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

I've just hired Emily Talas to make Stan the #1 place to work in Toronto 🇨🇦

A day later: "You're so lucky to have her."

I got 7 texts like this following the announcement ^^. Must be doing something right 😅

Here's a stat I feel vulnerable to share:

50% of our candidates from traditional channels don't work out by month 3.

At the same time, 
90% of employee referrals stay indefinitely and create disproportionate value.

There's signal in that.

And we're acting on it ✅

Starting now, we’re going 90% community-based hiring.

When I met Emily, I knew almost instantly she'd be the one:

Born to a family of entrepreneurs. Working since 14. Found her ikigai in Community x Tech (how rare is that!?). People I respect texted me about her.

I bet on Emily because the talent I'm after doesn't talk to recruiters: 
"The best people are never unemployed."

But on occasion, they hang out with other cool people. 
Emily's mission is to create the occasion.

In 2026, Emily's likely to drive 90% of our hiring in Toronto.

Think hackathons, hacker houses, private dinners, collaborations, and special events giving unknown talent a chance to meet us.

🇨🇦 Toronto — what's one event you wish existed here? We're painting a blank canvas, share some ideas!

My first bet of 2026: $20,000 on builders in Canada 🇨🇦

Build with AI? On Jan 23 👇

I’m inviting 60 builders to embark on a weekend-long sprint to create something new at the edge of AI.

Details:
🛠 Participants: 60 builders
⏰ Duration: 2 days 
🎯 Theme: AI × Voice × Video
👥 Team: Solo, with friends, or AI teammates

Each participant/team gets a $200 tech credit and competes for:

$20,000 cash
30-min 1:1 with me (ask anything you want)

To help spread the word, please repost this and tag anyone who should see it!

This is an invite-only event.

📩 To apply, leave a comment describing the most impressive thing you’ve built in one line.

Traditional recruiting is dead. That's why I'm paying $20,000 to a stranger in January.

I've hired 40+ people.

Together, we've built a $30M ARR startup. Profitably.

One thing in common among my best hires:

I wouldn't call them if all I saw was their resume. Take a look:

Esther, now my EA, has a fashion management degree. She got the job by walking into a machine shop and producing a mechanical drawing — before we even met 💅🛠️

Jason (JSON) won a hackathon last year he couldn't legally join because he was 17. I hired him on the spot (with his parents' approval) and he's built a $1.4M product with me in 9 months 🧑🏻‍💻

Ricky, now Head of Engineering, came from a company I'd never heard of. Did fine in the interview (on his birthday! 🎂). Then called me at 10 PM with a better solution he couldn't stop thinking about. 

Resumes can only tell you so much — unreliable signal.

So instead of reading resumes, I host hackathons. Give builders a reason to come. 

Then watch.

So here we are 👇

January 23. Toronto. 2-day hackathon on the edge of AI.

Win $20,000 — and (or!) a job building a $1B company. Invite-only. 

📩 To apply: tell me a story of what you've built that you're most proud of in the comments.

CRA paid me $750K for building in Canada 🇨🇦

And now I'm giving it back - starting with $20K on Jan 23. 

In 2021, we established our office in Canada.

3 years later: $30M ARR. 30 people. One of the fastest-growing startups in the country.

My vision was to build a $1B company with 10 engineers - I'm evolving that now.

Since then, our Toronto office expanded far beyond engineering and has become HQ for 20+ brilliant people building at the edge of technology and entrepreneurship.

There are 2 major tech hubs in the world — SF and Toronto.

And while SF has access to capital and a developed VC ecosystem, California seems to be working against its own interest.

I mean… who wants to become a billionaire in California now? 👎

Anyway — Canada paid me $750K last year for building here.

And I'm paying it back to Canadian builders.

January 23. Hackathon in Toronto. 60 builders. $20,000 grand prize.

Come join us — and let the prize be the seed funding for your company (or use the opportunity to interview at Stan — whatever your ambition is).

Invite-only (curating a high calibre room!)

📩 To apply, drop your proudest project in one sentence in the comments. I'll reach out with an invite if it resonates.

I'm paying $20,000 for 2 days of someone's work on Jan 23.

Early in my career, 

I was making $8,000/mo writing code for a big company, while hacking away on side projects. I always wanted to work for myself.

One day, I was in a room with an entrepreneur who was upset about fees he was paying for software. So I asked:

V: How much are you paying?
M: 10%.

V: And how much money is that?
M: $50K/year.

