Wealth, Growth Mindset, AI in Business and Leadership Strategies | Ademola Odewade x Stan Sukhinin

0:00 The main difference between a human in the air right now, Yeah, I think it's DJ. It's just like not really not enough context. Still it's it's very limited in terms of context and the strategic thinking. Yeah, it's a slack of the strategic thinking. Welcome to the King Dems Podcast, where we share the stories of extraordinary people and dissect hot, relevant topics that shape our world. From visionary leaders to trailblazing creatives, we uncover the mindset, strategy, and grit behind greatness. Whether it's business, culture, or personal growth, we ask the real questions.

0:38 This isn't just conversation, it's transformation. The Kingdom's podcast, Your next breakthrough starts here. Music licencing reimagined we are live ladies and gentlemen, you once again welcome to the Kingdom's podcast and today I have with me fighting out of Texas, United States by way of Moscow, Russia. Welcome the one and only Stan's opinion. How old you?

1:08 Stan, hold on, I'm, I'm 41 years old here. Whoa, 41 years old? OK, interested. Wow. The man, the myth and the legend. Let us meet the man behind the metrics. How do you describe yourself? I'm a I'm a financial guy. I'm a financial guy that passionate about corporate financials, companies financials and I like dig into the businesses.

1:40 So I would describe me as a financial nerd that like working with the entrepreneurs and business owners. Oh, wow, OK, finance guy. I like to call myself a finance guy as well, you know, so finance finance guy beats finance guy because, because for me, I, I have a first degree in economics and a chartered counter.

2:00 What do you guys call ACP in the, in the US? And I did work with two of the big four accounts and firms, PwC and KPMG. So pretty much we, we crunch numbers for leaving, but you know, for you, you, you grew up in Moscow, right from the most suburb. But now to managing over $450 million, not just dollars, U.S.

2:24 dollars. And that's not my mistake. Yet in capital, your story is powerful. But let's rewind what drove a young man at 15 to pursue finance so fiercely. Yeah. So like my first level was with the financials when I kind of like look at the business magazine first, like when I was like 15 years old. And I find out like there's an entire world of entrepreneurs, business owners that like making like these businesses and making a lot of money.

2:57 And it's just like, and I realised when I was like 50 years old, it's like, it's the thing that I want to do. And, and then I kind of like thinking, OK, how I can start. And, and I, I was really good with numbers and I was thinking, OK, it's probably I can go to work at the, at the bank, at the lending department. And I will see the, the bank and how like how banks works. And then like see the businessman's because like when you, when you issue a credit, you, you meet like business owners, you understand the business models. You guys think like all those questions and, and actually it's, it's kind of pan out as a, as I as I kind of like imagine, I imagine that that will meet the businessman's. I will see like the financials

3:41 and then I learn from them and it's how it happens. So my my first position was that like a regional Moscow bank, like a corporate lending department. And and then I kind of like grew my career and yeah, I become became like a senior partner when I was 27, now 29. We kind of like, we start doing mezzanine financing in Russia.

4:03 We were like one of the first who started doing like mezzanine financing and like the structure was a little bit kind of sophisticated. But yeah, it was a really, really interesting time. Wow, so you rise into senior partner at the age of 29. It's quite a big achievement, but yet, you know your pandemic fever led to something even more meaningful. So what happened in that season and what reshaped your purpose? Yeah.

4:32 So I I kind of like was dreaming to start my hedge funds. I read these books about like Warren Buffett and all these hedge fund managers. Warren Buffett. Yeah. He's finds a lot of people. Yeah. And I really want to like kind of like like start investing and and set up a hedge fund. And was it like a long, long idea?

4:55 And then I kind of like pulled the trigger. I decided to leave my full time job, leave Moscow, go to the New York because New York is the best place where you need to set up a hedge fund. And so I moved my family and I had a plan. So I have like savings and I had a plan like West of hedge fund and I will leave for a while on my savings and then like kind of like it starts making some money. But actually it's turned out that like we couldn't open even the bank account when we opened the bank account for the hedge fund, we couldn't secure enough investors. We just get a few, a few millions under management and in just like, I know everything is just falling apart. I'm kind of start running out of

5:38 the cash and it's just like my, my, my settings like depleting at a very high pace, especially in New York. And then the pandemic pandemic hit and I just like, so we like we went like to Virginia and like other states, like during the pandemic, just like not to be in New York. And I just was thinking, OK, how would I do next?

