Eugene Kashuk: How to Fix the Broken Education System in the US — Brighterly CEO on EdTech, Startups & Ukrainian Entrepreneurship | Be Yourself Podcast

Eugene Kashuk

CEO & founder of Brighterly — on fixing K-12 math education in the US, building a mission-driven EdTech startup, choosing the right niche, navigating the US market as a Ukrainian founder, and attracting global venture capital

Watch on YouTube Brighterly

64 minutes

EdTech · Startups · K-12 Education · Ukrainian Business · VC

Listen to this Episode

About the Guest

Eugene Kashuk — CEO & Founder of Brighterly

A Ukrainian serial entrepreneur and founder of Brighterly, an online K-12 math and reading tutoring platform for the US market, launched in November 2021 — just before the full-scale invasion

He has grown the company 3x year-over-year for three years running: 3,500+ active students, around 600 lessons a day, 300+ curated teachers. Brighterly is not his first venture — he previously exited a digital marketing company

What He Built

Brighterly — an online K-12 math and reading platform for the US: 3,500+ students, 600 lessons a day, 300+ teachers, growing 3x year-over-year

Core Belief

be as fast, aggressive and brave in testing your hypotheses whether you have 3 people or 300 — startup culture is a mode of operating, not a stage

On Choosing a Market

the easier path is always to go where demand cannot be covered by existing supply — the bigger the market, the bigger the opportunity

On Entrepreneurship

if the vision fuels you, entrepreneurship is, weirdly, an expression of freedom — not a sacrifice

Key Quotes

“

if you're an entpreneur and you're building a startup, there's practically no way to do it and be in balance. There's just no way.

Eugene Kashuk

“

the best way to go around business if is to be as fast as aggressive as brave in terms of your hypothesis and experiments whatever your scale is.

Eugene Kashuk

“

if money is the goal then no single amount of money will ever be enough. So you are stuck in this race.

Eugene Kashuk

Full Transcript

BTW: This episode of the Be Yourself Podcast is produced by Beverly Media. Also on the show:
Emi Beredugo — From Science to Recruitment: Career Change, Living Abroad & Finding Fulfillment →

0:00 Episode Teaser

Eugene What about your own balance between work life, life life, personal life? If you're an entpreneur and you're building a startup, there's practically no way to do it and be in balance. Elon Musk is famous for sleeping on couches uh in the Tesla facility because he just don't have time to like go home and spend time with his family.

0:34 Brighterly Intro

Sergey Hello everybody. Welcome to the Be Yourself podcast, the vodka on expressing our true selves. Today my guest is my old friend Eugene Kashuk. He's the CEO and founder of Bradley, a fast growing company in attempath.

Sergey Do do kids struggle a lot with math math in in the United States?

Eugene Yeah. Yeah. We're focused on US market. Uh we initially started from maths. Now we do reading as well. Um and yeah, we're solving a pretty big problem. Um in US kids are struggling with math. So it's like statistically proven that 20 million kids by now are uh below their grade level at mass. Uh there's a lot of stats that I think we will pull out uh later later in this podcast and um we have built a platform uh to help kids compensate their uh knowledge gaps, improve their um math level. Sometimes it's about uh falling behind your grade. Sometimes it's about achieving uh better than your grade does. So moving beyond the average. Uh and I guess the main thing is that we try to um you know to be to be opposite of what school education uh in mass looks like. Yeah. Yeah. Um and so we built a platform that basically connects kids to professional teachers uh for math lessons uh that are very engaging, fun, uh revolve around like practical concepts. So it's completely opposite to what school does and it's also very affordable. Um and yeah uh we're three and a half three and a half years into it and growing pretty well on grass market right now.

Sergey You just still call yourself a startup because you you remain this culture of uh a lot of different experiments inside of the company and stuff like that. Yeah.

2:35 The Importance of a Startup Culture

Sergey How how how fast were you able to grow during the span of the last 3 years?

Eugene Yeah, I believe that this culture should be preserved on like any scale. There's so many ideas uh that came from Brian Chesy who is founder of Airbnb. This term founder mode this was hyping like half a year ago maybe a year ago who he went to a lot of podcasts who was originally coined by Paul Graham who's the founder of Y combinator and it's basically about preserving that mode uh of operating like a startup. So the best way to go around business if is to be as fast as aggressive as brave in terms of your hypothesis and experiments whatever your scale is. if like you have three people on board, if you have 30 people people on board, if you have 300 people on board um yeah so it's super important uh to be in that startup mode. Um I will say that we are sort of a scale up you know when you are past that value of that when you're trying to find unit economics to prove yourself and the world and the market that you can like be commercially successful with your business model. So I think we've passed that uh and now we are focused on growing or scale scaling our business and yeah as you mentioned we we have grown pretty significantly in US market we are doing 3x year over year third year in a row. So 2023 we grew 3x 2024 we did the same and 2025 we're now on track to do the same.

4:26 Number of Active Students

Sergey So let's put things into perspective. Uh, how many families? How many customers do you currently have?

