Listen on
| Immigrant entrepreneur: | Igor Dobrosavljević |
| Company: | Grand Consulting |
| Place of birth: | Former Yugoslavia |
| Employees: | 8 |
| Age started business: | 27 |
Show notes
Immigrant Entrepreneur: Igor Dobrosavljević
Igor immigrated from Germany with his family at 16 years old from Germany. Germany was their first destination as refugees to flee from the civil war that broke out between Croatia and Bosnia.
As immigrants in the United States his parents had to start their lives all over, for the second time. Amongst many struggles Igor was able to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and start his own I.T. consulting company, Grand Consulting.
What he’s doing with his company is beyond amazing. In this episode, he talks about how he created the apprentice program to allow people who don’t have experience or knowledge in the I.T. world to allow them to get the training and the experience they need through his company.
Quotes by Igor:
The drive to own my own company was always there.
I don’t think I was necessarily afraid of just trying and failing.
Looking back, I wish I tried and failed sooner.
I’m standing on shoulders of giants.
I’ve certainly made a lot bad decisions along the way and I don’t know that I would want to change them because they make me what I am today.
If you don’t fail or make bad decisions there’s no room for you to learn anything.
As long as you succeed 51% of the time you’re ahead.
If I succeed in opening up doors to the I.T. field for people that otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get into it, I consider myself lucky and happy.
Just try.
Don’t be afraid of failure.
Believe in yourself, do good work and good things can happen.
Where to find Igor:
Get first month FREE with Audible
(affiliate links included)
[read more] Alina Warrick (0s):
Welcome to the Immigrant Entrepreneurs Podcast, Episode 29. My name is Alina Warrick, and today I’m extremely honored to bring on Igor Dobrosavljević to the show. Igor immigrated with his family from Germany as refugees with only two suitcases in their hands. He always wanted to come to America, and surprisingly the civil war that broke out between Croatia and Bosnia allowed him to make that dream possible. His family was put on government assistance to obtain food stamps and allow them to get food from the local food banks.
Alina Warrick (41s):
He is now the owner of an IT consulting company called Grand Consulting in Des Moines, Iowa. Let’s dive right in and hear all about his journey, and how he started his company in a spare bedroom. Let’s go. All right. Igor, thank you so much for coming onto the Immigrant Entrepreneurs podcast. I am truly honored to have you on this show. How are you doing today?
Igor Dobrosavljević (1m 7s):
I’m good. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Alina Warrick (1m 11s):
Let’s talk about your immigrant journey. Tell us where you’re from and when did you come to the states?
Igor Dobrosavljević (1m 19s):
My family originally is from ex-Yugoslavia. That’s a little bit of a convoluted story. We’ve immigrated here in 1998 from Germany, actually. We lived in Germany for seven years as refugees. Before that, we technically lived in Bosnia when that civil war started or workout, but we considered ourselves really from all over the place. I was born in Serbia. My parents worked in Bosnia at the time when the war broke out, but I spent my summers in my grandparents’ in Serbia. My dad had a business in Croatia, which meant that we also spent a lot of time there.
Igor Dobrosavljević (2m 1s):
We were truly from all over the place, but I guess technically I’m considered a refugee from Bosnia.
Alina Warrick (2m 7s):
Got it. How old were you when you came with your family?
Igor Dobrosavljević (2m 10s):
We moved to the United States when I was 16. Yes, a week before my 17th birthday, actually.
Alina Warrick (2m 16s):
Wow, awesome. Where did you pick up English? You don’t have any accent at all.
Igor Dobrosavljević (2m 21s):
Honestly, I think, it was my infatuation with the United States through movies, and just American pop culture, and comic books. I was a super fan, I guess, you would say. I really loved the idea, the American dream, and the American pop culture, and all of that. I guess through that, I picked that up maybe through just German. Given that we lived in Germany for seven years as refugees as well, I had to pick up German when I was 10 or 11. Maybe, I didn’t lose my ability to acquire a new language as soon as some others do. When he moved here, it wasn’t all that hard to pick up English and get it firmed up a little bit better.
Alina Warrick (3m 4s):
What was it like growing up? Is it Bosnia, Germany? Where did you grow up, most of your childhood?
