How to find your calling: 5 mechanics from Taisiya Kudashkina

Taisiya Kudashkina Very interesting person! :)

For dessert, an exclusive interview with Taisiya Kudashkina 3 chips of content marketing.

An honest conversation with yourself...

“It’s like for someone. I spent the whole last year searching for myself!

And I will also do this one - I found the direction, but I did not allow myself to take the right image. She didn't give it. To herself.
My education is applied mathematics, and all my life I have been engaged in some kind of "nearly applied" professions. Starting from a database analyst, then product management, a business analyst, then my own projects, which are not creative, but techno-oriented.

The natural sciences rule, mathematics puts the brain in its place, engineers are always valuable, they will find a profession for themselves, intellectuals. An engineer can do everything, a humanist can do something within the framework of his profession. This is the setting of my family/childhood/life.
And I strictly follow the family covenants. I have been following for 31 years. I score on passion / passion, I'm afraid to admit to myself, and even more so to those around me, that my profession is not brains. That my profession is chatter, conversations, and I need to work with my face, tongue, hands, body, beautiful face. I am great at networking, I feel people, emotions and am full of empathy. I can tell stories and inspire people to move. I can listen. I'm curious. And it's unique. And only I have.

And it is true. And these are all the thoughts of the last 365 days. It's in that order.

Started with a sundress. But how?

Can't start filming right away? Run a show? To interview? What if I can't? Will they laugh? I just started with a blog.

It seems that writing blogs in my party is the norm, it is possible. Then I started making podcasts. Still, there is a backup - there is no shooting, not a face, there behind the computer screen, and everything is corrected, everything is then processed, you can run away and not show it. Sometimes I put myself in cold water - like to come to a conference and start interviewing everyone I can get. Then I started hosting summits, moderating conferences. It was the summits that gave me the impetus - I have to host events, talk shows, review what is happening. These summits give me energy, fill me with happiness.

Here it is mine. Boltology of pure water!

Each new small step to the side gave a little more confidence and weakened the shackles of iron templates. I was brutally treated as a child, what.

Etching is no longer an easy task.
And so this year. This year, my main goal is to hold a huge business event in St. Petersburg (again, not because I want to be an event manager, but because it will give me the opportunity to make 3-5 films / try myself as a director, host / moderate / chat a huge event and save money) At NEW YORK FILM ACADEMY.

Pick up the children and dump, finally, learn what you have wanted for so long. Start doing my own talk show, doing my own interviews, and stop pretending to be an entrepreneur, or a geek, or that I like marketing, start-ups, SMM or whatever I picked up "serious" along the way.

I like to talk, smile, show off, tell and evoke emotions. Here I will put an end to this.

But about a few mechanics who led me in that direction - in the article. But it doesn't matter anymore.

The important thing is that I told you all this and now I can't get away.

You have to do / go / implement. Hold me by the collar, comrades! "

Taisiya Kudashkina

Tulip's story is the story of my personal growth. I've made all the mistakes of a person developing on borrowed money. But in the end, it was thanks to Tulpa that she became interested in marketing and wanted to figure it out. For the first six months of WebSarafan's life, I just kept a blog and asked interesting experts about marketing. All this time I invested my money, created an audience, and then I started trying to somehow monetize it. Tried doing webinars. I tried to do an offline event, which was attended by 15 people. I went to a conference in America and interviewed local marketers, but it didn’t work either. The only thing that was conditionally successful was the webinars. A lot of people began to gather there. They brought the first income: I decided to sell recordings of webinars, and the audience was ready to pay for them.

Why did you end up choosing such an unusual format for your experts as podcasts? Not the most popular format in Russia.

Believe it or not, I just love podcasts. I listen to them quite a lot myself, they help me find necessary information, and it is logical that I chose this particular format. You can't do something that doesn't disgust you. At some point you will still quit.

Also, before podcasts, we tried a lot of things: I blogged, we did webinars, we made videos, we promoted it all. But in real life neither one nor the other took root. And I chose podcasts as a format that is understandable and convenient for me personally. In the morning I send the nanny with the children to the street, I already have an appointment, questions are ready. All I do is sit in front of the computer and write down what the person says to me. I just love it, and it's convenient for me to do it while sitting in sweatpants in front of the computer.

And finally, what is especially pleasant: we have . The market is empty. There are 10 or 20 business podcasts, but given the potential volume and market size, that doesn't count.

Listen, there are recognized stars in the field of marketing - Igor Mann, Alexander Levitas, Inna Alekseeva, Oleg Barmin ... Why are they not in your podcasts or at events?

Mann was interviewed, but for a blog. But in general, I don't really like to talk to the stars. I'm looking for new ones interesting people who have not yet acquired layers of fame and conceit.

In addition, my audience is new and small companies. And I want people to associate themselves with those I talk to. And to be close to them. So that the experience of the guest can be transferred to your own experience, your business, and to run inspired, to do something further.

How do you choose characters for podcasts?

I take those people who are interesting to me personally. Speakers come to me, I like them, and I record podcasts. Dasha Manelova makes an Instagram account for us. Vitaly Pronin was our FB expert. I am curious, I am interested in communicating with them, and I want to tell others about them.

