"Make sure you are not following false dreams and don't be too harsh on yourself or your mistakes."
As a marketing advisor for global companies, Ilya Rouss always got a thrill from building new and exciting business ventures and watching them flourish.
Spinning many plates is what life is all about for him. Ilya’s latest business project is ‘Teleporting’: an innovative D2C and B2C ecosystem, empowered by a user-friendly app.
Over the past six years, he’s lived and worked in Andorra, Spain, and Dubai – and prior to that, he traveled all over the world. He recognized a gap in the market: since the pandemic, people are rethinking traditional ways of travel and crave new and unique experiences in non-mainstream locations.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Ilya Rouss: My name is Ilya Rouss, I’m the founder and CEO of Teleporting, a marketplace of exclusive experience for modern travelers. I am a serial entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in tech, sports marketing, computer production, and the automotive industry.
In addition to being the head of Teleporting, I’m a partner at Xplusone APP, a company that develops mobile applications for curated marketplaces in various verticals, a partner at the Spanish automotive corporation EBRO and the founder of the bicycle brand Forestal.
I’m passionate about traveling, and Teleporting is a continuation of my devotions just like my other businesses. The application opens a portal to non-mainstream entertainment and networking with like-minded people for travelers.
Our aim is to create a universal easy-to-use solution for experienced travelers and laid-back tourists who are keen on finding unique opportunities while exploring new cities and countries. On the other side, we help travel businesses and amusement providers reach this audience and boost their sales.
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffet, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Ilya Rouss: Teleporting is a centralized platform that connects all the participants of the travel ecosystem. Using the marketplace, travelers can book exclusive tours with access to non-mainstream venues and unique experiences and meet travel buddies along the way.
At the same time, providers of such tours and experiences get multi-channel marketing and analytics tools to reach and better understand this audience.
We thoroughly curate all suppliers who get access to the platform in order to ensure a high-quality experience for our users right from the start. Teleporters can invite friends to join their adventures or find new friends by joining adventures with people they don’t know yet.
We highly value the community that we are creating.
What advice do you wish you received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Ilya Rouss: In general, talking from my own experience, I’d recommend being patient and taking your time. Make sure you are not following false dreams and don’t be too harsh on yourself or your mistakes.
As for the next quarter, we are planning to release the app with a long list of crucial features which are going to provide an awesome user experience. That’s all I can say now, but I promise to keep you updated.
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
Ilya Rouss: Well, even though we are a digital service, Teleporting is a response to people actually being eager to go back to offline experiences. After months of exhausting lockdowns and the inability to see even close relatives, today people want to see and feel the world, properly socialize, and meet old and new friends.
Since the pandemic restrictions are being gradually lifted, I see how the travel industry is slowly going back to growth. We want to become a part of it and bring new technological solutions with us. In addition, Gen Zs are now grown enough to travel on their own with their own money, and their expectations are rarely met.
I strongly believe that offline experiences benefit from high-quality, thoughtfully made digital tools. We’ve created Teleporting to be an assistant for both travelers and travel providers, such as tour agencies and landowners. I think that after a long period of forced immobility and strictly digital communication, people have started to appreciate the ability to see the world and chat in-person more.
Besides, after the pandemic, remote work has gained a lot of popularity. The number of digital nomads is growing, and they choose this path exactly because they don’t want to miss out on real-life experiences which is unavoidable if you have to sit in an office day by day.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Ilya Rouss: It’s true that every business has to overcome obstacles and grow. However, each company has its own challenges at any given moment. It depends on the sector, stage, team, and many other big and small factors.
As for Teleporting, our main challenge right now is to roll out all the features that we are planning. Of course, since we are a startup, we also need to take care of increasing awareness about us.
I like a challenge because challenges bring inevitable growth to both individuals and businesses. Probably, that’s why I’m a serial entrepreneur. At Teleporting we have a lot of work ahead of us and I am happy with the direction we are taking.
2020, 2021, 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into businesses on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned and what advice would you share?
Ilya Rouss: To be honest, 2020 is not the first time when I experienced a curve ball as a business owner. Having 15 years of experience behind me, I can assure you that team is crucial. I’m lucky to be surrounded by enthusiastic and devoted professionals in each of my projects.
I know that I can rely on them and often I don’t even have to be involved. If they struggle with something, all we need is a short sync call. Usually, it’s enough.
I would advise any entrepreneur to be honest and open with their team during hard times. Trust is important. Communicate your action plan and try to make sure that everybody is on the same page.
Check on people and encourage them to speak their minds. It’s better if you go through all their hesitation and fears together rather than them having to lock that up inside.
What does “success” in the year to come mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Ilya Rouss: These sorts of questions usually push me towards “wishful thinking” which I try to avoid because I can be quite a daydreamer. However, talking seriously, we want to get as much feedback as we can in order to create a game changer within the industry.
Also we need to identify and confirm some behavior patterns and make sure our ecosystem is useful for people.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Ilya Rouss for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Ilya Rouss or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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