The Entrepreneur Mindset Built Through Adversity
Marko Rajkovic
(YouTube Transcript)
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (00:03)
Marko, thank you for joining me today.
Marko (00:06)
It's nice to be a part of your podcast. So thank you for inviting me.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (00:10)
Yeah, I'm so excited, we met through a program we were both in and now here we are. And I think we just both had a little bit of a conversation before we started that we have common roots or both from the former Yugoslavia.
Marko (00:24)
Yeah, it's a isn't You may speak a little bit of my language, so that's exciting.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (00:30)
I keep trying. You'll have to teach me some more. And speaking of your background, I know that is a big part of your story and your history. And for those that aren't familiar, Yugoslavia now is many different separate countries, but it did go through a war. And how old were you when the civil war started in Yugoslavia?
Marko (00:31)
Yep.
Yep.
I was two years old, so I it a lot. I could feel it through my parents like the hyperinflation and the sanctions. And it was like really, really crazy. If you didn't have your grandma and grandpa bringing organic food, for if you were only like supporting your family through a supermarket, you're were lines for oil, for flour, for whatever. So it's crazy. It was under sanctions and everything is, but
as I said, I was too young to remember.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (01:16)
Yeah, I don't know how my parents let me do this, but it was 94. I just graduated college and I was backpacking through Europe and I remember I wanted to see my family. And so I ended up, I was in Paris. I went through Belgium and stayed with a stranger, flew to Budapest and my uncle and my cousin took the bus from Belgrade up to Budapest. And then we took it back.
And instead of like four or five hours to 12 hours, there were stops everywhere, guards everywhere, and finally made it in. And I remember during that time they were showing me money that was like had no value. I mean, it literally. Yes, like tons of zeros, I don't know if they still kept it, but they were like, none of this is even worth the paper that was written on. And luckily, so many of my family members were farmers, and so they were able to
Marko (01:53)
with 15 zeros, right?
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (02:07)
get by because they could grow their own stuff, but it was just crazy time. So how did the war build your character and your resilience, do you think, over the years?
Marko (02:07)
Yeah. Absolutely.
I believe that there is a character that everyone knows nowadays. It's Novak Djokovic and you can tell that resilience that he has and he put it out there perfectly because when you're brought up in such an environment where, he's talking more about the bombing that we had. I remember that one in 99. So my whole child, was not like those wars or maybe for my older brothers,
they remember them better. But for me, it was the bombing when I was like maybe 10 years old. But throughout that whole 90s was a big like black hole in the history of this region completely. but I don't know, like call me crazy, but I remember I was 10 years old, the bombing started and I got a new bicycle. And my mom told me whenever the sirens go off, you need to call back home immediately.
And I just got on the bike and it started the sirens went out. I'm come on, not now. Because people then were more connected than ever. Like folks in the street, we have seldomly electricity. You would have like for a couple of hours, you have some water for a couple of hours. So everybody was just helping out like a community was built even stronger. Nowadays with everything that we have and with the whole
country kind of modernize and everything. I mean, we think we're living better. I'm not saying that part of my life is better. I'm just talking about the community, about the people in general. People have turned their back on each other, like on the community itself. So this whole digital, like you and I are now like talking through a camera. You didn't know me, I didn't know you in a way, but like we lost that physical touch, and we lost that physical presence in general.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (03:42)
Yeah.
Marko (03:48)
So to come back to your question, it looked fun in the eyes of a kid because your mom and dad were always home and everybody was there and your brothers and friends and you would play outside. You were just like, only when the sirens went off, you need to come in, obviously for me, was blessed enough that nobody got killed in my proximity, but it was a bad place to be and definitely we were scared at times. The bombings
were maybe like a couple kilometers from my house. So all the windows cracked, for example. And I remember we were in the basement just seeing like, can it be fixed? In the morning, like duct taping because you cannot buy other ones. Once it passed, we like rebuilt everything. I mean, I don't know, in the eyes of a child, the most important thing is that you have your people that you look up to there
close to you. So my father wasn't sent to war, my brothers weren't sent so, that's a lucky condition to be in. But in general was not the place to be for my father, especially because a little bit about my background, my family and everything, to build in that like timeframe in those years.
Especially because we were like Yugoslavia, your parents would know but it was a communist country. So you need to change the mindset completely you were going through a threat country, Yugoslavia was considered Top five, top ten economies of the world. So it's huge and now all of a sudden everything broke down and you need to change that mind shift from a communist socialist regime.