Eugene We have around three 3,500 active students right now. Around 600 students coming to our lessons each day. Uh, so it's like a midsize or maybe even a big size school if you put it like in, you know, traditional perspective of what school is. Of course, it's all online. Uh and and our platform is completely digital. Um we have around um 300 maybe even 300 and a half teachers on our platform who are sort of our teammates who make this product possible.

Sergey Mhm. You said something that really sparked my interest that oh I I think it's it's a true statement that math has universally been considered as something boring or tedious. Yeah. So, you're in a way disrupting the market.

Eugene Yeah. Uh I I think Yeah. Right.

5:35 How Do You Make Math Lessons Fun

Sergey So, and I I checked some of your promo videos on YouTube and I was pleasantly surprised. The old stuff, man. We haven't checked, dude. But I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the uh lessons they look really really fun, really entertaining, you know? It's so I'm kind of scratched my my head. How how come?

Sergey Tell me more about the tutors. Tell me more about how do you guys made the the product so uh engaging.

Eugene Yeah, and I think we all can relate to what you just said that ma ma there is a stigma around math that it's like boring. It's not interesting. It's just about like road memorizing the facts. Memorizing a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And then uh how how do you know if you're good at it? There's very stressful thing called exams that you have to prepare. It's um time bound. So it's like you come in there like we all remember it from our schools and it looks like it's no different in most of the world I guess. Um the mass level in most of the world in kids is basically very different and there's the huge problem in US I was talking in the beginning. So that's why we chose this market that's that's why we're there.

Sergey Do you know the size of the market? Can you give us some?

7:06 Market Overview

Eugene Yeah. So there's like 50 million K12 students uh like which comes from kindergarten to 12th grade. So before they go to college or university and then like almost 40% of them uh are actively struggling with maths. So they're falling behind their school level and that's the like statistics you can find in like open sources. The general population is also very diverse. The problem I'm talking about is also kind of social where um the less richer community is, so the poorer community is basically, the bigger the problem is. And it basically comes down that to the thing that communities in states like Maryland who are way poorer than in say California, the the problem they have is way bigger. Uh and um yeah, so we are not only um providing highquality education to those who need it, we also try to be as affordable as possible. And that's kind of our competitive edge because if you're looking for a tutor in US, let's say it's a college graduate that knows math well and you and he comes to your home um to teach your kid after school or weekend whatever. Uh it will be around 50 bucks per hour. So per per lesson to say at Brighterly the lesson is like 2.5 times cheaper. Mhm. So we're pretty affordable and we're way more affordable than what market can offer. Of course, tutor is not the only thing you can do when you have problem with mass. There are various resources you can get into for free. Like there's this huge adtech brand called Khan Academy. I think you've heard about it. It's it's basically a nonprofit. M uh it's a platform where you can learn anything for free and it's a great thing uh because you know uh it provides like unlimited access to anyone but of course it's not so like impact driven you can't reach this much of results you don't have this much of motivation when when you are learning through those free resources um yeah so we we got uh into the problem itself again uh and I completely lost uh lost track was the beginning. But uh this is not your first business.

9:48 Not Eugene's First Rodeo

Sergey Correct me if I'm wrong. So well I know this is not your first business. Yeah. No, for sure man. For our audience, we we did some business together in the past with Eugene. And so basically you're a second time entrepreneur or what is the right term for it?

Eugene Repeated founder.

Sergey Repeated founder. But yeah, but unlike unlike like 95% of uh first time founders, your first attempt was a success. Yeah. And you sold the company to u a big venture capital firm to a market competitor.

Eugene Market competitor. So it's it was more of a total acquisition. Yeah. Yeah. It was an acquisition indeed. Yeah.

Sergey Yeah. And then basically you were looking for a gap in a market that you just could fill and and the and and the opportunity presented itself.

10:45 How to Choose a Business Niche

Eugene Yeah. Yeah. It it took us quite an uh quite an effort to find this gap, this niche. We were so I wasn't alone. I had like core team uh of like multifunctional players like product, tech, marketing who can research through various domains. So we're not looking into like let's Google some uh interesting uh markets, right? We were looking at it through different angles and this whole process took us around like 4 months. Uh we were particularly interested in education. Um me and all my like team members we consider ourselves like as lifelong learners. We always try to learn something improve our skill set. We always motivate our teams to learn and to find opportunities to learn. Um so we were particularly interested in that. Also there's was sort of co postappocalypse in terms of education you know like education was the the poster boy uh of like markets uh when cos came through because suddenly everyone got stuck in their homes. So all of those uh platforms um that provided online education the same as Zoom right it was golden times for Zoom um so and and so it was for the whole education market so we particularly looked at that and then we started like um tunneling into what kinds of educations there is like there's the education for adults there's professional education like upskilling there's uh K12 which means like school education. This is by the way an MBA for you guys on how to pick the market market research because before you tap into entrepreneurship you got to understand if the market even got the size the volume to be able to operate there and what our shared connections and people who were mentoring us told us from the very beginning that the market should be pretty enormous right it's easier easier path always to go somewhere or the demand uh can cannot be covered at this point by the AR. Yeah. Yeah. Or demand like out ways exceeds the supply. But then again uh the bigger market is the more resource you might need to attack it. And that's that's actually what like everyone who has like some sort of business background or interest in like startups or business asking me

13:38 The Challenges of Doing Business with the US

Sergey like why the US it this is the most expensive market you can go for like the traffic is the the most expensive there.

