Podcast Audio Money Story Project with Viktor Popovic
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Viktor Popovic: [00:00:00] This is not another world, this is another planet."
Viktor Popovic: we would go to McDonald's, and we would buy a hamburger, not a meal, not a cheeseburger, just one plain hamburger. That's how much money we had. Then we would split it, I'd get half, she'd get the other half.
Viktor Popovic: And we were still happy. I don't know, looking back now, like h-how in the world were we just so patient?
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Viktor Popovic: my, relationship with money changed through every chapter. starting with very little, building the company, carrying all that responsibility selling the business and then starting again.
Harriet Formby: money is not just numbers. money can represent safety, pressure, responsibility, freedom, fear. Control. A lot of money content will tell you to budget better, be more disciplined, manifest harder, and just [00:01:00] hurry up and fix yourself, because apparently you're always the problem to overcome. The Money Story Project is where we go deeper and wider into who we are, where we came from, what we've experienced and discovered along the way.
Harriet Formby: I'm your host, Harriet Formby, fractional CFO, trauma-informed finance coach, and insatiably curious about the human side of money.
Harriet Formby: today I'm joined by Victor Popovic, who is the co-founder and president of Avendo, a fintech software as a service company rethinking payment pricing for online merchants. before Avendo, Victor spent 21 years building Ultimate Washer from a small startup into a nationally recognized e-commerce and Amazon business, which he successfully exited.
Harriet Formby: His story begins much earlier after leaving the former Yugoslavia [00:02:00] during the civil war and rebuilding his life as an immigrant and refugee with very limited resources. Victor's money story has been shaped by survival, responsibility, entrepreneurship, risk, resilience, and starting over more than once.
Harriet Formby: After selling his first business, he began reflecting on what money can and cannot solve, including identity, purpose, freedom, and the emotional side of life after an exit. And today, he's building Avendo from the lessons he learned as both a merchant and founder with a focus on transparency, net margin, and helping business owners gain more control over one of the most important recurring costs.
Harriet Formby: So a big welcome to you, Victor. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today
Viktor Popovic: Thank you. Thank you for that, very nice introduction and, it's great to be here
Harriet Formby: before the war, what do you remember about money growing up in your family and in [00:03:00] Yugoslavia?
Viktor Popovic: we were kind of, uh, I would say a, a middle class, growing up. so not, not too many difficulties, about, day-to-day life. And we, we were a, you know, just average family. but that all changed after my father passed away when I was 17,
Viktor Popovic: he had a really good job as a customs, inspector, in a mid-sized city. and so, you know, we... I wouldn't say we, we had privileges of any kind. but, um, you know, my mom she was an accountant, worked, at the, a courthouse, for many, many years as I think chief accountant.
Viktor Popovic: Um, so yeah, like I said, we're kind of in the middle. Not... We weren't, we weren't shining and we weren't, we weren't too bad.
Viktor Popovic: and, just I
Viktor Popovic: A few months
Viktor Popovic: after my father passed away that, the Civil War started, and that's when all the tough times and challenges, came at, at full speed at me and, uh, you know, things that you have to just, uh, figure out to survive. So, uh, yeah, from, kinda middle comfortable, level growing up to, [00:04:00] to, uh, you know, very tough beginnings
Harriet Formby: Mm-hmm. it was, a socialist, the kind of political backdrop as in where you
Viktor Popovic: grew up?
Viktor Popovic: yeah. Uh, yeah, Tito, who was, uh, obviously a, um, you know, his, his, uh, Communist Party and, and dictatorship for over 35 years, running the country, self-proclaimed, Marshal Tito as, as, as they called him. yeah, it was, it was a, you know, one-party system and, you had to be part of the system if you wanted to survive.
Viktor Popovic: You know, You couldn't even resist. That, that was impossible because, uh, people would, uh, simply just disappear you just had to, dig in and be compliant and just, follow the rules that the government has set and, and, and that was it.
Viktor Popovic: There was no, uh, alternatives
Harriet Formby: Yeah, I can imagine it's what you knew as well as like a child It's just the norm at that point of how it was. Mm-hmm.
Viktor Popovic: Yeah, yeah. 'Cause I mean, you, you, you hear your parents talking about it amongst the adults and you, you hear these [00:05:00] conversations and, we lived in an apartment building, a fourth floor, and we knew that the, man who lived on a fifth floor, that he was the Secret Service.
Viktor Popovic: And, uh, no- nobody ever wanted to be around him because he was the eyes and ears for the government and, you know, he was like a secret agent where he just goes amongst the citizens and then if he hears something, "Oh, they're talking against the government or against that politician." And then, they just, they had their ways.
Viktor Popovic: Uh, and so you had to be really careful, uh, you know, not to say too, not to s- not to say, uh, bad things about anybody really.
Harriet Formby: Hmm. Yeah, yeah. And if it's so close to home as well that you're-- you, you can't even talk in the privacy of your own, like, yeah, neighborhood.
Harriet Formby: And then everything changed, right? So the war came and what was that time like?
Viktor Popovic: Well, I think for me the, the timeline couldn't be, worse. You know, I was, 17 and a half. It was [00:06:00] summer, 1991, and, just about to enter my fourth year of high school or 12th grade. it was tough, you know, because, you know, when the war st- even though it started in, in Croatia and then it spread into Bosnia, you just, you never knew.
Viktor Popovic: I was on a, a Serbian side, you know, coming from a mixed, background. My mom is Hungarian, my dad is Serbian. And, uh, uh, when the war started, they really started taking, um, young, young people from mixed marriages, into military, and you just don't know how, where, where is the war gonna take?
Viktor Popovic: Which side? Where is it gonna go? Where is it gonna spread? And so that was the unknown and hard for, for anybody really living in that country at the time. Um, and then after I graduated, high school, I had an opportunity to enroll into college and there was a kind of law that said, okay, if you were i- in medical school, electrical engineering or mechanical engineering, then we wouldn't [00:07:00] draft you.
Viktor Popovic: And so I enrolled into mechanical engineering degree, which I did not like. So I wasn't really good, good at it for the first year. and then that was it, you know? Uh, it was, it became a lot more serious. The, the war is spreading, and I had to make the decision what's next, and the decision was to move to, move to...