The difference between the Western world and our world here even nowadays, if you have a job, especially something that is connected with government or whatever, just keep silent and you have a job, you have a steady income, don't complain, shut up, and it doesn't have that hustle mentality like there is in the West. So there's a huge gap and a huge difference there. So my father and my grandfather, when they started our family business, which I'm not a part of anymore,
started in 68 where if you're an entrepreneur, you're a public enemy pretty would go through their stories, we would need hours to only talk about that's bravery right there.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (05:52)
That's incredible what people go through. And I remember experiencing the community as well. And since you talked about your family, your family did start their business during communism, which is incredible. And a business be active, is that correct? The family business still exists?
Marko (05:53)
⁓ yeah.
my grandfather, he passed away now almost 15 years ago. He started it in 68. He was from a small city village called whatever called Pozarevac. And back in those days, the only way to come to the capital, because I'm from Belgrade, you need to have an invite, like a license to enter pretty much the city. And he got deported multiple times and he would go by foot to Belgrade, which is like 100, 150 kilometers away.
And eventually he stayed in this part of Belgrade called Zemun. Had a small garage where he could sleep and work because his whole family was still in the village. And that's how it started. From one place to another, like half of the city was still in a farmland, like marshlands and stuff like that. It was not as developed as it is now. And he started like that. My father joined him when he was, I think, 12 or 13 years old. You needed to grow up much faster back then.
That's for sure. Eventually he went through all of those crazy I mean, there was a golden era late seventies, eighties. and then nineties, wars, sanctions, everything stopped. So we went through that as well. I believe then in the early two thousands that the family company had 20, 25 employees.
And now we're in 2026, I have two older brothers. The oldest one is running the company. He started when he was maybe 25, 26, he joined. Once he finished his interesting story. He was studying in Canada exactly when the bombing started and he wanted to flew back in like to be with us. And my dad was like, no, stay there. When things settle the first ticket he managed to get was to Budapest.
So he came into Budapest and then somehow migrated to Belgrade to join us. Now he is 40, seven, eight. Sorry, Milan, if I gave you too much years. Yeah, he's born in 77. So I didn't even know going to be 50. And now the company has 150 employees. So a huge jump was made in the last 20 years. And I was a part of it up until
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (08:00)
maze.
Marko (08:05)
2019, 2020. And then I part ways because my middle brother is also in the family company. Everybody's in the family company except me. yeah.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (08:12)
Yeah. Well,
and that's the interesting thing, because you called yourself the black sheep and you decided to go through a different route. You obviously are an entrepreneur yourself and CEO of your own company. So talk a little bit about when you discovered maybe that you knew this was not for you and that you had different dreams for your life.
Marko (08:31)
I mean, as a male, you should be dragged into cars, engines, anything petrol, that type of stuff. And it's a pretty cool job to be in because we're like engine specialists. We rebuild engines for from cars to locomotives to whatever you can imagine that has an engine. We rebuild it. Simply that
industry and the technology of rebuilding in my head, it was pretty repetitive and it's like you live in a loop in a way. So there's no Engine is an engine. it just depends on how many cylinders it has, or it's a V engine or a straight engine. I'm not going to go into technicalities and details, but what I realized is the same drive my brother's had, my middle brother he's a mechanic and he always liked it from when he was a child.
He was like giving a screwdriver, whatever tools and he always liked it. He was really skillful with his hands. He was like my dad, pretty much. My oldest brother is the one like he was educated a bit more to handle the business. He graduated in economics. So he knew how to handle a company pretty much. I was like kind of always because I'm way younger than them. My middle brother is seven years older,
and the oldest 12 years older than me. So I was always kid. I believe up until I got my kids that I was still considered a kid, pretty much. And I considered my oldest brother as my father in a way, because he was much more president in my life than my dad was, because my dad was working literally 15 hours a day. And at one point he realized, first of all, my love for languages and how I can speak. And usually when you speak with somebody from Eastern Europe, you can tell immediately.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (09:53)
Yeah.