6:00 It's just like I need to do something. And at at that time, I felt like my financial knowledge and expertise is kind of like, I know everyone, everyone kind of knows financials because for me it's kind of like very easier. It's just like, I don't think it's a very hard knowledge, but then you need like, I don't know, 10 years of experience to get this. But then, but then, but then I kind of, I was approached by, by my friend's father that was like in fundraising and that's what during the pandemic.

6:34 And like he asked, like, can you help them to review like the like the financial documents that they kind of prepare for the fundraising? And I look at this and they said like it's the best like financial model that they ever like build. And when I look at this, it was like actually one of the worst that I've ever seen.

6:53 So it was like completely like, like the first thing. That was it. Yeah. I told them like never sent this model to anyone again. Like just like don't send it to any potential investors, like because I think it's better to say that you don't have any financial model than send this one. And yeah. And I just like say like, OK, I can help you like to rebuild the financial model and the presentation and like charge them and well, like like a 2500 or something. And then they agree.

7:21 And I was like, OK, it seems like there's some work for me. I, I didn't think about this like in this way. And I just like, so I help them and like they like secure some funding. And then I start working with other kind of like more emerging companies, like a startup companies helping with the mostly with the fundraising.

7:41 And then I realised that there's actually huge market, kind of like at that time, it didn't call a fractional CFO, but like when you're acting as a kind of like a in a CFO role, but like in part time capacity. And it was great. So like, but like, it took me like a few years actually figure out that there's a market for this service, but you need to target companies with the higher revenues.

8:07 Like right now I'm working with company with at least like 3 million of revenue. And so it just like kind of like found this market and, and moving from the startups to the and this idea with the hedge fund. So this fund, it's actually right now it's shutting down and I left it to my partner and yeah, so this idea didn't work out. But actually I'm really happy because I think what I'm doing right now are really helping a lot of entrepreneurs with the financials and running their business. And I see like a lot of them don't really understand like financials very deeply.

8:40 They don't drag, especially in the very beginning, like first time founders, first time business owners. They don't go deep. So I see the like kind of like I create the difference if they working with me or they don't working with me. Like I've seen like so many stories when people just like completely failed and I know file a personal bankruptcy because they just like didn't understand financials and didn't pay attention to the financials.

9:08 So you found it so so to help entrepreneurs stay in business longer? Like not just to survive, but to thrive. And what? What's the biggest financial misconception that keeps good businesses in a state of crisis? I think the the main, what I see the biggest things like most of the founders or like business owners, they think that they need money like they need capital, additional capital like is that you hear it all the time. All we just need to secure the funding or we need to find investors.

9:39 But most of the cases if you if you're not going to launch, I don't know another, I know the competitor open AI or like an Uber, like you're in the very beginning for most of the businesses, you don't really need like a lot of money or like almost no, like you just need to find like a few customers that ready to pay you enough to gather your direct cost and like your overhead. And I think like what most founders like business owners like don't really understand, like they either like don't have enough customers, just like to cover like the the expenses or they don't charge enough, like to cover the direct cost and they think they need more money.

10:20 And then I get more customers. But if your margins are not in place, you'll drive more customers. It's just like you still have no results. And I think it's like, I see it's like over and over again. And it's just like, I know it's sometimes it's pathetic. Like I, I meet people that running like a consulting business, like implementation of for example, for financial systems, it's like it's very lucrative business.

10:45 It's like your margins is really good. You just find a client taking advance payment and start working on this implementation. And she just like literally it's like, first of all, it's very simple business. Second, you, you really like get some cash flow upfront and then you get the rest in the end or somewhere in between and you like your margins so high. It's just enough.

11:07 And I even like from this business owners I hear like, oh, I need like more capital to hire the team on so on. Like you, you don't really hit the team. You just need like to get more clients, keep your margins. Assistant weighs your margins that will like can help you to grow like in higher the team and that's it.

11:28 So I think it's the biggest thing that I see over and over. You have worked with companies from $3,000,000 to $35 million in revenue, so what's the pattern of financial mistakes you have seen these set of entrepreneurs make over time? Yeah, I see like the, the when, when they goals like beyond a certain limit like 2,000,003 millions, they really kind of like if they don't really hire someone, they kind of lose striking like what's happening, like where, where like what's the, what's again? What's the margins like?

12:07 Like I know they look at the bank account and for example, they see like a substantial amount and they think they drink OK, but this can be just intense payments from clients. But they need to fulfil the, the they need, they need to deliver a product to reserve and they need like money to do this.

