Maria Sirotkina shares her entrepreneurial journey, starting with co-founding her first company, J-Study, in her home country of Russia, and running it as an 18-year old CEO. She explains how she and her partners scaled that business to 8-figures in annual revenue and what her biggest leverage points and breakthroughs have been. She provides tactical strategies for bootstrapping a lean startup, growth hacking, and paying attention to the right metrics and KPIs. She also explains the concept of co-living, how she developed her passion for it, and why she founded her Co-Living business ReStation in the Canary Islands, which she has now scaled up to 4 buildings that have housed over 1,000 nomadic travelers. She shares both the real estate and business lessons she has learned from operating her co-living space, and why it is crucially important to co-living spaces to establish a clearly defined culture. Maria then explains why she co-founded her third business, Nomad Train, which takes groups of Nomads from Moscow, Russia to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Maria also shares her passion for nomadic travel, why she chose to study Arabic, how she met her husband in Cape Town, and what her top 3 favorite travel destinations are. She also explains the concept of ‘deep work’ and shares her productivity strategies, including the specific tactics she uses for running three businesses in different countries while being a wife and mother of two who prioritizes her family. View the full show notes including links to everything discussed in the episode at www.TheMaverickShow.com
Hosted by Matt Bowles
29: Bootstrapping an 8-Figure Business, Co-Living, and Founding the Nomad Train with Maria Sirotkina
Episode #29: Bootstrapping an 8-Figure Business, Co-Living, and Founding the Nomad Train with Maria Sirotkina
Hosted by Matt Bowles
29: Bootstrapping an 8-Figure Business, Co-Living, and Founding the Nomad Train with Maria Sirotkina
Episode Summary
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About the Guest
Maria Sirotkina
Maria Sirotkina is a serial entrepreneur and world traveler who has been to over 50 countries, holds an MBA and is proficient 5 languages (Russian, Arabic, French, Spanish and English). She co-founded her first business Jey-Study in 2007 at the age 18, a educational-travel company in her home country of Russia that she has since scaled to be national-level tour operator with 5 office locations, serving thousands of students and generating 8-figures in annual revenue. In 2016, she followed her passion for nomadic travel and founded a co-living space in the Canary Islands called “Restation Co-Living” and has since grown that from 1 to 4 properties and hosted over 1,000 residents. In 2017 Maria co-founded “Nomad Train”—an opportunity to take the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Ulaanbaatur Mongolia together with a group of 30 other Nomads. Nomad Train is facilitated by Russian-speaking program leaders and each stopover location on the 2 week trip includes accommodation, access to a co-working space with reliable wifi, and organized excursions on the ground. Maria is also the co-founder of “co-living hub”, a non-profit organization that supports co-living hosts and founders around the world to improve their local co-living experiences with the overall goal of supporting the growth of the co-living movement world-wide. She is hosting the first ever Co-Living Hub conference next month where 100 founders of co-living spaces around the world will descend on Gran Canaria to strategize with each other about how to shape the grow the co-living industry.