Eugene even stuff like uh calling in uh customers on their phones because we're a salesdriven business they're sales team they're selling our product sales people who are in Ukraine Uh actually they're from all around the world. Uh I think we have most of them in Ukraine like 60%. There's like 30 people in sales. So it's like um 18 or 20 of them in Ukraine or others are like from all around the world. Um yeah and even technically being able to get to reach an American citizen through their phone was hard because there are legislation on state and federal level uh that that does not allow you to make for example more than 100 calls from one number uh in one day. So if you're making more you're in the spam list. There's also like mobile carriers like AT&T there have their own spam lists. if you're there, you're not calling into any one of their uh subscribers, clients. Um, and then there's like uh devices, you know, you can get into Apple's spam list and when you're on iPhone, there are calls that you receive and it might a description might pop up. It's like likely spam, so you won't answer it. So even trying to call people in US is hard. So yeah, let let alone the fact to sell something.

15:10 Helping Rather than Selling

Sergey Well, not I don't I don't do Do you like the the term sell?

Eugene Help. help pretty much help let them understand that there is a solution. Yeah. Uh we we even call sales people um parent assistants because parents of course are not into talking to a sales people saleserson when it comes to like education of your child. Pretty important question that you need to like solve or or address. And yeah, you're right. We're not trying to like, you know, uh fool people or um to um somehow exaggerate what we offer or what results can be achieved. Uh we have this pipeline where they don't pay anything. Uh they come to a trial lesson. Parent and the kid comes to trial lesson. No strings attached. Absolutely. No commitments. Yeah. And they learn a little bit there. They also see the platform. That's when that's where all that engagement and fun kind of learning comes in that you asked uh the teacher comes in. Teachers um are charismatic, engaging. Their uh goal, their mission is to get kids engaged because um it's hard to engage a kid when it's your first lesson and it's math, right? So the topic itself doesn't seem too exciting. uh when when uh parents is coming to hear like hey I booked a lesson you're going on a math lesson tomorrow I don't think they're so excited at that point so to excite them that's the mission of the trial lesson and and that's basically the most defining factor of will the sale happen parents are not listening into you know the sales like all the pushy tactics that you can go for they don't work with our product did the kid like Did does the kid want to to learn to to go for it? That's the defining factor. So So yeah, we we even we even don't call them sales people, but their function is kind of sales. They have KPIs. They need they need to be closing the deals and stuff like that.

17:18 Who are Brighterly's Tutors & How They Teach

Sergey You told me about an interesting match between the t the tutors and the and the kids. So is that is that a public information? Where do tutors come from?

Eugene Uh yeah, it's a public information. Our tutors are coming from all around the world. We um specifically focused on opportunities to be marginal with it. Uh when it comes to supply and demand. So we specifically addressed US market. But then we thought okay where should I our tutors come from? Yeah. Business thinking kicks in here. Yeah. like you need to get the positive like unit economics and positive ROI on things. So of course you ters from US uh were was something we considered but then we started making our mess in our minds and we understood that it's it will be hard to be RAI positive and so we went for specifically like developing economies where you can get a lot of talent with great skills but they won't be as expensive as teachers from US um And what is super important about it that we are not like an open marketplace like Prep for example where it's just a list of tutors you scroll in you pick it at any um kind of criteria like rating feedback or or whatever um and then yeah you got you got the tutor with us uh tutors are completely curated qualified in a way. Yeah. Yeah. There is a super sophisticated approach to hiring them. Only like 3% of applicants actually do get a chance to teach at Brighterly. Then there's like a monitoring phase where we look really really close at what they're doing like is everything happening according to our guidelines and best practices and then the most important I think is that we have our own curriculum. So we we don't let them teach uh at any kind of program any methodology our own curriculum which was developed by our methodology team our education team and we require them to be using this uh and we check if they use it properly. So on our end the quality of education is kind of guaranteed by how the product was constructed. And so if you look at it this way, the uh academic qualifications of tutors are important and all of our tutors are experienced teachers. We don't hire just you know like a freelancer from India who just wants to make dollars online. Of course they all are teachers but uh we they need to be teachers for the soft skills. They know how to uh build connection with children, how to build rapport and all the academic stuff, the um progress the child makes in terms of their knowledge is covered by the product, by the procedures, by the quality control team who monitors and watches videos and give feedback. by workshops that we are doing for teachers by our rating system that basically evaluates who's the best and provides the best teacher with most opportunities and so yeah um answering your questions there are from all around the world in the beginning we uh focused on developing economies like first team of teachers were from Ukraine uh we had Ukrainian teachers this was pre-war by the way we launched uh business in November 2021. So like 2.5 months pre-work. Yeah. Um and yeah, we thought like the business model will be like we hire Ukrainian teachers like me and you would know that there are a lot of English speaking people in Ukraine. some of them know maths like students from the poly techchnical institute right um and yeah that's what we thought but Ukrainians were not a good fit unfortunately even before the war because this night shifts uh because working with kids uh is kind of hard it's kind of challenging and also you need to know maths and so this whole combination was pretty hard um the big locations we have right now is Philippines have a lot of teachers from there. South Africa have a lot of teachers from there as well and I think uh all other ones are like minor like there are teachers from Europe, there are teachers from uh other Asian countries but not too big uh often like um in terms of the share.