12:23 And they don't really like follow it. They don't really calculate the working capital. They like, don't really like if they don't have a financial procedures in place, they kind of like, I think it's just fully, it's all falling apart and they just completely losing like decide what's happening in terms of in terms of money.

12:43 And I think like another thing I see over and over, it's like they think if they hire an accountant that they financial in place, but it's not just like it's it's not true. Like it's 100% is not true. First of all, you need to work with an accountant. You need to provide like all the like all the kind of like descriptions of all, all transactions. You need to, if there's no any anyone like as a financial person on your team, like it's one of the founders or like business owners doing like this review of the accounting. And they usually don't do this.

13:19 So like just quick look at, I know like once in, in, I don't know, a year, like before filing the taxes and it doesn't work. Like I can tell you I work even like if you're the most professional accountants that like like very sophisticated things, you still need to review their works because they can book certain transactions in a way that doesn't reflect the business purpose these transactions.

13:43 And then it's going like, you know, it's become a mess. And then you kind of like even if you have some financials, but they just, they like these financials don't represent like what's actually happened in the history. And then like you can you can project anything out of this. So yeah, it's kind of like, yeah, it's what I see across all companies. They don't have any financial person on their team. I appreciate what you said.

14:07 You know, especially with misrepresentation, you know, it leads to like a lot of adjustments, especially if you're going to bring in auditors to audit the financials. And if you are not producing a true or fair financial statement, you will be misleading the users of financial information because users are financial information making informed to decisions, right, based on the financial statements.

14:35 So it's always, it's always important to ensure that the financial statements actually depict a true and Fairview of the financial position and the financial performance of the entity within that period of time. So but for you as a fractional CFO, right what what is your approach and how does it differ from the traditional finance consulting or in house? Yeah.

15:03 I think like my main, main approach is, is kind of like challenging to the founders. I think like it's, it's super important, especially if you're fractional. It's kind of like you should be an authority for them. Otherwise, it's going to be kind of like like it's like I have this approach. If they like it's, it's up to them to make a final decision. It's like it's, it's, they call, it's their business, it's their money.

15:28 It's like it's their life on the line, not mine. But I will put like any argument that I can put if I see this something's wrong is going on, I will like kind of like in detail explain and it requires like multiple calls like with different stakeholders, like trying to explain it's, I don't know in, in pictures or in maps, like what is happening.

15:52 I will I will explain and try like to delivered this message that like if you continue and to the base X or Y was that it will end up in something way you don't want to be. I think it's, it's the most important and what I see, especially in one like accountants, like they start offering like the fractional C4 service and they just not to build. Like I can tell you even like not really every C for like not really built like to go kind of like arguing with the founders or business owners like you need, you need to be very, very direct and honest and tell me what is wrong. And I think it's just, it's the biggest part of my approach. And, and another one is just like helping them to get to reach the, the goal.

16:42 So it's like what's what they want to achieve? It's going to be they want to buy a house or they want to pay for the quality of the key. So they want to sell a business in five years. So whatever is goal like just helping them and prepare the business in terms of financials and how it should be structured and what's the approach should be like to achieve this goal? Because if you're building gauge just to to get like an 1/2 a million dividends every year, it's going to be completely different from I know selling this business for X amount of money in five years.

17:12 So it can be different strategy and especially in terms of financial. So let's talk about building infallible businesses. So you often talk about building infallible businesses. So what exactly does that look like and how is it different from profitable or scalable businesses? Yeah. And my approach in in followable business is I kind of like through my career, I identified like the the main reasons why business kind of like falling And most of these you can at least mitigate risk because like first of all, I know like the the easiest one. And these are just like few customers that company serves. And for example, like 1 customers I know take like, you know, 30% share of the revenue.

18:03 So if this customer leaves tomorrow, a company going to be in in, in a really bad shape, right? But you can prepare for this first of all, like if you acknowledge this, you can trying to justify this. Second, like you need to put a, a kind of like a mitigation plan. What's going to happen if this client will leave tomorrow, like, OK, you will have like 30% less revenue. Like what's going to be gross profit? What's going to be an operating profit? Like what's going to be the cash flow if this client leaves? And what you need to do to adjust to this new, new like conditions.