Igor Dobrosavljević (3m 11s):
It was weird. I consider myself one of the lucky ones. It certainly sucked that a war broke out and that we became refugees, but as I mentioned before, my dad had a business in Croatia. We had the means to be able to leave the country when it looked like it was really not going to go well, especially for my parents. My dad was a Serbian Orthodox and my mom was Catholic. On either side of the war, whether in Bosnia or Croatia, those were the two sides that were opposing each other. There was really no life for my mom in Serbia, or for my dad and Croatia, or even at Bosnia. We had to leave early on.
Igor Dobrosavljević (3m 53s):
We were very fortunate that my mom’s mom lived in Germany so we had somebody to move to, essentially, to escape the war. Then once again, we we’re super fortunate that we were able to qualify as refugees for immigrant status to the United States. While I don’t want to be happy that the war happened, we really lucked out. I got the opportunity to move to the United States, which once again, was a dream. I had never dreamed that I’d be able to go to an American high school, or college, or live here, and that had happened.
Alina Warrick (4m 28s):
When your parents decided to move to United States, did they have family out here or was it just the United States seems like a cool country, were going to file papers and move?
Igor Dobrosavljević (4m 40s):
If you live as a refugee in Germany, the path to get a German citizenship is almost non-existent. I’m not going to say it’s impossible because there are certainly people that ended up getting German citizenship and staying, but it didn’t seem like my family would be able to make Germany their long-term home. When the war was over, Germany told my family that we have to go back. After the war, there wasn’t a really a place to go back to for my family. My parents really considered actually Australia and America, because Australia also have an immigration process that we could have considered and we certainly have some friends that have moved to Australia and enjoyed it.
Igor Dobrosavljević (5m 21s):
I believe it was me that actually convinced my dad to make the choice to move here because once again, I was such a fan. I even remember when I was 15, when that whole process started, sitting down with them and saying, “Hey, this is my one opportunity. I’m going to go to high school here. I’m going to go to college. I am going to start my business. You watch me and make sure that that happens. Let’s move there.” They were like, “Okay, yes, I guess. It’s the same to us. We got to start over wherever we go. We got to learn English. You get to learn a new language.” I believe, while it wasn’t easy for me, I think it was that much harder for my parents. I’m super grateful that they actually made that decision to move here.
Alina Warrick (5m 60s):
They didn’t have any family and friends? They came by themselves?
Igor Dobrosavljević (6m 3s):
Sorry, yes. That was your original question. No. To move to the United States, you can’t just buy a plane ticket, pick a city, and move. You have to come in under a program. We came under a refugee resettlement program that required you to have a sponsor in the States. Des Moines was just a city where a bunch of people from the town that we lived in Bosnia had moved to. My parents had friends here that had made the trek over here before them. They were able to convince one of their friends to are not convinced, well not convinced, but they just talked to them and asked them. They sponsored us, essentially, my family, so when we moved to the United States, we had these friends that initially help you set up everything right.
Igor Dobrosavljević (6m 45s):
They wait for you at the airport. Make sure that you have housing. Help you with job search and application, initially, and then you’re on your own, but yes, we have no direct relatives here or when we moved.
Alina Warrick (6m 57s):
Got it. Igor, tell me about the struggles that you had to go through when you first immigrated.
Igor Dobrosavljević (7m 2s):
Sure. As I mentioned earlier, I believe my parents went through greater struggles than I had because they had to move here much later in life. They had already rebuilt their life in Germany once before, and now, they had to start over. We literally had two suitcases that we moved with over the year. For me, I was a kid living a dream. Hey, I’m moving to the United States. I remember the landing at the airport. I was like, “Holy cow, I have never
Igor Dobrosavljević (7m 42s):
Whenever there is a doctor’s appointment or whenever there is a job interview, we me and my brother are the ones that helped with that translating mail that comes in, the insurance, important. We were the ones that needed to handle all of that. Luckily, my parents were super -driven and super-educated, smart people. It didn’t take them very long, a few years really, until they learned the language and we’re off.
Alina Warrick (8m 11s):
I’m assuming when you had homework problems at school, you can’t come to your parents to ask for help.
Igor Dobrosavljević (8m 17s):
No, but I don’t know if I did that all that often. I feel like school in Germany and Europe was a lot harder than really it is here.
Alina Warrick (8m 27s):
Yes.
