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 spent $204,000 to take the whole team to Costa Rica.

→ Travel (Flights & Bus): $103,000 
→ Hotel & Food: $89,000 
→ Offsite Planner: $12,000

Total Investment: $204,000 
($4,163 per person)

That’s a lot of money to spend on "vibes" and gallop tours 🇨🇷

But here’s why we do it:
I treat offsite trips as a productivity accelerator.

By spending $204K to build deep trust and clear 6 months of roadmap debt in 4 days,
I'm catalyzing our execution speed.

If this offsite increased our efficiency by even 10% over the next year for every individual team member, our team-ROI is easily 10x+.

Offsites is one of the many vehicles we use to invest in our most valuable asset:
People.

I give Credit Cards to my team on Day 1.

"Isn't that risky?”

It’s risky. And frankly very expensive…
But here’s what’s more expensive:

→ An engineer losing flow state because they are hungry
→ A designer missing details because their screen is low-res
→ A PM waiting 48 hours for a $50 software license approval
→ A team member waiting for a bus in the snow after a late night grind

I remember working out of a shared WeWork.

Uncomfortable chairs. Fighting for meeting rooms. Fast food.

Scrappy and frugal is in our DNA.

Now:
✅ Standing desks (Health)
✅ Free lunch & dinner (Focus)
✅ Unlimited Bubbly & protein bars (Fuel)
✅ Discretionary spending (Autonomy)

We don't do this to be "cool."

We do this because top 1% performance requires top 1% support.

You can't expect Ferrari speed if you provide Corolla maintenance.

Invest in your team.

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Alina Antoniuk

I just gotta share this... I mean... Jonathan, what are you doing!?? And why is building security calling us… and you asked for 30 extra seconds? 🤦‍♂️

$20,000. 60 hackers. We hired 4 of them on the spot, and filmed the whole thing! LIVE 🟢 on YouTube:

https://lnkd.in/dtMd7sys

We went from $5M in the bank to under $1M in two years.

On purpose.

Every entrepreneur needs to get extremely comfortable with losing money.

For us, the lesson came after raising venture capital.

We made an uncompromising commitment to hire the top 1% and build a category-defining brand.

This meant watching our bank account shrink over a year and a half.

I still remember the day I pinged John: 

V: "Guess what - we're at $827K and didn't lose any cash this month!" 
J: "Years in the making. Upwards from here."

It takes a lot of belief and conviction to invest this way, as opposed to optimizing for safety.

The reality is, for you to have a disproportionate upside, you need to create disproportional value.

And that's expensive: technology, R&D, talent. 
80% of our costs were purely talent.

Losing money before you make money is the price of being in the game.

Having done it once, I have a lot more appreciation for the process. 
And significantly fewer worries.

What's the biggest bet you've made on your company?

Hanging out with Liz Nucci today who got us our beautiful office 🏡. If you’re looking for office space in Toronto, call Liz! 

Just saying 👀

No alternative text description for this image

I’m having a wonderful time at BrainStation tonight!

I waited 3 years for a top 1% mobile engineer.

Not because we couldn’t hire.

Because I refused to hire a “maybe” and call it progress.

For 3 years, we could’ve “just shipped something” on mobile. 

We passed on several candidates who were good on paper… but weren’t a clear yes.

I kept coming back to one filter:
If this person can’t take what we built and make it 10x better, they’re not going to change the company.

So we waited.

Then we met Johan.

He built the entire mobile app solo.

When we launched, we got 500 five-star reviews in 2 weeks.

That’s the part people see.

What they don’t see is what we avoided: months of “management work” disguised as building—

Rewriting specs, re-scoping tickets, adding layers of process so a hire can keep up.

That’s how teams get slow. 

Not from lack of effort—standards quietly dropping.

Lesson I keep relearning: talent density isn’t a vibe. It’s a strategy.

Where in your org are you accepting a “maybe” (role, project, decision) just to feel progress?

Yesterday, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang made it free for any company to build AI agents. Here’s what that actually means:

He announced NemoClaw — the enterprise version of OpenClaw, the open-source operating system for AI agents.

He also named what’s coming: ASAAS. Agentic Software As A Service. OpenClaw won’t kill SaaS — it’ll create a new category.

The “A” in ASAAS is the hard part.

At Stan, we’ve been working on AI agents for over a year. The technology was never the bottleneck. Teaching the AI what “good” looks like in your business — that was the bottleneck.