22:11 Successful Investment in Ukrainian Startups

Sergey Okay. Well, you you mentioned a couple of things that I want to put an emphasis on. First of all, from Eugene's speech, you guys might understand that Ukrainian businesses are far far away from only sticking to our local country. That's something that I said to educate my audience, the international audience, that Ukraine is not a powerhouse, but it's becoming a really rigy, really feisty, interesting uh player in terms of an infrastructure, you know, a factory that creates startups that do businesses worldwide. Brazerly is one of the glaring examples. We have other examples such as Better Me, the company that has been in top five ratings in a welfare wellness. Yeah. Health and wellness. Health and wellness in the US. You guys listening from the US know this app for sure. We have Gigi which which is in Africa. It's the biggest uh classified, right? Yeah. It's like a marketplace. Marketplace. I'm just I'm not an expert on that market. So yeah, I'm just I'm just I would just want to name what other can you throw in?

Eugene Yeah. Yeah. That made their names. Uh damn. I think Grammarly is need to mention the first one. They were like the first Ukrainian unicorn like the company valued at more than a billion. Then there's Scrappley company um arguably in similar space than we do. They also do math ting by the way, but they're not focused. It's like language learning tutoring and it seems like it's the biggest language learning tutoring marketplace in the world. Go figure. Um then there's also a recent unicorn like half a year ago um a company from Ukraine. It's called Creio. It's like um B2B CRM. Um, and I can unfortunately I don't know more I can say more details because I just haven't like investigated differently but I know it's like a CRM business that you can integrate in in your um like business whatever SMB or enterprise scale. It uses AI to automate uh processes and they raised around uh valued at more than a billion which makes them a unicorn. It just happened like months ago. So yeah, Ukraine Ukraine is definitely competing in that space. And for all the investors who are wary, you know, about investing in in in our companies, all the companies that we just mentioned, they're pretty much uh capital backed. Correct. Of course. Of course. Creioh is um backed by US uh funds, US uh venture capital or gross equity funds. Um, Preply is famous for um, raising rounds from pretty um, famous players like I think their first investor who get this whole fundraising journey started was one of the founders of Booking.com platform. Yeah. Yeah. In in Prely. Cool. Um, yeah. And so obviously and and you and honestly you can't get to that scale without raising funds from local but at the same time worldass um funds. Um yeah that's that's how it goes I think.

26:15 How Did Eugene Find His Unique Calling

Sergey All right man that all sounds uh really really impressive. Uh, I can't hide the fact that I appreciate that. I'm I'm impressed, my man. And, uh, the progress that you were able to accomplish u along these years is just mindblowing and I think me myself and my audience would be really interested to know more about you because the the name of the podcast is be yourself. It's all about not only expressing who you really are, but finding your unique path. And because I struggled a lot in my life in finding what I truly want to do, you know, I've been through uh blood, sweat, and tears on this path and had a lot of trauma. And a lot of people and some people, you know, get it right from the first try. You know, take Michael Jordan, 14 years old, I know I want to be a basketball player. Tiger Woods, uh, Steve Jobs, he knew that he wanted to go into into all this aesthetics and engineering stuff. Even Einstein. So on this point, let's pick your brain a little bit more. Okay. How have you How do you think you were able to spot something that makes you enjoy life, right? Mhm. And what is the general advice that you give to maybe people who who you mentor or folks who you hire or interview on how do they actually find something that's that fits their unique traits or their unique personality?

