Interview with Anatoly Spektor from 10 Million Journey

Hey Anatoly,

You’re a serial entrepreneur and podcaster based in Bali, and I had the pleasure of being interviewed for one of your “10 Million Journey” episodes recently.

It was a lot of fun, and we soon released that we had several things in common in terms of Triathlon (in the past for me, but you still compete), digital entrepreneurs, and we are dads.

I am excited to discover more about your journey and how far away you are from your target. So, let’s jump straight into this with my first question.

It would be great to get a little background information from where you were born to where you live today. What’s your backstory?

I was born in Latvia, which is a country in Eastern Europe. It was part of the Soviets, so when the USSR collapsed, all the countries that were part of it became independent and tried to find their identity.

Lots of corruption, freedom – really wild times.

I grew up in a middle-class family, and for most of my early life, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. So I was just coasting along life, skipping school, having parties.

When it was time to go to University, I did not know what I wanted to do, so I just went to a management school in Latvia. I partied and felt completely lost.

In 2008 when the economic crisis hit, Latvia looked really grim, so I asked my parents If I could study abroad. We visited Canada a few years earlier, and I liked it. Toronto is a big city with high rises and kind people – I loved the vibe.

The biggest issue was that I changed the setting without finding myself. So I went to a business university in Toronto and continued my party lifestyle until I was invited to a dean's office, where they told me that my grades and attendance were so low that I could either go into some obscure major or I would have to leave this school.

I wanted to stay in Canada, so I took a summer off and started thinking. The only idea I had was to switch to something I enjoy more and more practical. In my early years, I spent lots of time online, chatting with people, and building websites and projects for fun.

I decided I wanted to attend a college instead of a university and study Software Development. In Canada, colleges usually teach practical skills, while universities focus on theory.

This was one of the best decisions. I did not skip classes, and I really enjoyed coding. I got an internship after a few semesters in the research department of my college. I was so good that they hired me part-time immediately, so I studied and worked simultaneously.

During my second internship, I chose to work in one of the biggest IT companies, called Red Hat. They gave me a project that seemed impossible, but in 8 months, I had completed it, so they also hired me part-time.

After 4 years in college, I graduated and got a job in a startup. It was stressful but rewarding, and they paid really well. For the next 2 years, I worked hard on this startup.

I married my wife in Toronto, whom I met in Latvia in business school. She finished her studies and moved to Canada with me.

One time we decided to visit Vancouver.

The startup I was working on was not doing super well, so I decided to apply to a couple of companies in Vancouver just to see if there were opportunities. I was invited to an interview in a posh office of a charity company that was looking for a senior developer.

They had all attributes of a startup – a flexible schedule, drinks on tap every Friday, and a ping pong table. After the interview, they offered me and asked if I wanted to relocate – I took a chance.

Next was several years of living a dream in Vancouver. I was into running at this point, so I spent my lunch breaks running in the beautiful Stanley park.

This running obsession led me to sign up for my first marathons. In the next 2 years, I did 5 marathons around the west coast.

At some point, I thought marathons were not enough, so I signed up for my biggest sport challenge to date – Ironman Triathlon (4 km swim, 180 km bike ride, and 42 km run). The only problem was that I did not know how to swim well, nor did I bike. I hired a coach, and with his help in 6 months, I completed the Ironman triathlon.

At the same time, the company that I was working for, had a change of leadership, and the path they were taking did not sit well with me.

This Is when I realized that working for others is very challenging for me. I invest all my energy into the work, but someone else makes decisions that force me to leave.

I left this job I loved to start a consulting company. Teaching development teams how to work together. I have also started sharing my findings on the YouTube Define Agile channel. This work took me around the world, helping teams to work efficiently.

On the side, I also started looking into more passive income businesses. We tried dropshipping storage sheds, a great lesson for us to choose the products we liked instead of going with the hype. I remember somebody was calling me about a storage shed and asking questions like:

I have this big boat, how will it fit in the shed ?

or

What screws should I use to assemble it ?

I cannot even assemble a table from Ikea. So these businesses did not work well.

When I discovered Amazon, we took an ASM course and launched our first product.

My wife and I had this dream of traveling around the world and working remotely. I found a remote development job to cover our costs of living if we decide to travel. My wife gave birth to our son Ezra, and when he was 5, we decided to travel around the world.