My mind goes: no wonder he's upset. I bet I could do a simple Stripe integration with 3.4% fees. I already did something similar for my side project.

V: If I could get your fees down to 5%, how much would that be worth to you?
M: I'd pay $10K without even thinking.

V: I'm gonna do it for you for $10K.

It took me a weekend — 3 days (nights included), mostly repackaging code I already had across other projects.

I gave him a demo on Monday, and by Friday, $10,000 landed in my PayPal.

That weekend I learned: the right room + the right skills = life-changing opportunity. 

And now, I want to put you in that room 👇

January 23. Hackathon in Toronto. 60 builders. $20,000 grand prize. 
Invite-only. 

📩 To apply, drop your most impactful build story in the comments — I'll personally reach out to the builders I want in the room.

I hired my Executive Assistant because of her napkin drawing 📜

Her name is Esther.

A year ago, I was looking for an Executive Assistant. 

Looking for the top 1%, I needed a way to test problem-solving and initiative.

So I gave candidates a creative test:

I was building a frame for a flying car as a passion project at the time.

How many ppl know anything about flying cars anyway? 🤷‍♂️

I wrote down an abstract description of a few parts I needed.

The assignment was to research machine shops and find a way to manufacture them 

When I reviewed Esther's submission, she had a picture of this drawing inside (see the image).

I invited her to my office:

V: "Do you know anything about manufacturing?"
E: "No… I study business and fashion"
V: "How did you get this image?"
E: "They drew it for me at the machine shop"
V: "You went to the machine shop?"

(I reviewed a few dozen submissions by then. All candidates just called).

E: "I called first but what they were saying didn't quite fit what you were looking for"

E: "I figured it'd be easier if I just go there to figure it out. "
E: "So I just walked over." 

V: "That must've taken hours. Why invest that time?"

E: "Umm... I didn't really think about it. I wasn't getting what I needed. So I did what I had to do."

Having heard this I knew the interview was over.

Anyone who thinks like that will succeed in anything they do.

She got the job.

And since then, Esther was behind a number of very unique experiences we created at Stan:

Like making the big $750K CRA cheques, organizing Hacker Houses in SF and hosting AI Hackathons on Toronto. 

Congratulations on your 1 year at Stan, Esther!

undefined undefined

Executive Assistant @ Stan

Stan

HackAI 2.0 starting tonight. It’s time to build 😤

New Show: Emily in 𝙿̶𝚊̶𝚛̶𝚒̶𝚜̶ Stan (or "How to get a Founder to hire you")

A story in screenshots 👇

Hiring - Emily in Stan

I'm paying $20,000 in January to the winner of my hackathon. But the real prize isn't the $20K.

The room matters more than the prize.

When I was 13, my dad gave me a gift — working alongside him.

He's a professional skydiver. Extreme sport, expensive hobby. His clients are top-tier business people (natural selection — the sport isn't cheap) 🪂

So in between sessions when we went out for saunas and dinners, I got to sit in and listen to them. War stories, betrayals, deals, schemes, mental models, what made them successful.

I absorbed it all, without even realizing it.

Looking back, I realize — those were the building blocks that led me to a $30M ARR startup, running at $1M/employee before AI.

And that's the opportunity I'm giving you.

Join Stan on January 23 to build for 2 days alongside my team and 59 other builders competing for a grand prize of $20,000.

→ Meet me, my team, and Toronto's best builders.
→ Maybe your future co-founder — or I offer you a job. (It happened last year.)

The $20K is nice. The room might change your life.

January 23. Toronto. Invite-only.

Grab your spot with the link in comments!

I asked a seasoned exec about his worst business decision.

He didn't miss a beat: "Cancelling the 9am."

For 10 years, he ran it daily.
The 2 years he stopped were his worst.

Without that anchor, people drifted in at 9:30.
Add coffee and "how was your weekend" — real work started at 11.

Half the day, gone.

The meetings weren't about updates.
They set the rhythm.

Remove that, and people rebuild discipline from scratch.
Exhausting.

At Stan, when we skip our morning sync, everything drags.

We don't miss the information.
We miss the rhythm.

Humans need structure.
It gives them permission to just start.

What’s your version of the 9am?

Someone asked me what I hope never changes about Stan in 5 years.

Me in 5 seconds: 

"Our commitment to talent density."

I'm building a company where having worked here is the ultimate badge of honor on a resume.

Where any other employer would be fighting to get our alumni on board. 
(If they ever want to work for another company, that is.)

I fundamentally believe the reason we win is this: We attract top 1% talent.