18:38 And so when I look at this and say like, OK, probably right now you have like 5 employees, but to prepare like for this scenario, you probably need to change one full time employees to the contractor. And and when, if it happens, like if you lose this biggest customer, you can, you can reduce the workload for this contractor or like reduce completely. You don't need to pay these contractors because there's less work because like these large clients leaves. So like there, it's kind of like a, it's kind of like a preparation.

19:09 It's like what can happen and then you kind of like you are you are not just kind of waiting if it happens and then you do something, but it's also very important because what I see like, you know, something that's happened, but you have a great team. You cannot fire anyone. You kind of like you don't really you avoid like these hard conversations. You love these people.

19:30 I know you've been working with them more than five years. You look like a family. I know it's five people. You think it's like deep morale and what I see like like what's what's founders thing? I will find another client just like substitute this losing revenue and there is like one month pass, 2 month pass, three month pass like they they losing money, then they're running out of the out of the cash and, and business founders just like postponing this harsh decision like to cut the to cut the, you know, like 2 persons from his team. And I understand it's like it's, it's like emotionally it's it's very difficult.

20:05 But even if you think about this, like, OK, what's I going to do? What's I need to do if I lose this biggest customer? It's already kind of changed his mind because he was like, OK, he's will kind of like. At least start thinking about this and kind of acknowledge that if I'm losing this customer, probably I need to let go like a few employees or one employee or like, I don't know, something else. So like I know we need to kind of like move, I don't know, like some expenses or stop doing kind of all these like kind of like, I don't know, corporate tours or something, right? It's just like, it's just like start thinking in the right directions already help them.

20:41 And if they have a mitigation plan, it's already kind of like it's not just about thinking, you know, if X happens, then I will do like this exquisite actions. And it's towards I think kind of most of the business can be really, kind of like really resistant if they, if they think about it and prepare them those plans.

21:03 Like in another example, I don't know, like let's say you have like a larger supplier that provide, I know 80% of all your cost of goods sold. And like what's happened if they increase price, like, I don't know, 30% like overnight, right? Like now we have like tariffs, right? And like what will happen? But you can think about it not when it happens, but like you can think about it in advance, right? OK, if it happens, what's it going to do? Do I have any, any backlog of potential suppliers that can substitute this or at least kind of like take some weight or like can I find like substitute a component that I use right now? But I, I can probably use another one that right now I'm probably 10% more expensive.

21:48 But if like this supplier increase price so I can switch to this component, right? So like those things just really help. But like founders don't really think about it. They like they usually really optimistic people, right? Like that's why they build businesses and it's kind of like they don't really want to think about any negative scenario that can happen.

22:10 But when you look at the business, I trying to define like those vulnerable points like it's either, I don't know, like deification. So revenue, it can be customer acquisition cost, it can be, I don't know, one lead channel that can hold produce the same results. It can be, I don't know, like a few employees that generate, I don't know, 80% of sales. So these are sometimes like most of the time like those vulnerable points and you just need to identify them and then think about mitigation plan how you kind of like is it not completely element this risk, but how you will prepare if something's it shows badly.

22:50 I appreciate you talking about the top decisions to be made right, but remember what's the major difference between humans and AI? The main difference between a human in the air right now, yeah, I think it's easier. It's just like not really not enough context. Still it's it's very limited in terms of context and the strategic thinking. Yeah, it's a slack of the strategic thinking, but I think it's going to be better.

23:21 But I think it's still like in five years AI can substitute like a low value task, but it's still gonna be a strategy and and a certain part of creativity is still gonna be done by human beings. OK, but one major difference is the fact that AI is able to make decisions without emotions, but humans are always locked with their emotions.

23:50 You talk about letting people go. It's, it's, it's not so easy for for founders, you know, Yeah, it's a community feel, a family feel. Yeah, it's, it's true. It's true that. Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, it's. But I at least right now, yeah, it doesn't have all the context, especially like to make strategic decisions. So it's, it's hard, yeah.

24:13 But emotional, emotional component it's it's good and bad, right. Like for example, like in sales, it can help like to close a big deal, right. That just base more on only on emotions and and I don't know if yeah, I can kind of like pull triggers on certain emotions to close the deal. Yeah, probably at some point in the future. So how, how, how do you, how do you navigate those difficult decisions, you know, in terms of the advisory to to to those companies you.

24:45 Mean like a strategic decisions. Yes, in difficult strategic decisions. It's I, I trying to get like, first of all, I trying to understand like the competitive landscape and like what they want, what they really want to achieve. And, and then just like, OK, like, like, like sit together and say like, OK, like what's going to be what's going to be the, the, the result?