And who are you reading right now and who is useful in your daily work?

I recent times I don't read much, I listen much more. I listen to western podcasts. I select them for my specific tasks. Just yesterday, the team had a question “how to keep the participants on the platform”. This question is itching for me, so I go to the Internet, look for someone who talks about this topic and find useful instructions about retention. Therefore, I read almost nothing casual or artistic. Just what is needed to solve my problems.

How did Sarafan get summits? As a standalone product or to promote other products?

We started selling webinars and it turned out to work. But here they run into quality. The speaker set a bad light, he has a refrigerator there in the background, or he himself is in a crumpled shirt and sleepy. Should I sell it? Answer with your reputation?

And then I dragged the speakers "to me." More precisely, I began to gather several speakers, rent a hall, equipment - and so the summits appeared. People are already trying to copy our format, but for the majority, the conversion of such events into sales is only 3-4%, while ours is much higher. Just because we have experience and great amount chips that we came up with. There are at least 150 points in the project plan for the summit - things that we will definitely do.

I want specifics. What are five things you need to do for a successful event?

Every time it's something new. For example, we used to be shy, but now we have started asking for phone numbers from those who subscribe to the summit. A reminder of the event was sent by phone an hour before the start. This allowed us to increase attendance by 30%! And it did not cause any rejection, which we were so afraid of.

Or we have created a sales system via e-mail. It seems like for a long time everyone knows how and knows that sales are made through mailing lists, but it didn’t work for me. I went to study with Pyotr Ponomarev. And he told how to make selling email chains. Together we figured out the names, logic, transitions. And our sales have grown. Instantly.

Plus the running of the event. My questions, involvement, energy - this is our feature, which others do not have. We don't have a conference, we have a radio show. We read comments from the chat, engage, play with the audience. All this makes us unique, this is our differentiation, if in a smart way (I have learned now, I know a lot of marketing buzzwords!)

You have loads of work. How did you manage to assemble a team for these ideas?

During my first project, I learned how to hire people. At first I hired people and did not understand what I expected from them. Indeed, in large companies where I worked before, they hire them for you, and you command what is. Only at the end of my work in Tulpa, I realized that my work format was unusual and not suitable for Russia. Therefore, the team often included people who did not take root in the company. And there were problems that no one solved. In general, it was hard.

I am not a micromanager. I'm not saying what to do. I take a person to do what I can't do. Let him be cooler than me. But don't let him turn to look at me after every step. As a result, I developed my own management style: I realized that I set goals, we discuss together how we will go towards them, and once a week we meet and discuss how we are going and where we have come. The employee must think for himself. And now I select people for myself who are satisfied with this.

My current team came to the project not just in search of work, but to me personally.

I would say that in the first place they came to me, and to the project - in the second place.

Personal branding helped me. I write quite a lot online, and my posts make it clear what kind of leader I am and what my values ​​are. There are people who understand that they will not work with me. And there are those who, on the contrary, fall in love, and they want to work only with me. Therefore, if I need a person, now I just write about it on Facebook, and in 2 days I get from 50 to 100 resumes.

Quite a lot ... How to stand out from the crowd? How to impress you?

I take people of my own blood. When looking for an editor, a lot of resumes came. At some point, I got tired of reading them, and read only teasers. I read a letter from a girl from MIF, who somewhere saw Fyodor Konyukhov's rowing boat (on which he circumnavigated the world alone), was impressed, wrote to him, and together they wrote a book and published his diary. I immediately realized that I needed such a person. And we have been working with her for a year and a half. There are some stories that help you get to know people and understand that you are your own, work together.

Do you think that ideas that do not give anything financially to the inspirer have the right to life?

In my family, I mean the parental family, it was once believed that only such ideas had the right to exist. That you need to work for joy, not for money, and so on. My dad is a climber, he has been going to the mountains for many years, all this camping romance of the 80s, I think, is understandable. What are his ideals... I thought the same for a long time. The most important thing is to do what you love. And now I understand that money is the blood of any project. Money gives you freedom, time and power to experiment. Money gives life. They give you new contacts, new people, new stories. There will be no development for a project in which there is absolutely no money. As any organism will die without blood, so the most best idea will die, wither, if you do not come up with a decent monetization for it.

You are so bright and in front of everyone you realize the most daring ideas, try different formats... Is there something that scares you and makes you doubt yourself?

The frightening thing is that summits are not a permanent income. That is, if we did not make the summit or did it unsuccessfully, then we simply will have nothing to eat. It is necessary to create some kind of permanent platform that will cover the basic costs. I want a steady, predictable income. We are working on it, so we launched the first test group.

Own show in America. The goal you recently announced is very ambitious. Do you believe that “I could do it here - I can do it there too?” Or are you a little more careful?

I just really want to do it. I believe that I can do it. Yes, own show in America. I can. And I will do it. I don’t think “I could - I couldn’t”, I don’t compare. I once read in Jobs that you need to live every day as if this day were your last. And that's how I live. I choose what is important to me and do it. One American billionaire to the question "What takes to make money?" said "Courage". It takes courage to make money. I agree. It's so hard just to do something different from what you usually do.

