What do you do in your work?
Officially, my position is called “commercial director of LinguaTrip”. It is a platform for the search and booking of educational courses abroad. But this is only a formality. My real activity is determined by the fact that I’m a co-founder of LinguaTrip and have long ago forgotten when I work and when I rest. I do not even know when I last had a vacation. All trips are in one way or another connected with business.
Recently, I was also called a blogger. It’s strange for me, but it’s nice to realize it. After all, when I shot my first video on YouTube about the passing of the TOEFL exam (English language exam for admission to foreign universities), I even could not think that I would score a million views.
What is your profession?
She studied economist and mathematics and is very grateful to her parents for making a choice for me. I’ve always dreamed of working abroad, and I thought that the best way to do this is to get an education as an interpreter. Only then it dawned on me that language is not an advantage, but a necessity for survival. As a result, I taught the language in parallel with mathematics and economics.
In the 11th grade I somehow decided that I want to go to the Mathematics and Mechanics Department of St. Petersburg State University, but my parents intervened in time. As a result, I got to the Faculty of Mathematics for only six months, when I went on an exchange to study at the Technical University of Dresden. And again I was glad that my parents made a choice for me in favor of the economy. I did not particularly inspire pure mathematics in German.
The main value of education for me is not knowledge, but communication and the ability to understand something new. Therefore, the main thing that gave me my education is a meeting with the co-founder of LinguaTrip Dmitry Pistolyako. It was this man who registered our first company and said that I do not need to look for work, we will work for ourselves. He is the one who builds clear plans for a few years ahead and inspires the whole team to believe that the impossible is possible.
I dream that I will never have to work for anyone, except myself, and about the house on the ocean coast in California.
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
One of the strengths: I’m very passionate about my business. Over what inspires me, I can work 12 hours a day. Because of this, it is demanding of its employees.
Over the past two years I’ve learned to appreciate time, I’ve stopped wasting it. The less I try to explain to people that they are wrong. This is partly taught me by my channel. Here sits some kind of heyter, writes a malicious comment that I have everything “by blat”, I myself have not achieved anything, and everything I do is not necessary for anyone. Well, let him think like that. Instead of trying to prove something to someone, I’d rather do something interesting and achieve new successes.
Since January, I ruled out all kinds of alcohol from my diet. This is the influence of California, where everything is in the mode of heightened concern for health.
My weakness: I do not always believe in myself. For example, when enrolled in US universities, I deliberately did not apply to Stanford and Harvard. I thought that they were intended for Americans, much more successful than I am. Why do they need a girl from Russia with their little company? (Then LinguaTrip was not yet.)
Only then I realized that my case as an entrant was very strong and had a chance to enter the top universities. Now I tell this story to my students and ask them to learn from my mistakes, believe in themselves and aim higher.
What does your workplace look like?
Like that.
I love my slim Samsung laptop. In my opinion, I’m the last person in the Silicon Valley, which still works on Windows. For me, the weight of the device and the screen size are very important, since I always carry the laptop with me and try to protect my eyes (12 hours behind a larger monitor is better than a small one).
The phone is always with me. Now I have an iPhone 6S Plus. Pleases its huge screen, although at first thought that it would be uncomfortable.
And the third gadget, which is also in most cases with me, is the Canon G7X camera. It has a light-sensitive lens, due to which the background blurs beautifully.
All my work is mostly in the mail: correspondence with customers, partners, investors, recently there were letters with thanks of subscribers (my favorite part).
I’m using Gmail. Prior to that, Outlook used for four years, but when the volume of emails reached 9 gigabytes, it collapsed, and I could not recover anything. I tried to use other email clients, but in the US, almost everyone uses Gmail. For more than a year he has not let me down. Letters I try to sort by category.
Another service that I started to use after we moved to the Silicon Valley is “Google.Calendar.” It is very convenient: by negotiating a meeting, you immediately throw an invitation, and it automatically appears in the partner’s calendar. For example, if someone wants to call me, I send a link to my page on Calendly.com. There you can book a place in my schedule in a couple of clicks.
The opening of the last month is the Unroll.me service, which determines for free which mailing lists you are subscribed to, and offers to automatically unsubscribe. With him, the number of my incoming letters decreased by 50.
Tasks lead to Trello. I have three columns:
- Current – no more than five tasks that I try to do during the day. The golden rule is five tasks. If there are ten of them, execution can take a week. If the task hangs for more than three days and I do not touch it, it means that it is not a priority and goes to the list of Later.
- Later – everything that needs to be done, but not urgently. Hence the tasks in the mornings, when I plan the day, fall into the Current list. There are already more than 100 cards with ideas for video, new sections of the site, interesting people and so on.
- Knowledge – unstructured ideas, which I look at once every two to three months. There are chips of competitors, long-term plans for the development of LinguaTrip.
To communicate with the team we use Telegram. With its help it was possible to get rid of about 100 incoming letters a day.
Well, the last, perhaps, application is Instagram. I’m there @linguamarina and @linguatriprussian. In the first, I mostly upload photos from travels (I process photos in the VSCO program), and in the second I give notes about life abroad, nuances of getting a visa to the United States, Great Britain, Ireland.
What gadgets and programs help to maintain the YouTube channel?
It seems to me that any business needs to start with minimal costs, otherwise you can spend a lot of time on what will eventually prove to be of no use to anyone. So I was starting to shoot the video just on the iPhone: put it on the handle from the window to make the light better, and slandered the material without preparation. I kept everything in iMovie right on the phone.
At first I was very afraid of criticism, I did not tell anyone except the closest ones. But YouTube quickly enough untwisted my channel: it raises in the top video which look up to the end. Already literally three months after the first video, I got 1,000 subscribers on the channel. At this point, I decided that I do not care what others think about it, and began to upload new videos to social networks.
