People behind the Coliving Club: Sergey Sopot
What will travel accommodation be like in the future? We know already and form a community to create it. We focus on sharing space, resources, thoughts and dreams with like-minded people and becoming a better version of ourselves while being a part of something bigger. We call it the Coliving Club.
Here you will read about our real experience and connect with our team to explore the Coliving Club to the fullest. Take a closer look at each one of us in a series of interviews.
Meet Sergey Sopot — Business developer / Team coordinator / Partner
With 20+ years of experience in judicial practice, entrepreneurship in real estate and Virtual Reality technology, Sergey has always been involved in solutions needed to sell new concepts, next generation products and early adopter technologies and services.
Sergey is straightforward in thinking and a motivational force. By his own example, he pushes the team to achieve greatest results in the most efficient manner. Sergey is a strong point in negotiation efforts and his experience as an international lawyer helps defend the interests of the company professionally.
Being a successful lawyer at what point did you get involved in startups?
From my point of view on startups I initiated different ones many times throughout my career of a lawyer. For me a startup is any new business. I am a businessman by nature so for me it’s more interesting to start a new thing instead of doing one and the same. If we approach startup as an idea that can later on become business but initially is aimed at solving a problem then I started one in 2013 without even knowing it was a startup. I realized that later but at first I intended to solve middle school education problem in Ukraine. I have four children. And I know from my own experience how ineffective the existing school methods are. So to help my children I started a project which at the same time an American entrepreneur named Khan initiated without knowing about me. This is now the worldwide known Khan Academy and back then it was only a series of lectures told by one person recorded from the computer screen. I had a casting for teachers and chose the ones that really loved their subjects. I made 4000 videos on all the school programme. I called it Memoria. I didn’t have a goal to monetize this project, I did it for my children. But working on it taught me a lot of things and brought me to the US. And I realized it was a perfect place to build not only the startup but any business and my life.
What is your biggest challenge in the Coliving Club project? What do you find most enjoyable?
My biggest challenge in the Coliving Club is communicating with landlords at the point where the perspective of new relations has to face conservative opinion. It’s quite rare to meet a person who understands that future is inevitable. Investors, however, understand it quite well. So talking to investors as well as rejoicing the success of my team is the most enjoyable part of my work here.
What is it like to work with your son Kirill?
I really like working with my son. I feel his huge potential and enjoy helping him invisibly in something he’s not yet experienced. I have much confidence in him and I wish him to become better than me. This is what is hard to imagine in real relations between regular partners.
Your youngest son wrote a Zombie book and you helped publish it. How did you inspire the boy?
I have three sons and a beautiful daughter. I believe each one of them is genius and I don’t have to inspire or tell them what to do. My task is to give them the opportunity to do what they want. My eldest son was seven when he started writing his first book. All I had to do was stay out of the way and at the same time to create conditions for him to do what he likes. Now my youngest son is eight and he made a decision to write a book so I had to provide for that. Create conditions for your children to be comfortable at doing what they enjoy and you’ll see how talented they are.
What does it take to maintain a career having a family with four children?
It’s not difficult to combine a career with raising children. But you have to have a reliable wife or husband who will take care of household issues so that you could do your favorite thing that will finance the right conditions. I’ve always done what I like so each business being enjoyable itself gives opportunities for my children’s growth. So the first thing would be to do what you enjoy and the second one — to invest in your children’s growth.
Create conditions for your children to be comfortable at doing what they enjoy and you’ll see how talented they are.
How can you relate to the digital nomad lifestyle?
The DN movement has a spirit that is very close to me. I relate to this lifestyle of the new generation of people. And my life is a proof. I travel the world to get the best for me and my family. I’m absolutely positive that I will continue traveling and getting what I need from each place.
What is your biggest motivation?
I don’t need motivation as I’ve always done what I like. So I don’t have to force or persuade myself. My biggest moving force has always been reaching the goal I had set.
Can you share your major life rule?
If you want to reach your goal look for opportunities, not the excuses of why it would be impossible.
Are you a risky person?