NVIDIA just commoditized the easy part. The hard part is still hard.

The companies winning at ASAAS in 2027 won’t be the ones with the best plumbing.

They’ll be the ones who spent 2025-2026 doing the boring work of encoding domain expertise into their agents.

What was the first thing your company successfully taught AI? (or planning to?)

⚠️ ⚠️ If you're an engineer, now is the worst time to quit your job.

I know. Everyone's saying the opposite.

AI makes it so easy to build. Ship an app in a weekend. Be your own founder.

But here's what the "go build your own thing" crowd isn't thinking about:

Yes, you'll see success stories. 

But for every one that works, there are hundreds who shipped the same weekend. 

The barrier to entry dropped for everyone at the same time. 

More builders, more competition, lower odds for all of them.

And the question is still the same question it's always been: who has distribution?

Distribution, customer trust, brand — these are built over years of compounding. 

They live in the human relationship world that AI hasn't touched. 

Companies hold that. Your side project doesn't.

Sure, your app might launch well. 

Maybe you make a few thousand dollars. 

Then it gets duplicated by your friend over the weekend, and you're left without the job and without the revenue.

If you've been thinking about going out on your own — do it. 

Just not right now.

Don't be impulsive in the middle of a revolution.

"I'm sorry, I f*cked up" 

This was my opening line at our leadership offsite last March.

Standing in front of all 8 leaders at Stan, 

everyone paid attention.

If I was to rate my relationship with everyone in the room, 

these would be my scores:

🟢🟡🟠🔴🔴🟠🔴🟡
(relationship health check: you get the picture)

6 months earlier...

I took on 2x more responsibilities at the company. 

As a result of this crushing workload, I had to prioritize and remove everything that wasn't mission critical.

One of the things I sacrificed was weekly 1:1s with my direct reports,

delegating them to my Chiefs of Staff.

I reasoned that most people I'd been working with for years and we'd manage.

What a mistake it was.

What I failed to see at the time was that the company ran on shared context established in those 1:1s.

Leadership runs on two things:
• Trust
• Shared context

Remove either one, and it's a matter of time before everything breaks.

That's what happened to me.

It took me the following 1-3 months to rebuild what I'd lost — to rebuild the relationships and rescope my work.

Some scars are still itching.

If you're a leader at your busiest time, I'm sharing this story to remind you:

Your company is a group of people working toward a shared objective.

Prioritize people so they can prioritize the shared objective. 

It doesn’t work the other way around.

We took an AI product from $0 to $10,000 MRR in 14 days 📈

I documented our process in full, from the initial build to the specific growth tactics we used to hit that $10k milestone in two weeks.

Sharing the 19-page Playbook today.

Follow + comment “PLAYBOOK” below and I’ll DM you the complete breakdown.

You're probably working on the wrong things right now.

Does this sound like you?

100 emails sent.
5 meetings run.
1 new initiative started.

Every day feels full, but every week you go:
"What did I do?"

What's the difference between moving forward and running in circles?
Well — direction.

Motion without direction is just expensive wandering.

To help with that, I've adopted this habit:

Every morning, before opening Slack, I ask myself:

"What would I do if I could only work 2 hours today?"

"What moves us closer to $100M ARR?"

"Is this urgent, or just loud?"

I'm serious - I tend to ignore 8/10 of the inbound I get, (even from my teams).

Sorry y'all I know you're reading 😅

5 minutes of thinking saves 5 hours of wandering.

Now when I journal, it's not about what I did.

It's about whether what I did actually mattered.

Most founders act too much and think too little.

We confuse being busy with being productive.

The best talent I've hired all share this trait:
They pause before they sprint.

What would you stop doing if you could only work 2 hours?

Price isn't just revenue. 
It's a filter.

For customers. 
And for your team.

Early at Stan, we picked $29/month. 

No deep methodology. We just wanted to feel premium.

Then we had to live up to it.

That meant obsessing over the first 100 customers. 

Fixing bugs on the call. 
Shipping overnight.

Pricing sets expectations. 
Expectations force standards. 

And standards attract a certain type of person.

Builders lean into hard problems. 

Bargain hunters lean into discounts and exceptions.

Same principle applies to talent.

Last month, I ran a hackathon with a $20,000 grand prize. 

It got the top 1% of builders out of the house.

4 hires. 2 days. No resumes.

We don't price based on cost. 
We price based on value.

What's one thing you'd price differently today?