25:10 If we like make a certain decision, I know, let's say plan, plan A and what's, what can come wrong, What's can be kind of a good outcome of this plan. And like just look at this and then discuss like pros and cons. And then we'll kind of look at the Plan B and like also discuss fronds and codes. So I kind of like looking from, I think like I'm I'm the one that provide less emotional things, right? Like I think like founders, they're really emotionally tied to the business and everything.

25:40 I'm kind of looking at like from more objective lenses and like, and I'm looking mostly for numbers and I speak in terms of numbers. Like I said, like they say like, I don't know, like I know recently we had these discussions like what's the maximum we should pay for at least like to open new, new stores.

25:59 And it's just like, yeah, we can, we can overpay like a certain amount, but we like I know shouldn't go beyond this because our assets effects like return on capital and return on our investments and what we actually budget and what we discussed before. So let's stick to this. And it's kind of like, yeah, I think like the general framework helps to, to make a strategic decision, but I, I just like provide guidance and yeah. And and it's, it's, it's the, it's the business owner state. It's they call.

26:31 But yeah, helping them with all this data. So it's basically their call to make, but you are able to navigate them and make them see the merits, the demerits of, you know, the merits of taking that advice and of course the demerits of not taking the advice. But let's talk about the methodology.

26:53 So when you step into a business, what's your financial trials tech lists, right? So what are the themes used can first? Then why do you do that? You mean for my business or the for the clients business? Or your clients? Yes, for your clients. The methodology is just like, yeah, as I said, like first of all, look at look at the they personal goals and business goals, because usually it's kind of like it's all goals together.

27:27 It's kind of like it's difficult to decouple them. I try and really understand like those goals, but it's kind of like well known in our fractional simple space, owners can say like that they want like X amount of revenue or they want like to reach like these things. But then they start like going deeper and asking why, why, why do you want like 10 minutes of revenue? Like what do you really want from the business? And when we get like to 10,000,000, what's next? Like what's do you do next like that? Do you want to stay as ACEO?

27:57 You want to you want to step down and so on. So we're kind of going for this kind of strategic business goals, personal goals. Then like we're starting from, OK, you want like this goal, I know, let's say like I know sell business in five years, like what we need to do. Like we'll prepare like at this financial strategic plan where we're looking, OK, given ways the business right now and all the inputs like the margins, I know customer acquisition goals, like all the direct cost, all the overheads, what do we have right now, what we need to do to get to the point where, where the business owners want to see it.

28:35 And then we're just like, OK, it's like, what do we need to do? Like do we need to get more debt? Do we need to get more equity? Or probably we need less debt. Probably we need like, I don't know, to repay some of that. Or probably like we have no debt and we don't need any debt. We just need like, I don't know, to invest more in the customer acquisition or probably we probably we need like to invest less in customer acquisition because like we don't need to grow as much as possible.

29:00 We need like extract more, more cash flow from the business and optimise. So we kind of optimise certain things and it's probably we need to invest less. So we're kind of like preparing this strategic plan. And, and then from strategic plan, we just prepare like a short term budget, like I don't know, for six months, four months, one year that depends on the business cycle.

29:22 And then just stick to this budget and see like month to month. What's this changing forecast DS like actual numbers and what's happening in the business? Is there any kind of like serial serious considerable changes which we need to implement in our long term strategic plan? You did speak briefly about debt, right?

29:46 And you know that determines how leveraged an entity would be. So from being a credit analyst, you know, to the job in private equity and to a multi strategy fund managing that you have lived through the finance trenches, you've seen it all, done it all. Or what is it that entrepreneurs don't understand the most about how the money world works?

30:17 You know, you would agree with me that a lot of entrepreneurs see debt as a bad thing. Or really, what else is it that they misunderstand about how the money works and it's gone? Yeah, I think like what I've seen if, if I look at the like I've seen more than 1000 businesses like a small, average and large. And if I look at the the biggest reasons why they, I know defaulted to bankruptcy or they completely failed. If they reach a certain point, it's usually dead like because they as like what's happening during the like during the economic boom, when I know the economy is growing, they like the revenue is growing and usually the margins is also improving and they they get kind of OK, so everything is good. We need to grow even faster.

31:16 We need to get that like their muscle power for finishes on the market. We need to capture them and they getting that. And even like like some of them just like basically over leverage. I know they go like, I think like when you go beyond like I know 6 EBITDA, it's like it's already kind of like over leverage. You have like too much debt.

