Harnessing Discipline & Focus As An Entrepreneur w/Onega Ulanova

In today's episode, I chat with Onega Ilonova, a purpose-driven entrepreneur committed to making a meaningful impact through her work. She delights in bringing joy and innovation to the world through product and business development one step at a time. I hope this episode resonates with you as a podcaster and a business owner. Thank you. My guest today is Oniega Ilonova. Thanks for coming and talking to us today, Onega. Thank you for having me. Yeah, but sure, before we get to what you do, could you tell us who you are?

Definitely so. My name is Onega Ulanova. I am an entrepreneur, trade lead, and dog owner, so originally from Kazakhstan it's a country between Russia and China, the ninth largest country in the world. We grew up there, came in 2010 to the United States to get my degree, and here I am managing a couple of companies and helping other businesses build their businesses.

Okay, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I always like to get a little bit of background, all right. So I was looking at your profile. We met in PodMatch and you talk about purpose-driven entrepreneurship. What is that and what inspired you to go that route?

Definitely so. Purpose-driven entrepreneurship, in my understanding and in my lifestyle, is due in what you truly believe and what will create impact not only for you, but for others as well. And one of the reasons I decided to be engaged in which I believe in is because work is almost 90% of my life and of my time and I don't want to regret by the end of the days that I spent time on something I don't believe in, if it makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense. So a lot of people say do what you love, but also do what you're driven to do right? Yeah, Thank you. So you're a busy woman, a busy young woman, I might add. How do you find time to do all you do?

To be honest, I don't, but I manage all the critical components. So I think in the life of a trip in your you never have that feeling that you have done everything, because you always have an endless to-do list.

And for me.

What I do is I just set priorities on my projects that this is what I need to focus on right now because it will get me closer to the goal ABC, and then I just divide my day into time slots to focus on project ABC and particular tasks and by the end of the week I measure the progress and see what has been done good, what has been done not so good and what could be improved next week. So it's all comes to the time management. Number one and the second one is not less important and quite difficult lesson to learn is to learn skill to navigate that. You need to learn how to delegate your tasks, especially not critical one, and how to properly set up your team, because if you wanna grow, team is your main tool. Team is what makes or breaks any enterprise.

So Okay, all right. Oh, good advice. So you stay organized and you also depend on other people to help you achieve your goals? Yes, okay. So you seem like the typical entrepreneur doing lots of things, ADHD and all that. And it's not a joke on ADHD. It's just how entrepreneurs usually are. We have a lot of interest and we develop a lot of skills based on those interests. So how do you balance these different areas and focus in your work? I know you explained about the organization and that, but if you could go deeper, for us, that is a great question.

The secret here is balance, and balance is acquired by at least for me, doing physical work. What I mean by that is I do run, swim and bike and such with physical exercises helps my mind to relax and balance and clean out, which then transforms into productivity at work. That is number one. So for us, especially entrepreneurs, you need to be balanced, and that is, you need to find your own kind of thing which balances you and makes you more calm and more focused. So for me it was like endurance sports. For other people it could be yoga, dancing, whatever it is. Number two is setting up a discipline. It's easier said than done, but you need to know exactly what are your priorities right now, and those priorities could be based on the revenue you want to generate, audience, you want to grow, skill, you wanna learn, and this priorities will be like North Star for your discipline because, as you mentioned, every single day new interests and new ventures come, but in order to succeed you need to stay disciplined and focused. So for discipline, it's again sport helps, and knowing what you are doing and what are your short-term and long-term priorities are. When it comes to the time management, sometimes it's chaotic, but you need to create to-do list, use tools like Asana or even Excel, whatever you preferred trailer and create like big picture and that big picture need to be subdivided into the eatable or manageable task. So the morning starts. You know exactly what you need to focus on. Not like conquers the world big thing, but divides that big thing into smaller again pieces. It's a basics of project management, but that is what helps me to stay on track and not jump from one thing to another, even though it happens sometimes.

