Bronislav Gorbachov of Amadei Music Group.
Tell us about yourself?
My name is Bronislav Gorbachov. I am a serial entrepreneur. Running my businesses for 17 years.
All businesses started from zero and leaded for 6-digits in profit. Ran business in construction, international trade and franchise development. Last 4 years i am in IT business. I am also a Business Mentor, Digital Growth Expert and a Speaker at Stockholm School of Economics
What do you think is the single biggest misconception people have when it comes to startups?
Total obsession on the product from the side of a Founder is a direct path to a failure. Startups should be obsessed with their clients’ needs.
And not cherish their own ego trying to convince themselves and their team that the product is a game changing solution for the world. I also made the same mistake at the begining of my IT career.
If you could go back in time to any moment from your journey, and give yourself one tip, what would it be?
Listen to your Clients first. Train techniques to ask questions and receive replies on them. I was so in love with my idea to create something useful for musicians that I forgot to ask the musicians themselves whether it would be valuable for them.
So I released a ready-made polished product, which I was obsessed with, 100% confident that musicians would love it as much as I did.
A few months later, I realized that the musicians were checking my project out, but did not understand its value, and as a result, they didn’t want to pay for it. That was a real financial disaster for me as CAC was 680 USD with almost 20 USD LTV.
The problem was that I did not CustDev (Critical Intrerview) my future clients and did not create a strong value proposition for them for each service of the product. Since then, we make a constant CustDev at almost every segment in our CJM (Customer Journey Map).
What makes you stand out as an entrepreneur?
I have talent to Create a Team of Leaders. I always attract brighter people than me and motivate them to solve the issues where they can show their top efficiency. Persistence and full dedication to a result.
What are some of the best working habits you’ve gained over the past couple of years?
Get up early in the morning. Every day at 5 am. Do physical training. Keep up daily routine. And go to bad no later than 10 pm. All this simple things keep me in focus. Protect my mind and body from the burnout.
Give us a bit of an insight into the influences behind the company?
Once, during a family vacation, I met a prominent musician. We talked a lot and he told me about his life path. It took him 10 years to become famous and to stop thinking about surviving while doing the things he loved most.
That was the moment when I realized that I should create a game-changing service to make a successful career path in music much shorter and more predictable.
Besides, the project fully corresponds to my business metrics: it is global, there are no borders in this business, and it deals with non-tangible but much-valued assets — creativity and intellectual property.
Where do you see your business in five years?
We are growing fast. A year ago we did not even think of providing financial services for musicians. This year, besides our core services – music distribution and music promotion – we began to finance musicians and this money goes to their music promotion.
We see ourselves a leading company the in the industry – Music Talent Incubator, which solves the need of a musician to become popular and get money from their talent.
What do you think the biggest challenge will be for you in getting there?
People want to make sure that the product they choose will provide them with good service and a result they expect. Social, tangible proof of our service’s results is fundamental because it creates Trust.
If there is no proof of how your customers’ lives have improved, there will be no retention. Trust is the driving force behind attracting new clients, achieving a viral effect, and retaining existing customers.
Talk to us about your biggest success story so far?
The biggest success for me as a founder is that i have created a team of A-class professionals working for theamadei.com.
Grammy winners, musicians and music managers with over 20 years of experience in music industry are working for AMADEI. They are willing to make the music career of independent artists much easy and more predictable.
How do clients and customers find you? Are you much of a salesperson for yourself?
If our clients have a lot of followers and are influential on Instagram, we ask them to become theamadei.com Ambassadors.
We don’t give them any discounts, because I believe that this is like buying a client, which is completely at odds with our core values.
So if an artist wants to tell their colleagues about our services, we encourage that, and it does bring us new clients. After people use our service, we ask them to leave a comment on our website, to give feedback on social media, or in professional forums.
We do not consider our client deals to be completed until they leave feedback (either as video or written messages).
What one tip would you give to fellow startup founders?
Believe in yourself, Listen to your Customers, Motivate your Team. And REST
And finally, what do you hope the future brings both you personally, and your business?
Money and even more Money for me and my business.
Follow Amadei Music Group on Twitter or Linkedin.