And we put them in an environment where their ability can be utilized to its absolute maximum potential.

With ownership, autonomy, and a set of large, cutting-edge problems they can tackle.

Everything else can change. 
The market, the product, our size.

But for me, it will always be about the talent.

Founders Q: What's the one thing you hope never changes about your company?

One of my favourite Years in Review on LinkedIn. Keep going Alexia - it's okay not to know what's coming. The path unfolds as you start walking.

Putting Humans Back at the Heart of Business | Certified L&D Professional | Soft Skills Expert | Heedership® & Bring Your Asha! Founder | ICF Coach

"It is never too late to be what you might have been." 💜
George Eliot wrote these words centuries ago. I understood them at 43.

𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐢 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓.
Merci pour les rencontres qui sont devenues des amitiés.
Merci pour les doutes qui sont devenus des certitudes.
Merci pour chaque "oui" qui m'a rapprochée de qui je suis vraiment.

This year, I finally found where I belong. Coaching. Delivering Trainings. Learning & Development. Toastmasters: Human Connection.

And as I look at this visual, thank you for the idea Stanley (Your Content Coach) and Vitalii Dodonov, I see my entire "purple" year captured in one image. Learn. Grow. Repeat. The infinity loop between Heedership and Leadership. The three pillars. The magic.

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐰? 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔.
I don't know exactly what's coming. And that's the most exciting part.

What I do know: I'm ready. Curious. Open.

It is never too late to become who you might have been.
And it's never too early to dream about who you're still becoming.

Pure magic. 💜

𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤-𝐢𝐧: What are you curious about for 2026?

I help founders & creators build personal brands @ Kokela Studio 💫 | Social Media Community Manager @ HeyOrca 🐳 | Building a community for BIPOC marketers, creative & entrepreneurs @ Mesa🍴

🙃 made a job out of my screen time.
💌 want to collaborate? parterships@weareunserious.com 
💼 want to hire me & my team? hello@weareunserious.com

Qetsiyah Jacobson

It’s official, you’re looking at a brand new agency owner!

Unserious (now Unserious Media Inc.) is now also an agency, and our website is now LIVE!! 🎉 💃🏾

(Before you crucify me, Unserious is still going to be making content, events, etc. this is just one part of the business.)

As someone who’s been in the content and UGC space for so long, I've noticed many teams lack proper systems to streamline and automate their content production.

When performance teams rely on ad creatives to drive revenue, it can be a problem. I’ve been building systems to solve this same problem and decided to help more performance teams get consistent ad creatives.

We’ll handle everything end-to-end, so you won’t have to worry about where your next pieces of ad creative will come from.

If you’re a brand or agency looking to build your UGC arm, shoot me a DM! 💌

Super excited for this next chapter!

(Big shoutout to Zakir Ullah for killing it. I came to him with a moodboard, no designs, nothing, and he just killed it within 5 days, y’all.)

an unserious girl on a serious platform | founder & UGC Lead @ Unserious 🙃 | UGC, creators, internet culture & performance content 💬

I recently quit my job to build my dream career, and the most asked question I get besides "what's next" is:

→ What made me decide to go out on my own vs getting another full-time job?

Here's the honest breakdown:

Money

💰 Canadian salaries SUCK. I was often paid less than my US teammates for the same work.

💰 Last year, I made $60k+ (half my old salary) while saying no to 90% of opportunities and doing 1/10th of the work.

💰 I've already hit the top of my salary band. Because UGC & social media are so new, getting a full-time job would mean a pay cut 9 out of 10 times.

Growth

📈 When your role is a brand new concept, there's no one above you to teach you the ropes. You're figuring it out alone, so might as well do your own thing.

📈 I hit every milestone I wanted in corporate. I never wanted to climb the traditional ladder.

📈 Working 10-12 hours a day left zero energy for my personal brand and projects.

Freedom & Ownership

✨ I value my freedom. I want to choose my projects AND travel without being tied to one location.

✨ Having ownership over my work and being properly credited matters to me now. In corporate, you don't really get that.

What do you value most in your career? 👀

I’ve been working in marketing for 5+ years, and people still ask me to work “for exposure.”

Meanwhile, I’ve spent the past 2 years building my personal brand:
💅🏾  I get 50k - 100k impressions a week
💅🏾 A community of 16k+ amazing people
💅🏾 Paying clients
💅🏾 Brands paying me for exposure to my audience

I built my personal brand so I wouldn’t have to trade free labour for credibility.
💅🏾 My skills make me credible
💅🏾 My audience gives me exposure

Exposure isn’t the currency you think it is when people already own the distribution. 🤭 

Building a personal brand is probably the best thing I could’ve done for myself and my business because it allows me to be much pickier about the projects I take on.

