In-Depth with Ivelin Demirov

Richard Morgan
April 22, 2019

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In-depth with Ivelin Demirov today going over his startup selling CDs to leaving the country to break into ecommerce, the inventor Father’s influence on his products and the move to software to help solve people’s problems.

Has many patents
Seven figure seller
Numerous Kickstarters
Holds Gurus to account
Head Honcho at Rivercleaner

What did you Parents instil in you as a child?

Mother was a teacher and always pushed Ivelin for perfection
Father was an inventor and a hacker in a way, hacking frequencies on the radio
Ivelin is a product of them both
Living in a communist country back then so no importance on money but all about excellence
Doing thins to excellence was important
Later in the day Ivelin realised money was important
Parents didn’t like talking about money, they just had enough for living
Money was never important, a doctor and a waitress had the same salary
Ivelin was willing to put in more work to get more out of life – but in the country that was not possible which is why Ivelin left
There were big limitations on credit card transactions and money transfers in the communist country

What was your earliest entrepreneurial or first business?

First business was a typing tutorial on a CD sold in his local town
Ivelin’s Father was independent back in the day and he didn’t like to have a boss – so Ivelin got this from him at an early age
Started his first ecommerce in 2000 and it was difficult to accept payments
Left the country to get citizenship elsewhere to get to run that business with an established bank system and credit cards to make possible to get the business running
Was this a successful business?
It was a complete failure back then – it went nowhere but Ivelin just had the desire to have something on his own
He worked day and night on that business and it eventually failed as he had no experience and didn’t have anyone to ask
He was working on intuition and posting content but no-one could see his output

What were your learnings from that Failure?

Learnt that a business is not only dependent on the quality of the work but has many other variables in place
For this one it was visibility for people to see your work to be able to respond to it
The cycle of the CD tutorial was running all the time
THis was the business still running that made all of Ivelin’s attempts at other businesses possible
He was still selling this course and it had orders coming in all the time
If this first business had not succeeded the nhe would probably have given up on the other attempts and more quickly
It was still running until about 5 years ago
Ivelin left the country and left it to his brother and a partner and Ivelin forgot about it but it was still running for many years
A lot of people try an on-line business, fail and then give up
The CD business gave Ivelin the feeling of success and so knew he could do it and he just had to replicate it one more time

A Business Book that has influenced your life and why?

Biggest influence came from Ivelin’s Father and a partner of his that took him under his wing
Ivelin had mentorship, a living example adn a proper education
Most influence probably came from a life not a book
What advice and values were instilled
- To be different and offer more value for money
  - In Bulgaria you had to be creative as you didn’t have a lot of money to put into anything
  - Bringing more value to the customer without spending more money
  - Deliver something in the eye of the customer
- Change the way you are thinking about stuff – think different
  - Give the feeling you get from a premium product but on a budget

Most important daily habits?

Realising the problems that people have
Every day Ivelin’s Father would make Ivelin write on the poster on the wall one problem that was noticed in that day that people had
Develop the awareness of noticing these problems was the skill
By spotting problems you are able to identify opportunity
What’s the most important skill you need to develop?
- Build you awareness about problems
- It only take a month or two to develop the habit
You start to see problems all around you and then you think about how to resolve them
You make other people happy because you’re making other people’s lives easier
If you can do that you can benefit from everything else

Health habits?

Ivelin’s Father was a Yogii back in the day
He was very advanced and really deep into breathing and cleaning – would be seen as hardcore these days
Ivelin was introduced to Yoga very early
Mother pushed into sports from 5 years old – tried every sport imaginable
Ivelin did a lot of sports until he came to Canada
Today still does exercise every day – pushups and chin ups
Pay a lot of attention to Health – the way we eat influences the way you feel and think
What you put in your mouth affects your brain
For 4 years Ivelin was gluten free – never ate bread or cereal that contained gluten
One day Ivelin had pizza with his kids and started eating gluten again so as not to restrict his kids
Ivelin felt it instantly- his brain was foggy
Had done 9 kickstarters in 2 years and that’s a lot of work
Was full of ideas on the time – as soon as you start eating sugar and gluten then your brain shuts down
If you are raised eating these then you will never know the effect it is having on you
Eat no dairy and very little meat, main diet is vegetables and fat (coconut oil and Gii)

What is your biggest weakness?