Viktor Popovic: I mean, it wasn't even like I just, just went, 'cause I had a friend in, in, in Hungary, in Budapest. like, "Yeah, come over." And I went there and, um, started brand new life from, from literally nothing. Half a suitcase maybe.
Harriet Formby: Wow, yeah. Um, Hungary was probably rather different, I imagine, in terms of like what that was like as a, as a place. Yeah
Viktor Popovic: Well, you know, Hungary just was coming out of, Iron Curtain, right? 'Cause they were under, USSR, the, the, the whole Soviet Union bloc. You know, Yugoslavia was kinda a little bit neutral. You know, we weren't under the [00:08:00] Russian, regime. So this was three years Hungary after them removing the Soviets', um, oc- sort of, as occupation, but their presence.
Viktor Popovic: So Hungary was still very poor. I mean, um, you know, comparatively to how we lived, you know. like simple as washing machines. Every third or fourth household had a, a washing machine. People washed clothes by hand. To, to us that was very, shocking because we, it wasn't that bad in Yugoslavia. so it went from, you know, kinda like we, we knew some things that West had.
Viktor Popovic: Uh, we didn't, you know, we weren't as poor as the complete East, but we weren't, you know, uh, Germany . But, but Hungary was different. but anyhow, I claimed a refugee status initially and then, started building life from there. You know, learning the language Even though my mom's Hungarian, I never spoke Hungarian, so I had to learn that.[00:09:00]
Viktor Popovic: You have to learn the system, how works. You have to make friends, you have to network. You have to figure out your legal status. You have to find a job. it's hard when you don't have friends, family, that can recommend you to go to places or to, recommend you to for a job. and you know, again, being just with, with, with high school diploma, it's tough.
Viktor Popovic: I ended up landing a job at the airport, for Delta Airlines, because I was studying English, in elementary school, middle school, and then high school. so that saved me because the official language for the airline in Budapest was English. They,
Harriet Formby: Mum
Viktor Popovic: they didn't care... I mean, they wanted you to speak Hungarian, but it wasn't the main thing.
Viktor Popovic: So I got, I got hired, and I s- I stayed with that job. but that wasn't my first job. My, my, my very first job was, at the, clothing factory, the manufacturing clothing factory. And I ended up, at the, ironing station, ironing clothes [00:10:00] that came off production.
Viktor Popovic: And I remember walking into They brought me to this big room and, uh, they all were men. As, as I looked, people ironing and I was like, "Oh my God." And then I noticed they were all Asian. As a matter of fact, they were all Mongolian. How did Mongolians end up in Budapest in 1993, 1994?
Viktor Popovic: I don't know, but there was a bunch of them. And there's only like two million Mongolians in Mongolia. I'm like, "How's, how,
Harriet Formby: Oh my goodness. Yeah
Viktor Popovic: how come there's so many of you here?" Anyhow, I- Yeah ... yeah, I had that job for, for a little bit. I worked also at the bakery manufacturer, just delivering goods in a minivan. So they would load, load stuff up in the morning and then just drive around the city delivering goods. but the pay was, was bad.
Viktor Popovic: I think, um, at the time we were paid, uh, 50 pfennig, which is like 50 cents, like half, half German mark, right? What's that? one euro, [00:11:00] half, half, half a euro an hour back then.
Harriet Formby: Mm.
Viktor Popovic: that's, that, that's what we were getting paid. And so those were the beginnings.
Viktor Popovic: It's, it's, uh, it's tough. You learn how to manage your money, you know, somehow
Harriet Formby: So yeah, yeah. So that's, and that was in, in relation to the kind of exchange and the cost of living, that was quite, that was tough then, as in like you were having to really work to make the money sort of cover everything. Is that right?
Viktor Popovic: So, I immigrated with my girlfriend, my wife today.
Viktor Popovic: when we met, we were 17 And so, she had some savings. I can't remember, maybe it was maybe like 1,000, Deutschmarks at the time. So we had for a few months, but then obviously without job, that depleted quickly.
Viktor Popovic: So yeah, we had to both, both work in order to just, meet the ends and, um, s- s- you know, sad story, but I [00:12:00] remember, us at the end of the month cherishing, and this is a true story, like at the end of the month we're like, "Hey, we saved five Deutsche Marks."
Viktor Popovic: Like five, like fi- like five euros. And that was a success story for us. At the end of the month, we had no money left, and if we sa- we're like, "Wow, we saved this much." It's, it's, um, it, it builds a character, I could tell you that.
Harriet Formby: Yeah. Yeah, I guess it, it focuses you in on, like, making it work and, like, how can we, make the money meet and having money left over is a real celebration then when you're, you know, when things are feeling really tight. And it must've been hard to be kind of, like, young and, with your girlfriend and, like, what did you do for fun?
Viktor Popovic: You know, for us to go out, it would be, we would go to McDonald's, and we would buy a hamburger, not a meal, not a cheeseburger, just one plain hamburger. That's how much [00:13:00] money we had. Then we would split it, and so I'd get half, she'd get the other half.
Viktor Popovic: And then after that, we would go to the movies, and then we, we would use, like, coupons to get discounted, uh, movie tickets so we can get in, 'cause we just, we just didn't have enough. And- And we were still happy. We were still-- we still went through that. We, we weren't complaining. I don't know, looking back now, like h-how in the world were we just so patient?
Viktor Popovic: And I, you know, I give full credit to my wife, you know? Like I always say, like, even when we came to United States, you know, you're seeing all the lush and luxury, especially, especially in the southeast Florida. Homes, cars. I'm like: How come you never left me? Like, so many rich guys, like, you're with a twenty-four-year-old.
Viktor Popovic: Like, w-w-what, what were you [00:14:00] thinking? Why? Why? You could have easily just say bye-bye. So I was fortunate, you know, that she stuck with me, and, uh, I guess she trusted that, that, uh, together we'll build something special
Harriet Formby: Yeah. That's really sweet, actually. Really lovely, yeah
Viktor Popovic: And then another thing's tying to, to this, you know, what we're doing, you know, years later after we, we were visiting, you know, we- it took us forever to get permanent residency in the US 'cause we did everything legally. We didn't wanna skip any steps. And then, uh, I think it was maybe 12, 13 years after we immigrated to, to US, went to, uh, Budapest to visit, and they were like, "Hey, let's go, uh, you know, let's go to a restaurant where we kinda...