I just let myself try. Well, it won't work. But I got so much from my failed projects that I would never give them up! A mistake is still luck, because it gives us experience and moves us to a new point. There we can try again.

You recently posted almost nude photos of yourself on Facebook. Where is the acceptable border for outrageousness for you?

Of course, there is a border, but I have it inside. I have become much bolder in terms of provocations and in terms of my openness to feedback than it was before the Sarafan. But still I'm careful. I wouldn't post nudes at all. But to get excited and draw attention to myself, yes, I can tease.

Recently, Olga Yurkovskaya was received very hostilely in the group. How did you feel, as the hostess of the site, looking at what was happening?

Yes, there was a lot of negativity around her post. I don't like negativity. And it doesn’t matter to me who the author of the post is and why this negativity suddenly appeared on my blog. I don't like it when people talk bad things about each other. I can be removed from the group for personal insults. I can delete offensive comments. But in this case, the advertiser (Olga) was just fine with everything, and she believed that this was a normal promotion - in this way she just weeds out her target audience. Therefore, the post remained.

You need to understand that since the number of people in the group reached 10,000, the community has gained influence. And of course, as in any society, in our group there is a struggle for attention, and jealousy, and aggression. But I try to have as little negative as possible, and more constructive. But even my mentor confirmed to me that it is impossible without aggression in such a group.

Wow, you have a mentor! And who is it? How did you find it?

And this is such an American theme. Your income level is equal to the average level of people with whom you communicate. If you do not like the level of income - you need to change the environment. And of course, if you set yourself a difficult task, raise the bar high, then you need a mentor. I thought for a long time, to whom should I go? And how is it generally done? You have to come up and ask "let's be my mentor?". What for? I myself would not be ready to waste my time on someone, and I don’t understand why someone should spend theirs on me.

Therefore, I act like this: I have a specific problem and there is an understanding of who is cool in this problem. I come to him and ask a practical question: “Listen, I have a problem here - tell me how to do it ... ..”. And so the communication begins.

At the same time, I try not to stress the person. I will arrive when it is convenient and where it is convenient, I will not bother talking about eternal or excessive attention. And to everyone who helps me in solving my problems, I am very grateful.

Do you think Websarafan is possible without Kudashkina? Do you ever want to sell it?

Is Business youth possible without its leaders? Obviously not. Also with WebSarafan. Although this is not a community named after Taya Kudashkina. I do not consider and do not call it a personal project, and I think that at some point it will grow to independence.

So far, it is impossible without me, but I believe that we will grow and develop, we will fine-tune operational processes, we will find responsible people for different directions and at that moment it will be possible to step aside. Then, of course, I will sell it. I know for sure that I can’t be engaged in 15 years of one project, like Zuckerberg. At some point, I'll definitely get bored. I love the beginning. When from scratch and to a high goal.

For content to exist, it must be written. You won't learn to write

until you start writing

Taisiya Kudashkina. Who is this:

From Author

The first time I heard Kudashkina's name was from our Yana Ruleva. Kudashkin this, Kudashkin that, but Kudashkin records podcasts, but Kudashkin makes summits ... Podcasts - what is all of a sudden? Summits - are there many of them around? Okay, let's listen and see. And here I am in a group . I entered, I read, I watch. Signed up for myself. I also read and follow. Tynts-tynts: in the upper corner, a notification clicks at least twice a day - they posted something new, movement, discussion.

Then Yana invited Taisiya to speak at our online conference with the topic “Recognition cannot be created”. How to look for yourself and move forward, even if you are bursting at the seams. That was the first time I heard it live. How much fire is in it! Some unearthly energy and certainly not a St. Petersburg drive. Then I didn’t know yet: in fact, she was not a St. Petersburg, but a Californian young lady, by her 33 years she entered the Forbes list of the top 100 young entrepreneurs in Europe. And the blog and the community are not entertainment, they are a business that should feed and provide a springboard for experiments.

Then our Yana performed on her podcast. She talked about our experience in organizing a remote team and the rhythm of planning meetings according to Harnish Verne. The day after recording the podcast, Taisiya took and implemented the rules of planning meetings in her team. So I realized that she does not just listen and communicate - she absorbs and implements.

In August 2016, we met live in St. Petersburg at the WebSarafan summit. Six months later, they became neighbors: Taisiya moved to Sochi with her children and a cat. Why put off life until later, when it's high to wake up with a view of the sea andadmiring roses in your own garden?Now we communicate more often. And I'll tell you, the living Kudashkina is not fire. This is the whole Firebird.

They say about such people that thanks to them the earth revolves. Children, project, moving, movement, summits, podcasts. From the outside it looks easy. From the conversation you understand - it's not sweet. It's just that she, like Olympic champions, plows to the result. And then she stands on a pedestal, albeit with tears in her eyes, like that Irina Rodnina, who defended the honor of the great Soviet country, although the capitalists did not let her go abroad and cut off the music on the triple axel. But she did become a champion. And she won everyone.

