Impact Mindset was born from my desire to give back after living a weird life and founding an 8-figure startup. How did I get here?
Impact Mindset was born from my desire to give back after living a weird life and founding an 8-figure startup. How did I get here?
I’m Kalin and here is my zero bullshit story.
(if you prefer to skip the personal stuff and check out our NGO, jump here!)
At 8 years of age I started playing chess and was very stubborn about becoming a professional. I wanted to quit school and train all day long but my parents wouldn’t let me. They were probably right.
At 12 I was training for 8 hours a day and that was my peak level of discipline in life.
At 13 I had an amazing coach who taught me wisdom I could not comprehend like how principles work or what is the hidden structure behind everything.
Like the stubborn kid I was, I rejected everything, always seeking the beautiful exception of the boring rule, always rooting for the underdog and valuing beauty above truth.
At 14 we parted ways and I started coaching myself. There is a reason why there aren’t many 14-year old coaches out there. Of course, I sucked at this. It took 4 years to improve my skills as a coach enough to resume improving as a player. 🙂
At 19 I started taking chess more seriously as money had to be earned. I upped my game and reached world #5000.
At 23 I reached world #822 while not playing better than at 19. Something rather hilarious happened. After coaching myself for so long I had accidentally become a better coach than I was a player. 😀
I hacked chess and myself at the same time. I deconstructed the relations between the game and my mindset around it. I learned how to give my best even when I didn’t have the knowledge and skills needed.
Chess as a game with thousands of overlapping patterns has a depth incomprehensible to the human brain. I was not that good at it but I found a way around. I estimated just how much I suck and I played with a depth corresponding to my level. I didn’t aim for the complicated positions I could not understand. I accepted reality and stuck to it. For the first time I chose truth over beauty.
At 24 I quit chess as I felt I had maximized my potential. But I took the key skill away. I could deconstruct industries and myself. People, incentives, money, information – given enough time everything would become an intuitive structure in my mind.
I became an Internet entrepreneur. I would create websites, do SEO and earn enough cash to support a team. I knew nothing about how it works and knew no one in the field so I definitely sucked. A great mentor helped me on the business side but all the tech side – I learned that completely on my own. No education, no courses, no advisers or mentors. My friends and family thought it was a recipe for disaster.
I started with about $8000 earned from chess and micro-investors. Over the next 16 years my online business (known now as Edoms or Seo.Domains) gradually grew to a 70+ million USD valuation. Now I have business partners and we sustain 120 employees and offices in 3 cities.
But if you ask me the typical founder questions, you will not get the common answers.
Are there any outside investors?
No.
What were the hardest moments?
There were hardly any.
Did I ever get into debt?
Hardly any.
How many burnouts?
Zero.
How many parties, hiking and board games?
As much as I wanted.
How much sleep?
8 hours a night, no exceptions, no alarms in the morning except for flights.
How many calls or meetings did I have with annoying clients?
Zero in the last 10 Years as our current business is mostly email-run.
How on earth is this fairytale story possible?
I deconstructed the Internet economy in the same way I had deconstructed chess. The result was even better – the wider the field, the more shortcuts to success. I could even afford to make many mistakes. Because remember, I had only one rare skill – to see reality and the structure behind it. I still had the urges to do the same stupid shit everyone does and I made plenty of wrong turns. There were setbacks, however the underlying industry and chosen business model were so much in my favor that my business was always growing.
It took me only 2 years to realize the Internet was full of low hanging fruits and you could make money almost out of thin air. You can still do it. It was even easier to become a millionaire than a decent chess player. Most entrepreneurs had the very same weakness as most chess players. They couldn’t evaluate how hard (or easy) shit is, they seeked beauty above truth. They rooted for the underdog and therefore wanted to succeed as the underdog. They didn’t want it easy, they wanted it hard.
After I learned my lesson in chess, I was fine with easy wins. Fine with low competition and high margins. Fine with the boring high odds of success. I felt like I hacked life. Just like in chess, it was only possible because I hacked my mindset at the same time. How did I rewire my whole brain this time? By mere chance.
See, for very long periods in my life, I was falling in love with exceptional, infinitely kind women, yet I was rejected and friend-zoned by every single one of them. Unlike most people, I learned to live with rejection and stayed in those amazing friendships which made me a better person. This pattern continued for a long time but contrary to expectations, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. It’s what made me grow and defined me as a person. It gave me the biggest realization about life.
There is no symmetry, ever. Don’t search for it, don’t expect it, don’t even assume it. Everything is a mess and you just have to dive in every time and give with no expectation of getting anything back. You’d be amazed by the miracles that happen when you have no expectations.
I spent the best part of the last 20 years in a state of constant growth (both visible and within) combined with all this rejection that just kept my motivation strong. There was no logic to anything and few comfort zone times. It was all one beautiful flow.
I adapted in strange ways, focused on giving away more and more to the special people in my life. I embraced vulnerability and pointed my energy flow outwards – it turned out that caring for others was the best way to take care of myself. There are many wonderful people who live their lives in this way but they rarely get ambitious enough to scale their freedom and achieve more because they believe that this will mess up their higher moral principles.