Headcount doesn't fix slow execution. 

Clarity does.

When execution slows, the reflex is: 
"We need to hire."

Most of the time, you don't have a people problem. 

You have a clarity problem.

Here's what I did:

I used to take meetings all day. Felt productive. Wasn't.

Now I auto-decline everything before lunch. 

7 hours of deep work. Zero interruptions.

One calendar rule deleted dozens of daily decisions.

Speed is subtraction.

List your recurring weekly decisions. 
For each one, choose:

→ Delete it. 
→ Delegate it. 
→ Automate it. 
→ Assign a DRI (directly responsible individual).

We used to debate tool purchases in Slack. 

Now everyone gets a $5K card. Decision deleted 🤷‍♂️

Less flexibility upfront. 
More speed downstream.

What decision could you delete this week?

In 1846, astronomers had a problem.

Uranus was wobbling in space.
And nobody could explain why.

Every calculation said it should move one way.
But it moved another.

Most scientists thought Newton's laws were breaking down at that distance.

But Urbain Le Verrier, a French mathematician, had a different idea:
"What if there's another planet pulling on it?"

He spent months calculating where this invisible planet would need to be.

Then wrote to Berlin Observatory:
"Point your telescope here. You'll find a new planet."

They thought he lost it...
But they looked 🔭

Neptune was sitting there.
Exactly where the math said it would be.

Le Verrier discovered a planet using only pencil and paper.
2.7 billion miles away.

I think about this whenever we're stuck at Stan.

When something doesn't make sense, we work backwards.
There's always a hidden force.

We just have to calculate where to look.

What's wobbling in your business that you can't explain?

Humans are reasoning machines.
AI is a prediction one. 

Play to your strengths, build a Mind no AI can replace -
become a winner in our crazy AI economy.

Most people ask how to learn with AI.
I teach Why to keep learning.

And why "reasoning is the most reasonable" skill in 2026.

Expect short posts, 
usable checklists, 
and real stories.

Think first. Then deploy AI.

PS. Connect and say "hi"! Human connection makes you a happier brain:)
For business: 📩 vommnicole@gmail.com

Nicole Vomm

i used to think knowing /doing the stuff was enough.
it’s not.

the prep is where the learning actually happens.
when u have to explain AI governance
 to a room of ppl who aren’t in it every day
- u find out fast where your gaps are.

teaching forces u to convert knowledge into something useful.
that’s a completely different skill than studying.

if u want to know how well u understand smth
- try explaining it to someone who doesn’t.

the gaps become obvious in about 30 seconds.

which is kinda the whole point of learning in public.

PS. if u’ve ever taught or spoken about AI - what question from the audience caught u off guard the most?

- nicole
⚠️ (ai was not used in the making of this content, that’s why it looks so weird)

People call AI a “tool.”
but your hammer doesn’t decide things for u.
(figuratively)

The spectrum nobody talks about.
researchers named the three ways ppl actually use AI:

assistive offloading
- u use it to go faster ; your brain still runs the show.

substitutive offloading
- u delegate the thinking, you trust the output😌

disruptive offloading
- u can’t separate your thoughts from the machine’s anymore.

most ppl assume they’re in category 1.
but aren't:/

The study that made me uncomfortable ⤵
Gerlich, 2025. 666 ppl.

significant negative correlation between AI
use and critical thinking scores.

the fix isn’t quitting AI.
it’s changing the question you bring to it.

that one shift turns AI back into a tool.

PS. what’s one type of thinking u’d never outsource to AI?🔨


- nicole

The skills AI can't replace 
are the ones that survived before the internet.

Before Google.
Before everything.

Nassim Taleb has this concept
called the Lindy Effect.

Simple idea: the longer smth has been around,
the longer it will continue to be.

Shakespeare has survived 400 years of cultural shifts.
So it'll probably survive the next 400.
(have my fingers crossed for you, Will🤞)

Now apply this to skills.
Critical reasoning: at least 2,500 years old. 
(poor Socrates wasn't prompting ChatGPT)

Clear argumentation: same.
Judgment under uncertainty: same.
Taste: same.

These have outlasted every technological shift in human history.
The printing press. The telephone. The computer.
AI is not special in this sense.

It's another shift.

(btw writing about this in my newsletter rn: https://shorturl.at/IUrub)

And if a skill survived all the previous ones?
It's probably surviving this one too.