31:37 And even if you don't go over leverage, like I've seen stories when you have, I don't know, like manageable debt like I know for EBITDA. But and another thing is actually like during the economic expansion, this debt is cheap. Usually the interest rate is low and the debt is low risk is low, like Banksy less defaults and the interest rate they take for deals and they kind of like lowering the rate. But when you face the recession, these two things happen. Actually, three things happening at the same time. Your revenue start falling, your margins start falling. So like, I know you're losing like 30% of revenue, but you don't losing like 30% of your EBITDA, you're losing more than 50% because your margin is also

32:26 going down. Like the market becomes like more competitive. You need to reduce the price or like certain cost increase and it's just like you're losing. And then on top of the banks usually increase the, the especially if it's like a floating rate on your debt is like your, your interest rate is going higher.

32:46 And I've seen that it just like this kind of like factors like if you, if you're really good at negotiation and your financial institutions, your banks Oregon, like your lenders like can discuss like restructuring, like it's kind of good to come. You just restructuring and waiting for the better times.

33:06 And then you kind of like reduce your debt. But I've seen like really, really good stable businesses because they will like kind of like leverage up to, you know, for EBITDA during the recession. So they just like, I don't know, fail bankruptcy or they sold the business for just like a very small amount. And yeah, I think like the debt that is a really good instrument.

33:28 But you know, again, like what I said, like this infallible framework, you need to play out this scenario when you take the debt, like what's going to happen if your revenue reduce substantially, few margins reduce like like where you're going to IU will be able like to serve the debt and stick to the repayment schedule that you have right now.

33:49 If the answer is yes, you can take that, that that can be, you know, it can be is a good thing, but and you can grow faster, but you need to be really, really diligent. And another thing with the debt, I think like it's, it's happening for smaller companies. They don't have a proper financials. They don't really understand what's happening in terms of financials.

34:10 I mentioned before, like they have like this an accountant, but they speak with them and once a year like they don't really. And then they give like these financials to the bankers and bankers can make like a wrong, wrong decision based on these financials, but you're actually state of your financials. This can be way worse than like what's accountant prepares and you don't know, you don't know what's happening in your business in terms of financials.

34:35 Yeah. So it's kind of like I think two things that you need to consider before taking any debt, you need to have a proper financials before taking any debt. That is well said. Proper financials before taking debt, right, ensure to monitor the the leverage, right, so that you don't go beyond the the standard of safe for EBITDA, right. Yeah.

35:01 So yes. So, so that way you're not overly leveraged. So your experience across Russia, Europe and the US, how's that shaped your financial worldview and like what insights from the global markets and not just global markets, the global market leaders or the US? Right, I think. I think, how's it again?

35:25 I think in the US market is, is the most developed in terms of financial instruments, investors and so on. So it's like it's clear and I think like the risk tolerance is higher. So I think it's kind of like impeded in DNA of the country and you can see it's like there's just like so many instruments, so many kind of like new financing options and so on.

35:48 And I think like Europe is just in terms of the approach, like way more conservative. And it's just, yeah, I think it's just, yeah, it's kind of like the mentality. Of course there is, because like the economy is not comparable, right? Like the US is the largest economy in the world. But even like if you look certain approaches, I think like European financials and lenders, they just kind of like way more conservative.

36:17 The Washington Post called you an AI super user. What does that mean in your day-to-day financial work? Yeah, I'm, I'm embracing AI and and I just like like I think like people kind of like into kind of spectrums. They I believe AI will just like change everything just in a few months or like others think like AI just kind of like just like this meaningless innovation. So I kind of use AI every day and I know like all throwbacks and weights, not really good, but I also it helps me a lot. And I can see I can tell you that in terms of financials right now, it's already really, really good with analysing the data.

37:04 It's not sure, still not not really good with the producing new data. For example, I use it a lot for financial forecast and it's not really good. It's kind of like you need to work a lot. It's not like you just like put a certain inputs and then you get like a perfect forecast. No, it doesn't work like that.

37:22 But in terms of analysing data, it's really, really good. It's helping to support like, I don't know, seasonality certain things. Just write like these simple financial analysis and like give certain advices or like finding like you upload the general Ledger and finding is the double double spending, double transactions or like it's kind of like a misstatements and so on.