Viktor Popovic: where we used to go. Like, let's go to a, to a place." And then we're sitting at a hotel and we're like, "We never went to a restaurant. We don't, we don't have a favorite restaurant." Like four years living in Hungary, it's like, [00:15:00] is it possible? You know, it's like, we never went. It's like, oh my God. But that's how it was. That's how it was
Harriet Formby: That's how it was, yeah. Yeah. But it's really nice that you had each other and, like, you, you kind of created your own, experience, together. So, so you, like, rebuilt life in Hungary, and then you got the opportunity to move to the US. So yeah, that's such a-- It's a big transition, isn't it?
Harriet Formby: So what was that like kind of navigating the US? And it's obviously also a very different economic system, as well, isn't it,
Viktor Popovic: W- when we landed, it was Chicago. We landed, we're like, "This is not another world, this is another planet." I mean, everything is bigger, wider, taller. Like, it's, it's n- nothing like in Europe, right? We just, uh, we're used to it. It's, it's countries are very similar. in the US it was a big shock.
Viktor Popovic: Um- I think the biggest [00:16:00] difference for us was really, the people.
Harriet Formby: Mm.
Viktor Popovic: Very welcoming. it didn't matter... And still today, people don't really care where you're from, and they're very encouraging. if you're like, "Hey, I wanna figure out how to do this," or, "I wanna start a business," or...
Viktor Popovic: People are so like, "Yeah, you should try. You should do that. Oh, let me connect you with this friend. He, you know, he did something similar. Maybe you should talk to him." Um, very motivating and that's a very special, character, of Americans. they're, super nice that way. but yes, it's, the system is different.
Viktor Popovic: the way people think about money is different. How they spend the money is different. It's a very consumer-oriented, economy. You know, people are spending. very few people are saving. but that's how they are. And But yeah, we had to kinda start from scratch in, in, again, no friends, no family.
Viktor Popovic: so initially I went to college, and that was a funny story too. [00:17:00] You know, we went to a- an attorney and, he told us, "Well, either you divorce and m- marry American, or you have to gogo to school and study." 'Cause I, I never obviously finished college in Yugoslavia. So we came home, and we're sitting on a couch, and we're like, "Okay."
Viktor Popovic: I said, "Who's gonna study?" And Rosa's like, "Oh, you're gonna study." I said, "No, you're gonna study." She's like, "No, your English is better. You're gonna study." I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna study first." And that's how I made the decision for me to go to college. so when I graduated then she went, and she got her pharmacy degree, so she's now a doctor of pharmacy after, studying that for seven years.
Viktor Popovic: but all paid for. we didn't have any student loans or, anything, any help like that from the government. So, you had to figure all out. The status to stay legally, you know,
Harriet Formby: So to stay legally, you needed to have-- they wanted you to study. Is that the, that was condition
Viktor Popovic: then essentially?
Viktor Popovic: Yeah.
Viktor Popovic: that was the route we, we chose. This, you know, in order to stay legally to go from really, this temporary [00:18:00] visa to student visa, and then after that, a working visa. One working visa, the second working visa, and then only the permanent residency. It took many, many years.
Viktor Popovic: and, There's always the back of your mind, what if I can't renew my student visa? What if I can't renew my work permit? Because administration changes, the rules of the game change. sometimes they make them harder, sometimes they make them a little easier, or sometimes they stay the same.
Viktor Popovic: And so you never know each time, there's somebody new at the power, what, what they're gonna do. And so, it was always a little bit of fear, you know, how, how we're gonna stay and what kind of visa we're gonna, get and stuff like that. But, my wife says, "You should have gone and become, an immigration attorney."
Viktor Popovic: 'Cause, 'cause I knew so much about so many different visas because I was reading. Like, I, I might as looking at a religious visa. Like, let me see. Maybe we have a chance with a re- You know, I was like, "Oh, that doesn't work." So, but I've learned so much
Harriet Formby: about
Harriet Formby: yeah, you're an expert on all the different, visa [00:19:00] options, brilliant. Yeah. It sounds like you found a way that worked for you though, and you both, got the studying done. I suppose that was quite helpful as well though, to give you foundations in, working as well and getting into business and things.
Harriet Formby: Mm.
Viktor Popovic: Yeah, definitely. And I, and for me, being, being in school, I realized that I learn the best when I'm listening from other people's experiences. And we had one instructor who just was speaking, obviously w- because I was studying for, aviation business, in, for airport management. I, that was kind of the idea because I worked in aviation in Budapest, so kind of this would be a nice sort of transition, continuation.
Viktor Popovic: Um, and so we had an instructor who always, gave examples from his own, life experiences working in aviation, different, airports and airlines and FBOs and whatnot. And I've, I remember just absorbing, [00:20:00] and then we had a break, classroom break, and I remember one student mentioned, "Oh my God, he only talks about experience.
Viktor Popovic: I wanna really learn what's in the book," and this and that. I'm like, "I love it." Like it's so... The mindset can be so different, right? but that was for me, that, that worked. Like just learning from, from other people
Harriet Formby: Yeah. Yeah, hearing other people's, experiences and firsthand accounts. So then you ended up going from, which is quite a jump from airport management into e-commerce. So that's quite a... Yeah, how did that come about?
Viktor Popovic: Yeah. Saying being in the right place at the right time, well, it's, it is in my case definitely, definitely true. I had an acquaintance, someone who we met through, a person that my wife worked for, and we ended up going to that person's wedding, and we were seated at the same table. And we reconnected, this, this person, [00:21:00] and I, his name is Paul.
Viktor Popovic: And, we really clicked, and then a couple of days after that event, we were speaking on the phone. He called me and he goes, "Do you wanna start an e-commerce business with me?" Without thinking, without, knowing what we're doing, who's gonna do what, I said yes. and this is about a year after I graduated with the aviation degree.
Viktor Popovic: I had a very tough time finding a job in aviation because after 9/11, after the, the Twin Towers, were attacked, aviation in the US was very, on a downside, downturn. A lot of, people, mechanics, flight attendants being laid off, so it was a tough time. So I couldn't really, get a good job.
