From Business In Small Town To Global Entrepreneurship, A Founder’s Story with Sergey Vart

Sergey Vart is a global entrepreneur who leads projects in fintech, eCommerce, online retail, and the crypto sphere. Currently, he is developing the video shopping platform Eyebuy.me. In six months, the valuation of Eyebuy grew from $400,000 to $2.5 million, and the product generated $450,000 in Q1 revenue. At the end of 2021, the company raised $95,000 from venture funds and private investors. Among its clients are Decathlon, Leroy Merlin, and All Time.

I was born in Orsk, a small town in Russia. Since I was 12 years old, I have been passionate about entrepreneurship and becoming an entrepreneur. I read a lot of books about business development, full of different people’s success stories. My uncle also influenced me a lot. He was the first person in our family to move to a big city, where he studied and started to develop a business. I visited him during my summer vacations and was fascinated the whole time. He gave me opportunities to participate in his work projects, help him in different ways, gave me tips about books to read, and told me about his entrepreneurial experience. I’m very grateful to him for this inspiration to take the first steps in my business path. He is still a role model for me. Now he is the vice president of a big company based in the UK. I’m very proud of him!

My business experience started when I was 14 years old. The first one offered entertainment and roller skate rentals in my town’s central park. By the way, that was where I had my first interview with the media as an entrepreneur. The second one was connected to advertising. We produced a school newspaper, and I decided to offer ad placements to different local businessmen. That meant going around to the shops and small services in town and selling advertisements to them. These projects seem naive now, but thanks to them I developed a mind for business and had a little bit more courage when I started my later business projects. Later I started studying at university, but I was always looking for business opportunities. I founded my university’s business club, where we generated entrepreneurial ideas and tried to realize them. That’s when I hit one of my career milestones: I was selected to participate in a business accelerator for young talented professionals founded by Oskar Hartmann. I learned a lot there, and most importantly, I met people who were brilliant mentors and helped boost my career.

I think that the crucial thing is to focus on the parts of your business that lead to real progress for your startup. Two of those are generating revenue and product development. Success in the former means paying lots of attention to marketing and sales—don’t underestimate them, even in the early stages. All supplemental activities like conferences, media, and networking are secondary.