Ep 87How I Started from $0 and Created Billions
There's no plan B. If you have one, you've lost before you started
There's no plan B... you're either in or you're not.
Edward Kholodenko
How I Started from $0 and Created Billions
with Edward Kholodenko
All of business is about helping other people and you got to figure out what is the big problem that they have and how you're going to help them solve it.
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Quotes
“I had no money, I had lots of time and no other commitments. So, what was my downside?”
“I wanted to sell the picks and the shovels rather than digging for the gold myself.”
“You want to make sure that you're limiting your time to things that only you can do.”
“There's no plan B... you're either in or you're not.”
“Everybody comes into this world with nothing and everybody leaves this world with nothing. The only thing that's left is what you did.”
“The only thing that drives growth is struggle.”
“Let them try. Let them fail. A measure of failure is good.”
Takeaways
- 1 Kholodenko left the Soviet Union as a child after anti-Jewish discrimination, grew up in a middle-class immigrant family in Toronto and studied geography, hoping to build skyscrapers.
- 2 When the early-1990s real estate crash left him with no job offers, it pushed him into his own business. He sees setbacks, like the crash, the 1998 ruble crisis and 9/11 right after Questrade opened, as divine guidance toward the next opportunity.
- 3 His first venture, $7,500 of computers from Hong Kong to Moscow, sold nothing. The pivot was a cotton-to-fabric supply chain across Uzbekistan, Russia and Ukraine after the Soviet breakup, which became the largest of its kind in Ukraine.
- 4 He moved home when his first child was coming: some risks are fine alone but not with a family.
- 5 Questrade began as a day-trading firm. He chose to be the 'house' selling picks and shovels, and to leverage other people's time instead of trading his own.
- 6 The business plan changed on the fly: penny pricing, 9/11 and home broadband ended the office day-trading model. Licensing top software let clients trade from anywhere. Today Questrade builds its own technology and oversees about $60 billion.
- 7 The 2008-09 crisis was a boom for the firm: client numbers doubled and tripled while they tightened risk controls.
- 8 Scale needs delegation and a clear mission. Questrade's mission, helping people become more financially successful and secure, is in every job description, town hall and meeting room.
- 9 For investors: ETFs over high-fee mutual funds, watch hidden fees (FX, account fees, crypto spreads), start small with money you can afford to lose, and know that trades can't be undone. Human advisors mostly serve clients with $500,000 or more.
- 10 Use your God-given talent to the full. Chabad Chassidus taught him there is no balance between work, home and religious life because it is all one.