Igor Dobrosavljević (8m 27s):
A lot of the subjects that I actually studied in high school here, I had already learned and known from just moving here. A lot of the 12th grade, I went to high school here. I felt like all the subjects that I was learning, I mainly use it to learn and get better at English, both reading and writing. Obviously, they couldn’t really necessarily help there. By the time I was in college, I was just already beyond what they would be able to help, anyway. I was in computer science and all that. That wasn’t really something they wouldn’t do, so yes, it’s pretty much me and whatever friends I made here.
Alina Warrick (9m 7s):
Yes. Were you guys put on any government assistance programs or were your parents able to find jobs fairly quickly?
Igor Dobrosavljević (9m 15s):
Yes, for sure. We had food stamps and we’ve lived on food stamps. We were extremely happy and glad that that was an investment that the US made in us. It helped us out tremendously. We were able to take advantage of it while we were getting on our feet. Just a little bit of history, my dad, actually in Yugoslavia, was a veterinarian and a business owner. My mom was a doctor, as well a veterinarian, and worked for the government. When they moved to Germany, they have to start at the bottom. They were in an apple sorting factory. There was literally apples going across assembly line and they would sort them by size. That was the start that they have in Germany. Then my dad built it up to a construction job.
Igor Dobrosavljević (9m 56s):
He was leading construction jobs in Germany, and then he had to start all over again. When they moved here, he started with pizza delivery. He was a pizza delivery guy for the first few months. Then he got a job in a meat packing company here in town. Then he worked his way up. He is working as a quality assurance director now for a big meat producer here in the state. He is essentially responsible for, I don’t know, 20,000 pigs that get processed through that plant, just all by himself. He’s like, “Okay, I guess I got to learn English.” My mom’s the same. She had to learn English.
Igor Dobrosavljević (10m 37s):
She went to nursing school, and was doing a nursing for a clinic here in town. They worked hard to make sure that we’re providing for and that they can take care of us.
Alina Warrick (10m 50s):
Well, what a journey. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that. I remember when we came. I was four years old, so I was a lot younger, but the reason why I asked about government assistances is we were on government assistance as well. I remember going to the food banks, standing in line with my mom, with my siblings. I thought it’s normal. I thought that was what people do. They come and get free food.
Igor Dobrosavljević (11m 14s):
Sure. There was no shame. I was a little bit older. I was 16. I was the one that helped with translating, and stuff like that, and going to pick up your food stamps. I still pass that building on a daily here in town, actually. My office is not actually far from there, so yes, it’s absolutely part of our journey. Once again, I’m extremely happy that United States made that investment in us and extended that help. I believe what we’re doing right now and where we’re at with our lives, it paid back in spades. It was a worthwhile investment.
Alina Warrick (11m 48s):
Yes, absolutely. Igor, before you tell our listeners about your company, tell me a little bit about the path that you took. Did you try to go into any other fields before starting your business?
Igor Dobrosavljević (12m 1s):
No, actually. I feel like I hear a lot of people struggle with not knowing what to do in life and what career path to take. When I was super young, I was into computers and video games. My first computer was a Commodore 64 back in the early nineties. It was just something I was always into. Because of I was a Refugee initially, I didn’t have many opportunities to pursue that. I did get my first computer in Germany. It was mostly being used for video games and things like that, but when I moved to the United States, I lucked out. I met a guy that was an IT consultant that was running a company out of his house.
Igor Dobrosavljević (12m 43s):
His name was Greg Iwi. He hired me as my junior year. My one year in to living here, I got a part-time job, helping him manage his clients – installations; server upgrades; essentially, a lot of the things that I’m doing right now. I started learning through him. I work for him for four or five years through part of my college career. From there on, everything was set. Everything developed from that so I don’t know that I’ve ever considered really doing anything else.
Alina Warrick (13m 17s):
Okay. Did you say you went to school and studied computer science?
Igor Dobrosavljević (13m 21s):
I did. I was here my 11th and 12th grade in high school. We had moved so much that I never considered really moving out of state or away from my parents initially to go to college, but I still wanted the college experience. A private school here in Des Moines, Drake University, was just like, “Well, you seem like smart guy. Here’s a bunch of money and we’ll enroll, you here.” I was like, “Okay, fine. It’s in town. I could still live with my parents and save on living expenses, and food, and things like that if I’m in town and I can still get the college experience.