Eugene Mhm. It's hard to say about other people. Uh but um if I'm talking about myself, I think it's all about finding that something, that craft, that business, that piece of um a hobby or enjoyment, your thing, your stick is if that's the right word, you know, um that you can completely dissolve in, you can completely dive in so deep that you don't feel like time time. Yeah. Yeah. You don't feel time. You don't feel like uh you don't feel nothing. You you're just tunneling into into this. So I think that's very important and I think it might take a life to find it. Yeah. Yeah. You said like famous examples of people who seem to click it in the early years. Yeah. But what about all of those I don't know millions or billions of people who don't click. And I think that's the problem. Uh because uh if it doesn't click that you're kind of lost. Yeah. And when you're kind of lost, it's hard to even find motivation to look for it. So you're just going with life and then you end up with a career you don't like with like family like you don't a family life you don't appreciate with friends and uh encounters that are not valuable that do not like you grow. Yeah. Yeah. So all kinds of problems come from that. So I think it's about um keep seeking and you mentioned your own example. I think that your own example as much as mine as well that we kept searching for it until something uh popped up. Yeah. Uh and I also think that it's hard to it's easy to get like misguided or misunderstand something like finding something and think that it is your thing but it's actually not. So you need to also be reflective and ask yourself those question like am I in the right spot? Am I doing something that I enjoy? Uh do I want to to be doing it in like 3 years or 5 years? And that's when where I come to the questions I might ask when you come on an interview, right? Uh because you don't look for team members that are jumping from Yeah. sphere to sphere. you're trying to establish a partnership that goes a long way, right? Yeah. So, I think it's about searching and I also think that you need to really be conscious about what are your like best qualities like what you're good at play to strength. Yeah.

Sergey Do you believe that we can convert hobby into our profession?

Eugene I think is the best is the best. I think if you can reach that level then you you found your you know zone. You might not be um the most commercially successful person but I think you will be a more happy and fulfilled person than a lot of those more commercially successful folks.

31:09 How Brighterly Builds the Team

Sergey So, okay, we touched on the matter of hiring a little bit. Yeah. So, does your team consists of a players only? How do you hire? Yeah. Um, tell us about the culture of inside of of bright room. Yeah.

Eugene Of course, it's not all a players. Um, Mhm. What is an A player? You can also define this.

Sergey Yeah.

Eugene Yes. It's it's it's actually a very interesting question because for um someone in business who's always hiring, who's building teams, it's like an obvious thing, but when you asked me, I'm like, how what exactly is a player? Of course, it's someone who performs well. We all we both read the book. It all started with the book. Yeah. Yeah. It's called who made a method of hiring. Yeah. Jeff Smart. Yeah. Yeah. Um so those are the people that are the most engaged, the most uh skilled professional at what they do. Um they are um a management leadership or uh exceptional individual contributor executors uh material. So they are either one of those, right? Not everyone should be a manager but if he's not or she is not a manager then probably if it's a player then it's a highly valued individual contributor. So those are like the people who your organization is built uh upon like building blocks and because they are they at some point they need to you know grow their own teams. So people need to revolve around those eight players. That's why I say that I guess most of them are managers or are due to become managers. So um yeah and um I don't think that any organization will consist of those um a players. It's an interesting one because at one point it seems like it's the best kind of organization. Like imagine like Avengers or like Prime Guardiola Barcelona, right? Like imagine this kind of team in the business. So you get every one of them. It's a world class player. Um and maybe maybe there are teams like that but people uh you can't scale people. You can't hire world class person on every single hire. So maybe at some scale, yes, maybe early super successful early stage startups that raise huge funds consist of teams like this small teams of highly qualified people with prior experience in you know that FG or how does it call like Facebook, Apple, Google, Netflix, those like big tech companies. Yeah. But your organization will definitely consist of um most of the people will be B players. Yeah, it should be like the core of your organization and you need to um value them actually as much as the A players because the bigger your organization is, the more B players you will have. uh and you don't want to have too much of C players who are bottom performers who might be destructive or who just might might not present as much value to the business as all the other categories. So I think that arguably B players are even more important because you hire them at scale. A players, you need only like five of them in in like even the biggest kind of organization. Okay. 10 of them. But B players is the I don't know the glue that sticks everything together.

Sergey I I don't know. Yeah. Interesting. So basically we need A players eventually for them to become managers to manage those B players.

35:12 The Uniqueness of Generation Z

Sergey Do you agree that we the current generation uh and we talked about this off the record about uh what is the what is the name of folks who were were born after 2000 they're zoomers yeah the z generation zoomers and and and basically uh those folks they don't necessarily want to become king of the throne they don't necessarily want to be supremely successful materically. They want to have what we call healthy uh work life balance. So, do you have a do you see this in your company when you hire? And do you see that a lot of people nowadays they don't really necessarily want to get into managerial position at all? Yeah. Yeah. To be running like they just want to do their job from 6:00 to 6. They don't want to work in Saturday. They want we they don't don't want to overwork. They just want to have sort of balanced life and that's that's it for them.

Eugene Yeah. Yeah. The life outside the the work life. Yeah. I think that um what we talked specifically was the you know differences between our generation and this generation. That's where that's where it gets interesting because you try to understand where this difference comes from like why people are more kind of conscious uh or yeah like conscious uh about it. Um I think it's like the access to information. Um and I think that when everything is so easy to grasp people internally um are motivated have their internal motivations. So they are more conscious about life choices they can make. They they are not so much uh going through life in a passive mode where whatever happens whatever work comes at you I'm for it. Whatever my parents say I need to study I go there. So they are more autonomous I would say and it's a good thing. Um yeah I think there is definitely a barrier that you need to cross when you hire and manage those people but that's a very interesting generation and uh my expectation was different I don't know why because when you know I was in university I I saw the kids and the kids looked different they looked uh more introverted more you know kind of sit home scroll through social media media, played games and uh I personally was like okay like what will eventually come from this uh generation but I think eventually this generation is kind of I can't say better but wellrounded seems like more well-rounded. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a good thing. That's a good thing. Yeah, like we don't want to nurture robots who just work effortlessly because sooner or later burnout burnout takes place.

