New episode with Nik Shevchenko, founder of Omi, an AI wearable that summarizes your conversations and turns them into action items. Nik grew up on a Russian island near Japan, was mining crypto at 14, and sold his previous company to Toptal without making anything himself, because the $3M from investors was paid back first. Omi started at a hackathon in San Francisco, sold $50K on Kickstarter in a couple of weeks, and has shipped about 30,000 units, the first 4,000 built by hand. After $3–4M in sales without ads, he turned on Meta ads and went from a $2M to a $7M run rate in two weeks.
We talk about why running ads too early was "the worst decision" of his life, why everything at Omi is open source, his hiring formula (your top achievement divided by your age), giving 80% of the equity to the team, one metric per person, six-day weeks, and what he looks for in a partner.
Watch on YouTube. More from me at benji.app.
Follow Nik on X (@kodjima33). Omi is hiring: omi.me/careers.
Timestamps
(00:00) – Introduction: from $2M to $7M ARR in two weeks
(01:20) – Origin story: growing up in Russia
(04:01) – First company: a crypto trading platform
(05:21) – Second company: a freelance marketplace
(07:28) – The painful lesson: why running ads too early failed
(10:02) – Starting Omi: from hackathon to product
(12:59) – Open source philosophy and competitive advantage
(17:02) – Hardware journey: from DIY to manufacturing
(18:22) – Organic growth: Twitter and affiliates
(22:47) – The paid ads breakthrough: 3x growth in two weeks
(23:57) – Hiring philosophy: finding great talent
(32:45) – Equity structure: an 80% ESOP
(38:39) – Leadership style: one metric per person
(45:41) – Work-life balance and personal philosophy
(56:23) – Making friends and building relationships
(1:00:52) – Dating: learning as a core criterion
(1:04:03) – Asking AI about girlfriends, wives and kids