Igor Dobrosavljević (14m 1s):
Why not?” Yes, Drake University. I started in 2000 and graduated in 2004 with Bachelor’s in Computer Science and minor in math and business.
Alina Warrick (14m 13s):
When you mentioned you got that experience from that one guy initially, was that out of college or out of high school?
Igor Dobrosavljević (14m 20s):
No, that was in high school.
Alina Warrick (14m 22s):
That was in high school?
Igor Dobrosavljević (14m 23s):
Yes. My senior year, we met him. I wanted to build my computer. I could learn something from him, initially. We met and he was like, “Hey, you seem like you might be interested in this work. Would you mind helping me out on jobs, and projects, and things like that?” I was like, “What? Yes, I would love to. What do you mean you’re going to pay me that much?” That’s the most paid a high school job that I’ve ever heard of. He hired me and I worked for him through high school and then partly through college.
Alina Warrick (14m 56s):
Awesome. After college, where did you go?
Igor Dobrosavljević (14m 59s):
After college, this education actually led directly into it. Greg had several clients. One of those clients was actually starting an IT business in addition to what they were doing already, which is installing phone systems and running a low voltage cabling around schools, and government buildings, and things like that. They wanted to get into providing IT services for companies. They started a division that would do that. They knew me from before in the work that I did for them. This opportunity came as I was graduating. They asked me if I wanted to be their lead tech on that side. I said yes. Out of college, I got hired by that company, and I helped them grow that division.
Alina Warrick (15m 41s):
Okay. I’m tracking along. At what point did you create Grand Consulting? At what point did you work for that company? Was it during that company that you were working for? Tell me a little bit about that.
Igor Dobrosavljević (15m 56s):
Sure. As I mentioned before, the drive to own my own company was always there, even before we moved here. That was always going to happen. I had initially hoped that I would maybe become a partner in this company, or that they’d be willing to share some of that ownership structure as the company grew, and as I was helping them grow, but that wasn’t really materializing. For about four years into working for the center company, I was starting to feel the itch. I was starting to see the knowledge that I have, and that I was contributing to this company. I said, “Heck, I can do this on my own. I should start investing in myself instead of this other company.” Four years in, 2008, I gave my resignation.
Igor Dobrosavljević (16m 43s):
I incorporated a company, and I opened my phone out of my spare bedroom, actually, in the house that I was living in.
Alina Warrick (16m 52s):
You opened what?
Igor Dobrosavljević (16m 53s):
Opened my phones and started the business out of my bedroom, essentially, a spare bedroom. That’s where Grand Consulting’s first office was, in the house that I was actually living at the time.
Alina Warrick (17m 5s):
Okay. How old were you when you started at Grand Consulting?
Igor Dobrosavljević (17m 9s):
Let’s see. I don’t keep it in terms of like that. It was 2008, so 12 years ago. I’m 39 now, so 27. Twenty seven is when I started Grand Consulting.
Alina Warrick (17m 20s):
Okay. You quit. Did you have any savings or you just quit and said, “I’m going to do this by myself and we’ll see what happens?”
Igor Dobrosavljević (17m 28s):
I did have some savings, but I was also not married at that time. I didn’t have children at that time. Really, my expenses were very low, so I could take that risk at that time. If it went south, it wasn’t going to be my family or my children that would suffer. I figured I had a skill set that if things weren’t working out, I could always just be hired by somebody else. I don’t know. I don’t remember. Maybe at the time there was, but I don’t really remember being angsty about not succeeding. I don’t know that I was necessarily really afraid of just trying and failing. In fact, actually, looking back, I wish I had tried and failed sooner.
Igor Dobrosavljević (18m 9s):
I don’t know that Drake necessarily contributed anything to my path going forward, other than I am able to say that I lived that American dream of high school, college, starting your own business. I don’t know if that money spent would’ve been better spent on me trying something, and failing, and learning my lessons then, but hindsight is 2020.
Alina Warrick (18m 30s):
Yes, but 27 years old and starting your company, that is still fairly young.
Igor Dobrosavljević (18m 36s):
Sure. It’s never too late.
Alina Warrick (18m 39s):
Yes, 27, that’s not when you say it’s never too late. Fifty, that’s about when you say it’s never too late.
Igor Dobrosavljević (18m 47s):
Okay, all right.