If you're still trading your skills for exposure in 2026, it might be time to build your own.

If I could only give one piece of career advice, it would be:


❗ ALWAYS HAVE A SECOND STREAM OF INCOME ❗
Trust me, there's going to be a time when you're grateful that you did.

Once you realize that freelancing isn't just consulting, you'll understand that you can make money from literally anything.

Your Uber driver is a freelancer
Your DoorDash delivery guy is a freelancer
Your dog sitter is a freelancer
Your nail tech is a freelancer

You can literally freelance doing ANYTHING!

When you start freelancing, there will be a client who will ask for a discount in the name of “growth, long-term partnerships & more opportunities”. It is very important that you do NOT take it.

I realized something uncomfortable last week...I tried to become a "thought leader." And my content immediately tanked. 😬

Impressions dropped. Likes fell off a cliff. Posts I thought would perform well?

Crickets.

At first, I was confused because this is what works for everyone else... why not me? 

So I did what I always do when something isn’t working: I sat down and had a very honest meeting with myself.

And because we all know LinkedIn analytics lowkey suck, I had to use MagicPost to get a better overview of my analytics.

That's when I discovered a very OBVIOUS pattern. People don's care when I try to "be a thought leader". They care when:

💖  I write like this is my diary
💖 I talk through career decisions as they're happening
💖 I keep things real and share honest thoughts

👉🏾 I didn't lose momentum last week. I lost alignment.

And the numbers reflected that.

👏🏾  AUTHENTICITY WILL WORK EVERY TIME! 👏🏾 

Lesson learned. Back to writing like myself.

Have you ever tried fitting into a box and then realized F that this ain't it?

It has officially been a month since I quit my job to build my dream career and this is how it's been so far:

🩷 Loads of 1:1's & discovery calls. This past week I've had afternoons afternoons fully booked. 
🩷 Went to 15 workout classes this month. Which is more than I went to in the past year. I told myself I wanted to work out a minimum of 3 times a week and actually following through has been crazy.
🩷 2 Brand deal proposals. 1 Brand ghosted me. 
🩷 An influx of inquiries for personal brand content strategist work. Which if you don't know I am the content strategist to your favourite creators. 😉
🩷 Made my clients go viral and started a whole carousel trend on Instagram​.
🩷 Shot content outside which was scary
🩷 Am officially hosting my first Unserious​ event!
🩷 Launched the Unserious agency website. I'll probably need to update it to include my content strategist work.​
🩷 Found an accountant!
🩷 Helped a new grad secure a new job in marketing in less than 3 weeks with the help of my portfolio template and case study guide.

But on the flip side:
💔 I haven't fully mastered my morning routine
💔 Had to move my weekly newsletter to monthly
💔 One of my brand deals fell through
💔 Didn't hit my outreach goal for my agency
💔 Didn't close 50% of the proposals I sent out
💔 Found out all my emails went to spam because of a domain connection issue which made me loose out on a brand deal.
💔 My screen time is still astronomical! Brick​ pls help a girl out.
💔 Despite posting a lot more my content has been severely underperforming 

One of the major goals for Feb: Start posting on our Instagram​ again. 

What are some of your wins for January?

After working in content for years, I noticed a HUGE gap in the market.

Everyone is making tools, but no one is building systems to help content teams actually work together.

Yes, there are a million tools that solve:
→ Helping editors edit faster
→ Reading analytics
→ Finding Creators
→ Writing scripts

Tools are great. But if there's no process in place to make your whole team work together, you're wasting so much time and energy getting from point A (ideation) → point B (final delivery).

So I started building systems early on to streamline the entire content production process.

From briefing creators → handing over raw footage to editors → getting ads sent off to be tested.

That's why I started my agency. To not only help with proper UGC campaigns but also help teams streamline the entire process.

So you don't have to worry about where your next piece of content will come from.

What's your biggest pain point when it comes to getting consistent content?

(If this sounds like something you need, or something someone else might need, feel free to reach out to: Hello@weareunserious.com)

Toronto, who's ready to have their first Unserious event and spill some tea IRL with some chronically online folks? 👀 

Our first event is coming next month! Make sure u sign up for the waitlist here if you haven't already: https://lnkd.in/eHdAyaiP

See u soon! 🩷
(Super excited to be working with Naomi A on this. I 1000% cannot do it on my own!)