Marko (10:03)
And majority of people that talked to me couldn't say immediately that I'm from Serbia or any other Eastern European country. I don't have that hard accent. so I was like, okay, I'm not interested in any of that. And I was always curious about other countries, about other cultures, about visiting, traveling. That was my first
drive to go away from Serbia not because it was bad for me here not at all it's only because of curiosity I want to meet other people other cultures other ways of thinking in a way and eventually because I went to a gymnasium as a high school and if you know the setup here if you finish a gymnasium and you don't go to a university pretty much you could have just finished elementary school. So after that I needed to on a university but none of the universities here were
the exact thing that I wanted to learn about at that time. And I was like, okay, what's the most broad thing that I can study that I could leverage abroad? So I started just like sending out letters to all sorts of different business schools around Europe because they were pretty expensive. And I came up with this letter where I wouldn't like to even share it with you because I pretty much, didn't demonize family. I was just really struggling. My dad is this, my father, like my brothers are
like, I don't know, alcoholics. I made the whole thing up. So that somebody would give me some leverage. And eventually I was like, decline, decline, decline, declined. And a couple of universities actually, okay, called me in for an interview. And it got a couple of scholarship opportunities, like 80, 90 % scholarship. He comes from Serbia, he's helping out and stuff. He looks bright. And I ended up, I chose London in the end. I mean,
if you talk heritage, it doesn't go much bigger than like London is kind of a crossroads of the whole world, let's put it that way. So I went there bachelor in business administration, which is pretty little bit of everything in business, right? So you can finish that and you can get hired anywhere. It's pretty much operations admin work and stuff like that, have the fundamentals of business.
And then after that, kind of shifted my mindset into something that I realized I liked the most, which is human psychology and consumer behavior. And I realized that at the moment, because I grew up in that family business and you have a production facility and majority of the people are craftsmen, machinists and stuff like that. And I was like, there is no way how can I make this pretty.
you're not doing advertising for some cool brand, like Red Bull or something like that. You really need to be imaginative in order to get this up and running, to have the numbers and that whole industry and everything. And I was always talking to my brothers because I'm that first generation of Instagram. If you remember back then when it started, I was in London and my first post was a slice of pizza from a Pizza Hut. And somewhere in some village in UK.
I was like, okay, this is going to be fun. We're going to be able to tell stories for imagery. So when I came back, eventually when I graduated, they were like, okay, you're going to come back to the and let's manage everything together. But I was still not given the opportunity to actually showcase my knowledge and where this is headed.
If I go down that it could be a lengthy talk. So you should ask me a sub question. I to point on your question, I realized when I liked it the most is because of the challenge that brings such an industry that is such a niche to say that you cannot visualize it so easily because there is a difference between like engine reliability and showcasing luxury cars. I'm not going to do a review on a
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (13:17)
Mm-hmm.
Marko (13:29)
So yeah, I need to get my hands dirty. I need to show people what actually makes them do they even like these things. So was the biggest challenge and simply changing the mindset, which was like design doesn't matter, brand doesn't matter. You just need to do the work and get paid and that's it. So there's your answer there.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (13:45)
Did you start Krow Studios in Serbia?
Marko (13:49)
No, actually is Krow Studios 2.0. I didn't mention that I already had this thing that I started in New York with a colleague from my university years in London. This American guy called Matt. and we started an architectural visualization studio in New York, Manhattan. Yeah. I mean, I was into 3d renderings back then. As he said, like visualizing something that is not existent.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (14:04)
interesting.
Marko (14:13)
Right? So architects, whatever building is being built, you need to what is it going to look like? And back in the days, those 3d renders are not like now. Now you have AI and you can visualize it in an instant. Back then it was like really good money. And the AR this like not VR, but AR is kind of in the middle between virtual reality, augmented reality. you would have a headset and then you can go showcase
in a showroom and stuff like that. So we managed to land a couple of clients, like really solid clients from Hong Kong and from the US, like two kids, from New York, one from Serbia, by having a good enough business plan, good enough pitch deck, to showcase because I have a lot of my best man is in that 3D rendering space, then I connected to some other people.
I connected another friend in sales. So we started doing that. only reason why that thing didn't work out is because I was dragged back into the family company because they needed me. They realized that something needs to change in terms of that whole digital world and marketing in general, because I didn't mention that my master's degree in Belgium was at master in marketing management and
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (15:13)
Mm.
Marko (15:23)
digital marketing as a specialty. How do you call that? Like specificity, whatever. so I simply moved away from Krow Studios 1.0, moved to MR, stayed there for a couple of years. And then Krow Studios 2.0 actually just started in October last year. Before that, I was working for other agencies, for other brands before I realized that I should be doing this on my own and make my own team.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (15:46)
Yeah. Did you ever think you were going to go back to Serbia or did you think you were in a stay in the States or somewhere else?