Alina Warrick (18m 49s):
That was still a success at 27 years old. Igor, tell us a little bit more about Grand Consulting. What do you guys do?
Igor Dobrosavljević (18m 58s):
Sure. We are an IT consulting company. We essentially are an outsource IT department for a small business. Our ideal client is anywhere between, I don’t know, 10 and 50 clients. If you can’t afford a full-time IT person, or if it doesn’t make sense for you to have a full-time IT person on staff to take care of your computers, but your computers are still super valuable tools that you use to make money in your business, we are your guys and girls. We would love to take care of your technology. From computers to helping figure out internet connectivity, to networking infrastructure, to phones, to anything that technology in a business touches that you don’t have a dedicated go-to person for, we can take care for you.
Igor Dobrosavljević (19m 46s):
We got into a niche with dentists early on. In the early 2004s, early 2000s, mid 2000s, there was this big push for dentists to go paperless. Most of the dentists at that time kept paper schedules and paper files for your charts and all of that. Around that time, there was this big push of companies coming out with electronic versions of programs that could replace that, and they could grow that. Computers made their move into your operatory. I don’t know. If you go to your dentist and if you like, they have a monitor behind him and a monitor in front of you. They take INTRO x-rays and digital x-rays.
Igor Dobrosavljević (20m 28s):
We’re the guys that actually implement that for them, and manage, and troubleshoot when there were issues, and upgrade, and things like that. From there, we don’t exclusively restrict ourselves to dental clients, but from there, any industry that relies on computers and technology for day to day business, we can take care of. We have attorneys. We have accountants. Actually, a couple of big accounting groups here in town. We have construction companies that we can take care of. Really, these days, what business industry can’t you describe as needing computers to do business? That’s how we started in our niche and how it grew.
Alina Warrick (21m 4s):
Wow, that’s amazing. I’ve never heard of that business model. That’s awesome. I have lots of questions now.
Igor Dobrosavljević (21m 11s):
Sure, go.
Alina Warrick (21m 13s):
Are you guys serving your clients locally or is this nationwide? What industry is it in?
Igor Dobrosavljević (21m 20s):
Sure. We do our best work if we can see our customer occasionally. A lot of our work can be done remotely, but really to provide the best experience, it does help for us to be able to go on site and troubleshoot problems that we can’t troubleshoot remotely. Most of our work can be done remotely over the phone. That’s what I do a lot of the time, but if there is new hardware that needs to be installed, upgraded, or replaced, it helps to be local. Currently, our businesses are still restricted to Central Iowa, with most of our clients being in Central Iowa, but we do have clients all over the state as well. We don’t prefer to take on those clients just yet, just because our customer experience is super important to us.
Igor Dobrosavljević (22m 4s):
How we do business in, we have a reputation for our personality and quality work that we have. It is hard to scale that out, but we are happy with the clientele that we have locally are in Iowa.
Alina Warrick (22m 18s):
Yes, awesome. Are you guys available 24/7 for all those it problems and issues late at night?
Igor Dobrosavljević (22m 28s):
We like to say yes, but really it’s whatever our client needs. Most of our clients have the eight to five work days. If a dentist is not seeing patients or are not in the office, they are going to not need our help, or an accountant, or attorney. We work the hours that our clients need us to work. Luckily, it’s works out that it’s mostly during normal business hours, but we do after hours work and weekend. Sometimes, there is a big server upgrade that needs to happen and it will take us a two days. It’s a two-day process. Obviously, we can’t shut them down for two days so a weekend gets scheduled.
Igor Dobrosavljević (23m 10s):
After hours, I have spent some after hours working on client stuff when it’s failed during the day. It was just big outage that we needed to recover from as soon as possible. We’ve had our after hours, but typically phone calls and expectations are that we’re available from an eight to five.
Alina Warrick (23m 29s):
What about a cybersecurity? I know it’s really big and popular these days. Do you guys offer to that, too?
Igor Dobrosavljević (23m 34s):
That’s a really tricky question because we also have clients that come and say, “Hey, would you take care of our cyber security?” We don’t consider it as a separate field necessarily. We consider it as just part of taking care of somebody’s computers. Bad guys are out there. They are going to target you. They are going to try to get into your network. We try to develop, and design, and maintain our networks so that cyber threats are minimized. One thing that we do tell our client’s is that there is nothing that you can pay us for or no product that you can implement that will eliminate a cyber threat. If something like that existed, cyber threats would not exist.
