Co-Founder @ Stan | building a $BN company 🚀

Hi, I’m Vitalii 👋🏻

Over the past 3 years, I’ve built a $30M ARR business with 30 people.

A $1M/employee company.

Now, we’re building a category-defining brand—with $100M ARR in sight.

To do that, I focus on Culture, People, and Product.

Everything that got me here is self-taught.

Born and raised in Russia, I started working at 13—packing parachutes and skydiving. 🪂
By 18, I had 800+ jumps and enough saved to pay for my first year of college.

Jumping out of planes redefined my relationship with fear.
Once you commit, you act. Without hesitation.

I learned English in one year to study abroad—still the hardest thing I’ve done.
That brought me to Canada, where I earned a degree in Chemical Engineering.

I never used it.

My side projects opened doors for me—first to Deloitte, then to eBay.
But the real work happened outside the job.

I made time to build:
9–5 for the paycheck,
5–9 (both morning and night) for what I actually cared about.

That’s where I proved to myself—nothing is impossible.

In 2021, I met my cofounder. We went all-in and started building Stan.

On my LinkedIn, I write about:

→ Founder war stories (unfiltered)
→ Building a $1M/employee startup
→ Creating top 1% culture

🎧 Follow me here if you're building—or want to build—something great.

People I work with would describe me as:

→ I make things happen
→ Zero tolerance for mediocrity
→ I build and run top 1% talent-density teams

🫂 DM me on LinkedIn if you'd like to work at Stan.

But know—it’s likely to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.
And worth it. For the right person.

—

On LinkedIn, I share stories for founders building what’s next—
The ones who care about People, Culture, and Redefining what's possible.

If that’s you,
Follow me. Drop a comment. Or just say hi 👋🏻

Vitalii Dodonov

My dad is a 10-time world champion in skydiving.

It's a dangerous sport. 
Most teams don’t train in bad weather.

He made his team train in near-storm conditions —

because you never know what the weather will be on competition day.

His results speak for themselves.

He taught me to show up — and act — no matter how scared you are.

That mindset has been the backbone of everything I’ve achieved.

What did you learn from your parents?

li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #startup, #founders, #leadership, #engineering, and #enterprenuership

Today, Nadine leads 50 people at Stan — after rejecting my job offer 3 times.

Two years ago, she was a contract support agent.

I’d get daily performance reports from Alexa — 
We pushed everyone to hit 60+ emails per day.

While most people struggled,
Nadine never missed a day. Always above target.

When I asked her to join full-time, she said no.
“San Diego. My husband’s job. We love the mountains.”

Six months later, another walk down Venice Beach.

"I'd love you to join Stan full-time."
"San Diego... my husband... Let me think about it."

"Is this a hard no from your family?"
"Well... I can be quite convincing."
"Good to know!"

At our Cabo offsite, Alexa said:
"V, I need a people manager. Nadine would be perfect — but she won't move."

"She told me she can be convincing. Let’s give her a reason to be."

So I went to Nadine one more time.

"I know San Diego keeps you there.
But I need your help here.

In the end, it’s either you supporting the family 
or the family supporting you.

Let me make supporting you the best decision for your family."

Alexa came with the offer.

Turns out Nadine can indeed be very convincing 
(thank you Garrett for supporting her! 🙏).

Within a year, she took over as Head of Support 
(when I asked Alexa to build a new org with me)

Thank god we didn't give up.
The best talent is always worth the wait.

Head of Creator Support @ Stan I MA Organizational Leadership

Stan

People Ops @ Stan

When you work - work. When you rest - rest.

Don't mix the two.

Last week I caught myself texting during our product meeting.

Then I zoned out on Slack for 10 minutes at dinner 
(mrs wasn't happy 😅).

It's human to want everything at once.

But here's what building Stan taught me:

The best ideas come from meetings where phones are face down.
The best conversations at home happen when Slack is off.

When you try to be everywhere, you're nowhere.

I spent years thinking "always on" showed dedication.
All it showed was lack of focus.