38:12 The Power of the "Founder Mode"

Sergey Um man, I want to I want to ask you about because I heard this I think from from maybe it was Brian Chesy as well. No, it was Elon Musk who said that this guy owner the business owner's destiny is to always deal with problems no one else wants to deal. Mhm. So you guys you basically have to solve you have got to do the things that not not bring you a lot of fun. Can you relate to that? And uh tell me if you if you were absent for month, two, 3 months if your business would still be uh afloat. Yeah. You're kind of an ultimate decision maker when hits the fan because you're the one cleaning the wall, right? Yeah. I know this because you told me that you because you guys you don't know but Eugene he actually uh developed expertise in things that businesses that he was involved in really required when we were doing business together he picked no interest in search engine optimization he did that he became an expert now you're when you told me that you buy ads for ad for for Facebook it blew my mind because it totally new real for for you. So it seems like you always do something that the business needs even if you don't want to do it and you have no interest in it.

Eugene Um yeah but in at the same time you're very interested in it and I think that the fact that my work was has transformed so much over the years and it always keeps transforming. Sometimes it's more strategic when you don't uh so when when you're not so much overloaded with daily operations sometime you dive into those daily operation that's founder mode that Brian Cheski and Paul Graham was talking about and it's super interesting it's super driving it enforces the team because nothing motivates you more when someone sits next to you in the founder when a founder sits with you in the trenches. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. trenches and I it it actually drives me. It's not something that I don't enjoy. It's I think it's something that I the opposite that I that actually keeps me going because for example, if my role was solely strategic. I only hire people. I go to management boards. I talk to investors. Um I go to interviews and podcasts. Uh and I'm always You drink coffee with all the folks who want to pick your brand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think life was as much interest and I'm not even sure that I would be as good in that role because I haven't tried myself to be honest. I'm always the startup founder who's grinding who's with the shovel running around uh and you know setting trying to calm those fires. Um yeah, going back to what what you said about Elon Musk's I'm not sure he does it, you know. I no I I think he really codes sometimes when yeah he he has this sort of an engineering mindset but I think like on that scale you have organizations so big like Tesla or space there needs to be like a board there needs to be all of the seale spots needs to be highly talented highly autonomous people that can manage company without him and honestly he's kind of out of the company for last three months and you what's happening and um I'm not even sure it's a good idea for him to do it in terms of the business right maybe for his personal credits it is um but yeah I think a team should be autonomous the more especially the more your organization matures and um for me personally it's like you know always a test when I'm on a vacation like will something break will something bad happen are you actually nervous a bit. But I I've been testing this for last two years, I think, for sure. And the it's even like, you know, um the thing I um I regret because sometimes things go even better when I'm not around.

42:45 The Blessing of Having a Great Team

Sergey You regret things even better when you're around. Yeah. You're like, "How come?" Yeah. Yeah. Like I wasn't even a part of the success, right? they didn't approve this and it works, right?

Eugene So, yeah, I I'm I'm really lucky and happy to have a great team with me on board. Um, I have like the executive board built in my business. So, I'm not like actively seeking for some sort of an executive role to writerly that will come and help us. I already have them. How many people are we talking about? Six people including me. So is it a co or CFO? Um no CFO we we have like uh like infrastructure managing finance. So it's like um head of engineering, CTO, head of product, CPO uh head of operations like COO. Uh there's also commercial director who's handling sales and retention. You might call him CCO, chief commercial officer. guy the guy guy responsible for sales team and stuff right yeah and for retention team there are also people handling um retain retaining users on the platform um then there's marketing head of marketing uh CMO and then there's me like the sixth one Mhm.

44:20 The Future for Brighterly

Sergey So what is the mission? What is it like? What is the end goal for Brighterly? Uh do you envision Brighterly to go public?

Eugene Um I think I I at some point you stop envisioning it and even if you do you won't be talking about it publicly because it's you know s sounds like a joke um talking about going public uh going going public means basically since we're on US market have your shares um gone public on for example New York Stock Exchange It's not too shabby for you a guy from Ukraine.

Sergey Exactly. Exactly. It's it's it's definitely too shabby for me speaking about it from a studio uh here on Petrifka Metro Station or while while we can in a state of war with Yeah.