Igor Dobrosavljević (24m 14s):
If you want to be completely secure, cancel your internet subscription and do your business offline. You are going to be set, trust me. As soon as you connect to any system to the internet, you have to be vigilant. You have to be careful. While there is a lot of things that can be implemented on a network to mitigate some security risks, we tell our clients expect something to happen. Something bad will happen. What you are hiring us to do is to have a plan in place that when something happens, if something happens, the threat is mitigated so damage done to your network is an absolute minimum. There’s a plan in place for quick recovery so that your business isn’t as impacted.
Igor Dobrosavljević (24m 58s):
It served as well when a client initially when crypto viruses weren’t a thing. When that started happening, when a client would get hit, we would have systems and processes in place where we could roll that out pretty quickly back. They’d be back in business really quick, not necessarily missing a beat. I would say, we are also pretty lucky that we have pretty good clients that listen to us, and that implement things the way we asked them. I don’t know. I’m sure if we had a bad client that wasn’t listening to anything we say, it’d be a different story. Cyber security is baked into everything we do.
Alina Warrick (25m 37s):
Those Russian hackers better watch out.
Igor Dobrosavljević (25m 41s):
Sure. If there was somebody that set their sights on a business that we took care of, they will be very little. There’s Sony. I don’t know. I always bring this up, but Sony, who’s got millions of dollars in budget just for security, just for security were shut down for days by a motivated actor. If somebody is motivated enough and has enough resources, they’re going to figure out a way to do harm and damage to you. I hope that we have enough stuff implemented within our networks and our client’s networks that minimize that and mitigate it. So far, that’s come through and our clients have been pretty happy.
Alina Warrick (26m 23s):
Awesome. I love it. Igor, where do you think you got your entrepreneurial drive now? I know you’ve mentioned several times that you’ve always wanted to own your business, but where do you think that spark initially started from?
Igor Dobrosavljević (26m 37s):
Probably with my dad.
Alina Warrick (26m 38s):
Your dad?
Igor Dobrosavljević (26m 39s):
Yes. As I mentioned before, he owned his own business. I always looked up to him in how he did his work and what he was able to do for us with running his business. Yes, I probably just wanted to emulate him. Once again, American pop culture is ripe with self-made man story. If you like America and you buy the story, you come here. You work super hard. You start your own business and you’re rich.
Alina Warrick (27m 9s):
Yes, overnight.
Igor Dobrosavljević (27m 10s):
Right, that’s how it works.
Alina Warrick (27m 13s):
I know you mentioned that you didn’t have to raise a lot of capital to start your business, but did you have to raise any capital at all?
Igor Dobrosavljević (27m 21s):
No, it was really bootstrapped. My business was also a service-based business. It’s hard to raise capital based it’s just your brand, and it’s just you, and it’s a service-based business. It wasn’t really necessarily a revolutionary product that we’re coming up with or bring onto the market. It was a small business. We’re no different than a plumber or an electrician. We provide a service. The quality of work depends on the quality of work that we provide and us. Really, the only financing I would’ve been able to raise at the time might have been a bank loan. Like I said, my initial capital requirements weren’t all that great.
Igor Dobrosavljević (28m 2s):
I was lucky to have my name out there in Des Moines. People knew of me and the quality work that I gave. When I went on my own, people searched me out, and we got clients pretty fast. Just through word of mouth and quality of work, the company grew and here we are today. Yes, not that much capital that I needed to raise.
Alina Warrick (28m 27s):
When you said that you started getting clients immediately, so you quit, you started your company at your house. You started receiving traction from the beginning stages.
Igor Dobrosavljević (28m 38s):
Yes.
Alina Warrick (28m 38s):
Wow. That’s awesome.
Igor Dobrosavljević (28m 40s):
Yes. Like I said, we have gotten to that niche of doing dentists offices. At that time, my number wasn’t really listed. This was back in 2008 when people still use phone books. My phone number wasn’t really necessarily listed in anywhere, but my parents were. This curious thing started happening where people that we’re looking for me called my parents’ house and we’re asking for my contact info because they wanted me to do some work for them. Inadvertently, my parents initially had to start taking calls for me and passing them on to me because people didn’t have any other contact info for me.