Kudashkina is also, in a sense, a champion in spite of. Now she defends the honor of a country open to small business, because it is read and listened to in Russian from all over the world. Its audience is self-taught entrepreneurs with a turnover of hundreds of thousands to a couple of million rubles. Just like her in spirit and values. Mostly online, 80% women. Through the mouth of its founder, WebSarafan broadcasts the idea that it is possible, it is possible! combine dream and business. You don't have to choose, you have to do. Release the notorious pig into the world. And there the world itself will answer whether it needs it or not.

How did you get to this

For me personally, Facebook entrepreneurial is divided into two eras: BW and AW (before WebSarafan / after WebSarafan). Previously, we didn't have the opportunity to learn the concrete and practical about online marketing and content every day. Well, there were some publications, there were interest groups, we went to offline parties. But so that every day and from the most recent experience - this was not before her. Chips, life hacks, usefulness, all this came into our everyday life from the Sarafan dictionary. Consulting, sharing, trying, learning has become a new code of communication in our entrepreneurial field.

Blog

So what was BW? Before WebSarafan. In his interviews 2010 - 2013. Taisiya is the same fiery blondie, but without her signature red lipstick and bright dresses. And most importantly, without the experience of mistakes and failures. Then she, a recent corporate data analyst in Silicon Valley, decided to try her hand at own business. The idea is a copycat of the American review site yelp.com, which we happily use when traveling around America. She held a round of negotiations with an investor with a two-month-old Clasha in her arms. She asked for a ten-minute biopause and went out to feed in the corridor. They gave money, the Russian tulp.ru earned in 2010. Another year we finalized the platform and built communities in cities. A team of 25 people was formed, an eminent marketer was invited for a salary of 250 thousand rubles. Everyone was moved to St. Petersburg as a place more convenient for PR and promotion than her native Omsk. She moved there with her children.

Everything is great, 700 thousand uniques per month, 50 cities of coverage, interviews for the media and a place in the top 100 rating successful entrepreneurs European Forbes. Everyday life of a startup on the rise of the 2010s. But then ... then real life business began. Failure to fulfill obligations on the part of the investor, farewell to the team and a complete zero of own funds.

“The story of Tulp.ru is the story of my personal growth. I've made all the mistakes of a person developing on borrowed money. But in the end, it was thanks to him that I became interested in marketing and wanted to figure out how it was done at all.

How to start life from scratch...

when you're 30, have two kids and debts? Do something first. WebSarafan started out as a blog with goodies.First three articlesTaisiya composed and designed herself. But somehow it immediately became clear: writing is not her format. Despite the fact that she writes well, smoothly and inspiringly well. There was no desire to devote much time to the texts, and not now. The solution was a hired editor. So the first employee appeared, and the WebSarafan project was ordered to live in the truest sense of the word in order to pay his salary with something. To collect primary traffic, we set a goal: to post one new article every day.

It is now daily attendance of 3-5 thousand people, and then in 2015 the first six months passed without much response.It was necessary to look for ways to monetize as soon as possible, and any. As a startup, Taisiya followed the traditional lean approach: trying and tweaking on the go. I did an offline event - 15 people came, went to a conference in America to interview local marketers - there were no more views.

The only thing that was conditionally successful was the webinars. They also brought the first income. Taisiya decided to sell recordings of webinars, not only of her own, but also of invited speakers. Resurrected: it seems to be visible light at the end of the tunnel. But right therethe bottleneck was the quality - either poor light from the speaker and a curtain in the background, or a crumpled collar and extraneous sounds. And she is responsible for the product with her reputation.

« I am a classic self-taught entrepreneur who had to learn everything from scratch and do several things at once.

Then Kudashkina made a feint and decided to gather speakers at her place. This is how the idea of ​​summits with 150-point checklists was born, which regulate the level of submission and presentation. Now the three main products of Sarafan are summits (sales of records and participation itself), online courses and participation in a business club. Everything is available online, the cost of the product is from 2999 rubles for a subscription for a month to 7999 on the day of the summit.

Not taken on the radio - do it yourself

Why does she attract others? Because she combines dream and business. I always dreamed of hosting my own show and performing on the radio. They didn't take it! I had to become a radio myself.

“I did not understand how I should develop my business in terms of promotion. There is a lot of information around, it is constantly changing, I did not have time to navigate in it and did not know where to “rush” for the result. Where to go? On social media? And which ones exactly? Internet advertising? What and where? How much money to spend on it? Is it possible to do it yourself or is it impossible to do without specialists here?

For advice, Kudashkina went to marketing experts, who seemed to her then celestials. I came up with a spectacular move: record interviews with them in a podcast format, and during the interview get to know each other, learn life hacks, ask directly how they did it. I didn't even think of it - I looked it up.

“The idea of ​​what to do came quite suddenly: it was suggested to me by the experience of the creator of a blog for entrepreneurs mixinggy.com — Andrew Warner. He created a marketing blog, started asking the experts and learning along with the readers.

Well, with the creation of a blog, I can handle it, I thought. And in three days my developer and I created websarafan.ru. This blog is specifically for entrepreneurs, for the same self-taught people like me, confused and confused. For those who want to grow their business, want to find new clients, want to grow and want to learn. The concept was very simple: I’m not an expert, but I can ask real experts how to do it.”