Your ability to drive change comes from being 100% present.
Not 70% in three places (that wastes time in 3 places).

I still slip up - often.

But when I do get it right, it’s like life slows down just enough to notice what matters.

How’s your relationship with presence lately?

My first YouTube video just went live!!! 🎬🚀

Taking y’all behind the scenes of our 14-day SF Hacker House. 

Where me and 8 of my best builders at Stan launched 2 AI products live.

Tune in if you’re into startups + building in public, or just wanna see how we build here at Stan. 

Watch here: https://lnkd.in/gNqVTEBR

I rewired my personality in 2 years. 

ISTJ → INTJ.

Yes, you can train intuition.

In 2022, I took the Myers-Briggs test on 16Personalities.
It said ISTJ — the Logistician.

I looked up the types of my heroes:

Elon Musk: INTJ
Steve Jobs: INTJ (or ENTP)
Jensen Huang: ENTJ
Mark Zuckerberg: INTJ
Jeff Bezos: ENTJ

Every world-shaping entrepreneur had one letter I didn't: N.

So I studied them.
Turns out, almost all are habitual readers — especially of science fiction.

This is where vision comes from:

1️⃣ Imagining a world that doesn’t exist
2️⃣ Envisioning a path toward it
3️⃣ Having the courage to start walking

The following year, I read 20+ sci-fi books — whatever they read, I wanted to read.

Some of my favourites:

1/ Foundation (5 books)
2/ I, Robot (7 books)
3/ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
4/ Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
5/ Ender’s Game

📚 Reading rewired how I think.

Today, my MBTI is INTJ — 76% Intuition.
(Q for my team @Stan: did you notice?)

I’m sharing this story because: 
You can change how your mind works — if you choose to.

YOU CAN CHANGE.

When the destination is clear, 
The path unveils itself. 

What’s your Myers-Briggs type?👇

How I spot top 1% talent in one question.

After 100+ interviews building a $30M ARR team, I’ve boiled it down to one question:

“What have you built?”

Very few can answer it with the kind of depth that makes it undeniably clear they know what they did, why it worked, and the impact it drove.

When I find myself leaning forward, asking “Wait, how did you figure that out?” 

I know I’m talking to someone different.

Because most people work on things.
The top 1% build things.

If you’re a founder hiring - how do you spot the top 1%?

One thing I've been subconsciously lucky about —

Living where it's sunny. ☀️

I never realized how much it shaped my energy, focus, and optimism.

Until I spent a few weeks somewhere gray.
Suddenly, everything felt heavier.

It's strange how the weather can change your will to act.

With sunlight, small things feel doable.
Without it, even easy things feel like effort.

Most people underestimate how much their environment drives them.

We think it's our discipline or motivation —
But sometimes, it's just that strike of yellow on your table
Breaking through the window of a coffee shop.

If you ever feel stuck, it might not be you.
It might be the weather.

P.S. Have you noticed this too? 
Where do you live — and how's the sun treating you?

This is me building our ’26 strategy right now.

Our #1 problem:

We outgrew founder-led execution faster than we scaled our team to execute on our behalf.

As we scaled the business to $30M ARR in 3 years,

We fell behind on scaling ourselves.

2026 is going to be the evolution on how we run the company. 

My job as a Founder:
Build a machine that builds the machine.

A measure of success I’ll hold myself accountable to:
✅ Was this done without me?

—
Founders Q: What broke when you finally stepped back?

Someone recently asked me how we priced Stan at $29/mo.

Now we're a $30M ARR business.

All I said was: 🤷‍♂️ 😅

We needed to pick a number, so we did.

Our only compass was wanting to build a premium product. So we picked a premium-ish price and shipped it.

And that's what I want to share today:

No one knows what they're doing.
Even the top 1%.

In retrospect, we all have playbooks explaining why the thing we did worked and how exactly it's brilliant.

But in practice...

Every single top performer I've met is just making educated guesses and hoping for the best.

They favour action over inaction, and they trust their gut.

In the end,
Results take care of themselves.