"Tell me who you hang out with, and I'll tell you who you are." was something I heard all the time growing up. As a child, I always thought it was a very close-minded way to look at people. 

Because people can make their own choices independently of their friends, right?

But recently, I realized how much my environment influenced me to quit my job and go into entrepreneurship.

Last year, I had a completely different circle! I went from hanging out with your typical corporate baddies → entrepreneurs making 6-7 figures a year.

And while I always had the urge to become an entrepreneur myself, it wasn't until I saw it for myself every single day that the idea seemed a lot more realistic. 

It actually seemed normal, and I felt ridiculous for not pursuing it myself. When, before, the opposite was true.

My environment made me believe that a 9-5 was the only way to find any kind of stability. Changing my environment showed me the freedom that comes with working for yourself.


What is something you realized after changing your environment?

The biggest misconception about finding a career you love is that you somehow you’re supposed to just…know.

👉🏾 Know what you want to study
👉🏾 Know what you want to do for the rest of your life
👉🏾 Know what your next move is
👉🏾 Know what your dream company is

But that wasn’t my experience AT ALL. Did I know I would end up starting my own UGC agency? No. 

Hell I didn’t even know I was going to be a marketer. I always thought I was going to be an artist (did the whole art school thing and everything).

But what I personally found out is that you just have to go out there and try. I tried out so many different things before finding something I was truly passionate about. 

So please don’t be too hard on yourself when you’re trying to figure out your career. Experiment. Try. And you’ll find something you love along the way.

What did you think you’d do as a career and what are you doing now?

No alternative text description for this image

Maybe my true calling was to become a Chinese baddie all along.

Happy new Easter fourth of Halloween Thanks-Christmas! 🎅🏾 🎃 🦃 

A little Unserious update from yours truly! 👇🏾

Hey, my loves! Happy New Year!! 🎉 I can’t believe it’s 2026 already. At this point, “happy new Easter fourth of Halloween Thanks-Christmas” - @whoask

Open article: A very Unserious update 🙃 by Qetsiyah Jacobson • 2 min read

I write about what’s trending on the internet every month in my newsletter.

And while the internet has always been a place I take refuge in, it’s also been a place that gave me access to knowledge and news I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Last year, I had the right to vote for the first time in my life. And honestly, making an informed decision would’ve been a lot more complicated if it weren’t for people taking the time to make information, education, and resources more accessible online.

Right now, we’re witnessing atrocities happening across the world at a massive scale, alongside the very real danger of censorship. We’re seeing, in real time, how vital social media and access to information are. How important it is to understand history, context, and what’s being intentionally hidden or erased.

Because of that, I can’t in good conscience ignore everything that’s happening online and only talk about the funny or lighthearted stuff, especially at such a crucial moment in history.

I don’t have the biggest platform in the world. But I do believe it’s important to do my part.

Moving forward, I want to share more about what I’m learning, the resources I find valuable, where I choose to donate, and what I’m actively educating myself about.

I hope that, in some way, it makes an impact.

I've been watching influencer marketing roles evolve, and in 2026, it's no longer one overarching role...

→ Influencer marketing has split into very specific functions, each serving different purposes

The role used to be looped in with social media → it becoming its own function. Now it's breaking down even further.

These are the roles I see creator marketing teams hiring for:

✨ Influencer Marketing Manager: Working closely with social & product teams to execute campaigns across platforms

✨ Affiliate Marketing Manager: Overseeing affiliate programs and tracking performance

✨ UGC Lead: Working with growth, product & creative teams to manage ad content

✨ Creator Partnerships Manager: Managing bigger long-term partners & collaborations

The truth 👇🏾

If you're still running a one-person team for social & influencer, you're falling behind 😬
→ The industry has moved past that model. These functions require dedicated focus.

The brands that will be winning will have specialized teams
→ Each role has clear ownership and specific goals

You can't expect one person to manage campaigns, oversee affiliates, coordinate UGC, and build long-term partnerships
→ It's too much for one role to handle effectively

I think we'll see even more specialization in 2026
→ Brands will start hiring more UGC leads and affiliate managers as performance marketing grows

(If you're looking to hire an external partner to manage your UGC ad creatives, DM me. That's what I do.)

Which of these roles do you think brands need most right now?

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Qetsiyah Jacobson

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taplio

The Battle

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Qetsiyah Jacobson

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