Podcast. Sounds easy, but it's actually a lot of preparation. Checklist for the speaker, checklist for yourself, study of biography, preparation of questions. All 82 issues (as of June 2017) Taisiya recorded and conducted herself. Except for one, number five, which she herself gave to the invited journalist. The first podcast was an interview with Maxim Ilyakhov, in her words, “horror” - very different from what she would do now. However, all editionsavailable now in audio format and text.

The content workshop inside the Sarafan is arranged as follows: after the entry is made, it is processed by the editor. Sometimes you have to change parts of the interview in places so that the logic is not lost, cut out the “ekaniya” and the obvious flood. During editing, a jingle is added - an introduction in a cheerful Taisin's voice and advertising tie-ins. Taisiya says that in America podcasts are a saturated market, and the main monetization comes through corporate advertising. We have up to outdoor advertising still far away, but no one prevents the author of the podcast from posting tie-ins of his paid products. This creates free incoming traffic.

Podcast topics are extremely practical and articulated by the end result. This is what listeners like - now an average of 5 thousand people listen to WebSarafan podcasts.

1. Choose non-blurry speakers.

The most popular podcast with Oleg Braginsky (17 thousand views), and among the star speakers she had Radislav Gandapas, Mikhail Ivanov, Artyom Agabekov, Igor Mann.

Stars are rather an exception. Her approach is to extract life hacks from practitioners, those who are less known in the public space, but no less effective in their field. This adds points: Gandapas and Mann, with all due respect to their creativity, are familiar faces, and not well-known to the general public online marketers and entrepreneurs, those with whom the Sarafan audience can associate themselves and therefore believe that they will succeed.

2. Design your podcast as a show to make it fun to listen to.

Introductory jingle, tie-ins, summaries within the podcast, conclusions. Pull usefulness out of the speaker so that the listener has something left to digest and think to himself. Sarafan accompanies each podcast with lead magnets - free materials like a checklist, mindmap, video tutorial or guide that the listener can download and receive in addition to the main story. In exchange for an e-mail, of course.

3. Pull out emotions and charge yourself!

The listener will read bare facts in any interview, but real stories and lively emotions are unique.Quality content is the best sales funnel.

Now Sarafan is developing along the path of niche media. A team of 5 people, including a production editor and marketer, creates content for all stages of the funnel. External leads come from podcasts, a blog, and Taisia's Facebook followers. Then they become members of the group and summits, also for free, receive a lead magnet, leaving an e-mail, and then they begin to “warm up” with usefulness from the mailing list.

This model is universal. At each stage of the funnel, a new tool may appear or be replaced by another, more effective one, one thing is important: compliance of all content with the spirit of the project and multi-channel. Some people like to listen, others like to read. Someone will be delighted with Taisiya's new video show, someone is waiting for a printed book.

Websarafan sales funnel

WebSarafan is not a classic infobiz, although Taisiya often calls her brainchild that way. This is a growing media company, and very technologically advanced in terms of marketing. Kudashkina is about to start her own show on YouTube about the everyday life of entrepreneurs.

This year, he wants to finally start his own book - the benefit of content has already been accumulated for ten books. In a couple of months, Sarafan will start publishing and attracting external authors, and so it will already become a competitor to online portals such as VC.ru, ROEM, firrma, etc.

While it is impossible to imagine that the project exists without it. This is both social capital and significant risks, because personal brand Kudashkina is inseparable from the Sarafan. Of course, the ideal way out is to go out of business and sell as a ready-made “media” with an accumulated audience to a large media giant. But before that you need to grow up, and first of all by the audience.

We are at the beginning of a unique niche media era where anyone can become a media company on their favorite topic. There are so many free options for this: hold webinars, record podcasts, blog, gather a group, write on your Facebook page. Even if you do not yet understand what all this will become in a year or five years, start doing at least something. And then, perhaps, someday it will become your business dream.

The story of Taisiya Kudashkina shows that there is a place for any dream when there is action. In interviews, she always gives the same advice to beginners: do it! Do it and something will be done. Do it, and you can combine business with a dream. And ideally to make them in one word.

Get free video tutorials "How to become a popular author"

Hello, friends!

Today is our big day! Firstly, we are publishing the twentieth interview, and secondly, we decided to change the name of the project and the heading "Experts' Answers" to a new one - "Own Way".

In our opinion, this name is more suitable and reveals more the meaning of the project, as well as our heroes! Indeed, each of our 20 guests is either already on their own Path or is actively seeking it, realizing the profound importance of this. And all spheres of life, one way or another, are subordinated to this goal.

Taisia ​​is a very bright example of a seeker and experimenter. A person who explores life and its limitless possibilities from all sides. Her answers charge with positive, energy, desire to change your life and develop!

Let's get acquainted with the answers of our guest. I am sure that in the process of reading, like me, you will think more than once, smile, mark useful thoughts and do important findings for yourself!

Tell us a little about yourself. What do you do. What achievements do you have. What projects are you involved in? What are your hobbies.