Igor Dobrosavljević (29m 22s):
That’s how it started. Des Moines is not that big of a town. It’s around 300 to 500,000 people. It sounds maybe big, but it’s really not. Word of mouth travels really fast, especially dentists. Dentist here know each other. There are only so many dentists companies, dentist offices you can have in a town this size. They start talking to each other, “Hey, who are you using? Are you happy with their services?” They give them my name and then it just grows from there.
Alina Warrick (29m 55s):
Are you listed in the phone book now?
Igor Dobrosavljević (29m 58s):
No, actually. No, I don’t know anybody. First of all, I don’t want the pollution. Then again, second of all, I don’t know who else looks at a phone book these days.
Alina Warrick (30m 8s):
Probably seniors, I don’t know.
Igor Dobrosavljević (30m 11s):
Maybe they’re not our target market. Let me put it this way. If you take a phone book and flip, and want our services, you are probably not the greatest fit for us. We need you to do some research. We need you to want to work with us because you heard that we do good work and not just some random person in a phone book that you think may be able to help you.
Alina Warrick (30m 40s):
No, I’ve heard some really amazing stories that come out of phone books.
Igor Dobrosavljević (30m 45s):
I believe you. I just don’t consider myself all that lucky.
Alina Warrick (30m 51s):
All right, Igor. I really wanted to know, did you have any mentors that helped you out to start your business?
Igor Dobrosavljević (30m 57s):
Many actually. Absolutely. First of all, Greg was an absolutely amazing mentor. He not only taught me the ropes of what it means to be a system administrator for an IT infrastructure, but also how to run your business and what’s required to run a business. Definitely, the earlier years of Grand Consulting were modeled after what Greg had been doing when I started working with him. Unfortunately, at that time, he had already passed away. He wasn’t really around to see me start the business and grow it into anything, but yes, I definitely give a lot of credit to Greg. Along the way, there was a lot.
Igor Dobrosavljević (31m 39s):
I was a little bit involved in the startup community here in Des Moines. When the whole social media thing, from Twitter to Facebook, started up, technology in a startup-minded, people connected through social media. There was tweetups and other companies, they were starting their own companies. I got involved and there were mentors in that. Arena, too, Tesh was, to this day, an invaluable mentor. If I need any advice, I reach out to him and ask him. My parents, for sure. Just knowing everything that they’ve gone through and that they’ve had to do to be here where they are today.
Igor Dobrosavljević (32m 19s):
If I had half the energy of my parents have gone through and done, I’d be super happy. Yes, I am standing on the shoulders of giants really.
Alina Warrick (32m 29s):
Yes, awesome. Igor, are you connected to any entrepreneurial groups or organizations?
Igor Dobrosavljević (32m 34s):
I’m not really. I think that’s just on me. I’m really bad at mingling and reaching out to people just because I focus a lot just on the work and the quality of service that we deliver. I’m just mentoring employees that we hire a lot more than going out and making connections, mostly because they haven’t worked for me. I’m not saying that there is not a way for some to in new business or grow the mentorship circle. They just have never worked for me. It might be just because I’m just bad at that, but yes, it’s been always just focus on employees and people around that formed natural connections with me from being member of some organization.
Alina Warrick (33m 24s):
Got it. Well, whenever you’re ready, you might want to check out the phone book. You might find some awesome mentors.
Igor Dobrosavljević (33m 29s):
Yes, let’s break out the phone book.
Alina Warrick (33m 32s):
I’m really interested to know. How do you look at failures and how do you overcome them?
Igor Dobrosavljević (33m 37s):
When we talk about failures, we’ve got to talk about successes too because that’s the other side of that. I don’t necessarily consider myself like I’ve succeeded in anything yet. I don’t necessarily completely consider myself like I’ve failed at anything. Maybe if I had lost and went bankrupt a couple of times, I would consider those failures. Like I said, this is my first business and I’m still running 12 years ago and growing it. I guess you could consider that a success. I haven’t had to start over. Maybe I like to think of it as just bad decisions. I have certainly made a lot of bad decisions along the way.