Viktor Popovic: I had a job, actually. I will not hide the fact I had a job. I got a job after graduating. I was, working at a small airport fueling airplanes. So, yeah, just, getting the truck to the plane and just hooking [00:22:00] up the hose and, and fueling aircrafts. So that was my, my job after I, I graduated.
Viktor Popovic: It was, like, eight dollars an hour or something.
Harriet Formby: Yeah
Viktor Popovic: Anyhow, he comes to me, So he says, "Can you come up with a list of, 40, 50 products related to aviation industry? 'Cause that's what we're gonna do." Perfect. I come up with a list, f- 40 products. one of the products was these, flat pressure surface cleaners for cleaning airport hangar floors.
Viktor Popovic: And then my friend, he says, "Well, let me run a keyword analysis." And now, again, we're talking about 2003. Very early. Super early.
Harriet Formby: early, early, yeah, this is the beginnings of e-commerce, isn't it? Yeah
Viktor Popovic: Yeah, it's like... Right? And he, he runs the analysis and he says, "It looks like there's a high number of searches for anything related to pressure: pressure washer, pressure sprayer, pressure cleaner."
Viktor Popovic: And he says, [00:23:00] "Very few number of websites competing for those keywords." There was a ratio. And he says, "Why don't we focus on just pressure washers, and if it doesn't work out, we'll go back to the original idea." Well, it worked out. and trust me, I knew nothing, zero about pressure washers. And, my knowledge came from really calling the manufacturers and picking their brain, but not without some, some struggles, because it took me six months to convince the first factory in the US that we can sell pressure washers online.
Viktor Popovic: 'Cause that was unheard of. The way they used to sell machines, they would have regional reps, which in the morning they would load the, the van with a few pressure washers, and they would drive [00:24:00] around the city, to a few shops. They pull 'em out, hook up the garden hose, and they'll demo it. And after demoing, then the shop will say, "Yeah, I'll order one or two or none," or whatever, and then you go to the next place.
Viktor Popovic: So that's how they used to sell pressure washers. And now we come and we're like, "Yeah, we're just gonna sell 'em online." And they're like, "What are you talking about?" Right? It's
Viktor Popovic: That's
Harriet Formby: not how it works
Viktor Popovic: "How are you gonna demo?" I'm like, "We're not. We're gonna have pictures." So six months, and it was company out of Iowa, Cam Spray.
Viktor Popovic: Um, you know, years later, When I would talk to the owner, I'd say, "Remember when I used to call you?" He's like, "Oh, my God." We'd always laugh about that, how we... How I used to, bug them. But I wouldn't give up. I'm like, "No, you have to understand. This is it. This is what you're doing."
Harriet Formby: gonna work. This is, yeah, a new way of selling.
Viktor Popovic: I have another s- situation where My partner had another business that he started a year prior in cord management, cable management, tools. And so we were sharing office and [00:25:00] somebody came in and they called me from the front desk and said, "Somebody's here to visit you."
Viktor Popovic: And I'm like, "I, I don't have anybody." So I walk there, we go to the conference room and he says, "I'm from Pressure Pro, and so I'm a national sales manager." And he says, "You called us last year," and he says, "We didn't know what to do with you." But he says, "Now we type in pressure washer," and he says, "You come up number one on everything pressure."
Viktor Popovic: He says, "We wanna do business with you." I'm like, "Cool." How it changed just a year and a half later, people started to realize it, that the internet is there to stay. You know, e-commerce is not gonna go away
Harriet Formby: and so you'd built somehow like in terms of the footprint digitally, as in that you would, you know, you'd come up basically at the top.
Viktor Popovic: I, I was reading everything about search engine optimization. Anything that was published, talked about, any article, blog, I was reading and there was [00:26:00] no rule because people were just guessing and then, Nobody was really expert in those days, but you kinda had to read between the lines and then stories where people say, "Oh, I did this and I started ranking better
Viktor Popovic: reading and reading and then applying. and the hard part about building a website even today is that you don't know, if you are doing it the right way because you have a waiting period, right? It's not like you do something, you apply something, and then the search engines go, "Hey, congratulations.
Viktor Popovic: Good. We're gonna rank you." It takes months and months and months to see the results, and so you could be doing something that could be completely inaccurate, and that's the scary part when you're building the website is, you don't know what's gonna work and how long it's gonna take. And back in the day, Google used to put brand new websites into the, what they called a sandbox.
Viktor Popovic: I think it was, like, eight or nine months, and so you have to kind of wait and wait and wait. Actually, it was Yahoo who ranked us first on page one. It was bottom, I think ninth or 10th on, on page one, [00:27:00] and we were all celebrating, "Oh my God, this is so cool." You know, we started seeing traffic and then Google really quickly after.
Viktor Popovic: and then for many, many years we enjoy that, free organic traffic from Google, and thank you, Google. I'm talking about tens of thousands of visitors, unique visitors per month, just coming in. We end up being, like, top three. It didn't matter what you typed in. How to pressure, pressure wash a driveway.
Viktor Popovic: Boom. Ultimate Wash was number one. how to clean a graffiti. Boom. We worked, you know. It's anything- Mm ... related to cleaning, washing out- outdoors, we were ranked, top, and we never had to advertise. I'm so embarrassed to say we've just, like, advertised. People say, "Hi, do you advertise?
Viktor Popovic: How much money you spend?" I'm like, "No. We
Harriet Formby: So was it kind of like articles then? So you were solving problems by writing articles, and that was them putting you at the top of the search. Is that
Viktor Popovic: kind of
Viktor Popovic: Exactly. 'Cause, 'cause, then, but still today, content is king, right? have to... But you can't just [00:28:00] regurgitate the content. you can't just... you h- you have to offer new information, and I think we, because we were at the very beginning of the industry, we were sort of pioneering, I don't wanna say internet, but pioneering our water technology category just by speaking to all these experts from the manufacturing side.
Viktor Popovic: we were learning and how does the, mechanical relief valve work, or how does this battery, how do you connect? We would explain things in a plain language, and it was all new content, and Google loved it, 'cause there was very, very few, like I said, very few websites, showing anything for that matter, in, in pressure washing industry.