Hello! I am Taisiya!

I take care of myself, my projects and my children.

My interests: 5 years in corporate companies in America, tulp.ru - a startup with two million unique visitors per month and two million dollars of investments, websarafan.ru - a startup with a one and a half year history and hundreds of thousands of subscribers and listeners.

I participate only in my own projects: two businesses and two children, four startups in my hands, it’s not a bullshit task, I’ll tell you :)

My hobbies? I myself, and my children. That's all hobbies. There are so many things I don’t understand about myself, I don’t know, I don’t deduce.

There are so many interesting things in our unconscious. And the children help me, highlight, and myself, and them, and shortcomings, and treasures. All for real. Everyone will be pulled out, and you already figure it out / pick :)

1. WAY TO YOURSELF

What motivates and inspires you?

Three whales: nature, children, new. Curiosity is the main culprit of my adventures. Nature and children are always in motion, always changing, always flowing, always moving forward. They are new all the time.

And I myself am the same, all the time new and interesting - all I need something, I try something, I do something. I take on a lot, I leave a lot. But I don’t regret it: I’m quitting, so it’s not necessary, to hell with it. You need to open the world further, and try everything you want until you die ...

Do not laugh. We'll all be there. We'll die, it's not far off, and if we don't do it now, we won't make it in time. We will not have time for anything, life will pass, fly by. Adrenaline only from the new will remain. From family, yes adventure. That's what motivates me. Death close motivates :)

What is your daily routine? What do you need to do every day?

I plan. I meditate. I write morning pages. I communicate with children. I do sports. The list of must-have habits in my application, where I mark them, is more than 20. The most important habit is not to watch TV and not hang out on social networks. Try it, a million hours and instantly release the flow for creativity.

I'm not lucky, I have all the work in social networks. Facebook is a working tool for me, I communicate there, I find experts and clients. I solve any, even everyday problems through it. And I constantly freeze, you can sit in it for 5-6 hours, easily.

How am I saved? I forcibly set the timer for 15-20 minutes. I enter by the timer, and exit when it beeps, even if the task is not finished. I'm taking a break. I go to cook, do push-ups, hug the children. I think, I shake, I realize. Should I be on social media? Or all, other plans? To not suck, damn it.

Do you do any kind of physical training? What does it give you?

I have been swimming all my life. I love this state. I clearly know that after 200 meters - the head starts to turn off and only wave of the hands remains. Rraz, right. Rrraz, left. A meditative state, beautiful, and like being reborn after a thousand strokes. The head becomes empty, and a lot of new things can fit.

Now I adapt to the children - it doesn’t matter what to do, just to do something. Any sport is fine as long as it is done regularly. For example, kid skiing, I have an hour and a half training. While they are skating, I can’t swim, there is no pool next to the slope. What can I do? Can run. Or ride parallel to their training, on the slope. Or just walk up / down the hill to walk if it's dirty and there is no money for the cable car. This is how I live and how I train.

What are you doing to develop intelligence and memory?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, now I have such a period that I "hawa" information, quickly stuff it into myself. Without drinking, without stretching the pleasure. The need for knowledge is so great that there is no time for contemplation, for reflection.

Hungry while just what contemplation? I listen a lot: in lines, in the car, on runs. As you like, I pass through myself the practice for business problems and solutions that are interesting to me at the moment. 3-5 books a month and 3-5 podcasts - and then I run to sell.

Sometimes it catches me, then I read the same thing over and over again. Recently there was such a book on setting up automatic sales chains, which I read 100,500 times while I moved this stone in my business. Read! This is the great gift of mankind! Read!

2. THE WAY TO SUCCESS

What does real (true) success mean to you?

Be in your place. In harmony with yourself. Family. The surrounding world. Everyone has this harmony and concepts about it are different. Well, this is where true success lies: to find your own recipe for happiness, not someone else's, but your own.

Even if your success is living in a tiny village on the banks of the Volga. If it makes you happy, don't look around. Look deep. Inside yourself. There's an answer.

What, in your opinion, are the main secrets of success and a successful personality?

So what? If you like knitting socks, and you give it to the world, then this is your way. And if you enjoy it, truly, without embellishment, and not in public, then you are successful. To the core. And happier than many "successful" in public, in fact. You don't have to be afraid of yourself.

What do you use to increase your personal efficiency and productivity?

I plan a lot. The goals are large, large-scale, if you don’t concentrate hard, nothing will work out. You can idle if the goals are close, if there is a backup, if you are now in the "rest" life season.

I now have a spring season, spring is everywhere: children need to be cultivated (small), businesses need to be nurtured (just started). This requires the utmost concentration of attention on the essentials.

How do I achieve? Weekly review every week. Every evening is a plan for the next day. During the day - I emerge from the routine, I look at the planner, what's on the list? What is the most important today? What is cool, and what is simply impossible not to do? Does it match the goals? Do I go where I want?

And a million questions. Which I answer every day. Even if it is difficult and painful, you still have to answer. The main thing is to learn to be honest with yourself.

Do you have time management in your life? What are you doing to get more done? Do you plan your days, weeks, months, years? How detailed? What planning tips can you give?