37:48 So it's it's really good. But yeah, in terms of producing something even like reconciling kind of like an accounting work, it's still kind of lacking. You need to review it and it does make mistakes and it doesn't produce consistent results. So I think it's very important, especially for corporates. Like I use the same chats, the same prompts, the same structure of the file, and it cannot produce the same results like month or over a month.

38:16 Yeah, I think it's the way it's struggling. But I believe that like accounting is going to be replaced by for, I don't know, for 80% of the work right now because a lot of this just reconciliation just like have one Excel file and have another Excel file and we need to reconcile and all this revenue, these expenses, there's a certain things and I think AI eventually is going to be really, really good at this. Interesting.

38:43 It's really interesting to see the potentials of AI. Yeah, like you rightly said, it's quite good with processing historical information, but not very good at processing forward-looking information right now. But I think there's hope a lot of for the future because of the accelerated speed at which the machine learning takes place.

39:05 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for these large language models. But talking about the human side of the data, during the pandemic you went from 150K to 0 USD and you had to rebuild with your family in a foreign country. What did that teach you about the emotional weight of money and how has that shipped? How you have set your client now? Yeah, I kind of like, I think like I built resilience and I kind of like understand like entrepreneurs, founders way better because I think it's still it's a very, very different mentality than your full time employee. And then you own on your own.

39:47 It's just like it's it's kind of like it's completely different. And I think like it's a good thing. Like, you know, people kind of people think that if they leave their job, like I know they disappointed they boss or they disappointed with the procedures in the companies. You know, it's like when you when you meet people with full time jobs, they usually complain about something right like this.

40:11 It's like that something's wrong. But they think if they leave, it's kind of like all those issues go gone away and but but it's not, it's just like. I think it's just you take like the full responsibility for your life on your own because like when you're complaining, you just like give your urgency to your employer or your boss.

40:32 Like you kind of like you put this that not you're responsible for your life, but somebody else and they make a reasonable when you're on your own, there's nobody like to blame. It's just it's you. It's either you can make it or, or it's not. And it's just like, I think it's a it's a really good exercise, but I don't think it's for everyone. I just like, I see people like, it's just like mentally you should be really, really, really strong. It's just like, and it's either time that you can make it or you can become stronger or like you just like you, you can't, you can do this.

41:06 And it's just, yeah, it's I think and you need to change to like these things that I don't know. I've never thought like to go back like kind of full time job, like after certain time I know like I need to continue whatever it takes. Make or break. I was waiting for that, that mental resilience.

41:26 You know, if you're mentally weak, it, it will break you definitely bar I'm glad you you found that mental strength to, to ride the, the, the wave. You know, in life we have the peaks, we have the troughs. When you have the troughs, you need that mental resilience, mental strength to to ride it out. So for most business owners, they avoid the hard money talks until it's too late, like you rightly said. So how can this shift, you know, from fear to financial confidence?

42:00 Yeah, I think it's just like, I think because I've seen like so many times when like founders like like they don't make like a right decision, especially when it's hard. And yeah, like they kind of postpone the hard decisions or they make like the wrong decisions. Kind of like I feel confident that OK, it's time for me to step in and kind of like explain their like what they need to do otherwise it's gonna be like a horrible consequences of this.

42:29 And yeah. And I think like, I think especially it's different from first time founders, business owners and like second time, third time, it's kind of like they they already like already went from this. They know it's like in cycles. And I think it's, it's important to understand this. It's kind of like it's going to be black and white, right? Like like even like not even in start of work. It's just like in a business normal. It's kind of like, yeah, it's, it's good one day. And then it's like, I don't know, like horrible two months of the business.

43:02 But as you go for this, like I think you get more skills and, and more emotional kind of like you, you can get for this. And, and I will tell not really emotionally not too much attached to the results right now. It's just like thinking about like long term. It's just like like, yeah, don't let like those swings of emotions like lead you to the wrong decision, especially business decisions. It's, it's just, yeah, it's kind of, I think like like 2 emotional people for them, it would be really, really hard to run a business like they need to manage like those cycles, right? Otherwise it's going to be, they have a sales call and it's went totally wrong.

43:50 They lost these potential clients and it can ruin the day or day week. They need kind of like get used to this. It's just, it's part of the process and you just need to go get for this, right? And yeah. So we are going to end this session with a quick fire round. So you are going to have a few questions, five of them. So just be real, relatable and reflective. Are you ready?

