopeless people, it's very dangerous people and my personal case, like when I was like SKP twice from Tajikistan and from Russia both cases the poor economical like situation was the driving force of this negative case scenario and unfortunately, in Canada I see lots of red flags for now, like 17 years ago and now to different countries, and one of my goals, and actually my biggest goal, is social one. I want to leave my kids a country which I arrived in 17 years ago like the same stable country, with nice people, friendly people, good economics and so on, so on. But if people cannot do it, it will be hard for us.
Dom Kingston:And the financial stability really is the underpinning of that.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, well, my goal is to help, like for now, like target million people, and I hope, like this million people will be a catalyzer for other people, because if it works for this group of people and other people, see, I hope and I believe other people will start following the same approach, like building, budgeting, managing money and so on. And given our tool is fully automated, it's hyper-personalized, it doesn't require extra time, effort, mental effort.
Lea Lavoie:Gen Z is going to love it.
Dom Kingston:Yeah, patterns here like between the tap, and make it simple.
Pavel Bondarev:Yeah, it's actually, I'll combine these guys in the future, because the tool I create, like Amela, is for health, zane for wealth and down the road I want to give two in one, like health and wealth in one.
Dom Kingston:I'd like to have you talk two things. One is just from a business point of view what speed to market and how investors perceive that, because that's been around, like what happened with right, and then along the way, I think technology has changed so that you've gone from I'm going to make stuff up here, but you're going from sort of llms ai to agentic ai, which I think is the new app platform and that allows this hyper personalized new experience yep so I want to give you an opportunity, a to teach people about business.
Dom Kingston:that time to market is important because that's what keeps investors aligned and allows the business vision to move, and if you make mistakes, it's painful. So there's a bit of a business lesson there, so I'd like to have you touch a bit on that.
Dom Kingston:And then ironically, or maybe fortuitously, in pivoting or shutting down this business, to come to this business, it's allowed you to refactor the tech stack to create a more hyper-personalized app, right. So it's sort of negative in the sense that this shutdown is probably painful, but the flip side is you're better able to re-spool up, take advantage of the more recent changes and, given your deep background in it, just sort of like I think there's an opportunity to teach an audience around the rate of change, how you take advantage of it and how, like maybe the vision of like how AI impacts app development, because you're going to go from a screen where I have to like punch buttons so I can just talk to something and I get this hyper-personalized experience and that's going to change app development and even like browsers, it's going to change how consumers or people interact with technology. So I think there's a kind of a current topic there.
Pavel Bondarev:You're right on both cases. First of all, development. For now it's much, much easier, because the original version of the budget in which I created it took almost maybe over a year to build it. Now I built the next generation of this much more advanced tool and it took for me four days what? Well, four days to build, and I believe it'll take a couple of weeks to hone it and so on, but it's like.
Dom Kingston:But you knew what you were building.
Pavel Bondarev:too right, you had like Well yes, knowledge, obviously experience, but I'm talking about, like companies, I'm talking about developers who have expertise and experience in this area. For now it's much, much faster and, as I said before, I believe I'm sure for 99.9% many companies will redesign and redevelop their tools because they will start with new tools and again, for businesses and for consumers to surround consumers or like users with, like hyper-personalized experience and to, like data analyst or like business analyst, sitting in one office might have different experience because of this stuff. In our case, yes, it was good and painful experience, which cost me lots of money and time, nervous, and so on and so on. But again, this market change or die and unfortunately, like many of my partners didn't want to change, they want to create traditional tools. I said it won't work. It won't work because people are different.
Pavel Bondarev:Well, people are changing, market is changing, everything is changed. So I understood, like I've learned little things, but decided to shut it down and start new business, like not like new name, it's like new everything Technology, architecture, approach, target audience, everything could be different. And, yeah, like I attracted people who were like top-level expert In this area, I said, hey, guys, I'm going to change the world, I'm going to change the banking and financial system, which used to be the same for the past 700 years. Now it's time to change it.
Dom Kingston:And part of that would be back to I think you have a banker in your pocket and as my banker they've known me for my whole financial career. Now I get very individual advice versus say what Leo would get right.
Pavel Bondarev:Or any other consumer.
Dom Kingston:So now you've got sort of a million people and a million different experiences being delivered off of one platform.
Lea Lavoie:No, super appealing for people my age too, and I think there's a lot of people. Everyone in their early 20s is like I'm never going to be able to afford a house. I'm never going to be able to afford a house. I'm never going to be able to buy this, I'm never going to be able to budget enough for this. So I think Zane is really a fun solution and people are looking for new solutions like CIBC, rbc, all the banks they're all the same. They're all offering a similar offering right. So we're really looking for something different, and on top of that, zane's Canadian right. So I'm really excited to see where it goes in the next couple years. I'm really interested in becoming a customer, but just to kind of wrap things up here. So we've covered a lot of grounds. You've obviously started a lot of really cool and successful businesses. So from this journey, do you have three short key lessons that would be a great takeaway for entrepreneurs who are also looking to build businesses, just like you?
Pavel Bondarev:Well, actually we discussed all three items Number one, proper planning. Number two, proper team. And number three talk to your potential users. Don't reinvent the wheel. Try to understand people's real pain, how they're trying to solve this pain, what kind of obstacle they see and how you can solve this problem, because during this conversation you might change the way you build your business, your product and so on, so on, so on. Like Mile was a good example because originally we created for one target audience and one message save your time, and so on, so on. But we ended up with different message. It came from people like from our users. When I asked some guy like why you like it, he said because I can back up my mind. I said, there, you go Back up your mind and we changed like our message. So people like didn't understand, maybe like from the very beginning, like when I told people what you built, my, what it does, back up your mind. I don't know what it is, but it sounds cool.
Lea Lavoie:Yeah.
Pavel Bondarev:And so on, so on, so on, because when you know the pain of your users, like inside and out, it's much easier for you to better serve these people. Well, if it's your pain, it's much easier, of course, and this is my pain. So, yeah, these three things focus on them and move forward.
Lea Lavoie:Those are great takeaways. Thank you so much for your time today. I really had a great time learning about Zain and I'm really looking forward to see where it's going to be in the next coming years.
Dom Kingston:So last question would be where can we find it?
Pavel Bondarev:You can go to ZainMoneycom subscribe if you want to be the first local adopter, and when we launch it you will be the first.
Lea Lavoie:Awesome, perfect. I will be subscribing, thanks for joining us today.
Pavel Bondarev:Thank you guys, thank you for inviting me.