This year, I finally managed to plan. It took me a long time to get there, for years. I started with GDT by David Allen, but the book is not easy, and implementing all this in itself is another task. And then you have to stick to this system, every day, for years. That's when it just works!

It took me to clean out my brains and make plans ... Two / three years? Now, having read 100,500 books on this topic, I mix techniques and constantly try new mechanics.

We in Russia, by the way, also have our own very cool specialists in time management and productivity.

One of them is Maxim Dorofeev, I recorded a podcast with them - he helped me a lot to finish my system, to finish, fine tuning in English is called. By the way, the podcast is free and can be downloaded. There are tons of information, checklists, a whole mini-training on productivity.

Maxim explains about the phenomenon of productive hours, he calls it thought fuel. There are only 2 per day. Everything else is worse, the concentration is not the same, the brain does not pull complex tasks. So these first two productive hours should be loaded with the most important tasks.

Noticed? In the morning, for example, if you climb into social network- nothing more can be done. Right? But because you have wasted your most important and beautiful thought fuel on nonsense. And now you need to do normal tasks - write, think, squirm important things.

And you already have everything, there is no mental fuel. And you sit, picking your nose, and in this state you can sit on a task for half an hour for 4 hours. Because they gave everything. Perfect facebook or vk. Don't get caught, don't waste your thought fuel in vain!

What do you need to do to achieve your goals? Your signature recipe.

Nothing supernatural. All recipes are known. Who would do. Written global goals. Then goals for five years. Then for a year. Then for a month. And then for a day. And so every day. You dream, you plan, you figachish - that's the whole secret. No magic pills. Great people are fed by work!

How do you feel about money? What advice can you give on personal finance management?

Control. Especially when there is money. I was in this trap when there is a lot of money - it seems, why control? Still there is, and still will be. And then, rrrr. And there are no more of them ... The feeder is over, and you are at the trough ...

And then you start to think, turn your head on. Where are they? Where do they go? How to invest? What to do when they are not? Basic hygiene that 90% of people don't do: control your income/finance and spending. Start with this, you will already be cooler than everyone else. Cooler than I was a year ago, for sure!

How often do you study? How? Tell us about your last experience and what did you learn there?

How do I personally learn? I feel that I do not understand something, or a plug, or a stopper, and books do not help - I organize summits (as we call our online conferences) and study along with another 3,000-4,000 thousand of those who are as interested as me. Here's how I learn.

But not everyone, of course, solves their requests in this way. Look for books, courses, podcasts. You can listen to American podcasts here, on websarafan.ru, oh, how many interesting, different things, not like ours.

I'm usually looking for an answer to my specific problem. For example, I need to increase sales in my business. I go to Google and start looking for "how to raise your sales". Or I don’t want anything in life, a stopper, I don’t understand what I want and where to go.

I am looking for specific materials, courses, a book, on the topic of "search for yourself."

3. SOCIETY

What personality traits do you like and dislike in people?

I love open people. I hate and do not understand how to work and live with insincerity. I can’t keep anything in myself, and I expect the same from others. I want partnerships, live, real.

Puppeteers are not needed, I do not take them to the company. I want to develop together, grow together. Do you have ambitions? Ready to voice them? So you join me. Or maybe friends. But a filter is required.

What is family for you? What does she give you?

She gives me everything. My family is small and a bit incomplete. But then there are my children manage, like water, to fill all the space in my heart that is. Rugrats. I love you like a normal woman. Unquestioningly, with snot, with admiration.

Everything I do is for them. I drive, I educate, I show. I even want to do business for them. I will record audio courses, ask smart people. About life, about how to understand yourself. About how to be successful.

We don’t have such materials in the Russian-speaking space, but I want to let children listen, show examples, and tell. So, I will do it myself. Because I have to raise them and make “humans” out of them.

Be in love. Love unconditionally. Not to love yourself in them, not to realize your ambitions, but to love them themselves, for what they are in themselves. Even if you want more. Even if they don't get ranks in chess and don't play hockey very well.

I see my parenting three goals like this: health, values ​​and self-discovery. My job is to keep you healthy. Therefore, we now go not to developmental schools, but to sports. My task is to convey my values ​​to them. Don't take someone else's. Look around. Read. Don't be afraid of the new.

What are your values? Here you first define yours, write it down, and then it will be easier for the children to convey them, because you know exactly what yours are.

My job is to help you find your purpose. Stand side by side, do not breathe in the back at the moment when they groped. Try giving different things. Show them the world. Tell what happens. Kindle curiosity. Slip books, give experience. To find themselves, to find an occupation, to find passion. Inspiration. That's all. Three tasks, everything else is secondary.

Do you have a conscious the main objective or mission in life?

There are two goals - to raise children, to make people out of them, again. And find yourself. Its purpose. God brings us all here for a reason, He gives us all His part.

Our task is to find the divine in ourselves, pull it out and give it around. What are you doing? Why do you live? How are you changing the world? All these are not idle questions, but the most pressing ones. What is your purpose on earth?

It is not necessary to launch rockets into space, no. You can tell stories, teach children. But with passion, giving all of yourself. Here is your purpose. Here you are looking for it. Here is the mission. I'm looking for.