Time wasting and trying to perform better for many years
Still find easily distracted and have to ask himself if this is the best way
DIstraction is probably the biggest problem Ivelin has
Working around this is to work on multiple projects as the issue was working too long on the same product
This helps cut down the distraction of working on one task
Trying to train his brain to focus on achieving this rather than using tools like clocks or software to limit social media access, etc
Natural behaviour of the brain is to wander and go to different directions
Some people have more ability to stay focussed longer on one task
Work with a lot of programmers and it’s rare to see programmers that can be creative at the same time – difficult task to change your brain from one state to another
Ivelin has to split the day in two – start 6am and work until 3pm and stop
Rest of the day can be creative and no working on the businesses
Morning time is the best time – more organised and more focussed

Greatest setback and how you came back from adversity?

Had a time where every single endeavour started failed
Could not understand why they were failing
Was putting in lots of hours but it kept failing
Many years had to pass until Ivelin realised it was a problem in his thinking
Tried to blame events around himself but it was the thinking that was failing
Had to change his behaviour to start thinking positive about himself
As soon as you start believing your not something you are already not achieving
Ivelin believes that everything you do comes back to you and effects you in some way
Never allow himself to have negativity about something
If something negative happens then ignore it or turn it into a positive event

Most common advice you give to people?

Never give up
Find another angle – people don’t fail and keep thinking about how they fail
Successful people keep looking for the right angle – what is the ‘other way’ of doing this and eventually you find the right way

What advice should people ignore?

Ignore negative people around you
Negativity can be contagious and you start talking like the negative people around you
Some people are more productive than others – if you find you are not that productive then you need to put in more hours

When did you discover Amazon FBA as a business?

Was selling books in the beginning on Amazon around 2010
Then people started talking about physical products and Amazon started
FBA and Amazing Selling Machine (AMS) started it for Ivelin
Did not invest anything in the training but was aware of the concepts, it just gave Ivelin more of a hint to go after the process of selling

How much capital did you invest in your first FBA business?

The first investment was probably like $200
Product was 11c to manufacture as it was a custom design product – doing stuff that doesn’t exist on the market
Was a printed product and inexpensive to make but the design on the print was completely new on the market
Free to import as it was printed on paper and so no duty on it for shipping
Import into US for $25 and cost $250 to manufacture and was selling for $19 a piece
Image that margin and Ivelin was ecstatic seeing the profits from this product
Created multiple of these products in different niches
It has now died and not selling that product anymore
To this day there are still many opportunities like that for people that ask how much money do they need to start
Print items can be inexpensive to make and just because of the content can be lucrative
Main work is in creativity and solving someone else’s problem and not the material of the product
If you sell something that solves a problem then it’s easier to sell
Also, you have a purpose in life and are still doing something good for humanity (rather than selling fashion)
Ivelin sells products that are consumables and still solve problems

Selling off Amazon?

Selling in retail and other marketplaces
Because the products are niche there are local stores that are niches and Ivelin sells his products to these stores
Profits are a little lower as stores take 50-60% and Amazon is like 30%
There are so many of these stores around the world, some of the products sell better in the stores as on Amazon the search volume is too low and they don’t sell well
Getting constant orders from these stores from many countries in the World
Just because of the nature of the product, the way it looks and the way it works
This is not possible with some products in Amazon
These products when people see it they realise they need it
But difficult to describe the product until you see it

Walk us through your workflow process

Everything that you’re doing you encounter problems
If you do more stuff in your day you meet more problems
Trying to do more stuff each day to spot more problems – but got plenty now
Just through Ivelin’s awareness he can think it through and research the market to define a new product
Early in the day Ivelin was trying to get into products
Always thinking about how he can solve a problem in a different way
Researching the market to see how others are solving the problem and then look at how to solve it in a different way
Go away and prototype a product and get it tested in-depth
Then go to manufacture
Do 3D design and CNC milling to create the product
Try to get lots of feedback from wider areas on the product by seeking out communities around the product/problem to test and verify it
If there is no large community then Ivelin probably can’t sell the product
Go to the communities and show them his product and get feedback on it

Tell us about a product failure?