--

Do you also feel like you don't know what you're doing, sometimes? 🤔

Your first 100 customers will bring your next 100.

For free.

If they don’t, your product’s not good enough yet.

We went all-in on those first 100.
1:1 coaching.
On-the-call bug fixes.
Feature requests shipped overnight.

We obsessed over each one until they felt their version of:
“I can’t believe you did that.”

When you exceed expectations like that, word spreads faster than anything you can pay for.

Most founders overlook this part - and that’s a mistake.

If you’re not texting your first 100 customers,
you’re not doing enough.

P.S. Four years and $30M ARR later - we’re still texting.

Working out of a NYC WeWork this week — and remembering the good old days. 🗽

We built the first $10M of Stan out of WeWorks between LA and Toronto.

I still remember hacking away at that 8-person WeWork table.

Back then, we’d just walk out to a nearby café for lunch.

Now, coordinating lunch across our 25-person offices is a full-blown operation.

Feeling nostalgic ☺️

P.S. WeWork kombucha is still unmatched.

In October, I flew my team to SF to build 2 AI projects in public.

Our documentary is LIVE 🟢

We built:
1/ A pivotal feature for Stanley (Your Content Coach) 
2/ The foundation for our company pivot 

(yep, at $30M ARR!)

We filmed the entire trip.

226 hours of footage → 30 minutes of building in public documentary.
(Day 2 pivot? Yep!)

Why watch:

🍎 Experienced founders: innovation beyond our core.
🚀 First-time founders: copy our 14-day launch playbook!
🫂 Anyone who wants to work at Stan - this is how we build.

Watch here (or save for later): https://lnkd.in/gNqVTEBR

P.S. If you want to see why building is an iterative process, watch me at 13:42 trying to build a whiteboard 😅

Stanley (Your Content Coach)

We fail in business for the same reason we fail at habits:

Doing too much 🤹‍♀️

It takes about 70 repetitions to form a new neural pathway —
to make an action automatic.

But somewhere along the way, we get excited.
We add a new habit.
Now the first one gets only half our attention.

The new neural pathways are still fragile —
and without reinforcement, they fade.
The habit never sticks.

The same happens in business.
We rarely stay with something long enough for it to reach its full potential.

Imagine how different your results would look
if you finished just one thing all the way through.

What is that thing for you?

Stanley is behind 2.1x engagement for 1,267 Entrepreneurs on LinkedIn.

Instagram, you're next 📲

6 months ago, we launched Stanley for LinkedIn. 
Now serving 1,267 entrepreneurs.

In just 30 days, they see: 
• 2.1x avg. engagement increase 
• 11% more posts 
• 131% growth in comments

What did we do?

We taught Stanley to speak Instagram! 
(yep, he can now watch videos)

𝗪𝗵𝗼 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿: 
• Aspiring Entrepreneurs on IG (1-10K) 
• Still finding your voice 
• Need help growing your followers

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗱𝗼? 
• Watch all your content 
• Find patterns (so growth isn't random) 
• Send personalized content ideas 
• Script in your voice 
• Help stay consistent

𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲:
Your stories deserve to be heard. 
Stanley makes sure they are. 
While helping you grow 3x faster.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘄?
$19/mo Early Adopter + 14 days free trial.

Tomorrow, we're back to $47/mo once Cyber Monday is over 

Get your spot here: https://lnkd.in/gKqxnFUK

Scaling Meta advertisers with our Creative Data System | $26M+ in Tracked Meta Sales | Founder at Media Engineered

I'm the founder at Media Engineered, we work with DTC brands to help them scale their ad spend and slash CPA with our performance ad creatives and Meta ads. 

Our system takes a data driven approach to improving your creatives with strategic tests, iterating and optimising with each new batch of ads we make. 

I make posts about the steps you can take to improve your ad creatives, without the fluff. 

If you'd like to find out how we can scale your DTC brand with ad creatives, book a call or give me a message. 

