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?

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

EngageKit

Empowering small creators and teams to build quality engagement pipelines on LinkedIn and boost their product/brand outbound.

Founder - CEO

GeekGrind

You failure human, go study at https://app.geekgrind.co

SAYU. STUDIO

I help you make websites that scream "holy sh*t"

- A website is an entrepreneur / builder identity
- Yours could be functional that makes buying a breeze
- Yet with award-winning design that make competitors envy

Some brands are born with vision & style. Starting small and aiming big.

Let me know if you are one of them :D

Chief Growth Officer

Crimson Education

Crimson Rise Program for young students looking to make an impact on the world.

Entrepreneurship Mentor

Stealth Startup

Founder

iVatar

Make your own digital twin and interact with your audience at scale. You can sign up now for early access at ivatar.ai.

For the moment, I'm the sole builder of this project.

Creator

A.S. Watson Group

Just a non-makeup, non-skincare, non-bodycare consumer working for the world's largest health & beauty retailer.

Sustainability Advocate

University Hall HKU

Designing online and offline presence for the oldest hall at HKU.
Our hall has the best website (by Ky Nam): https://uhall.hku.hk/

Solo Webmaster

LEAN Social

LEAN Social is a virtual study & work space that helps GenZ feel less lonely and more motivated to be productive. We offer a study-streaming ecosystem with a practical incentive system that aims to promote self-directed learning. Utilizing machine learning, the platform tracks and convert students’ learning time into tokens, which can be exchanged for gift vouchers (short-term incentives) or educational experiences like placement in a Bootcamps or MOOCs (long term incentives).

Sign up for our beta testing (website) to enjoy these features:
- Live focus room to study with strangers
- Virtual study space with to-do list and chilling backgrounds
- Track concentration & earn rewards with A.I. technology

Co-founder

STEAR - Student Think Tank for Europe-Asia Relations

- Liaise with partners to conduct trainings in research writing & policy briefs
- Keep track of (non)-numeric metrics to measure activities’ impacts & propose improvements
- Lead a quantitative & qualitative study on youth’s perspective on Europe-Asia relations

Deputy Secretary

💃 Daily tech, business, & growth ideas | 🚀 Contrarian - what the crowd does, I do the opposite | 💻 22 y/o building cool products

🙋‍♂️ Yo. I'm a GenZ indie hacker & startup builder. Check out:

- engagekit.io to boost your LinkedIn outbound and organic inbound traffic
- geekgrind.co to ace your next IGCSE and A-level exams with real exam question banks and AI tutors

And 4 more apps to launch in 2025.

Ky-Nam 🧑‍🚀

i tried to get my boys fired today.

sent a text at 9 AM Monday: “Starbucks. Now. Ship or die.”

the weak replied:

“I have a standup.”
 “My boss tracks my mouse.”

they always say no to building something meaningful.

the real ones just sent a location pin.

we took over a corner table. Set up camp for a grind session.

while their colleagues had the weekly standups 

- I shipped a new content hub for EngageKit
- my friend shipped a competitor to Notion
- some guy wrote a linkedin post with nano banana pro
- another dude is building optical lenses for VR headsets

the cafe staff looked at us like we were unemployed.

good.

if you look employable, you’re doing it wrong.

surround yourself with the most hustling and crazy people.

that's how you make it

connect with me for more useful business and tech advice 💪

24 y/o tech founder | 1m view/week | 3x Majors CS, Econ, Politic | 30 startup comp wins | Creator of engagekit.io to help you engage with quality LinkedIn connections & 10x traffic ⬇️

Cloudflare went down yesterday - the CEO Matthew Prince admitted mistake

i'm sorry, Matthew - the fault was mine.

my startup EngageKit also went down, causing frustration for hundreds of users on LinkedIn

then i remember a vibe-security workshop i host at Cloudflare

i said the 200-feature limit on the bot model was weak.

we changed the clickhouse query. pulled from the r0 database.

doubled the features. pure vibes.

the rust code saw the file. it panicked.

5xx errors everywhere. the internet went dark.

on the plus side - we all got a free global penetration test.

if you're not causing a global rollback, you're not shipping hard enough.

test in prod

and see where the weakest in your system lies

and then i woke up - everything is back to work again 

connect with me for more useful business and tech advice 💪

i put my startup EngageKit's funding into Bitcoin 4 weeks ago

yesterday, my lead investor called: "Are you crazy? We’re f*cking down 30%”

i let him finish. then I looked him dead in the eye and whispered:

“we’re playing the long game.”

then i fixed my hair and walked away from the mirror

you see, the investor is me. i’m bootstrapping. i'm my own lead investor

i bought the top at $120k
it’s now trading at $86k

the Fed is hawkish. BlackRock is dumping.

who knows it might be $50k a week from now

most founders would panic. they’d sell. 

not me. I’m doubling down from 5% of my portfolio to 10%

people say founders take the most risk. they’re wrong.

crypto-holding founders take the most risk.

we wake up, check the charts, lose a month of runway before breakfast

and then have to go build a product like nothing happened

if Bitcoin hits $150k, I’m buying a yacht

if it hits zero, I’m pivoting to AI consulting

pray for us

connect with me for more useful business & tech advice 💪

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Vitalii Dodonov

Ky-Nam 🧑‍🚀

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The Battle

Vitalii Dodonov

Ky-Nam 🧑‍🚀

Followers

Posts

Engagements

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Vitalii Dodonov's LinkedIn Performance

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