44:22 Are you ready to rumble? Yeah, yeah, I'm ready. Let us go. You know, we've, we've got really great fighters out of Moscow. You know Russia is known for the great fighters. Khabib. Khabib the Maghmed of it says Russia 150,000,000. Irish 6,000,000. Don't try this tomorrow, I'm gonna smash your guy.

44:47 By the way, do you watch MMA at all? Yeah. And I'm just watching like no brief here and I don't, I don't really follow it yet. OK, OK. Yeah, but but you guys have got great fighters. Khabib, you've got a Volkov. Alexander Volkov, you've got like. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of them here. Mofsa Evloev as well. Yeah, he's a great guy.

45:09 He's a great guy. Wow, So number 11 financial ratio every founder should understand today. With financial, just check the the fundamentals, check your accounting, understand like what is happening, just check if your accountant or yourself like where you're right now in terms of financials. OK, a personal money mistake you learnt the most from. The most I learned from Trust your instincts and don't make business with people you don't really trust and don't really like.

45:45 You can forecast day day behaviour. You know it can be bad. Nice, nice, nice. I love that. So this is a hard 1. Austin or Moscow, Yes, the better feud and better finance vibe. I don't. Know it's I think it's better yeah watch them is growing. Whoa, don't go back to Moscow. OK so what's 1 boob or think that shipped your money mindset? They saw a book by Munger, I forgot the name. Yeah, but it's, it's a it's a really good one. Another one is never enough and it's a locking son. And yeah, it's also really, really, really good. It's like it's telling about like this mentality that like it's never enough.

46:40 It's just like even like rich people, they kind of like kind of they have like a gorgeous house at like 10 millions and they still think it's not enough because they neighbour have this like 50 million mansion. And compared to them, they feel like, I don't know, poor and and kind of like not really realise they they potential. And and I think it's kind of it's and I think it illustrate really good.

47:03 If you can enjoy your coffee in the morning, you can enjoy your yacht, right? It's just like it's going to be the same, kind of like resentment. So fill in the blank. An entrepreneur is successful when they. When the success successful when? Yeah, like when they do what? What does what does an entrepreneur have to do to be successful? What's that one thing I.

47:32 Think like just just enjoy what he's doing. I think it's, it's the, the, the most important part. I see business, business owners sometimes forget why they're doing it. And of course, like the money is a, is a big, it's a big kind of like thing. But I think like most especially up to after a certain level, it's just like, I don't think it's about money and you need to enjoy it. And I think like a lot of a lot of founders to really forget how to enjoy doing business.

48:00 And so like, they kind of like always seem stressed about certain things. Interesting so I'm very big on gratitude and I always say that gratitude is good attitude and the SI you need for measuring life is time. So if somebody shares their life, their time with you, they're sharing their life with you.

48:18 Of course. Thank you very much, you know for sharing your time and your life with us today on the podcast. I know you have a website, right? So if your founder out there, you're looking to finally understand your numbers and stop losing sleep over cash. Cheque out. Stan's expert guidance at the sorso.com, right?

48:42 Yeah, Slash get started and get clear on your path forward. So how else can our viewers connect with you? Yeah, I'm, I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter. So on LinkedIn it's Stan, Stan Sukhinian. And on Twitter, yeah, you can find me. And I write every day. Oh wow. On on Twitter. Yeah. That's X now x.com, right? Is that correct?

49:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For me, it's still Twitter. Yeah, for me, it's still Twitter. So do you want to leave a shout out for anybody before you leave? I think I follow you on LinkedIn. So yeah, we can collaborate. Are you on Instagram at all? No, yeah I have Instagram but I'm not really active so I'm posting.

49:28 Thanks. Yeah, I'm posting everyday on X and LinkedIn. OK, OK. We'll collaborate on X and LinkedIn then. So do you want to say a shout out to anybody before you leave? Yeah, I think it's a great here just yeah, let me know if there's anything that I can help. So just yeah, it's never like it's never matter what stage you are. Like what do you want?

49:53 Like you're just like thinking to start your own business or like I don't know, kind of like in the middle of something or like considering something. It's just like feel free to reach out me and like I would love to help. Hey, thank you very much. It's lovely having, you know, selfless human beings like you who love to help and of course, love and respect to you. Thank you very much for your time on the show today. And for our viewers, please like subscribe, support, join the channel.

50:26 And of course, I'll keep working tirelessly to bring in fantastic individuals like Stan to make the show stand. Let us go bye. Thank you.