The Founder
Hey, I'm Bodin Scepanovic and this is my story.
THE HYPERINFLATION
I was born and raised in Montenegro - a beautiful country in the Balkans that was part of Yugoslavia in the 90s. My childhood memories were infused with stories of inflation. It wasn't just any kind of inflation. Yugoslavia recorded one of the highest hyperinflations in the history of the world. In 1994 it reached 313 million % a month. A few heroes were raising kids back then, including my parents. If there is one thing I remember, it's their grind to bring the food on the table.
ACTION...AND CUT
Nearly 2 decades later, I was finishing my senior year and had no idea what I wanted to do in life. My mother always dreamed of her son becoming a doctor. Yet it didn't quite resonate with me. As I grappled with which path to take in life I came across an industry that fuelled my energy - acting. Looking in retrospect, that was a strange idea since for 19 years of my life I have never been to theater, not even once. My father was aware of my stubbornness. He put me in touch with our cousin who worked at the Ministry of Education, hoping she will talk some sense into me. To his surprise, she was the only one who supported my decision. But she had her own way of doing it - planting a seed of doubt by casually mentioning that actors in Montenegro usually rely on their parents for pocket money well into their forties. Majority would end up doing commercials or other gigs to make ends meet. Wasn't an option for me.
SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?
Realizing I’m not going to become Montenegrin Marlon Brando was painful. But short. My acting dream faded quickly and I decided to pursue Business and Economics. After enrolling at the University of Montenegro I was ready to enjoy my 4 month vacation. At the beginning of summer my father asked me, "why don't you study abroad"? He planted the seed and I couldn't sleep for a week. Idea of living alone somewhere around the globe never crossed my mind before.
THE FASTEST 54 SECONDS
I came to know about Bocconi University in May 2009. That was 3 months away from the final admission test. I submitted the online application. On August 31st, I bought a one way ticket to Milan. Sleeping alone in a hotel room, thousands kilometers away from my home felt scary. To this day I remember that feeling. I romaned around Milano for few days and the examination day arrived. I remember opening the first page of the test: 100 questions in 90 minutes. It was clear to me that 54 seconds per answer can't be enough. If there is 1 strength I possess its focus. My strategy was quality>quantity. The bell rang and I closed my paper covering 75% of the exam. While leaving the classroom I overheard other applicants finishing all 100 questions. Anxiety started kicking in and I questioned my strategy. Five days later the results were out - I PASSED.
BLACK MOUNTAIN INTO THE WORLD
Period 2009 - 2012 changed who I was. Living in Italy and the USA introduced me to cultures and people I never knew existed. It started reshaping my perspective and view on the world.
THE TASTE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
In 2012 after coming back from my exchange program in the USA I founded Bocconi Nerds. Tailored tutoring for students. I loved working with students and sharing the hacks for crushing the exams. This is where I discovered my love for knowledge sharing.
MENTORS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE
In 2015 I met Stefano and Marcello. They started a boutique Private Equity firm and I was one of the first members of the founding team. My memories are filled with hard work coupled with moments of playing FIFA and basketball in the office. Every 3 months we would go for a company retreat somewhere around Italy. That's how I learned to ski at 26 years old. At that time I didn't understand that I was learning the core ingredient of building great companies. The culture. They introduced me to amazing founders and I could listen to their stories for hours.
SAYING GOODBYE TO MY SECOND HOME
2019 marked my 10 year anniversary in Italy and I started reflecting on my journey. I felt my Italian chapter was over. It was time to move on. Question was where?
WHEN SAND BECOMES AIR
The Middle East was on my mind for a while. I've been going to Dubai for work and it seemed like a great business hub. Friend I highly trusted recommended me for a position. However the opportunity wasn't in the Emirates. It was in a corner of the Middle East I could never imagine I would land in, Saudi Arabia. It was time to pack my suitcases. August 31st 2019 I bought a one way ticket to Riyadh. On the same day, August 31st 2009, I moved from Montenegro to Italy. Felt like destiny to me. Few months after landing the pandemic started. Foreigners were getting evacuated from the country but I decided to stay in Riyadh. This decision turned into 11 months locked down in Saudi Arabia - the worst and best period of my life.
ROUTE TO SELF DISCOVERY
While I was stuck in Riyadh, my entire family got Covid and I could do nothing about it. The feeling of helplessness cut deep. I looked for distraction. Instagram and Netflix were my main drugs. One weekend after binge watching Netflix and scrolling through Instagram something just snapped, and I deleted all social media apps from my phone, except LinkedIn.
Now, when you end up in Saudi Arabia in the middle of the lock down, with no social media - you have a lot of time to think. And you start going into areas of your mind that you didn’t know even existed. Coming from a patriarchal society and “be a man” upbringing it never crossed my mind to get a therapist. However, I found my therapy in books.
I would read mostly books on business building, with particular focus on leadership without realizing that reading was preparing me for what was about to come.
SCARIEST THING I EVER DID
Covid was unpredictable and there was a chance I could lose my job. With only LinkedIn on my phone, I would scroll mindlessly through the platform. Somehow I ended up following a few marketeers and started noticing this pattern of people creating content. ON LINKEDIN! It was supposed to be an online CV. For the entire year I was just scrolling. I fell in love with the community and how people interacted with each other. One day I just made a decision. I’M GOING TO MAKE CONTENT ON LINKEDIN.