Viktor Popovic: So
Harriet Formby: Mm-hmm. Yeah
Viktor Popovic: lucky that we were at the very beginning of that
Harriet Formby: So, this got traction and then you were like, "Right, this is our whole business now." And so you built a team. what was that like to kind of grow something?
Viktor Popovic: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, customer service. we've had, IT people or web designers [00:29:00] and web developers, and, I've always had questions from friends and business friends as well. Like, why do you need, why do we need a developer? there's so much work on the back end.
Viktor Popovic: All the time tweaking, adding, changing, quotation system. There's so many things to be done. and then, yeah, customer service really grew exponentially for us. a lot of people calling in with questions about the product 'cause it's not just, you're not buying a, something simple like, office supplies, you know, which people, you don't have questions about office.
Viktor Popovic: You're buying equipment, and it could be thousands of dollars, so naturally people will have questions. and so we had to have, trained staff. we kinda had s- method on how we put them through the training, and we had, we have written tremendous amount of SOPs, and how-tos. We were recording videos after a few years.
Viktor Popovic: We would actually take the equipment outside and demo it, and, we hired, professional videographers and, we [00:30:00] would create those videos and then post them. those were all very helpful to continue our good relationship with search engines and keeping our rankings. so yeah, when you start your first business, u- usually you're reactive to things, and that's exactly what happened to us.
Viktor Popovic: we would do things as, as they came up. And so, there was no long-term planning. there was no like, "Oh, here's the five-year vision plan and this is how we're gonna execute." and that obviously had a lot of disadvantages, I can share a story. We ended up Uh, overbuilding because, these tools that we were like, "Oh, okay, we need, a quotation system.
Viktor Popovic: Okay, let's grab this. Oh, we need a new order management system. We... Oh, let's take that software. We need an inventory system. Oh, let's, let's..." And then we ended up with all these systems, they're not communicating, and each of these had its own product database. So we end up with, seven different [00:31:00] product databases.
Viktor Popovic: That was a nightmare to manage.
Harriet Formby: Mm.
Viktor Popovic: You know, typically you would get, a price update from the manufacturer. They'll give you a catalog, say, "Okay, here are the price updates," like January, February, usually that's the time they give you new prices. So now our staff will have to go through each of these databases, every single one to update.
Viktor Popovic: It could be hundreds of products per manufacturer. And then if we're changing our selling price, same thing, and doing seven times over and over. And so you'll learn these lessons, the hard way. It's like, "No, these tools need to communicate. You don't need more than two databases or one database,"
Harriet Formby: Yeah.
Viktor Popovic: and things
Harriet Formby: can make mistakes then as well if you've got different information in different ones. Yeah.
Viktor Popovic: Exactly right.
Harriet Formby: Yeah. And in terms of like the one thing with the e-commerce is so much is about the ranking, isn't it? And I know with Google that like, I hear it these days, like [00:32:00] the, the algorithm's changed and suddenly this has happened.
Harriet Formby: Did, did you experience that? Like, what happened basically in terms of the ups and downs of like visibility on Google,
Viktor Popovic: Yes. Yes. We were one of the unfortunate ones, e-commerce, and we were, already in business for over a decade. as a matter of fact, it was 2016... '15, '16. it was,
Viktor Popovic: a famous, algorithm change. It was
Viktor Popovic: Penguin update they called it at Google. And we pretty much lost all our traffic, almost overnight. Going from top page one to page three and four, which pretty much if you're, if you're page two, you're, you're, you don't exist. There's no... No- nobody goes to page two anymore, right?
Viktor Popovic: I mean, for years nobody has. And so you see your traffic plummet. You see your call... phones are not ringing. you have staff just wondering, what, [00:33:00] what's going on or what's gonna happen next. And then as the owner, you have to start making some, some hard decisions.
Viktor Popovic: And unfortunately for me, my business partner, wanted to exit, 'cause he sold his other business and he wanted to retire.
Harriet Formby: Mm.
Viktor Popovic: And so now I have, at the same time dealing with deciding am I buying him out or are we selling the company together?
Harriet Formby: Mm-hmm.
Viktor Popovic: Now, since I just lost all the traffic, I don't think the buyer will be interested in giving me top dollars for the business. So, after heavy debating and thinking, I ended up buying out my partner, so now I'm 100% owner, and I ended up hiring a consultant, an expert for Amazon And I told my wife, I have to put [00:34:00] in a few hundred thousand dollars into the business. That's what it's gonna cost. 'Cause now, where I had to have more office space, we were drop shipping business.
Viktor Popovic: When you start Amazon, first thing that one needs to understand, this is now inventory management business.
Harriet Formby: Mm.
Viktor Popovic: What, what does that mean? That means now I have a responsibility to have much bigger warehouse. I have to have a robust inventory control. I have to have now not so much customer service employees, but warehouse who's gonna pick, prep, pack, and ship.
Viktor Popovic: And, so I have to move into bigger space, go from 50,000 in, in inventory to 500,000 and million dollars in inventory. but that... It- and that's a risk. you wanna say it's a calculated risk because you weigh in things. And, when I hired this [00:35:00] consultant,
Viktor Popovic: We changed how we do accounting or bookkeeping. Obviously, how we track inventory. We even changed some of the things on our servers to have better protection from, uh, fraud and so many changes in two years, and I told my wife, "This may not work. This... I, I just don't know.
Viktor Popovic: I've never done this." Pivoting so major, and moving into bigger space, getting into lease, three-year lease. I'm like, "I have no idea. I... If we, if this, it's like
Harriet Formby: Yeah. And you were on your own, so you had a business partner, and then at the moment when the whole sort of industry changed and the whole business model changed, you were then on your own having to put money in, And then you were kind of, responsible for staff, responsible for extra cost of consultants, and then saying to your wife, you know, "Hope it works."
Harriet Formby: But yeah
Viktor Popovic: It was scary. I mean, luckily for me, some people were,
Viktor Popovic: [00:36:00] maybe they felt that, they may not survive because they could tell by the amount of phone calls we were getting, leads, through, through our website. So some left on their own. some agreed to help us out in the transition, in the warehouse. so instead of being, full-time, they were part-time warehouse and then part-time office on the phone.