When there were more than 10,000 subscribers on the channel, part of the video was shot on a professional Canon 650D camera. But you can not drive it with yourself: it’s heavy. So the video continued to be filmed on the phone. Subscribers complained about sound quality, wind, noise, and at the mark of 25,000 subscribers I bought a Canon G7X camera.
First I made a video in the basic video editor of Windows. But a couple of months ago I had an assistant who started editing.
What lies in your bag?
Almost stopped using bags, now my most loyal friend is a backpack Coach, bought in an outlet near Los Angeles. Discount on it was around 70% – this is one of the best purchases in recent times.
In the morning I put a laptop in it, charging, hard drive, fruit (most conveniently in the office there are apricots), lip balm, powder, blush, purse. If I plan to shoot something, a camera and a mini tripod are added to the backpack.
About what I take with me on the flight, I told in this video.
What is your daily routine?
Now I’m a 100% owl. I get up at 9-10 in the morning, I go to bed at one in the morning, as I work with Russia and Europe in the daytime, and in the evenings my colleagues and partners from the United States wake up. You need to be in time in two time zones.
In the US, on the contrary, I will be restructuring into the lark mode. The Western world is imprisoned for those who get up early. It’s okay if you are scheduled to meet at eight in the morning, and the night party ends at midnight.
I try to divide actions by the time of day. In the morning I check the news and mail (but I do not answer anyone, because I do it in bed from the phone). Then I go to the office and there I answer the letters, call up the customers.
I usually go to lunch with Dmitry Pistolyako, and if I have lunch alone, I correspond with employees from other cities.
I spend two hours a day blogging: I shoot a video, reply to comments, I communicate with subscribers.
In the evening – ballet or walk, cooking dinner, watching the show and call with the United States.
How do you waste time in traffic jams?
My office is about 15 minutes walk from the house. I try to plan all meetings in the radius of “office – home”, so as not to waste time and nerves on traffic jams. I drive quite gently, and the drivers are very unhappy when I’m driving 60 km / h, not 90. So I try not to meet them again.
If you still have to wait for something or someone, then I read the books. The last three years, almost nothing read, since she was immersed in the business. But after I met Anton Gladkov (ex-business developer Aviasales), I was inspired by the way books influenced his life, and began to read more.
What’s your hobby?
My main hobby is my job and my video blog. I have two YouTube channels: one in Russian (35,000 subscribers), the other in English. I started it recently, but it grows faster than Russian.
The main theme of the channels is education and life abroad. This is something I have not ceased to be interested in for years, probably from fourteen. I have accumulated a lot of knowledge and experience – it’s a sin not to share this with the guys who, like me, want to learn languages and work abroad.
There are a lot of bonuses from channel management. Firstly, this interaction with the target audience of LinguaTrip. Subscribers often write comments on how to improve the service, find bugs, share their impressions of working with us. Secondly, I have a very smart audience, the guys are constantly receiving grants for studying abroad, open their businesses and win in various competitions. It’s nice to feel like a small part of great success. Thirdly, keeping the channel gives new acquaintances. I communicate with many bloggers who shoot videos on similar topics. Sometimes we “partner” with class companies due to the fact that my subscribers are working there.
I am happy when I see the results of my labors.
What place does sport play in your life?
I’m doing classical ballet, this is my second hobby and my favorite sport. When I was eight, my parents gave me to dance at the Music Hall Theater in St. Petersburg. There we had a lot of classes: acrobatics, characteristic dance, acting skills, but always inspired me classics.
At the age of 12 a teacher from Vaganovskaya School came to me and offered to continue her studies there. But I decided that after school I want to go to university, so I continued to study ballet as an amateur.
I try to go to classes at least once a week. The ballet helps to disconnect from problems and affairs.
Lifkhakerstvo from Marina Mogilko
Books
Recently I read the book of Marie Condo The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I highly recommend it to everyone (as far as I know, it has already appeared in Russian – “Magic of cleaning, life changing: Japanese art of getting rid of unnecessary things and organization of space”).
This book tells how to get rid of unnecessary things and how life changes from this. Within a week after reading, I threw away six huge bags of old brochures, magazines, wires, incomprehensible things, old clothes, idle equipment, checks, dusty souvenirs and statuettes. I also distributed some of the things to friends, part sold.
Now I read “I’m like everyone else” Oleg Tinkov. I read gloomily and admire his courage and enterprise. I stretch out the pleasure myself: I do not read more than two chapters a day.
TV series
I recently finished watching “House of Cards” and am looking forward to the new season of “Force Majeure”.
For those who are interested in the life of start-ups in the Silicon Valley, I recommend the Silicon Valley. All one by one: constantly trying to copy your chips competitors, constant consultations with lawyers, so as not to miss any trifle in the documents, constant work and rapid adoption of key decisions.
All I look in the original. This is the best way to learn new words, listen to the right speech and remember for yourself particularly cool turns in English.
Video
Useful tips on motivation and self-development I draw from Anastasia Kai, I also listen to the stories of interesting businessmen on the channel “Business Secrets” Oleg Tinkov. Answers to almost all questions about life in the United States I find on the channel SiliconValleyVoice Michael Portnov. When you want something “devochkovogo”, I watch LizaOnAir (she also lives in the US) and Estonianna. Favorite channel in English is VitalyZdTv Second. To not forget the German, I look Nilam.
What is your life credo?
It is expressed in three components:
- Constantly work and develop.
- Constantly communicate with people who have achieved more than you.
- Do not waste time on people without a purpose in life.