Eugene Yeah. So it it definitely is way too far ahead. It's a dream but it's not something we uh in actively envision. You should be actively envisioning things that are within your reach, within your control as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, we definitely want to uh build a great business with enormous impact. Enormous impact means that we have tens of thousands of children who has practically improved their knowledge levels. And you can measure it, right? We measure their knowledge level when they come in like they do tests and we assess their knowledge as they go. So we are like an impactdriven organization in and we want to reach the level of impact that will be noticeable on the scale of us um especially in K12 space. Then um we want to be an ecosystem because it started as like a single product which is like maths lessons for kids who want to improve their skills. Three months ago, we started a course for reading because our audience was actively asking us about it like, "Hey guys, we like the math stuff, but what about the reading? Do you have the reading course with Rachel?" And we listened and listened and listened and then we like let's let's launch a reading course like people asking for it. So, this information is not even publicly available yet. We we you you don't see it on our website yet. we only sell it to our own customers that bought maths, but we will soon release it um publicly. So now we're math and reading school basically. And launching that second discipline kind of opened um a leeway for us where we understand that having multiple disciplines is a is a possibility to for for sure serve better because uh guess what most of the kids that have problem with math like 65% of parents who come to us with the math problem they say that there's also a reading problem like 65%. which is like if you think about it kind of obvious like these two should be coming together because these are the fundamentals. So in future we see oursel as an ecosystem where you can learn multiple disciplines. The obvious one is science. Like in US schools, there are like three elephants that uh the school system is in elementary and middle school uh definitely is standing on um maths, reading or like English you can say or English language arts that's the way the discipline is mentioned in schools and science. Science is sort of a mix between um geography, biology, um chemistry, physics, uh all the all the other disciplines are um within that um category.

48:28 How to Be Appealing to Global Venture Funds

Sergey So pretty much you're open to offers. You told me that some investment bankers reach out to you, they want to talk about the company already, right? But you got a lot of room to grow.

Eugene Yeah. For so Yeah. Yeah. And I I think it's all about the timing and about the price. So you don't want to get too early, but then again, you want to you don't want to get too greedy at the end of your way. But I don't think that we're yet there at all. we understand how to grow way way more steps ahead than we are today. Like like I told you um in the beginning like imagine 20 million students that are struggling let's say they struggle with math and reading or any kind of those any one of those and then there's like 400 4,000 students actively learning a gradually today. So the difference is whopping. So that's what that's why we're basically scratching the surface like if you go um like on a state level I think most of the people I I think all of people don't know about us yet because we're young. We we just didn't have enough time to touch upon um huge amounts of uh cities and stuff like that. So there's a huge way to go and we can go for it without any external help at this point. But then again, if you want to build a success case like we were talking about in Grammarly or Preply or all of those businesses that are world class, uh you need to um partner with uh local players that have reach that have access to distribution channels that know how to build great brands that relate with the audience that have that can I don't know find an advisor that comes into board of your business uh and helps you build it, right? These things are only available if you raise like growth invest investments from um like tier one funds from us. So at some point we need to do it and we are now passively talking to some of them just to see what's up uh to understand like what are their interests like what do we need to be to be interesting to them like what how the economics should look like how the tech should look like because you are kind of two different things for your customer and for your investor for example for customer, you're a school. You're uh a solution to their problem. You even might be a tutor because they kind of see your product through the lens of the person who is teaching your child. You're building several brands uh simultaneously. Um, and yeah, if you're a school for parents, you don't want to be a school or even you don't you even more don't want to be a marketplace for investor. Mhm. Because it sounds uh serviceheavy, a lot of people, a lot of processes. Um, in investors like tech, you need to be a platform. You need to be you you especially want to be an AI enabled uh platform that provides personalized learning experiences. Parents won't won't care more about it, right? They just want to have their kids knowledge improved. So yeah, um you can you can do all of it um at some basic level here basing this whole stuff in Ukraine, but you need to go west in terms of your incorporation, in terms of some of your operations, in terms of your mindset and in terms of your partners because we're building a business in US basically that's the only market we serve at this point in terms of demand.

53:05 Entrepreneurship as Freedom

Sergey cool man. I wish you nothing but the best. Best best of luck. I hope that Thank you, man. I appreciate it. This will be one of the stories that I know 5 years down the road we'll be talking about is one of the you know biggest biggest uh coolest things that happened um from Ukraine, Ukrainian brand hoping for it. What about your own balance uh between work life, life life and personal life? Uh like we told we touched on the point that yeah I think our generation we were brought up thinking that we got to work 24/7. Steve Jobs said you got to work not 24/7 but with your brain. our investors told us that we should work with our brains and 24/7. So, it's like a non-stop thinking about business. So, uh have you transformed uh the way you look at this? And for um I don't know entrepreneurs nowadays, what what do you think think is the perfect balance sweet spot?