Viktor Popovic: but I remember, I had a general manager who said, he says, "I, Victor, in those years," this is a few years later, he says, "I, I feared every day that I was next." You know, so it's hard. You know, you hear that and you know what your employees are going through. it's nothing easier for them and you're responsible.
Viktor Popovic: You know, as, as, as employer, it's not about, your family. You have a business, you have responsibility to pay these people 'cause they come, to j- to work every day, and they're loyal to you, and you wanna take care of them. And so, those are [00:37:00] really tough times for, for an employer to go through.
Viktor Popovic: but we survived and, we actually became, a, a seller of authority, on Amazon. we were a top seller in our, category in water technology, after probably, I'd say, three or four years. I think, again, we're fortunate because there was only a few a few, sellers selling on Amazon, and I think we just kinda blew that out of the water.
Viktor Popovic: Um,
Harriet Formby: You're always there first, aren't you? You're always at the innovation end of whatever's going on.
Viktor Popovic: But it was, yeah, this was just a sequence of events. You know, it's almost like your, your, we were strong-armed into s- but then again, you have to be fair and take some credit because we didn't just give up, right? I said, we're gonna do this."
Viktor Popovic: You, I know it's gonna be hard. it's gonna be a long, long, long way. You know, we, we spent a lot of money on the consulting. Like two and a half years we- we've had this, this company, and it was expensive, but it was [00:38:00] the right move, the right company. they showed us the ropes w- with Amazon and what the requirements are and what you need to be and what kind of systems you have to build because you're showing to Amazon that you are a solid company that they can rely on, and we had that.
Viktor Popovic: we had that backbone, built. And You know, after all that I said, "Money well spent."
Harriet Formby: yeah. You had to be brave to kind of go in, all in for it, but then almost you didn't have a choice because it's like, well, you don't wanna let the whole thing collapse and, the responsibility. so you,went through that, things built up again, and then you took the-- you, you had an opportunity to sell, the business.
Harriet Formby: which obviously by that point you'd been in the business a long time. So what was the-- what, what kind of drew you to that decision to sell, and how was that handover of, identity almost of being a, the founder and business owner to kind of exiting like-
Viktor Popovic: Yeah. I initially, you know, [00:39:00] building the business and being successful for many years prior to pivoting years, I thought, "Why would I ever sell the business? This is great." Right? I can go on vacation. I can work remotely. I have staff that I, that are reliable, that are loyal.
Viktor Popovic: And, and then something like that happens, and then you rec- recognize that nothing lasts forever.
Harriet Formby: Yeah
Viktor Popovic: So, besides that, we were at the very, we fully recovered. I think we were actually doing better than prior, prior to transitioning to Amazon. and, 20 years into it, I said, "I think I gave it my all.
Viktor Popovic: I think there might be somebody younger with maybe some fresher ideas, that can take this company to, to the next level." And so it was a mix of things. and obviously the... M- meeting the right broker, [00:40:00] that- that's another big thing, that, that I always tell business owners. finding the right broker is so critical 'cause you can hear lot of stories.
Harriet Formby: Mm-hmm.
Viktor Popovic: you know, brokers they'll tell you what you wanna hear initially and then, you sign that exclusivity agreement for a year or two, whatever the case might be, and then you're locked in, and you may be just wasting time, and in the meantime, a y- a year is a long time.
Viktor Popovic: a lot can happen to a business, and if it starts going down, now you are... So finding the right broker that specializes in your field, that has pro- has proven records that they've actually sold businesses, preferably really in that category, is so important. and then, combination of all of these elements, it just came together for me and I'm like, "I think it's time."
Viktor Popovic: I gave it my all. I gave it 110%. I've no regrets. I'm leaving it in good hands. I'm good
Harriet Formby: [00:41:00] Yeah. And that sort of satisfaction, I guess, of like passing it on when it's at a good s- where there's been, volatility. It changes the market going, "Right, here's a really good thing." Somebody else can take it on its next part of the journey.
Viktor Popovic: It, the, the company was not in distress. It was in a good spot. all employees, stayed, I know for a fact 'cause I've been communicating, with some of my staff members and, it was a pretty smooth transition for the new owners, and I think everybody was happy at the end of the day
Harriet Formby: Yeah. Yeah. And so you've gone from being like your identity has become, founder, business owner, like you live and breathe the business. And you said something really interesting when we were like having a chat preparing for this, which was that money can create freedom, but it doesn't automatically answer the question of who you are without the business.
Harriet Formby: And I'd love to dig into that a little bit in terms of like what you went through transitioning as being, founder to an exited founder, and what that does to your [00:42:00] identity and yourself, and how you process that and what you do with your day even.
Viktor Popovic: Yeah, absolutely. so yeah, freedom after the exit was not as simple as expected. You know, on paper freedom sounds easy and, and great. but, there's, fewer delays as far as problems, but when you live through challenges and ups and downs and pressure of business for 21 years, that freedom can really feel strange, um, at, at, at first.
Viktor Popovic: and I was reading a lot about, business owners and their interviews after the exit, and I I wanted to plan my life after business, the best way I can. Obviously, it's the unknown. 'cause when you're going from 100 miles an hour and you're solving problems every day, and you are looked up to solutions and, you're answering, emails and you're doing day-to-day stuff, and then you go from that to you're waking up and then you [00:43:00] don't have to go to work, and you don't have, 20, 30 emails to answer to, it's quiet.
Harriet Formby: Mum
Viktor Popovic: And, if you are not mentally prepared for that, it can be hard. So I really created a list for myself, I call it like something like life after the sale, and I've listed different things in different kinda buckets. what I personally wanted to do, what I wanted to do, with family, and I had some, some business ideas that, that, came to me for the prior y- years, and I always kinda jot them down and never did anything with them.
Viktor Popovic: But, you know, I had some ideas about that and, for me personally, I think was the big thing is I wanted to learn a new language, so I decided to, to study Spanish. And so I just told myself, "I'm not gonna pressure myself. I'm going to take it easy to the extent that if I do only one [00:44:00] Spanish lesson a whole day, nothing else, I wanna call that a successful day."
