Making Something From Nothing: Olyasha Novozhylova Of NotBasicBlonde On How To Go From Idea To Launch
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Be patient. Set a short-term goal, when you think of just a big picture, you will not get far, so you should set weekly and daily goals not just long-term goals.
As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Olyasha Novozhylova.
Olyasha Novozhylova is the founder and creator of Not Basic Blonde, a fashion, and lifestyle blog dedicated to inspiring young women to create an extraordinary style.
Graduated from Georgia State University with a BBA in Managerial Sciences, Olyasha successfully built a career in IT/Project Management, before she became a full time blogger.
A model, blogger, entrepreneur, author, and celebrity podcast host of NotBasicBlonde Podcast.
As the founder and host of NotBasicBlonde Podcast, where no topic is off limits, Olyasha provides millennials an ultimate guide on entrepreneurship, dating, marketing, self-development, astrology, spirituality, fashion, coaching, beauty, health & wellness.
Author of the children’s book Cutie the Unicorn — It’s ok to be different, Olyasha teaches our younger generation how to express their individuality.
The Russian model led an impressive 15-year career in fashion and runway in Atlanta and overseas, as well as enjoying several acting roles.
Now a leading influencer, Olyasha shares her beauty, wellness, and fashion tips with an audience of over half a million. As seen in YahooFinance, Jezebel magazine, Thrive, Medium, and Fashion Week Online magazines.
Olyasha has also partnered with brands such as Cartier, Revolve, PrettyLittleThing, PGA, Steve Madden, Too Faced, Vital Proteins, Tarte, DryBar, Drunk Elephant, etc.
When she’s not documenting her travels through the world, Olyasha is busy masterfully educating women how to create iconic looks with a mix of affordable and designer pieces, as well as offering makeup, skincare, and fitness tips to encourage her followers to live their best and most beautiful lives!
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?
As far as my childhood backstory, I was always a huge fashionista, and I was bullied in school because I would dress too fashionably, and I would always stand out. I was sent home to change and made fun of all the time. Who would ever predict that I will make a career out of it! Also, because I was bullied in school as a child, I’ve decided to write a children’s book, who will inspire other children to be themselves. My book is called “Cutie the Unicorn — It’s Ok To Be Different”, and it’s available on Amazon.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
It’s The quote I’ve made up and I always lived by: “Always Unique — Never Basic”, it basically meaning that always be yourself, always be YOU, don’t try to change because someone doesn’t like something about you, it’s their internal issues, not yours. It’s ok to be different, it’s ok to be yourself, it’s ok to be unique, don’t let anyone to dull your sparkle.
Another is and one of my favorite one Your Net Worth = Self Worth, so if want to increase your net worth, you have to work on your self-worth, because they are very closely connected. I’ve had times in my life when my self-esteem was low, and at the same time I was struggling financially.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Book “The Secret” was very lifechanging for me. The first, I found out about this book when I was a teenager, I was living in Ukraine at that time. I’ve moved to US when I was 17 years old. Later on, last year, I’ve had a pleasure having an author of this book as a guest speaker on my celebrity podcast, NotBasicBlonde Podcast. It was a lifechanging because it taught me about the Law of Attraction, which really works, and I was able to apply it later in life. Everything is the energy, and we attract everything we project. Any of our dreams can come true, we just have to picture it in our mind, with all the little details, and imagine like we already have it, and a dream can come to reality.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?
So True! We get tons of ideas all the times, and some of them stay just as ideas, some of them are an idea because they might not be profitable, and some ideas become a huge business. In order to turn an idea into business, you have to do a lot of research! Usually, ideas that solve a particular problem, always turn out to be the most profitable ones. But you need to identify how will it change people’s life, what problem you are trying to solve, who are the competitors. The best business ideas will fire you up and motivate you, if you are able to get a reliable info through research, you could possibly move into planning stage and execution stage.
Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?
Sometimes we don’t have to reinvent the wheel, a simple ideas or products can be profitable. There are so many kinds of different products on the market, but we buy certain brands because we prefer them, and like them for certain reason. The same is with any other ideas, there are could be the same products on a market, but yours will be different, and might have different qualities that others don’t offer. So, if you have an idea, you should be very open minded and if it really excites you, you should proceed with it.
For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.
The first if you have an idea you have to do a lot of research and identify if this idea will be profitable. Identify the problem your product or service will solve, the bigger problem the more profitable it will be for you.
The second step is planning. Plan what it will look like, who will be your ideal customer, how will you get your customers, sources of revenue, how will you retain customers long term, the initial investment required, the infrastructure, how to grow your business, identify a financial model, will it be self-funded or you will require investors.
The third, execute! You have to identify your resources, your time&money, with how it will give you the highest outcome.
The fourth is to adapt, the first when you are starting you might have one plan, but consumers might see it differently and adapt it differently, so you have to learn from customers, and improve if you need to.
The fifth, make sure you have all your legal paperwork and patens in order before you proceed, so no one can copy your product.
Growing your business can be can be challenging at first, since when you start growing, you’re expanding your team, so you have to be very selective with new hires, find and build a team that represents your brand and increases a value.
Lastly, distributing a product, it can be done online or even as a drop shipping, so you don’t have to have the actual product or the warehouse.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Everything you learn in school or college will not really matter, because that’s not how it is in life. When you starting your own business, you learn a lot along the way, no matter how much you know in a certain area, you still will be finding out things that will be definitely eye-opening.
- No one said that being a Boss is challenging, you have to wear so many hats sometimes, learn on a spot, and figure things out.
- Be patient. Set a short-term goal, when you think of just a big picture, you will not get far, so you should set weekly and daily goals not just long-term goals.
- Be ready to invest your time and not get paid at first! It takes time to grow your business, so at first all the business owner put into the business so many hours.
- Don’t give up too early, make sure to try all the options before even thinking of giving up.
There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?
If they have a budget for it, they can definitely try, and work closely with someone, the best thing is to hire a great marketing company.
What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?
It depends if you can self-fund it or you need an external help and find angel investors. In bootstrapping you are in control and you have a freedom to make any decisions, with raising a capital and having angel investors on board, you might have less freedom to make business decisions, but you might have more connections and you might not need to have any capital to start your business, you get an expert help, less personal risk.
Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
I use my fame to help people, and I will use it even more when I will become more famous. I’m a Founder and Host of the Celebrity podcast, NotBasicBlonde Podcast, where my guest share expertise on so many different topics. I’ve written a book “Cutie the Unicorn — It’s Ok To Be Different” and I donate a part of the proceeds form book sales to St. Jude’s hospital, I donate my clothes to domestic violence women’s shelter, and I inspire my followers every day on social media.
You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Mine would be Be Unique Never Basic, its ok to be different, it’s ok to be yourself, you shouldn’t be like everyone else, embrace your individuality.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
I would love to have a breakfast or lunch with Mark Cuban or Sara Blakely, I admire their career and so many successful companies that they have built!
Making Something From Nothing: Olyasha Novozhylova Of NotBasicBlonde On How To Go From Idea To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