Yes, yes, so sometimes we talk about distraction in business, and so an entrepreneurial point of view is not always distraction of other things outside your sphere. It's the stuff inside your sphere, right, the things you have in your thoughts that you want to do, you want to accomplish. They can also be a distraction unless you do. What you're suggesting is make a big list and smaller list and inside the company.

that is usually a jungle. Right, when you manage one company is a jungle. But think about the priorities. There is a cool tool, you know like. It's a big square divided into four sub squares Urgent, not urgent, like can wait, cannot wait. So operational stuff, like doing admin work or taking care of your office and such, can consume 24, seven of you, meaning that all this operational stuff non value edit, let's put it this way can consume all of you, you or your partner. And this is a trick in most cases, I believe, of our mind, because sometimes when you go out of your comfort zone growing your business during the business development, sales, marketing, try new things it makes your mind go out of comfort zone. And operational stuff and admin stuff it's something what repeats all over the time. So entrepreneurs might have a tendency to get inside this operational things, not thinking about the growth and going outside of what has already been established, and that is a huge mind trick and this is a huge thing for entrepreneurs to stop growing. So you need to focus 80% on building new stuff going outside of your office, going outside of your daily routine, let's put it this way and 20% do the operational admin stuff. Think of the things you can delegate. There are so many tools right now where you can delegate most of the operational stuff, like bookkeeping, like appointment setting, like other things like that, at very low cost. So think if you can afford it and if you cannot afford it. If you're just starting out, it's okay, but if you've already been in business for quite a while you might rethink the business, right? So if you cannot afford yourself to get a little bit out and grow and just be not inside the company, it might be not the business you want to focus on, right? Remember Samsung and logic companies. They started from one thing Like Samsung, I remember, was a fishing company, right, and right now they do a lot of consumer electronics, and not only. So maybe you can keep the same company, but yet they consider what type of products on services you provide, kind of thing. Yeah, but you are right, inside your company activities might be your enemy.

Yeah, true, All right, thank you. As an entrepreneur committed to making a positive impact, what advice do you have for other entrepreneurs who want to make a difference in their communities and the world at large? And I want to put a twist in it. Address it as if you're talking to a podcaster.

if you're able to do that. So, talking about, I think, one of the reasons my assistant reached out to you, podcasting is a great tool. Back in 2019, we launched a startup in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The startup was an is about connecting filmmakers, these projects, especially behind the crew filmmakers, you know, like gaffers, cameraman operators and such and one of the tools which helped us to learn the industry do preliminary and continuous market research. The tool which helps us build audience, the tool which helped us grow, is a podcast. And by building an audience around things which matters to you, or around things which matter to your industry, your city, and properly selecting your speakers, you can not only build brand for yourself but also impact communal knowledge of things which need to be improved and how people can collaborate to make those things happen. And when you start podcasting, think not only about people with big names, influential people who already made it you know like many tried to talk on these people who made it like those big success stories but also talk with those who are in the way to make it, youngsters and those who failed, because in most cases, you learn when you fail. You learn when you're like, when you're successful. From the first time it's like and there are people who are more tended to like get this luck type of thing but you learn, you grow, you make visor, then you make mistakes. So think about, like, why you want to do a podcast, what questions you want to discuss or what is the main purpose of this podcast, and then create an entire ecosystem of speakers you want to hear from, from all the stages of their development, from all the walks of life, those who might not be directly related to topics or industry or community you cover, but those who might have some similarities and like other things to share from outside of your main subject area, like, for instance, we invited to our podcast about filmmaking, startup management consulting, because each film, each movie, is like a startup, it's a short-lived project. When you need to do a fundraising, build a project, execute the project, distribute and sell so yeah, it's not like directly. And when you think about movies, unless you are in the filmmaking industry, you think of the startups and almost the same project management tools. I don't know planning, fundraising could be like similar and two industries can learn from each other.

Yes, thank you. And it's interesting that you frame what you do as purpose-driven entrepreneurship, because that's why most podcasts are startup podcasts. They had a purpose, they want to reach an audience with a certain message and they move forward with that. So thank you for addressing that in that way, because it really relates, it resonates with us. Okay, so what is Onega grateful for today?