However, I was running a business in a very dynamic industry. I had no choice but to scale. On this path my unconditional love clashed with the reality of life many times. Love always won when I followed one simple rule – not holding it back. So writing this I’m not holding anything back. This is the real me.
Few people go through a mixed bag journey like mine. It’s rare to be competent and financially successful yet, thanks to the bountiful industry, not change under the pressure of the responsibilities involved. I was lucky life showed me how sometimes our romantic dreams don’t materialize but we can still be happy and point our love to the world instead. Unreturned feelings are not in vain, trust me, as long as the person on the other side is kind and understanding. Life is not symmetrical. The one with love in their heart is always the one with the better deal. Love, unlike attraction, is something in your heart, unlike the biochemical processes that bring people together.
For a long time it was my growing realization that with my increasing internal power to diminish my ego came with great responsibility. I wanted to be who the world needed me to be, however I knew little about the world. I learned as much as I could about science, psychology, economy and politics. Everything that makes the world tick. I continue to do this every day.
Finally in 2021 I had a crisis of motivation and something had to happen. This powerful flow had to materialize. Impact Mindset and its first project I Grow Younger were born as a vehicle of my true, selfless love to the world itself, removing the last mental barrier between me and… everything else. My Love Letter to the world that had given me so much.
My unique experience was now out there for everyone to explore and learn from. My money and resources would be transformed into all the positive world change I could turn them into. Most of all I realized how much I love this planet and was going to personally fight for its health, its freedom and every single one of its people.
It’s hard to claim you’re special without raising eyebrows. Being serially romantically rejected is not trendy but, honestly, this is what made me who I am. My responsibility is to offer the world what it needs if I can provide it.
Global change only comes from people:
People who know what the world needs.
People who know what to do to get it done.
People who are open and vulnerable enough to become true leaders and get it done.
People who help them all with resources, supporting the minds and hearts that bring change.
I could be all of those in one. I have the understanding, the love and I’ll have the resources if/when my company exits. For now though, as strange as it sounds for someone with an 8-figure net worth, I need some financial support for this.
The stupid thing is my company is successful but incredibly niche and deals with illiquid assets, making it impossible to turn even 5% of my net worth into cash and also extremely unattractive for investors. I have already given all my savings to Impact Mindset without a thought since this is my life project. However, the team needs wages and some of our projects are deeply innovative and require a small marketing push (mostly for professional video production) because people don’t easily understand and welcome new ideas.
So I’d really appreciate some help. Here is the direction it will go in.
The world we live in can be better. We can be happier. Countless NGOs and random wonderful people work for that.
If we deconstruct the world would we find… the usual? Would we find truth conveniently ignored for the sake of beauty or purity? Would we find low hanging fruits no one is picking up? Are there any shortcuts to… impact?
Yes, and we are already working on a few.
I’m not in this one for myself and have nothing to prove. As you know I’m aware of my limitations and even make them part of my success strategies.
The third time starting from scratch feels a bit different though.
I am now 38. Having had no day job ever, my experience is vast. In the last 17 years I was doing something new every day, facing diverse challenges and tirelessly educating myself. It’s entirely possible that I won’t suck at this one.
I want to apply everything I know about running a business, the economy, Internet, psychology and of course, structure… one last time at the largest scale. A final push to make the world better by mentally deconstructing it and looking for easy wins.
I’m committing 90% of my net worth to this lifetime goal. There will be no lambos or yachts.
The good news is I’m not alone. We are a team of 7 people (2 psychologists, an editor, a financial advisor, a marketing expert, a designer and me) and growing. If you want to join or help us, let us know.
We are Impact Mindset
We have the mindset needed to not just achieve any positive impact. We'll search for the big one with the least effort, even if it's uncomfortably ugly. Because contrary to our human nature we choose truth before beauty.
Current Projects
No cheap traffic
In our first project No cheap traffic we invested $5000 to discover, research and promote a creative economical hack to marginally improve the lives of billions of people worldwide by ridding them from annoying online ads. Such ads are ignored by most but vulnerable people at the wrong time can be scammed or deceived into buying harmful health products or start gambling. Successful adoption of this economic policy can save thousands of them from serious life-threatening troubles such as addiction. This is the kind of low-effort-high-impact we’re talking about.
I Grow Younger
Our flagship project I Grow Younger reframes psychology and even language itself to make any positive change in your life much easier. The impact of this is potentially near-infinite.
There is much more on the drawing board from Impact Mindset. Stay tuned and if you want to be informed when we launch the next extraordinary thing leave your email.
Impact Mindset is not just a non-profit. Our projects deliberately have zero revenue despite having massive commercial potential. The only focus is on maximum positive change. We won’t be distracted by monetization. Since my for-profit company is going well and will likely exit in the following years, the plan is not to be dependent on donations for long. However, for a while we would need some cash to sustain our operations.
Would you consider helping us?
We’ll make sure your money translates to an otherworldly amount of positive change. We never start a project unless its potential impact is at least 1000x (!) the initial investment.
We understand how the world works, see through the fog and find that special domino line, bringing massive and lasting impact.
Would you accept the honor of giving it a little push?