I definitely am. For me risk is one of the obligatory traits each businessman should possess. If you’re a businessman it’s absolutely natural to make decisions and risk your assets to get profit. For instance, at the age of 19 I bought a ticket to a country I’ve never been to before and just took a plane without knowing the language or having any acquaintances there. I wasn’t even thinking that it was a risk and something could go wrong. However in the airport of Berlin I realized that I didn’t have any money on me. So I spent a month and a half traveling from the north to the south of Germany. I was doing any jobs I could find to buy food, and spending nights in hostels or at times right on the street in parks and railway stations. I was absolutely happy as I could do whatever I wanted to — travel, talk to people and acquire new experience. Since then I like to make risky decisions. I feel they are the only type that can move us forward and help achieve our goals. All the risky decisions always bring great results.
Where does your initial interest for hacking systems come from? Can you talk on some successful cases?
Initially the interest is born out of the problem. The more difficult the problem is the greater is the desire to solve it. After thinking of a problem for hours the idea glimpses in the mind. This is the most pleasant sensation in my job. And this is when the challenge to check the idea and hack the system appears. This interest gets heated up with the thought that no one has managed to solve this problem before. This is probably the strongest stimulus to get it done.
Most of my hacks were in the judicial practice. I like jurisprudence and almost in each case I was looking for a problem that hadn’t been solved yet. Of course, it’s easier to act within the system, using methods and opportunities that had been used by everyone before. I like finding extraordinary ways to solve problems.
Throughout my practice I created at least five precedents, and I want to share one. To lower the price and pay less at the customs Ukrainian importers use offshores through which they get the goods at a need price. Such offshore companies are used by several importers and belong to the third party. So when the third party close their offshore companies without informing the importers, the latter get in trouble as the goods come with papers of a company that no longer exists. In this case the customs officer arrests the shipment, makes enquiries and having found out that the company is closed announces fictitious entrepreneurship. As a result the shipment gets confiscated and the importer is incriminated with law violation. This was a steady practice: if the shipment came from a non-existent company the custom would always win in court.
Getting such a case I felt there could be an unusual decision. I didn’t know I was right back then but I wanted to break the practice. I asked a lawyer that took the case to research the legislation of the country where the offshore was registered and translate it into Russian. I wasn’t surprised at his conclusion that the practice there was the same and it was impossible to win. That encouraged me even more. I decided to investigate legislation on registering companies in this zone and my persistence was rewarded.
I found out that the registry of firms in that country was a private depositary (data storage) and you had to pay for keeping your data there. If you didn’t pay the depositary excluded you from the list. But if you continued your business and paid for the service seven years after being excluded from the list, then you could get back in. Due to Ukrainian law the existence of a firm stops at the moment of the exclusion of such registry. So applying Ukrainian laws to international relations judges and lawyers formed a wrong practice.
This information in the form of international law expert’s conclusion became a proof. What a surprise it was for the customs representatives and the prosecutor that a trivial case was not a winner for them this time. These are the moments I get the most pleasure of my work.
The Coliving Club helps hack the system by offering digital nomads affordable accommodation of high quality.
How does the Coliving Club concept relate to hacking the system?
The Coliving Club is a bright example of hacking the system. Traditional relations between landlord and tenant were being formed in the US for decades, even centuries. And the new relations provoked by the shared economy conflict with the old traditional ones. The Coliving Club helps hack the system by offering digital nomads affordable accommodation of high quality without them necessarily being American, having CCN or any credit score.
As a lawyer you mastered the art of negotiations. What would be your advice on how to insist on the point of view needed?
Don’t insist on your point of view. The art of negotiations is the art of reaching your goal. If you reach your goal without having to insist on your point this is art. My main rules in this would be:
- Always consider your opponent smarter than you.
- Argue only with yourself. Ask tricky questions as if you were the opponent.
- Take your time to answer. Let your opponent make a mistake.
- Don’t try to win. Give your opponent what he needs in exchange of what you want from him.
By Yuliya Malikova — journalist in culture with a particular passion for interviews; writer and sub-editor at Digital Nomad Magazine.