For the next 2-3 years, we were on the road – Spain, France, Israel, Latvia, Portugal, Hungary – we lived in beautiful places while working on Amazon, and I worked as an IT consultant and ran my Agile business.

How did you first get into Amazon FBA?

It started with me trying to work for myself and be an entrepreneur. I bought an ASM course. We launched our first product – green binoculars that did not go well – but taught us a lot!

You are currently based in Bali, what attracted you to the Island, and do you see yourself living there for some time?

On my podcast I often ask – what is your favorite place in the world – many say Bali. So I decided to go and check it out for myself.

Bali is very special. Along with great weather and beautiful scenery, what attracts me is the community. People are open to connect and share their story.

On top of that, you get a lot of value for your “buck”. Labor is very cheap in Bali, so I can afford to have nannies, housekeepers, and people who cook and drive me around – something that I could not afford in Vancouver – which makes my life much easier.

Locals say that you don’t choose Bali, Bali chooses you – and on some level, I believe it.

Like me, you’re a dad who juggles entrepreneur and family life. What’s a typical day for you?

I love this question, I will answer with a quick story.

My Podcast Strategy Manager, Valentina asked me to record my typical day on video, so we can create an instagram reel out of it. That is when I realized – I don’t have typical days, every day is different.

That being said, there are some things I do very often.

My day usually starts with waking up around 6 am – 7am and I go for a long walk in the rice fields. If I am lucky – I get to see a beautiful sunrise. This walk allows me to get grounded before I get into the morning with 2 kids.

I come home, and we have breakfast with the family. Then either my wife or I take my son to school, which is 15 minutes away by scooter.

From there, several things, for example, on Mondays, I take my 1-year-old daughter to a playgroup.

Many days I find myself in the wellness center. I do some work from their cafe, maybe 2-3 hours (depending on the day), and then do my routine of going to the sauna, cold plunge, and swimming laps. It repeats for about an hour. This puts my body and mind in a beautiful state.

Then I ride my scooter back home, and our housekeeper usually prepares a healthy lunch that I eat.

From there, a few more hours of work, or maybe another walk, or I go drink matcha latte and socialize with friends in a local cafe.

I usually work with a personal trainer in the afternoon at the gym.

After the gym, I go home, eat dinner with the family, play a bit, and put the kids to bed. When they are sleeping, my wife and I sometimes watch a movie, read a book or just go to sleep.

I go to sleep early.

Thursdays, I spend most of the day recording podcasts in the studio and then going for dinner. Weekends we spend with kids and friends, or travel.

What was the inspiration behind your “10 Million Journey”

In 2019 Covid hit, and traveling became harder. We got stuck in Latvia for 5 months. I got pretty depressed that I could not travel and meet new people. I had to find a way to network but also grow my business. This was when I started my podcast, 10 Million Journey.

The idea of the podcast is to grow my business to 10 million and record how I do it, also interviewing incredible people in e-commerce. This allowed me to network during Covid and stay accountable.

Through the podcast, I kept hearing about Bali being the best place on earth. We decided that we wanted to spend some time there.

It has been 1.5 years since we have been in Bali, and my podcast has evolved into something bigger. I have started interviewing incredible people living in Bali- entrepreneurs and interesting people sharing their incredible stories.

You have set up several brands on Amazon, do you look to grow and flip them, or are you building a portfolio?

Currently, I have one Kitchen and Dining brand, but over 3-4 years, we built many different brands. Usually, we either got suspended for the brands (especially in supplements), demand dried out, or we made some big mistakes.

When starting on Amazon FBA, what’s your number one tip?

That’s a very hard question.

Before getting into an Amazon FBA, people should understand that it is not a get-rich-quick thing.

You will have to learn lots of things (marketing, sourcing, product development, etc), and on every $1 million screenshot, you should understand that people are taking home as much as most senior employees while often working very long hours.

I think people should get into Amazon FBA only if they love building cool products that bring value to people. It will be a tough road, but you will learn a lot and be rewarding in many ways.

I hope that's practical enough 🙂

Can we get into some numbers and see how far you’re from reaching your target?

Currently, we have a 6-figure Amazon brand, so I am far from reaching my 10 million targets, but to be honest, I am pretty happy at the moment, and I take it slow because life enjoyment for me is much more important than any targets out there.

This was a significant shift after coming to Bali.