What You'll Learn
- How Maria bootstrapped an 8-figure business starting with $300
- How Maria built a co-living business in the Canary Islands and co-founded Nomad Train
- How Maria remains fiercely productive at work and completely ‘present’ with her family
Links From the Episode
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MARIA’S COMPANIES
- Nomad Train (Use Code: “MAVERICK” to get $100 discount)
- ReStation Co-Living (Use Code “MAVERICK” for a FREE weekend when you book a month)
- Jey Study
WINE SHARED DURING THE INTERVIEW
BOOK MARIA RECOMMENDS
APP MARIA RECOMMENDS
LOCATION WHERE THE INTERVIEW TOOK PLACE
MARIA’S TOP 3 TRAVEL RECOMMENDATIONS
MARIA’s TOP 3 BUCKET LIST TRAVEL DESTINATIONS
OTHER PLACES MENTIONED
Check Flight Prices to Any of These Destinations
OTHER PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE
Time Stamped Show Notes
[05:25] GROWING UP IN RUSSIA, STUDING ARABIC AND TRAVELING TO THE MIDDLE EAST
- Growing up in a small Russian town
- Wanting to study more complex languages and experience different cultures
- Moving to Jordan to live, work and study
- Learning different Arabic dialects
- Why the Egyptian dialect is the most widely understood Arabic dialect
- Hitchhiking and Budget Traveling from Russia to Morocco
[16:25] MARIA’S EXPERIENCE LIVING IN AFRICA
- Living in Lagos, Nigeria for a year
- Why Lagos is one of her favorite places in the world
- Living life in the moment and viewing every day as a party in Nigeria
- The legendary music scene in Nigeria
- How Maria first came to Cape Town, South Africa
- How she won a sales challenge and got her first flight to Africa paid for
- Maria’s experience in Cape Town and meeting her future husband there
[21:15] CO-FOUNDING “J-STUDY” IN RUSSIA WITH $300 AT AGE 18
- Selling language courses to friends at the University
- Selling English-language-immersion trips to students
- Selling the trips B-to-B to teachers who run student groups
- How entrepreneur was perceived as a lame thing to be at the time
- Not having support from her parents when she started the company
[26:51] SCALING J-STUDY TO 8-FIGURES IN GROSS ANNUAL REVENUE
- Strategies for increasing sales and reducing costs
- Meticulously monitoring cash flow and optimizing key performance indicators (KPI’s)
- The biggest breakthrough moments that substantially propelled the company forward
- Creating an annual 5-star luxury event for their top teacher clients
- Commanding fierce brand loyalty from their core repeat customers
- Understanding who your “actual” customer is, which is not always the user
- The crucial leverage point of focusing on relationship-building and customer-experience
[37:24] FOUNDING RESTATION CO-LIVING IN THE CANARY ISLANDS
- Understanding the concept of “co-living”
- Living and working around the world with people who have a similar mindset
- How Maria became passionate about “co-living” in one of the best months of her life
- Creating communities with strong and deep connections
- How Maria selected the island of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria to open ReStation
- How Maria researched, surveyed and interviewed to establish “product-market fit”
- Using a leasing model and negotiating with landlords
- Mitigating her downside risk to 6 months of expenses
- How Maria went from zero to full-occupancy in 2 months
- Creating a defined culture of entrepreneurship and productivity
- Hosting events to attract her target customers
- Marketing to her target market
- Scaling from one building to 4 buildings
- Maintaining a consistent year-round event schedule
- Partnering with other nomad-oriented organizations
- Matt’s experience staying at ReStation
[54:54] CO-FOUNDING “NOMAD TRAIN”
- Describing the Legendary Trans-Siberian Railway
- The challenges for foreign travelers to fully experience the Trans-Siberian Railway
- How Nomad Train handles cumbersome travel logistics
- How Nomad Train creates community, provides workspace access and excursions.
- How Nomad Train helps with visa applications in advance of the trip
[1:05:42] TIME MANAGEMENT, PRODUCTIVITY, AND PRIORITIZING HER FAMILY AND KIDS
- Why Maria does not Instagram her life
- Setting boundaries and prioritizing being present with her family
- Planning 3 key action points per project per week
- Including ‘health/fitness’ and ‘family’ as projects along with businesses
- Blocking time each day for ‘deep work’ on one priority item at a time
- Breaking her day into 30 minute intervals
- Maria’s incentives to be highly productive during every working hour
[01:14:43] GROWTH HACKING STRATEGIES
- Rapid growth through optimizing your available resources
- Pushing the right buttons within your audience
- Tracking the most important metrics
[1:17:36] THE LIGHTNING ROUND
- The 3 keys to selecting amazing business partners
- The top gadget Maria recommends
- The advice she would give to her 18-year old self
- Top 3 travel destinations
- Top 3 bucket list destinations
[1:27:00] CONTACT MARIA
- Learn more about Nomad Train
- Learn more about ReStation
- Connect with Maria on LinkedIN
- Discount Offer for Nomad Train and ReStation Co-Living in 2019
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