The skills ppl r rushing to build right now
(prompt engineering(hello 2022),
AI workflows,
model wrappers) are maybe 2-3 years old.

The Lindy Effect says those are the fragile ones.
Not bc AI is going away.

Because specific tools change faster
 than human judgment does.

So mb the best thing u can do in 2026 isn't learn another AI tool.
It's get really, really good at thinking.

PS. Repost this to inspire others ♻️
PPS. what's a skill u keep coming back to that never feels outdated?
* in my case, its love🫶*

still humanly yours,
- nicole

My generation was told to become great.
And also told to do it fast.

(Welcome to another real life post) 

AI is automating the entry-level jobs where u were supposed
to learn how to be great.

Deloitte's 2025 Human Capital Trends found
that 2/3 of hiring managers think
entry-level hires are underprepared.
(surprise-surprise)

And in the same breath:
AI is now doing the tasks that used to train those entry-level ppl
(aka me)
Meeting notes. Research summaries. First drafts.
The "boring" stuff that built taste.

So we have a generation told:
become someone important, quickly.

(sound like a Kahneman trap.. 
more on this here 👉 https://shorturl.at/zvIv8)

With fewer structured ways to actually build the skills
that make u important.

The pressure didn't come from nowhere.
It came from watching senior ppl get replaced
and thinking the only safe move is to sprint.

But sprinting without a path just makes u tired faster.
I don't have a "cleaner" answer here.

I'm building in public partly
bc I think documenting the process IS the path rn.

Because figuring it out in the open way
mb helps someone else figure it out too.

PS. are u feeling this pressure? what's helping u deal with it?

- nicole 

⚠️ (ai was not used in the making of this content)

xoxo

My AI stack is 💯 about outcomes.

Most people choose tools like fashion:
whatever’s trending this week.

I choose tools like a mamager:
one job → one tool → done.

This saved me hours of tool-hopping and second-guessing.

Here’s a simple way to build a sane stack:

(Repost this to help others ♻️)

Writing / thinking (voice + structure)
→ tool that helps outline + tighten without flattening you
I use claude.

Research (accuracy + links)
→ tool that cites sources and shows where it got answers
I go for perplexity. 

Execution (workflows + automation)
→ tool that integrates with your systems and logs actions
Gemini 3.1 + Antigravity

Pick the model by the job - not hype.

If it doesn’t improve your outcome, it’s just another tab🤷‍♀️

PS. What’s your #1 AI use case right now - writing, research, or execution?
PPS. If you completely missed last week in AI, I talk more about it here: https://shorturl.at/CQ6dA

- nicole

Every great company ends up building a religion.
A cult - call it as you wish.
(not in the “worship the CEO” way)

Religion answers:
what matters
what’s sacred
what’s allowed
and what happens when you break the rules

Company culture does the same -
except you’re establishing it in real time.

And here’s the part most founders miss:
Culture isn’t your values deck.

It’s what people do when
nobody’s watching
things are messy
incentives collide
pressure hits.

P.S. What’s one belief you want your company to be built around - and what ritual would prove it?

- nicole

Save this for your next offsite; Fill it with your team.

Ai is still very unregulated.
Despite all of the acts and GDPRs.

NotebookLM and Perplexity are everywhere in AI workflows rn.

NotebookLM is source-grounded
 it only responds from your uploaded docs.
Great for accuracy.

But it runs on Google Cloud.
Your internal docs, your sensitive regulatory files 
they go somewhere..

Perplexity?

SOC 2 certified, sure.
But their GDPR compliance is self-reported.
No published audits.

And their content sometimes comes from scraped sources
with questionable copyright status👀

As of August 2025, the EU AI Act requires transparency
and safeguards for AI used in sensitive domains.

Neither tool has done a public risk assessment
for high-risk use cases🤨
(or mb i missed smth)

(♻️ Repost this if you have smth to add)

The tools aren't ‘bad’. The governance gap is the problem.

All  'smart' papers come down to checking
the data, tracking behaviour and having a back-up plan.
why nobody preach what they pitch?

Comps still rely on vendors..

Before u add smth to your compliance stack, run it through at least 3 questions:
→ Where does my data go?
→ What happens when it's wrong?
→ Can I explain this to a regulator?
If u can't answer those, the tool isn't ready. Or mb u aren't.

PS. which AI tools is your org using that nobody has actually assessed?
PPS. btw, here are some interesting ai gov updates(and Big Tech spent $83M..):

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