Eugene Yeah. Um, so there's a few things. I think if you're an entpreneur and you're building a startup, there's practically no way to do it and be in balance. There's just there's just no way. So all those people from uh like business literature and headlines and interviews who are saying that they put massive hours and they still do like Elon Musk is famous for sleeping uh on couches uh in the Tesla facility because he just don't have time to like go home and spend time with his family. It's a hard truth. uh you you can't avoid it. But and then again if you view it like um it's uh it's a sacrifice uh if you view it like um there is so much opportunities in life that you're missing because you're stuck in uh in this thing it's there's not a way to go for it because you will lose your motivation. So I think that if you as a founder on your like making your first steps and putting in massive hours and you don't feel good about it, you don't feel that you are uh investing in your future that you're making world better or whatever. Maybe you're making just your own life better, maybe you're making life better for some companies, you're building a B2B uh startup, right? Um and so if you don't feel this way, you won't last for long. And uh entrepreneurship is is a long journey. Uh it's about years like you know those uh that theory about 10,000 hours that you need to put in that to I think it's Malcolm Gladwell or maybe maybe I'm wrong um to be successful. It's also actual for entrepreneurial life. So imagine 10 years of your professional life with massive hours put into your business which which might not end up successful. It kind of is a sacrifice but you shouldn't look at it this way. You should be fueled by your vision. You should be fueled by um the end goal. Like you ask me like what's the end goal? That's what driving me and the team making an impact, building a great company, building uh building a great brand, helping a lot of children. Uh that's a vision that uh we all go for and as a team, you need to be also reinforcing each other because we're all different, right? We have different emotions and hardships, especially now like last three three and a half years of the war. um it's been pretty tough and so you need to have a team who's as fueled as you. You shouldn't be alone in this fight. That's also that also won't be working. So yeah, it's while it's a hard journey, I think it's weirdly an expression of freedom. Um because in no single day of my life when I was putting in massive hours, doing a lot of stuff, putting in a lot of effort, I was thinking that damn why am I doing it? Like why why to go for like such a hard uh venture like why why can't you just you know go find like a normal job and sleep at start sleeping well? Uh yeah, I I don't think that there was a moment where where I really really um considered this because I'm fueled by what I do with all of the businesses I've built um before including Right.

57:55 Can Money Buy Happiness?

Sergey So pretty much this agenda or this this premise that you know I'll get to the top of the hill Mhm. And the view is going to be so beautiful. Yeah. Is um overexaggerated. I mean it's even false. And in practical terms, what I'm talking about is when I make all the money in the world. Yeah. I buy myself a fancy car. I buy this this house in the hills. Get get I get the most beautiful girlfriend. Mhm. Still might not fill the void if what you're doing is not fulfilling you every single day. Is that what you're saying?

Eugene Yeah, exactly. I think that you need to have enough money to uh cover your basic uh needs in terms of the comfort. Like you you want to eat well, you want to um buy clothes that you want to buy. You want maybe you maybe you want a car, but you just want a car. It's it shouldn't be like uh a super fancy car. You want to be able to afford to travel of course when there is no war around. Yeah. Um and so I I think yeah it's kind of a lot if you put it in like a global perspective like not too much people can afford even this especially in times like but then again when you compare it to that um top of the hill uh Beverly Hills mansion uh it's way below that and you can be fulfilled at that stage. So when your like uh basic needs are well covered I think it opens up a gateway for you to enjoy what you do because and on the other side if it's not it it becomes even more harder right like example for example if you're an artist it's like a a basic example yeah you can be an entrepreneur and it's sort of a commercial function and if you're an artist arguably you're doing it just for the sake of the art. You are creating something from nothing and it's valuable to you. Um it's even it might even more challenging because there there might not be commercial aspect to what you're doing. So you're more likely to get in that situation where your basic needs are not covered but you are just trying to you know hustle. You're trying to do the thing that you enjoy that maybe other people love. But it's also um not accurate because the like let's take top five artists in any genre they're are pretty commercially successful right they have kind they kind of have those Beverly Hills mentions or whatever uh other hills mentions that they have at so I think it's all it's money comes money comes with your success but it shouldn't be the goal uh when you want to be successful Because otherwise you won't be happy at any stage. Like if money is the goal then no single amount of money will ever be enough. So you are stuck in this race.

Sergey Yeah. I think this quote falls into what you're saying. When you truly work for yourself, you won't have hobbies, you won't have weekends, you won't have vacations, but you won't have to work either. Yeah. Yeah. So it doesn't feel like work. I think this is something that I want to wish to all of us guys seeking for something that fulfilled them, you know, or if you're doing something that you hate. And I know a lot of people who do something that they truly don't like. They come home exhausted, drained, and they're afraid to change something. It's just um just a wish. I would just want to say that you owe it to yourself. You owe it to yourself just taking a step and trying something out. And talking of the thing, how do can we find our passion or something that we convert into money-m opportunity that we will enjoy?

Eugene Think just um experimenting. There's so many professions now that were not existent like even two 3 years ago. Mhm. M so this is really crazy and I and I u man I thank you for uh joining me this pleasure man was really heartwarming and fulfilling understanding that you and so many people in Ukraine and driving our country our economy further creating work workplaces so thank you so much for your time man thank you man it was a pleasure

Eugene Kashuk

Listen to this Episode

About the Guest

Eugene Kashuk — CEO & Founder of Brighterly

Key Quotes

Episode Chapters

Full Transcript