Find me on other platforms:
→ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@adamtaylorl
→ Website: https://www.mediaengineered.com
→ Twitter: https://x.com/adamtaylorl

Adam Taylor

The best creative strategists I know don't just make ads.

They ask better questions.

Not: "What video should we make?"
But: "What belief do we need to shift to get this person to buy?"

Not: "Which format is trending?"
But: "Which format best delivers this specific message to this awareness level?"

Not: "Why did this ad fail?"
But: "What did this ad teach us about our market?"

Better questions = better ads.

Ads are overrated.

At least, by themselves.

You can have the best creative strategist in the world, but your campaign will fail if:
→ Your offer is confusing.
→ Your landing page loads slowly.
→ Your retention strategy is non-existent.

Ads are just a megaphone.

If you point a megaphone at a bad product, you just amplify the noise of people ignoring you.

We often audit brands spending $100k/mo who think they need “better hooks.”

Usually, they need a better business model.

Fix the fundamentals first.

Then let the ads do the heavy lifting.

Creative Fatigue vs. Angle Fatigue.

Knowing the difference saves you thousands.

Creative Fatigue:
– People are bored of the video.
– Metrics: Hook rate drops. CTR drops.
– Fix: Change the first 3 seconds. Keep the script.

Angle Fatigue:
– People are bored of the message.
– Metrics: Conversion rate drops. CPM rises.
– Fix: You need a new pain point. A new desire. A new story.

Most brands throw out the whole ad when only the hook was broken.

Or they keep iterating hooks on a message that the market has already rejected.

Diagnose before you treat.

Most brands' creative testing looks like this:

Launch 10 ads.
Wait a week.
Pick the winners.
Repeat.

But they never ask WHY an ad won.

So when it dies, they're back to square one.

Here's what the brands scaling past $500K/month do differently:
They track angles, not just ads.

Every creative gets tagged with:

→ The core message
→ The awareness level
→ The format
→ The hook type

Then they group performance by angle.

If three different creatives with the “sleep disruption” angle all perform,
that's the signal.

They don’t remake the video.

They remake the angle in 5 new ways.

This is how you turn creative testing into a compounding system
instead of a guessing game.

Everyone's talking about creative volume.
"You need 50 ads a week to scale."

But here's what they're not saying:
Volume without direction is just noise.

I audited a brand last month spending $300K/month on Meta.
They were producing 60+ ads every week.

But performance was flat.
Why?

Because they had no angle strategy.
They were just making "stuff."

Different creators.
Different scripts.
Different formats.

But no hypothesis.
No learning.
No compounding.

The fix wasn't more ads.
It was fewer, better-targeted angles tested systematically.

We cut their output to 30 ads/week.
But every ad was designed to answer a specific question:
→ Does this pain point resonate?
→ Does this hook work for cold traffic?
→ Does this format convert better than UGC?

Within 6 weeks, CPA dropped 32%.

The lesson?
Quality isn't just about production value.
It's about strategic intent.

Make fewer ads.
Test smarter.

The most underrated ad format for 2025:
Authority Figures.

Everyone is chasing the "viral UGC" trend.

But the feed is flooded with bad acting and fake enthusiasm.

Trust is the new currency.

When a dermatologist, a mechanic, or a nutritionist explains why your product works…

It hits different.

It triggers Educational Permission.

The user stops scrolling because they think they are about to learn something, not buy something.

Meta's AI loves these visual cues (white coats, professional settings).

If you have a science-backed product, stop hiding it behind dancing influencers.

I spoke to a founder yesterday who was personally approving every single ad creative.

He’s spending $200k/month.
And he’s the bottleneck.

He told me, "I just want to make sure it's on brand."
I asked him, "Do you have a brand guideline document?"

He said no.

This is "Chaos Marketing."
It relies on the founder's intuition, which is unscalable.

We implement the "Angle OS."
It’s a matrix of pre-approved messaging angles.

Once the strategy is approved, the creative team can run wild within those guardrails.

The founder sleeps.
The ads scale.

Delegate or die.

How to turn a 1-star review into a 5-star ad.
Your haters are secretly your best copywriters.

