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

Paiday

Co-Founder

Blueprint Accounting, Inc.

At Blueprint Accounting, we want to empower entrepreneurs to make better business decisions through understanding their financial data.

CEO and Founder

FirmOps

Karbon

Assisting accounting firms with implementing Karbon and teaching them best practices so they can hit the ground running after their implementation.

Karbon Expert

FreshBooks

Partner Advisory Council

Rockwell Collins

Senior Financial Analyst

QNX Software Systems

Senior Accountant

The Ottawa Hospital

Financial Analyst

prairieFyre Software Inc.

Finance Specialist

CAE Inc.

Finance Administrator

Entrepreneur | Cloud Technologist | Automation Specialist | CPA | MBA

Let's talk accounting! I know, it's super boring. But at least we can make it a bit more interesting somehow. Accounting firms are slowly moving towards cloud-based services, and really, that's the future of the accounting industry. So what does that mean for you? Lower accounting costs and a more streamlined accounting process. 

My team and I at Blueprint Accounting know how to integrate numerous apps with your accounting software. This ultimately reduces your bookkeeping costs and allows us to focus on the strategic side of accounting, to provide you the right advice, at the right time and to make the right decisions to grow your business. 

Let's connect today for a free assessment to get you on the road to accounting automation.

Specialties: App Integration with Accounting Software; Budgeting; Forecasting; Variance Analysis; Financial Reporting; Financial Modeling; Teamwork; Business Case Analysis; Accounting

Brian C.

One of the things I’m most excited about is what our CRA integration will unlock.

Right now, firms have to dig into each client’s CRA payroll account just to confirm balances, check notices, or make sure remittances matched what the system said. It’s slow, repetitive, and honestly a huge risk area.

We’re building the opposite experience: pull CRA data directly into Paiday Hub and surface it in one place. 

Balances, notifications, everything you’d normally chase across accounts, right where you’re already working.

Imagine reviewing a pay run and instantly seeing whether the CRA balance lines up. No digging. No logging in and out. No “I’ll check that later.”

For firms trying to run payroll accurately *and* at scale, this is going to be a game changer.

If you could see CRA payroll info directly inside your workflow, what would it save you

#CanadianAccounting #Payroll #CRA #Bookkeeping #PayrollOps

Brian Clare

A Karbon client hit me with a billing nightmare last week 😭

3 accountant levels. 3 different rate ranges. Total chaos trying to track who bills what.

Here's the thing: They had accountants at different seniority levels, each with their own rate caps:
• Level 1: $75-$150
• Level 2: $75-$175

• Level 3: $75-$200

Makes sense, right? Senior folks handle complex returns, they bill more.

But then add in partners at $250-$360/hour, admin at $75 flat, and some non-billable staff... and you've got a spreadsheet disaster waiting to happen.

Enter Karbon Rate Plans. 💡

Instead of fighting the system, we built WITH it:

✅ 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀: Static rates ($250-$360) - no surprises
✅ 𝗔𝗱𝗺𝗶𝗻: Fixed at $75 - simple and clean
✅ 𝗡𝗼𝗻-𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗳𝗳: NO rate (not $0, literally none) - so their time doesn't mess with billing calculations BUT you can still write it up if needed
✅ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗶𝘁: Created separate roles for each accountant level with task-specific rates

Here's where it gets smart:

We made ONE generic "Accountant" role for all work items. No more juggling Level 1 vs 2 vs 3 assignments on every single task.

When an accountant grabs work:
1️⃣ Work item shows budget for "Accountant" (generic)
2️⃣ They code time against THEIR level (1, 2, or 3)
3️⃣ System automatically pulls the right rate based on task type

Yeah, the budget vs actual might look wonky on the generic role. But you know what's worse? Manually adjusting roles, budgets, and automators on HUNDREDS of work items. 😅

This whole setup sparked an idea though...

What if changing a role in Time & Budget automatically updated all the tasks and automators using that role?

Like you swap "Accountant" to "Level 1" and boom - everything updates. No manual cleanup.

That would be 🔥

How are you handling different skill levels in your billing? Still using spreadsheets or found a better way?

#Karbon #AccountingFirms #BillingAutomation #WorkflowOptimization

Pricing payroll based on headcount sounds simple… until the headcount quietly changes.

I’ve been there: you scope a client at 10 employees. Months later, they’ve hired five more. You’re doing more ROEs, more T4s, more onboarding and none of it shows up in your margins.

That’s why we built out-of-scope detection right into the dashboard. It tracks the number of employees you’re actually running payroll for and flags when a client grows beyond your original agreement.

Now you can confidently tell a client, “You’re out of scope, we need to adjust pricing.”

No awkward conversations, no guessing, and eventually, this will sync back to proposal software to update engagements automatically.

Out-of-scope work is one of the easiest ways for firms to leak profit and one of the hardest to spot in most systems.

How are you tracking scope creep today?

#CanadianAccounting #Payroll #PricingForAccountants #Bookkeeping #CAS

Sunday afternoons are for vibe coding.

While everyone else is watching football… wait, why am I not watching football? 😞 

I decided we needed better visibility into Paiday's onboarding flow.

The problem? We were constantly jumping between screens to check:
• Which clients were stuck in onboarding
• How many employees they'd actually added
• Whether preview mode was working for them

So I built us a quick admin dashboard.

Nothing fancy. Just the essentials:
1️⃣ Real-time status for every customer onboarding
2️⃣ Employee count per client 
3️⃣ Toggle for preview mode without diving into backend

The fun part? Added light and dark mode because... why not? If you're going to vibe code on a Sunday, might as well make it look good.

Here's what I'm realizing though: This dashboard is going to grow. Fast.

Already thinking about adding:
• Last login timestamps
• Payroll run frequency
• Support ticket status
• CRA connection health

But I'm curious what YOU'D want to see in an admin dashboard for your SaaS.

What metrics actually matter when you're trying to understand customer health at a glance? 

Maybe an ACTUAL Customer Health Index, a la Dan Martell? 

#SaaS #BuildInPublic #Paiday #StartupLife #ProductDevelopment

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