Viktor Popovic: I really wanted to release myself of any pressure that I have to do something special, that I have to, be busy. And like, no, if I do a 15-minute lesson, I'll call that a good day. And that's how I mentally prepared myself for that transition, and it benefited me really. it wasn't like I was sitting around doing nothing.
Viktor Popovic: I like to go and exercise. I like to do cardio, so, you know, I kept myself busy. but that was, that was The, the mental piece that I wanted to make sure that I'm not going too deep into my thoughts
Harriet Formby: Yeah. So it was a real conscious-- It's almost like you foresaw that there could be a real issue of what to do with yourself, and so you kind of prepared for that by, giving, you know, giving yourself like realistic things so you didn't just kind of jump straight [00:45:00] into, I guess, getting really stressed and like
Viktor Popovic: Exactly.
Harriet Formby: trying to fill your time with lots of things to be productive.
Harriet Formby: But, um, something that really comes through in everything you've talked about is just how you embrace like new chapters in life. And I know it's not always been optional, but what do you think really sort of draws you to building like new things and things that you know you don't know about, but you kind of become an expert in almost and like run with?
Harriet Formby: Like what is it that keeps drawing you into that?
Viktor Popovic: I can w-walk through that, by connecting the new company, Avendo. Avendo, is really solving a problem for the merchants today, and I'll just kind of briefly say, it's a fintech SaaS company that lets, credit card processors compete on pricing in real time, so that the merchants can get the best available rate, per each transaction, [00:46:00] right?
Viktor Popovic: So every time, a customer swipes the card or enters the card, online, we get that information, we send it out to multiple processors, they return their rate, real time, and then we choose the best available rate and then route that transaction to that particular processor. So, as a merchant, I've experienced this and it kind of stuck with me that you as, as a business, you have to decide at the beginning who your processor will be.
Viktor Popovic: And, you basically sign that agreement, and you're locked in. and you just sort of have to trust that you are getting the best rate, but you don't really know. You have no way of knowing because you will get the monthly statements. those monthly statements could be five, 10, 15, 50 pages long, depends on the number of transactions, that you had, and there's just fees.
Viktor Popovic: Just this fee, and this. And you [00:47:00] as a bus-business owner, you look at it, you go, "Okay," and then you flip through it. You don't understand it. You hand it over to your accounting department, and that's it. You forget about it. And that's month after month after month. And that in a way bothered me that there's no way to, know if I'm paying the best rate.
Viktor Popovic: And I said, "There has to be a better way, for us merchants to utilize some kind of a tool." And so we built this platform that now really lets merchants, get the best available rate from participating processors. and, this is all kind of like in the background, in seconds and milliseconds, so it-- the, the experience for the consumer doesn't change in any way.
Viktor Popovic: They, they don't know the, what happens in the background. so, as far as, the learning curve, I thought, to sort of deeper answer your question, I thought that I knew payment processing Boy, was I wrong. This is so complicated. Oh my God, the [00:48:00] complexity of the payment industry.
Viktor Popovic: You have the issuing bank, then you have a network, which is Visa, Mastercard, American Express. Then you have acquiring bank, then you have payment processor, then you have ISOs, ISOs agents, referral partners, and all these p- people are in the background running. Everybody's running something, and everybody's making money.
Viktor Popovic: so I had to understand all of these elements and who ties to who and, who's responsible for what. but I think I'm-- I don't know. When I have a task in front of me, I think I'm built that way where I like the research and I like to understand it. that could also be a hindrance, for a startup because I like details, I sometimes have tendency to wanna know a little too much, and I may slow things down because, There's a fine balance.
Viktor Popovic: You know, you have to learn, like you cannot expect [00:49:00] to have the perfect information every time. Like sometimes you just have to have enough information to make the decision. And, so for me personally, sometimes that's a hard, dissecting, I guess, middle. where does that fit in? am I go- am I asking for too much?
Viktor Popovic: and then obviously trusting your staff. You know, once you empower them and authorize them, you have to let them, make decisions and, that's also part of the learning curve for any, any startup, business owner to just-
Harriet Formby: So it's like your motivation there is about solving a problem and it's almost like you're not put off by it being complex 'cause you just wanna know more. But then the balance then is trying to be like entrepreneurial, where you make leaps without all the information, but also you kind of-- and especially in that sort of industry, you have to be above board and, you can't be making mistakes, can you?
Harriet Formby: So it's kind of tough. But, yeah, it sounds interesting in the sense that you've embraced that challenge, and it is a money problem that you're [00:50:00] solving as well.
Viktor Popovic: Yeah, and, the difference maker also between starting a business when you don't have the backbone of savings is different than me starting, for instance, now Avendo, where I don't have that pressure, sort of like that hard stop of, this is how much money we have, and if I spend all that money, I have to go back to a 9:00 to 5:00 job.
Viktor Popovic: I don't have that pressure now like I had w- with Ultimate Washer. Of course, you still have stage gates. You still wanna n- know, you stick to the plan as far as your budget and overall plan. but at least personally, you don't feel that pressure when you're starting, second time
Harriet Formby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The financial pressure essentially isn't the same. Yeah. So what's interesting is that you've been in a lot of very, sort of stressful, or you'd say money situations around scarcity in terms of, the, the responsibility, the earning small amounts of money needing to stretch [00:51:00] in like Budapest and, and like it
Harriet Formby: probably was stressful when there was business problems, you know, like where you were rebuilding and, where there was that wobble with, Google and things and you were having to put more money in. Like, was there any time when you were putting the money in that you were kind of feeling that scarcity like, what if, it all goes wrong and the rug gets pulled?
Viktor Popovic: I'll, I'll give you an example and this may actually surprise y- you and the audience. And when we were starting Ultimate Washer, our agreement was that he'll be a silent partner, and then he'll financially sort of, help out, and I will be putting the sweat equity I guess, in.
Viktor Popovic: the initial investment was $3,000 only. I think we bought a, a software, I think it was called Dreamweaver, for building the website. and it was gonna be his wife that's gonna... She was a web designer, and she was gonna build our website, but then they got busy with their web- with their business.