Marko (15:52)
No, I visited states a lot of times. I simply never clicked with it or I simply didn't find a state. I've been to New York at least like five, six times. Every single time I would go, I would hate it more for some reason. And other parts, I don't know, Chicago, Boston, liked them better, but never the West side. So maybe that would change something. I don't know. but to be honest, I was seeing myself in London.
But my background, because of my Serbian heritage, they didn't really want us back then there. And I was not like, I'm a molecular biologist. So to say that they need to keep me, I was another business grad. That's the reason why I moved to Belgium where I actually started working. And I ended up in that corporate world that I was honed for, that I grew teeth for to become a shark,
resilient and everything, but then after six months I realized that I don't want to be that guy because simply the way how you need to treat other people in a competitive corporate environment is not something that I value and my moral values are much higher than that and I was like this is not for me. It will be good money and everything but it's just like it's not all about the money. So I was then
called back by my family and also I was like, okay, let's try it out. And I was given the chance finally to show them to prove my worth. And that's the reason why I moved back. I never doubted my decision afterwards. I'm glad that I did.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (17:14)
Yeah.
And it's changed so much. People who haven't been to Belgrade should go visit. It's absolutely amazing. And after all these years, now London has flights to Belgrade like every day. it's really easy to find. Yeah, multiple times a day, which is funny. ⁓ So what was some of the hardest things that you had to endure as you were working with your family, coming back after learning what you did and coming back to a business that was so established? Were there any challenges
Marko (17:32)
multiple times a day. Yeah. Yeah.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (17:49)
with the vision that you trying to change your father or your brother's mindset around certain things.
Marko (17:55)
That's actually a really good question. So when you are 25, like 26 year old, and you're trying to tell people who built a 150 person company that they're missing something, it's not the best place to be in. So the thing I had to kind of learn first was that I wasn't going to win the argument by just being right. I had to win it by showing results they simply couldn't dismiss in a way.
So, I kind of and started proving what I can do. So I built that MR engines, the name of the company, the digital presence pretty much from zero. So I showed them what it could do. And I simply wanted to let the evidence speak because we were present on a lot of automotive fairs locally. And then we started going into Germany.
France into those like fears, which were pretty costly not gonna lie to be present there and whenever we would go there people would start approaching us and showing on the phone, is this you guys? I would just like look at them like you see, like they know us, they they resonate, they know the colors, they know that logo. Let's start from there. Let's start from the basics pretty much, because beforehand
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (19:00)
Yeah.
Marko (19:04)
The marketing expense of MR was pretty business cards. That's and that's pretty much it. The thing is I was living across three completely different cultures. So one in the UK, one in Belgium, in Serbia, and in general that multicultural environment kind of shaped me in a specific way.
that experience that I had there kind of shaped I lead even my team now. I don't tell my team what to do just based on what other people said that should be done that way. I since I have this experience of different environments and different cultures.
I led by that even in my family company because they were pretty stubborn on the ways of Serbia and on the ways of Yugoslavia, because it's all the similar, doesn't matter if it's Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, everybody here is the same and we're the smartest people in the world, just so you know. So that's that like bulletproof version of what do you know? There you go. We're so bad ass, which is in a way that's not humbling at all. I cannot relate to that because
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (19:58)
I was like, fuck it, Nathalie. Yeah.
Marko (20:09)
moment my eyes opened is when I crossed the border and started listening to other people. It doesn't matter if it's from the West, from the East, I learned something from everybody. So, how I made it happen is simply through being silent, working diligently and sorting out one piece after another to assemble the whole puzzle, to assemble that digital presence online. Now our numbers are crazy good.
We have even started a YouTube channel, which we grew in the first month over 5,000 subscribers, which is amazing for one month in my plan for this year is we need to reach at least 20, 30K. But my preparation for it was like, okay, I came to a brother-in-law like, this is the budget, this is the studio that we have to make, this is the gear that you need.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (20:39)
amazing.
Marko (20:53)
This is the producer. This is going to be the cinematographer, the lighting, everything. I have set it up, everything. Our middle brother is going to be the host because they will only trust somebody from the family. Or if you want to bring another actor, they can pretty much blackmail you out for a couple of seasons because we're going to be successful. He was like, okay, how much money do you need? I'm like, this is the amount, let's go. So we were preparing for a year and a half for this launch. And when it launched, it was better than I expected. So now they're pushing me, let's make more content. I'm like, okay, we didn't prepare for this.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (21:11)
Yeah. Yeah.
