Meet Valerii Makovetskii | Founder of Everytalent, serial entrepreneur and investor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Valerii Makovetskii and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Valerii, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
Both my parents are from Ukraine. Although I was born in Russia, until I was 14, I spent every summer in a Ukrainian village with one TV for 5,000 people. It was during this period that I truly learned to work—from dusk to dawn, at any age. If you want to eat, first harvest. If you want milk, feed the cows first. Try to collect potatoes from two hectares of land, and office work will seem like heaven to you.
There is an opinion that when hiring US employees at Google, they are asked many technical questions. When hiring Hindus or Russians, they worry more about soft skills. Indeed, the Russian school provides a serious supply of technical knowledge. At the same time, we are not taught such a skill as public speaking. Russians have no self-presentation skills at all. And why are they needed when no one expects you to become an entrepreneur? There is no legal or economic ecosystem for this. Loans cost 25% per annum, the annual volume of the venture market is approximately what they invest in Silicon Valley from morning to lunch in one day. Tolerance for risk and failure is below zero.
In such conditions, creating a successful large private company that is not related to oil and gas is an exception. But there is also a plus. In the absence of funding, Russian entrepreneurs must create businesses that generate profits from day one. Stories like Theranos or Nikola are basically impossible in Russia. Therefore, you will practically never see deceived and upset investors on the Russian market.
Working in such conditions gives rise to total control over spending and the desire to improve efficiency on a daily basis. I transferred this strategy to the international market and am very happy about it.

What should our readers know about your business?
At 24, I sold my first company and joined a research team developing touch screens. Nowadays, an iPad and a phone with a touchscreen won’t surprise anyone, but in 2013, the technology was still new, especially in Eastern Europe, especially on screens larger than 42 inches. The product was ready, but the market for such devices did not exist. It was necessary to create this market from scratch and find the right niche. We decided to focus on the educational market and smart boards for school classrooms.
Fake it till you make it – this phrase has actually become our philosophy. Living in a two-room apartment with my two partners and using one of the two rooms to assemble equipment, we told them that we were the largest manufacturer on the Russian market. Of course, we were the largest, there was simply no one else besides us. Just four months later, a great event happened – at one of the exhibitions, I saw the products of a Chinese competitor at the stand of a large Russian supplier. After listening to many complaints about the product’s quality, I offered a domestic equivalent at the same price with a five-year warranty. Our account was replenished the next week with a million dollars in advance payment.
Ten years later, Nextouch is the largest electronics manufacturer for EduTech in Eastern Europe, with revenues exceeding $100 million, and plans for an IPO in 2025.
Since 2019, we have begun investing profits from Nextouch’s work in developing IT projects in the USA. As time has shown, diversification is never a bad plan. If you don’t look for new markets and opportunities, you may find yourself left behind.
In 2022, I moved to sunny California and soon realized no one was interested in merit outside the United States. Venture financing will be provided in three cases:
a) You have experience in successfully selling a business on the local market
b) You already have millions of dollars in revenue in the US and are cash-positive
c) The name of the above project contains the letters AI
Coming from a former USSR country, I inherited an absolute lack of soft skills and a reluctance to ask for a loan without understanding how I would repay the money. The upside was that I had millions of dollars in dividends from the operating business in my account. And I continued to move forward in the educational field, working to create a clear career path for every student and young professional. Everytalent is a new line in my life and, I hope, a potentially even more successful project.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
My itinerary for visiting families with children and single friends will differ slightly.
In the first case, we will definitely visit Universal Studios and Disneyland. Then go to Catalina Island and have lunch at Bluewater Avalon. Definitely take a boat and swim with dolphins. We’ll also try to get to the zoo and the pier in Santa Barbara. Of course, we will visit LAKMA, the Getty Center, and the Museum of National History, typical choices for Los Angeles. When we get tired of eating at Elephante, we’ll head to Newport with its cute restaurants (Malibu Farms can’t be a mistake).
My wife will curate the adult itinerary, which will definitely include the vineyards of Temecula, the Segerstrom Concert Hall, and the restaurants of Carlsbad.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Shoutout to great writers, Dale Carnegie and Richard Bach.
The first one brought to the world the most obvious and so difficult to follow a rule – never criticize
The second described every entrepreneur’s path in a short story about a seagull who wanted to fly higher and faster than everyone else.

Website: https://www.everytalent.net

Instagram: @valeriymakovetskiy

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valerii-makovetskii-24867b54/