To give you some context on how agonizing this was, let's quickly fly to my elementary and high-school days. My parents never finished university and they saw school as an answer for success. My grades were making them proud. And only thing I ever wanted, was to make my parents proud. So I became an A level student, and when I say A level I mean like an absolute all As throughout my 12 year student career. Except for 1 thing - writing essays.
During high school every quarter we had an exam - writing an essay. Over the 4 years, I had 4 different professors, 16 exams and I got 16 Cs. This was an absolute trauma for me - and I told to myself, I don’t know how to write.
The time came to write my 1st Linkedin post. It took me around 4-5 hours. But than I wrote another one and another one. Not sure what was bigger agony for me - writing a post or posting it online.
You know how in life it takes one moment to make a change? To me it happened with my writing coach. We started working together and after reviewing one of my posts he said: “Bodin, you really write in a beautiful way”. As he said that something happened to my mind - I looked myself in the mirror and said to myself “I do write in a beautiful way”. Never looked back since. All the 16 Cs I got in high school were deleted from my mind and I convinced myself the professors had no idea about writing themselves.
To this day, hitting that post button for the 1st time was one of the toughest things I did. I made a contract with myself that I’m going to post consistently for a year, 2-3 times per week.
On the top of everything I had an Executive position in serious investment holding and I became a Chairman of the board of Montenegrin national investment holding - felt like the entire world was looking at me.
THE 100 VIDEOS
For a while I wanted to make videos, but it just felt so terribly scary. One night I was hanging out on LinkedIn and got a notification from Quentin Allums. He was having an audio room and I joined.
Quentin: “Ei Bodin, what are you up to, man?”
Bodin: “Hey man, I want to do videos on Linkedin for quite some time now?”
Quentin: “Why don’t you do them?”
Bodin: “Come on man, I dont have a camera, no mic, dont know what to say etc”
Quentin: “Man, those are just excuses. Do it now”
Now, my mind interpreted this sentence as “you are a coward”. And you dont say that to a guy from Montenegro and expect nothing to happen.
I took my phone, put my nice shirt on, and made a video where I introduced myself and hit post.
The funniest thing was - despite all of my fears - I felt NOTHING.
And a challenge was born.
100 videos in 140 days.
Took me on average 4-6 hours per video.
And I made them, no matter what.
LEAVING THE CORPORATE WORLD
As I was looking for inspiration for my content I came across a book called “Education of Value Investor”. Page after page everything was resonating. Guy who runs away from the money craziness of Wall Street and finds his utopia in Warren Buffet teachings. It just amplified my confusion and constant feeling of being at the crossroad with my personality. And yeah, I quit my job.
I felt this strong disconnect with myself and decided to buy a one way ticket to India. Landed in Amritsar, the homeland of Sikhism. Became vegetarian for 3 days. Probably the 1st Montenegrin in the history of our nation that did it.
Next stop was Varanasi - the holiest place in India. Seemed like going back in time few hundred years. This is the place where they burn their dead on the beach side of river Gang.
I moved on to Bangalore and even went to a wedding. It was refreshing to see people can have fun drinking almond milk. If you ever attend Balkan wedding you will know what I talk about.
Even though I didn’t find my inner peace yet the journey got some clarity in my head. It was time to go back home.
BACK TO BLACK MOUNTAIN AFTER 15 YEARS
After 15 years of living alone I moved back in with my parents.
When I was a kid I was a passionate free diver. For years I was dragging my parents around Montenegrin coast looking for the best beaches. As years passed by, my father got an idea - buy a land on the beach. We visited literally every inch of Montenegrin coast until we found one. My parents started building a house and due to different hiccups the project was never finished.
I was determined to finish my parents dream. But I’m not going to build a house for them, I decided to build a hotel. With zero engineering and construction experience it has been a wild ride. I changed my architect 3 times, was carrying around bricks due to shortage of labour, built walls then demolished them - countless times.
Russian-Ukranian war was roaring and in the middle of the project, the construction market in Montenegro was strongly affected. There was a shortage of supplies and the prices of material and labour skyrocketed. On top of that, changes in government regulations “forced” me to buy additional land for our hotel. The investment turned out significantly larger than I expected and capital left was not enough to finish the project.
I felt I betrayed my parents.
Had no time to waste. Only solution was to roll up the sleeves.
BACK TO THE DESERT
While I was working in Saudi I got introduced to a team from South Korea who had a Group of early stage Venture Capital funds all around the world. They wanted to expand to Saudi Arabia and were looking for a Partner. Initially I wasn’t very excited about it. The VC world always seemed to me like Wall Street. The suits were changed with Patagonia vests, the bankers with tech bros - but the game was still the same: chasing money and power.
I decided to give it a shot. The past decade I spent working on traditional businesses that were already mature and growing. I realized I actually never understood where it all starts. Never had an idea of 0 to 1 phase. How do you actually start a business? And I found beauty in that. With zero tech experience our VC fund in Saudi was launched. We invested in 16 companies and I helped them all expand and operate in Saudi. And that's where it all clicked. Its all about execution.