Ivelin has had many of these
Not sure if it’s the search volume, even if you don’t have a lot of search volume you can drive people to your Amazon landing page
You can show people the product on Facebook and send them to Amazon
Main problem with these was not doing proper in-depth research and going with gut feeling instead
Rather than going with data and research and taking it to other people to see what they think, if they are not excited then Ivelin drops it
You might get yourself excited about your product but that’s not always a good thing
Follow data and not your gut

Biggest win for your Amazon Business so far?

Creating a new market as it’s the hardest thing to do rather than going into an existing market
Creating a new market is Ivelin’s biggest win and gets most excitement about

Where do you see your AMazon business in the next two years

Always ready for his Amazon business to die tomorrow
Have multiple accounts and many other channels to sell in-depth through
So no long term vision on Amazon
A long vision for the product itself in-depth
Even if it’s selling on the street to someone with that problem – they will still buy it out of Ivelin’s hands

Planning and exit for the business?

Ivelin is prepared to sell a lot of the brands as they are separated as entities and companies
It is structured to be sold and Ivelin is thinking about exiting some of the brands
Has about 105 separate brands with about 700 products
THe team is 16 people that work on the Amazon and Retail business
And there is a team on the software business

The Software Business In-Depth

The Amazon software is Rivercleaner
The first software business was in 2001 selling clipart images
After that business the 2nd was was exited in 2005
With that money Ivelin started a number of software businesses
Exited a couple of them and started and Amazon business
Currently now with his Ivelin invests in Real Estate as well
Software is similar in that it’s solving a problem for someone

Importance of Networking

Very important as meeting people and talking to people in-depth opens your eyes to many things
People have different background and approaches to different things
Just talking to them gives you so much
Started doing masterminds and meetups on Clarity
Speak to over 400 people on the phone in the last 4 years
You see the patterns, build contacts, find new friends
This also keeps your fire going and beat the low moments
Not an easy task working with people
So the more people you keep in contact with the better you understand the human psychology in-depth
Means you can better interact with others and employees and people
Life becomes easier when you understand the motivation behind people

What is the worst advice you have heard given to Sellers

Any advice from a one-hit wonder is bad advice
People in their 20s start teaching others can be bad advice
It takes more than one success in business to be able to give advice
You need a lot of failures and in-depth experience to be able to give the right advice to a person
Everything changes all the time – there is no one guide that will give success

What good advice would you give Sellers?

Always be different
Amazon’s first FBA meetup in New York to today all they talk about is Innovation
Always innovate and think different
Try to help people through innovating

The Orange Hat Summit and Masterminds

Montreal in Sept 2019
The Summit is annual anda small number of 100 people to maintain the interaction
Have small groups of 10 people in each, working together very hard and very interactive
Amazing to see high level sellers and how they do stuff in-depth
The summit is larger but again for very advanced sellers, more technical stuff
Not a motivational type event at all, more on the technical side and focus on innovation as well on Amazon
Specifically on ranking and getting reviews
Surround yourself with the right people
Ivelin’s not selling information to these groups – giving them information, making them aware of something so they can work on it together to solve the problem

Seller Sessions Live

Ivelin is in London
Giving a different view on how you can increase your visibility on Amazon for organic and PPC
It’s in front of your eyes but you’ve never realised it
You will be amazed when you see it
A different approach to optimise listing that gives very big results
People can apply these changes quickly and see results the very next day