So far, only just started to move in that direction. This story is not just given to me, until the age of 32 I was completely engaged in something else. Not divine, but cost-effective. And now I want to find my own, what I want, and not what my parents wanted.

5. YOUR BUSINESS

What advice would you give to someone who is just about to start a business?

Find what makes you sick. Business should be done not the one that is profitable, but the one that you are interested in doing. Now is a phenomenal time - you can monetize everything.

No, really. Full of all sorts of freaks on Earth. Who take pictures of cats. Or they make dresses out of meat (which you-know-who buys). Or they make crazy videos. Or they talk about Hollywood movie stars. We monetize any whim,

The Internet gives you this opportunity. Do you like to swim in the hole? So there are 100,500 more people in this world who like it too. So, go, swim, and drag others with you. Then everything will be - fame, respect, money, everything will come. The first is passion, then everything else. And the business is from there.

6. PHILOSOPHY

What do you think the ideal life should be?

Everyone is different. Ideal - it's only yours. Only you invented and only you realized. Mine is a house in the mountains, with a veranda, garden, internet. With the ocean and my kids around...

Yours is your own. Give someone a city. Someone wants to be quiet. Someone needs 6 children. Someone is lonely. Spit on someone else's opinion and make your own happiness.

Your wishes to the readers of the project "To Yourself Guru".

Find yourself and do only what you like! There can be no other advice, since this is the most important thing - to realize what the Lord sent you to Earth for!

Thank you, Taisiya, for useful and interesting answers! Health, energy and good luck to you in your stormy and interesting life!

You can view Taisiya's contacts on the website "To Yourself Guru".

Editor and Project Lead:

Participation is free.

60 thousand subscribers in the group
50 thousand e-mails in the mailing list
1.5 million rubles - turnover per month
Included in the TOP 100 women entrepreneurs in Europe according to Forbes.

Unlimited opportunities to travel, live anywhere in the world, spend time with children and family and at the same time manage your favorite business with mobile phone or laptop - an impossible dream or reality just a few steps away?

Today, the need for online educational services is growing like never before, which means that more and more people are concerned about the development of their business. Many are stopped by the fact that expertise in a particular field does not always coincide with the accompanying technical skills or the presence of start-up capital. Fortunately, to run an online school or course today, this is not at all necessary. Business processes are easy to automate and.

The story of Taisiy Kudashkina, the founder of the WebSarafan project, will help you gather your thoughts and take the first step. It is today she is the founder and CEO WebSarafan- a popular platform for entrepreneurs with an audience of 60,000 subscribers.

But it was not always so.

Way to success

Taisiya is originally from Omsk, but she started her career... right away in Silicon Valley. However, Taisiya could not fit herself into the framework of a successful highly paid corporate career as a data analyst. Too much energy, drive and desire to live by your own rules.

This is how the idea of ​​a promising start-up was born - the feedback site tulp.ru, for the creation of which Taisiya, with her two-month-old daughter in her arms, managed to attract 50 million rubles. Moving to St. Petersburg, a team of the best developers, a unique job in terms of SEO and content - it seemed that all the components of success were obvious, but in total the result was not at all the same. Changed plans for the investor, lack of sales, the need to pay salaries to the recruited team of 25 people and a complete lack of understanding of what to do next.

WebSarafan appeared out of its own "pain" and the desire to understand the wilds of marketing and PR. First, as a blog, the first three articles in which Taisiya wrote herself. And then it dawned on her: why not ask the experts themselves how to build a business, and not record the conversation to share it with others? This is how the podcast format appeared with transcripts in the form of articles.

The energy of live communication brought her real pleasure and drive. Podcasts and articles came out emotional, unusual, and most importantly, useful. This is what attracted speakers and subscribers to the group. The popularity of the blog progressively grew, the number of subscribers arrived. However, this project could not be monetized. On the eve of the new year 2015, even 700 rubles for a Christmas tree for children turned out to be an unaffordable expense item.

When you have problems, you can give up and quit, or you can find a mentor

Taisia ​​found Petr Ponomarev, one of the best e-mail sales specialists in Russia. He helped to compose a chain of four letters and ... the process began. It turns out that you can and should sell through the mailing list! In just a day, the first 80 thousand rubles appeared on Taisiya's account. The mailing list became a selling tool, and thanks to this, the project moved on.

Taisiya tried to sell webinars with guest speakers, but it didn't work out. She is a perfectionist, it is difficult for her to put up with the imperfection of others. Bad sound, unsightly background behind the speaker...she was not ready to answer for all this with her own reputation as a seller. They stopped selling webinars, but the idea of ​​​​summits appeared - offline events that are broadcast online for a Russian-speaking audience. High-quality installation of light and sound, rented premises, spectacular Taya as a host and still the most useful tricks and life hacks from the masters of their craft.

And remember that it is impossible to effectively and for a long time to do what is not high. In addition to financial motivation, you need an emotional degree of charge and a desire to do your own thing. It is then that the very “wow effect” will happen, and your customers and subscribers will stay with you for many years.