Marko (21:21)
You weren't asking for comments and likes. We were just asking for our presence on YouTube as well, because on Instagram, on TikTok, on Facebook, we have like, I don't know, 60, 70, 80k subscribers because I'm not anymore there. I kind of assembled a team, made that marketing team, social media managers and everything. I stepped out. So I'm just like there hovering on top and sometimes simply giving guidance and that's pretty much it. But maybe that's my biggest win, the one for the family business, because I kind of
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (21:21)
Yeah
Yeah.
Marko (21:49)
prove my worth in a Every single client that I close after then now for come even close to that inner feeling of simply gratitude, humbleness, you call it whatever, but it really feels good. Finally, I'm worth it.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (22:02)
Yeah, and it's so interesting.
Yeah, because you're the youngest. And also the one that went away kind of came back. So it's an interesting story. And then also, like you said, generations built something. There's a lot of tradition there. There's a lot of establishment. So coming in not only with like, hey, we could do things differently,
but also bringing these ideas from maybe other places that couldn't have been easy, especially at 25. Like you said, I could just see like, yeah, what do you know? I could just imagine the conversation sometimes. So how did that then inspire you to want to your business 2.0 with your clients? I'm really curious about who you work with and what you've been able to do since you left the family business.
Marko (22:31)
yeah.
Simply because I didn't want to be that kid that had everything sorted didn't want to say you took the easy route. You have a family business, you're now a director of one of your franchises, whatever, and you pretty much have everything sorted out. So there wasn't a challenge there anymore. I mean, will be a need for that business for at least like up until alive. Like electric cars are not gonna go overnight and
simply overhaul planet. So it's not going to happen. Still, you're going to have mines, you're going to have agricultural machines that cannot work on electrical power that easily. it wasn't a part of me trying to prove to everybody that I can do it on my own. It was just a matter challenge. I overgrown it. I didn't next step in it.
challenge simply. was like with university, nobody pushed me to go abroad and study. dad told me when I finished my elementary school, just finish some mechanical school and join the business. And I was like, yeah, but I don't want to do that. He's like, okay, you're going to be a scholar. You're going to have a doctor's I'm like, dad, I don't know if I'm going to go all that way. But I didn't tell you, want like fun anecdote how I went to England actually because
as a father of three boys, the first thing you get when you're 18 years old is a car, and I remember I sold my car after six months by myself, not asking my dad. And he was like, I remember I came to the office and like, Hey dad, I sold the car. And he was reading newspapers. He just looked at me and you did what? My oldest brother was sitting at the boss table, And he was just like, he is, you know,
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (24:09)
guys.
yeah.
Marko (24:24)
And he just asked
me, okay, and where's the money? And I'm like, I paid for my university because I needed to pay that first installment, and the rest you're going to scholarship and everything. And he's university? And I said, I got accepted to this London university. They called the university in London. And he put like, put his glasses down. I was like getting ready, to get like beaten up or whatever. He just put the newspaper down. He just looked at me said like, you really want this, this bad.
I just looked him in the eyes and I was like, there is nothing I wanted more than this. And he's like, okay, if that's the case, we're gonna support you. So they supported me as much as they could at that specific time because it was a hard time in those specific couple of years there was this huge truck that got stolen in Italy, like packed with engines that we did. So it set us back a couple of years.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (24:50)
Mmm.
Wow.
Marko (25:12)
And he's like, this is the worst time this could happen. So I needed to even grow older faster. So I started doing student Some illegal parties, you name them, whatever, like free parties. And I did everything just to stay in London. It was fun. Yeah. Yeah.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (25:13)
my.
my gosh, there you have a lot
of stories, I'm sure from that.
Marko (25:29)
Yeah, I have a colorful
life, I can say that,
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (25:31)
So tell me more about your business now. Who are the main clients that you work with? I looked at your website and it looks like you've got a lot of different types of clients in different industries. So tell us a little bit more about it.
