Solo Entrepreneur Bootstrapping to over $5M: Vladimir Gendelman, CEO of Company Folders (Part 1)

Ukrainian entrepreneur Vladimir Gendelman started as a solo entrepreneur in Detroit and has bootstrapped a $5M+ niche e-commerce company.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background?

Vladimir Gendelman: I was born and raised in the former Soviet Union in Ukraine. We came to America when I was 16.

Sramana Mitra: What brought you to America?

Vladimir Gendelman: We’re Jewish. Antisemitism was very big in the Soviet Union. The family made the decision to go to the US.

Sramana Mitra: Where did you come in the US?

Vladimir Gendelman: Detroit.

Sramana Mitra: Then what happens?

Vladimir Gendelman: A lot of unknowns from language, culture, to food. I was 16 years old and I was trying to brush it off that it’s not a big deal. I just worked a lot. We didn’t have any money. My parents had minimum-wage jobs in the beginning. They were making $3.25 an hour.

I always wanted to own my own business. I never knew what kind. For whatever reason, I thought I wanted to own a hotel. That never happened. In the late 1990s, my first entrepreneurial experience was we bought a lot of computers from a local gallery. They were leasing them. The lease was over. There were hundreds of those and we sold them on eBay, Craigslist. We had to take them apart, fix them, and reinstall them. That was cool.

From there, I got into repairing computers for others. At some point, I came to see a customer. He looks at me and says, “You’re a computer guy. Can you help me get a company folder?” We’re talking about 2002. Internet is in full swing. I go online and looked for company folders and presentation folders. There are no folders. A little time later, I said, “I can’t let my client down. I got to figure this out.” I got my car and I drove.

The one thing I learned is that the presentation folder market was very, very basic. One of the big issues in the Soviet Union with communism is there are no options. There is no way to stand out to the point where you go to people’s houses and they have one of three or five different wallpapers. Same plate, same TV, same furniture, same clothing. The one thing about America was, it was the land of plenty. There are options. I’m in a position where there’s a place where there are no options.

Sramana Mitra: So 2002 was when you started Company Folders?

Vladimir Gendelman: Officially, 2003.

Sramana Mitra: How did you get started? Was it just you?

Vladimir Gendelman: In the beginning, it was just me.

Sramana Mitra: What were the first few things that you did to get this going?

Vladimir Gendelman: Marketing. I strongly believe that you could figure everything out if you have money.

Sramana Mitra: You didn’t have money.

Vladimir Gendelman: I didn’t have money. What I mean by that is, if you have sales coming in, that means money is coming in. If I get money coming in for something, I’ll figure out how to do it. It makes no sense for me to figure out how to deliver something until I have sales.

Sramana Mitra: You decided to market first.

Vladimir Gendelman: Correct.

This segment is part 1 in the series : Solo Entrepreneur Bootstrapping to over $5M: Vladimir Gendelman, CEO of Company Folders
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