Viktor Popovic: So I ended up learning how to operate the Dreamweaver so that I [00:52:00] can put up the pages. I was no expert in any shape or form, but a- at least I was able to edit images and kinda put content online, and publish the content. and that was really it. the lucky part for e-commerce is you don't have to stock anything, right?
Viktor Popovic: you put products, up on the website. And we had this, one, one factory, and we put I think it was, like, 50, 60 products we put it up, and you're live. You, you can literally start selling. If people find you, you may end up selling. versus, the business today, we had to build so much of the algorithm.
Viktor Popovic: we had to build all the databases and to protect because the PCI compliance, we had to read 400 pages of legal documents. so luckily, my son is an attorney, and so he's dealing with the legal aspects of things. but if you don't have that, that, person or one of the owners, you have to pay, legal help.
Viktor Popovic: Um, so that-- all that costs [00:53:00] money. So, the, the investment would've been a lot bigger,if my son and I weren't so much hands-on and doing all the research. You know, just doing the, the, the patent filings. again, hiring, full stack developers to do the backend, and frontend developers, and, s- security and cloud security admin person.
Viktor Popovic: but none of that would've been possible. if I started that 20 years ago, I would be like, "No way, I, I-- There's no money."
Harriet Formby: Yeah. So it's actually things that money can't buy or that you can do. You know, if, if you had to spend the money on it, you maybe wouldn't be able to do it. So like for example, the, the first business you did, you'd put your time in, not money essentially. you built the website and then the money comes later.
Harriet Formby: Yeah. So if anyone is listening to this, who kind of resonates with your story and is perhaps earlier in their journey as maybe, you know, starting again, starting with nothing, as a refugee, like, or, whatever the situation might be, what would you like them to know?
Viktor Popovic: I hope [00:54:00] listeners, can take away that, money is not just numbers. money can represent safety, pressure, responsibility, freedom, fear. you can get a lot more opportunities with this. Control. and my relationship with money changed through every chapter. starting with very little, uh, then building the company, carrying all that responsibility with staff, selling the business and then starting again.
Viktor Popovic: and so I think the important thing is that business owners remember to look beyond the revenue. we have responsibility as business owners and, we've... I'll just share this as well. we've, donated equipment and man-hours to one of the local, builders.
Viktor Popovic: they were building, h- homes for, underprivileged, community. And so we would go and on a weekend, we would put in hours, and we would have fun as a group. And, we, like I said, so it's the- beyondjust being focused [00:55:00] on, what you're building, with the company,
Viktor Popovic: once you build enough, outside of that, just be aware there's other things and other people that may need help. and, if you're in that position that, it always feels good be able to help whichever way you can.
Viktor Popovic: sometimes it can be just, giving advice or mentoring someone. You know, I have people come to me all the time with questions and it's good to see somebody, that's hustling and it- it's trying hard and they- they're coming up with questions, and then you try to guide them and you say, "Hey, you know, try this way or try that way."
Viktor Popovic: you know, that's a good way of giving back as well.
Harriet Formby: Yeah. Yeah, really lovely. Really good to hear that. And just before we wrap up then, I'd love to give you a bit more space to talk about what you're building now. So, obviously you mentioned that you're building something that fixes a money problem that's frustrated you for a long time.
Harriet Formby: And as someone that works closely with business owners, I know that this is also a challenge, from the point of view of tracking and budgeting how much your, transaction [00:56:00] fees are gonna be on payment processing, but also just the fact that it is, a big chunk of profit sometimes that you're losing.
Harriet Formby: so I think listeners would be interested just to hear a bit more about is it live at the moment? Where to find it, et cetera. We'll obviously put all the links in the show notes as well, but if there's anything else you want to add
Viktor Popovic: Yeah, our website, it's, avendo.tech. as far as, you can reach me, on LinkedIn. I'm very open book, if you have, questions or thoughts on anything, just, shoot me a DM. but yeah, as far as the, the business, a lot of, businesses, business owners and decision-makers and CPAs and CFOs, focus on revenue and sometimes revenue can hide problems.
Viktor Popovic: And so, I've learned that one of the most important pieces is really looking at the net margin, 'cause I've had months where, "Oh, my revenue has gone up," you know, "We did this." And then, I would have a, I would have a talk with the C- CFO, and like, "Well, you know, our margins really went down because, you know, this is how we were promoting it, and our advertising costs went up, and our shipping [00:57:00] costs went up," because it was certain type of heavy-duty equipment.
Viktor Popovic: And then you look at it like, yeah, okay, it looks on the paper our revenue like, ooh la la, but then your net margin has shrank. credit card processing is one of those, line items that, we kinda take it as it is. Like, we just accept it. And, I, I, I tell people, like, "If, if you can save even 1% on credit card processing, that's a lot."
Viktor Popovic: You know, as, as a business, you may be doing in e-commerce eight, 10, maybe 12% of net, net margin. And if you can add an extra 1%, technically that's 10% more of your net margin at the end of the day. So, look us up. we, currently focus on, on e-commerce businesses. so if you're processing, orders online, we can help you out.
Viktor Popovic: And, contact us, and we'll have an, we'll have a chat.
Harriet Formby: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Sounds [00:58:00] really, really good. and thank you very much for being a very, very interesting and informative guest.
Harriet Formby: Yeah
Viktor Popovic: you. Thank you for having me. I'll just add we are currently looking for, referral, partners. we are looking for three different groups, CFOs or fractional CFOs, accounting firms, and then, business coaches, specifically them because they're, usually the closest to, knowing the business numbers, especially the net margins.
Viktor Popovic: and so we wanna, work with you to refer, businesses to each other. So if you're, shoot me a message or you can actually find, this page avenda.tech/deals, and you can find more about that. If you're interested in becoming a partner, let us know
Harriet Formby: Brilliant. Yeah,I think as a CFO myself, I know that would be something that I would be interested in, so yeah,
Viktor Popovic: Cool
Speaker 2: Brilliant. Well, thank you very much. You've been listening to the Money Story Project podcast with me, Harriet Formby. [00:59:00] If you've enjoyed the episode, please follow the show, share it with someone and if you can, leave a review. In the show notes, you'll find links to connect with our guest and to learn more about the project itself.
Speaker 2: And if you feel called to share your own money story, you'll find details there on how to be part of a future episode. Until next time, take care and have a great day.