For the freedom to make choices. Sometimes the truth exists, as people can feel that we are in a box, meaning that we are in the situation when, especially you are down in the dark space of your journey. You might feel that you don't have many choices, but every single person has a choice to make a difference in their life, in life of others, every single day. It's just a matter to realize it and navigate your ship to the direction you want to be at. So, and these choices could be our habits health habits, it could be our workflow habits, it could be things we need to focus on. So, yeah, I'm thankful that I can make choices and I am not limited in things I can do.

Right, okay, thank you very much. All right, so tell us how we can, how you can help us as an audience, and and two, how we can get in touch with you.

Definitely for you as an audience of those who do podcasts. What I can help you with guys is to connect you with some of my clients. So, again, we do product design, prototyping and product launches, and we work not only with established businesses but also individuals, and every single product we have developed has a meaningful story behind it, and that story could be related to their lives, their relatives, their industries. So we daily encounter many inspiring people who want to make a true difference in their life or their industries by introducing new products. That will be my main source for you. As a second one, if you need to find someone and you're not sure how to approach it, I might be helpful to find a way. And, yeah, if you all will have any startup ideas or product ideas you want to work on, we'll be happy to chat with you about, draft a plan and see how we can help you in house or how you can utilize other resources available in the world, basically to make your startup or idea work. And you can find me online Instagram or Facebook, linkedin or our website. So for Instagram, facebook, linkedin, you just kind of Google myself with Aniega Yulanova, you will see how my name being spelled, and our website is wwwlanpdtcom, so you can reach out there and we'll be happy to chat.

Okay, cool, and we'll have some links in this show notes for people to use them. And you say startup and products, but are you able to break down any of that for us so you know the layperson can understand? Are you talking about product ideas and are you talking about software, hardware Explain.

So we do both software, hardware. So, for instance, a person who came up with a new tool for making a home repair or making like roofing process easier, or if a person came up with a new pet toy or a new type of honeyby houses, so and they're not sure what to do with that idea, they don't have like engineering skills to do the design work, they don't have knowledge or access to equipment to do prototyping and they're not sure how to manage manufacturers. This is where we come in. We then be partner with client. We take them from just an idea, doing all the homework, making sure that they do not violate any patterns, till the final product launch. So we go through all the steps needed to basically bring a product idea to life. Think of Shark Tank. So almost everyone who been on Shark Tank worked with company like ours. So they got an idea. They didn't know what to do. They worked with company like ours to do the prototyping, design, manufacturing and then hustling their way to grow the market share.

Ah, okay, all right, very interesting, All right, thank you very much for coming and talking to us today. Thank you, Any parting shots? Yeah, sure, Any parting shots. Advice tip strategy before you go.

Start with why. Like literally when you're young, you why might change with the time, but the core why will stay the same always. So try to understand that like core why and design your life there, like within it. Don't afraid to take risks, because when you take risks, opportunity comes up as well as issues. But remember that everything is figure outable. So there is when you live in this world and you still have time and health and energy and thoughts. It means that you will find a way.

So Okay, marie, thank you. Yeah, I was just joking. We're talking about Marie. She says everything is figure outable. Yeah, yes, yes, definitely. All right, thank you on the over for coming and speaking to us today. And tools of the podcast trade. I really appreciate you and this is a very interesting topic and I think sometimes we don't get far and deep enough into business, so thank you for adding value.

Sure thing, and yeah, it was happy time for me to talk and I hope your listeners will get some value from what I shared.

Okay, all right, thank you Bye Got questions about podcasting? Do you find yourself struggling with the tools and strategies that you know will help you launch and grow your show? Why not join the newest podcast club where you can get your questions answered by me or one of our guests expert? The link to our next meeting is below Sign up today and don't let confusion about podcasting stop you from owning your genius. Whether you're an individual or a nonprofit, the newest podcast club is where podcasts is come for answers. Link below for next meeting.