Making Something From Nothing: Kristina Alexandra Kovalyuk Of Trident Advisory On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

… I would inspire a movement of the next generations of female, immigrant and other under-privileged entrepreneurs and future leaders. When you are young, pre-teen and teen, you are most susceptible to the environment around you. This is when its key to have a circle of people and environment that encourages, fosters ideas and self confidence that is often lacking in youth to go after and actualize their ideas. I would also like to inspire a ‘failure is the stepping stone to greatness” movement. Too often we fail once or twice and give up when the greats have failed many times, however we don’t hear about it — too often we only hear the stories of success.

As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kristina Alexandra Kovalyuk.

Kristina is a trailblazer, innovator, advisor and business strategist and vision actualizer. She is a serial entrepreneur at heart with a passion for building, scaling and growing businesses. She helps a wide ranging variety of clients identify, curate and execute strategic partnerships, recognize and take advantage of new trends, innovate both products, services and enter into new markets. Her specialty is hypergrowth, B2B, creating long lasting mutually beneficial relationships and taking dreams and ideas to reality.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born in Kyiv, Ukraine which was the USSR at the time, behind the iron curtain. I emigrated to the US at the age of 13 under religious asylum as a refugee with my family. We had to start from scratch, with no resources, no capital and just the suitcases we brought with us on the plane. We experienced a great deal of hardship. My father couldn’t work for years due to govt restrictions. My mother had to take low level jobs just to support the family. We were on govt assistance with little money for clothes and food. I was viciously bullied at school and had health problems due to Chernobyl. It was a rough few years to say the least. This is what spurred me on to go find a job. At 14 I started delivering pizza menu flyers door to door for $5 an hour. Then I worked as a filing and copy clerk at a local insurance agency. At 16 I was able to get an internship at one of the largest financial services companies at the time. That changed my life trajectory forever.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”?

Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by it’s ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life thinking its stupid — Einstein. “you cannot solve problems using the same thinking you used to create them”. Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life? Yes. I often tried to acquiesce and adjust myself to be like someone else, especially moving across the world and having to learn an entirely different culture. This has led of confusion, lack of success and frustration — not to mention loss of self confidence. When I started to embrace my unique nature and hone in on who I really am — that’s when the paradigm started to shift.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you?

The Count of Monte Cristo changed my life.

Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

It is a story about a young man from humble beginnings in a small town in France with little money, a loving father, a great deal of drive, ambition, integrity, ethics and a pure heart. He gets slandered, accused of a crime he didn’t commit by someone jealous of his fiancé and his rise through the ranks on a sailing ship and great likability/personality. He is thrown in one of the worst prisons in France on a deserted island for 20years. He nearly gives up and commits suicide when fate gives him a lifeline. He manages to get out alive despite impossible circumstances and finds a treasure. He spends years building himself, rescuing other people, souls, rebuilds and becomes one of the most generous and successful men of this time.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

Absolutely. The first step is to flush the idea out. How is it transformative? What benefit does it bring? Is it a solution to a problem, or a new way of doing something? Who would be benefitting from it? How would it be used/applied? Whats new/unique about it? Who would one need/want to work with to bring it to life? What resources are needed?.. those are just some of the questions. Once you flush those out that will give you confidence that is truly is a good actionable idea. I think many people just have an idea, mention it to a few people and forget about it. This is what causes the lack of translations and actionability.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

Looking at and flushing out the questions above is a great start. Also looking at other companies that are doing something similar (if they exist). Also speaking to believable (Ray Dalio term) people in the industry and running the idea by them and getting their input and seeking feedback,

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it. See above =) plus lots of research, googling, making lists, calling and asking

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

1. Take your time. Rome wasn’t built in one day Just because you have a great idea doesn’t mean it will translate into a unicorn overnight.
2. Don’t try to do everything yourself.
3. Figure out your strengths and weaknesses
4. Hire people who supplement areas where you are not strong.
5. Get the foundation right. (each one carries a longer story and can expand depending on which one you’d like to feature).

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

1. See if something like it already exists (if not, what about something similar)
2. Is it patented?
3. Is it hard to copy?
4. Begin the patent process.
5. Research who you can work with to bring it to life.
6. What benefit will this bring to these “cooperative partners”?
7. Structure and win-win where they and you will benefit from working together.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

That depends on your budget. If you can, sure. However many cannot in which case there are other resources available such as at your local chamber of commerce or nonprofits geared towards entrepreneurs. This highly depends on the field (i.e. tech, consumer, etc)

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

Bootstrapping is the better way to go, however it depends on the idea, product,etc. The longer you can bootstrap the better you can build and the greater value you can extract down the line.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I’ve given talks and mentored, both at my alumn and individual mentees who have come to me for guidance. Writing and contributing to articles such as this is another way I’m passionate about giving back and sharing knowledge.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I would inspire a movement of the next generations of female, immigrant and other under-privileged entrepreneurs and future leaders. When you are young, pre-teen and teen, you are most susceptible to the environment around you. This is when its key to have a circle of people and environment that encourages, fosters ideas and self confidence that is often lacking in youth to go after and actualize their ideas. I would also like to inspire a ‘failure is the stepping stone to greatness” movement. Too often we fail once or twice and give up when the greats have failed many times, however we don’t hear about it — too often we only hear the stories of success.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

There are many. I would say Jack Dorsey, Mark Cuban, Lloyd Blankfein.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Kristina Alexandra Kovalyuk Of Trident Advisory On How To Go From… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.