Marko (25:44)
I specialize in e-commerce in D2C, which stands for direct to consumer, which is pretty much online presence of whatever product or service you might have. So I serve clients that have e-commerce businesses in any sort of industries and niches you can imagine, health and wellness, technology, supplements, you name it. I think that I've covered them all so far in my seven
years of experience in this specific environment. And it wasn't the case in the beginning because when I quit my family business, I didn't know what I was doing because I was never a part of it. I'm in digital marketing. I'm not an ecom. It's a completely different beast. If you talk about traditional advertising, you probably know about like TV advertising, newspaper print, I can't stop like that. And this is such a different beast because it's so fast paced, especially nowadays with all the social media platforms, all the different approaches that
how we are all targeted. I was simply like, OK, this is so cool. This is actually really interesting and extremely fast paced, what I like, because I'm all over the place. And I started working with this agency called AdKings back in the days. And I remember my boss then was like, I like the energy of this guy. He doesn't know much, but we will see how it goes. Eventually ending up
filling her own shoes because she was fired eventually even though I learned so much from her. But it moved really fast because it really digested all that information in that environment so much. I even got obsessed at some certain point. I read all the books I possibly could. I followed all the important people from the industry as I possibly could.
And eventually what I realized is that simply in this industry, what is missing is systemizing. And that's how we met actually, from the same program. And I was like sold by systems. I'm like, okay, that's actually what I need because I'm pretty chaotic guy. I need somebody to structure me. But to go back to Krow, it's yeah, specializing in making ads for those e-commerce businesses specifically for Meta, but also for auto social media channels, for TikTok, for...
Snapchat like now you have, I don't know if you heard apps like AppLovin. me, there are a lot of things that even I am like figuring out on a weekly basis because this is moving so fast When I instructed to go a little bit more towards LinkedIn, I was always like, LinkedIn, seriously? That's like, yeah, it's not really my audience, but then I realized.
a lot of business owners are also trying to figure it out. A lot of businesses have amazing products. They simply don't know the market about TV advertising is too expensive. Print advertising, if you want like a billboard by the highway, it doesn't cost the same. And these ads are kind of, you can do the math how much money it's making and it's scalable.
So you can always make like a hundred more billboards around the city, but you cannot really do the math around how much it helped your business. And here we have this fast paced environment where you're making ads that are changing on a weekly basis, on a daily basis, simply because you're testing different pockets of audiences, different user personas, different demographics, different emotions. So it's a pretty complex operation, even though it's served so like,
simply to you. There's a lot of thinking behind everything that you see on Instagram once you're scrolling or on Facebook It's such a sophisticated the tool is like crazy, but it holds a monopoly so Facebook is definitely the number one player in advertising pass down
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (29:09)
I have done more Instagram purchasing this last year and I'm like, they will not leave me alone until I get the full setto to regulate my vagus nerve. I will keep seeing ads everywhere I go. And it's like incredible. And so you studied, you said also human psychology. There's so much that goes into how we buy. What are you seeing in terms of any changes in how people buy or?
Marko (29:18)
Mm-hmm
⁓ yeah.
yeah.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (29:37)
in like is that impacting how you're doing ads, any new learnings that you have?
Marko (29:42)
yes.
First of even birds in my industry know that first two to three seconds of every single ad is crucial. If you don't hone that sort of hook instantly, the rest of your ad doesn't matter at all. So what you're trying to trigger is that like you don't start with a cell. You start with the problem, because people need to connect immediately to what you're trying to talk about. There are different types of
approaches you can take to every certain individual based on their age, their environment, their purchasing stage. There's like warm audience, cold audience, different segments of the funnel, top, middle, bottom funnel of the ads. When you see something and I see that you're resonated with that something that I want to serve you a middle of the funnel ad that is going to be educating you more on what you saw in the first one.
And if you're keep scrolling and still keep giving us a couple more seconds on that specific ad, I'm seeing that and I'm trying to, okay, what's going to make her close for me? And I then hit you with 30 % off, 50 % off, or, try now risk-free 60 days, what do you have to lose and stuff like that. So advertising as an art form didn't change for a hundred years now. That's how I see it. The snake potion back in the days, it's simply how you deliver and
because people try to make it complex. It's actually not. The more simple you get it, the higher chance you're going to get result. The only thing that changes the medium, it's this. This is biggest leverage right now, because back in the days you wanted to look like Marilyn Monroe, you wanted to buy a Ford car, and it kind of evolved and evolved. It's simply now.