Go to your competitor’s bad reviews and look for recurring complaints:
• “This serum feels sticky.”
• “These leggings are see-through.”
• “The battery dies in 2 hours.”

Turn them directly into hooks:
• “Tired of serums that leave you sticky?”
• “Leggings that actually pass the squat test.”
• “A battery that lasts 24 hours—finally.”

You’re calling out a pain the market already feels, validating it, and positioning your product as the solution.

Stop brainstorming. Start review-mining.

The "5-Year-Old Test" for Ad Copy

Brands try too hard to sound smart.

“Our proprietary nanno-encapsulated formula…”

Stop.

Your customer is scrolling at 100mph while half-watching Netflix.
They’re not reading your whitepaper.

Rewrite it so a 5-year-old gets it:

“Proprietary nanno-encapsulated formula” → “Absorbs instantly.”

“Ergonomic lumbar support” → “No more back pain.”

If you confuse them, you lose them.

Clarity converts. Cleverness confuses.

I spoke to a founder spending $400K/month on Meta.

His biggest problem?
He was still personally writing, filming, and approving every single ad.

He was the highest-paid employee in his company,

but he was acting like the most junior creative.

He was the bottleneck.

This is the classic trap of the 7-figure founder.

You get there by doing everything.

But you scale past it by building systems that do the work for you.

Your job isn't to be the best creative in your business.

It's to build the system that produces the best creative.

Ads are overrated.

At least, by themselves.

A great ad can bring the right people to your business.

But it can't fix a broken business model.

You can have the best creative in the world, but it will fail if:
→ Your offer isn't clear, compelling, and urgent.
→ Your landing page is slow, confusing, or untrustworthy.
→ Your retention strategy is non-existent.

Ads turn attention into traffic.

Your offer, conversion experience, and customer LTV are what turn traffic into profit.

Focus on the fundamentals first.

Stop looking for the "Silver Bullet" tool.

"Which AI tool writes the best scripts?"

"Which platform has the best UGC creators?"

Tools don't solve skill gaps.

If you don't understand customer psychology, an AI script writer will just generate faster garbage.

If you don't know how to write a brief, a UGC platform will send you unusable footage.

We scaled a brand to $500k/mo using an iPhone and a Google Doc.

The skill is understanding the market.

The tool is just the delivery mechanism.

Master the skill.

The brands that win on Meta in 2025 aren't the ones with the biggest budgets.

They're the ones with the clearest systems.

I've worked with brands spending $50K/month and brands spending $1M/month.

The difference isn't always the money.

It's how they think about creative.

The stuck brands ask:
"What ad should we make next?"

The scaling brands ask:
"What insight are we testing, and how will we measure it?"

One treats creative like content.
The other treats it like a scientific process.

If you want to scale past your current ceiling, start thinking like a scientist,
not a content creator.

A founder told me yesterday:
"We're spending $150K/month but ROAS keeps dropping. We need new creatives."

I looked at their account.

They didn't need new creatives.

They needed a new approach.

Here's what I saw:
→ 80% of their ads were middle-of-funnel social proof
→ Zero problem-aware content for cold traffic
→ No founder-led ads
→ No authority figures

They were fishing in one tiny corner of the pond and wondering why they couldn't catch more fish.

The fix wasn't more ads.
It was full-funnel creative diversity.

Within 4 weeks of adding top-of-funnel educational content and bottom-of-funnel offer ads, they hit their highest ROAS month in 6 months.

Scaling isn't about doing more of what works.

It's about filling the gaps.

Your ad account isn't a creative library.

It's a learning machine.

Most brands look at their Meta account and see:
→ A list of ads
→ Some winners
→ Some losers

But they're missing the real value.

Every ad is a data point.

Every test tells you something about your market:
1. Which problems they care about most
2. Which language stops the scroll
3. Which proof points build trust
4. Which formats hold attention

The brands that scale are the ones who capture these insights and turn them into a playbook.

They don't just know their top ad.

They know why it worked.

And they can replicate it.

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