It's you were on the other side of the curve completely where you're simply so much bombard and the competition is so high that you need to be so original, but in a world where everything is already kind of figured out, how can you be original? So it's more about creative testing and listening, it's more analysis than actual ad production because if you're just like pumping out ads randomly, it's not going to solve anything. If you don't know that
problem, that agitation that people have and the solution that you can serve them. connect those dots as clearly as possible, there's your gold mine. As I always say to my your winning ads are always in your comments and in your reviews. I mean, you use Amazon probably on a weekly basis, let's put it that way, right? And always when you're checking something new, you go to that reviews, right? And you go to the filters and you select the top five, top
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (31:59)
So yeah. Yeah.
review. Yeah.
Marko (32:08)
And then you realize a lot of them are, you have a lot of bots there, but on the other side, the ones that are unique and then you select, for example, the ones that have video or that have photo, but those were also incentivized to do that because they got something for free. Now you know that, but majority of the people that are not in the industry don't know that and to explain it like, plainly meta is like an amplifier to everything around your business. So you have your
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (32:21)
Yeah. Right.
Marko (32:35)
Amazon reviews, your meta reviews, your in website reviews, and all of these other people and characters, and I was especially with AI, you can data mine all of that and look for certain patterns that people replicate. And in those patterns is exactly where maybe your next winning hook is, or your winning ad in general, because people speak the language of the problem that they're trying to solve. And that's exactly what you're trying to do with the app.
So yeah, that's your recipe right there.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (33:04)
Oh my gosh, I know. And even if I know this, it's like I still get hooked. It still happens. This is interesting. So what's the next step where you see your business going? Is there a new level or any changes that you see for it?
Marko (33:08)
Yeah.
I mean, I would still like to serve. I would still like to be a service as Krow Studio for other brands too. I get high on success of others. When a brand comes and they're making, I don't know, 50, 60, 80, a hundred a month, and then we move them to a million a month, that's the high that I want, because you showcases you can. Even when I go on client calls, I always say, if I don't feel the brand and if I don't see that I can actually help
I would say that openly, it's not always about the money. Even now, and you know that from our calls, I get a lot of referrals. I don't do that much like cold traffic or whatever. I don't do ads, even though I make ads for others. I mean, I would still like to stay there and like connect with other businesses, but the end goal, I would like to have my own brands. I don't know what it's going to be. Maybe it's going to be these headphones or, who knows?
I will have my own e-commerce shops and implement everything that I've learned from the industry, from other clients into that one. That's the next step maybe.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (34:13)
I love that.
So if folks want to work with you and maybe just even see if they would be one of those clients you want to work with, what is the best way that they can get ahold of you?
Marko (34:24)
LinkedIn, email marko@krowstudios.com or our website krowstudios.com. It's pretty visual. It's pretty easy to navigate. Everything can be found there pretty much the forums, the book of call and everything is there. So yeah.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (34:38)
Yeah, I love it. I love the case studies and I know you have a newsletter. Actually, I'm really impressed with your LinkedIn. I think recently you did a post and really just talked about walking people through how to create the hook, like what it goes into creating a good ad. So there's a lot of value and service that you provide. people. Yeah, I should definitely follow you. There's a final question that I ask everyone, Marko. What does it mean to you to live the width of your life?
Marko (34:54)
I hope so.
There's this project that I'm working on right now, which is I'm making an overlander, which is this like off-road Jeep. I have two kids, two small kids, two and four boys. ⁓ And I would like to have more time to go and spend in the woods, in the mountains, sleeping in a tent on top of some crazy scenery. Being able to travel as much as possible. I simply enjoy that more than anything else. So.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (35:14)
Aww.
Marko (35:30)
having more time and staying healthy. Those are the two things I believe majority of people that join these calls with you would agree with get out of that hamster wheel as much as possible, live the life because it's long enough. I mean, I don't know when I turned 36, to be honest. I'm still 20 in my head. So it moves really fast, especially now with the kids and everything. So to answer the question.
trying to free up as much of my time as possible so I can enjoy the things that matter in life.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (35:59)
So good. Well, I just wish you continued success. I'm so grateful that we met through Founder OS and hopefully continue. And when I to Belgrade, I think definitely we should get together for coffee or some lunch. It would be amazing.
Marko (36:05)
Likewise.
That's
already agreed upon. And we have a recording of it. So we will meet for sure in person. Absolutely.
Aneta Ardelian Kuzma (36:15)
There you go. There you go. Thank you so much,
Marco. Have an amazing day.
Marko (36:21)
Thank you, Aneta and likewise,