Igor Dobrosavljević (34m 18s):
I don’t know that I would want to change them because they make me what I am today. I have certainly had some partners that did not work out so great. Not necessarily because of something they did or didn’t do, but more so I figured out late in life that your partner has to fit in with you and needs to be compatible with you. It needs to compliment you in some way. If you don’t have the same goals, if you don’t grow in the same direction, it’s like a marriage, really, different kind of a marriage. My partner, Al, I called him work husband because we spend so much time together. We happen to have grown in the same direction and complement each other a lot.
Igor Dobrosavljević (35m 1s):
It requires that. Her decisions, I embraced them because they are required for growth. If you don’t fail or if you don’t make bad decisions, there is no room for you to learn anything. You’re just lucky. I guess, I wish I was lucky all the time and didn’t have to learn anything, but it’s just part of growing that business. You have to fail and just be willing to learn as long as you succeed 51% of the time.
Alina Warrick (35m 29s):
I love that, 51% of the time success rate. You’re pushing forward.
Igor Dobrosavljević (35m 33s):
Yes, absolutely.
Alina Warrick (35m 34s):
That’s refreshing to hear. Let’s switch gears and talk about successes. Are there any successes that you would like to outline from your Immigrant Entrepreneur journey?
Igor Dobrosavljević (35m 46s):
Sure. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t consider myself necessarily successful. While I am extremely happy with what I have achieved so far and what I was able to get, I don’t know. Success sounds like its final. You’re done. Tomorrow, it can be taken away from you. Tomorrow, something can happen where your sewed out of existence or some sort of a mistake that you’ve made inadvertently costs you a lot of business and you have to shut down. While today’s snapshot looks like I’m happy, I don’t know what brings tomorrow. One thing that I am proud of though, is I wanted to open up opportunities in the IT field to others, especially the ones that don’t necessarily look like me.
Igor Dobrosavljević (36m 29s):
The IT field is full of just white guys. I feel like it’s pretty easy to be successful in the IT field. A lot of doors are opened for you if you’re a white guy. I started this apprenticeship program under Grand Consulting, where we want to open up doors to people into the IT field that otherwise wouldn’t have maybe been able to make that journey. We don’t necessarily require a college degree for you to start to work for us. You just need a high school diploma. You need to be able to drive and are willing to learn. As long as you are willing to learn, we will teach you everything you need to know about the IT field. You just need to be nice to people.
Igor Dobrosavljević (37m 11s):
You need to be able to handle people because it is a customer service job. It’s actually more so a customer service job than an IT job because the skills that are hard to teach, like customer service and how to deal with customers, are the keys in success for us. Everything else, I will teach you. If you have IT questions, ask me. I will Google things for you. I will look up stuff on YouTube for you if I don’t know the answer to. With that, I think the apprenticeship that we started three years ago, we had one gentleman. His name is Halil, who was also a refugee from Bosnia, who was working in customer service at a grocery train chain here. No prior IT experience.
Igor Dobrosavljević (37m 52s):
He wanted to get into IT. We hired him as the first IT apprentice here. He’s finished the program. It’s a three-year program that we have. He has finished the program, and now he’s handling project that are absolutely mind boggling. The conversations that I have with him talking about servers and networking infrastructure and things like that, things that he had no knowledge prior to going through this process, he is able to accomplish and get done. We have a new apprentice in the spot. Her name is Yan. She’s a woman. There weren’t many women in the field, and we’re hoping that she’s just going to be just as successes as Halil was. She seems to be well on her way. She had been with us for about six months.
Igor Dobrosavljević (38m 34s):
She’s got another two and a half years in front of her, but yes, she’s making all of the same progress that he has at the time. If I succeed in opening up doors to the IT field for people that otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get into it, I’d consider myself lucky and happy.
Alina Warrick (38m 50s):
Wow, that’s amazing. It will also open the doors for people that want to change careers, right? Like people that have been in business and want to go into the IT field. Well, sometimes they’ll go get their certificates and they’ll get their education, but then a lot of companies are like, “Where’s your experience at?” I think that program is absolutely amazing and what you guys are going to be doing with that is powerful.
Igor Dobrosavljević (39m 16s):
That’s the idea. That’s the essential idea. A part of it came from my experience from just living in Germany because in Germany, when you go to school, apprenticeship is absolutely a viable track for business for the future that you can pick. It seems like the United States is limited to just one track. It’s like you graduate high school, you go to college, and then you get a high paying job at a company somewhere. What about people that can’t afford college, or don’t have the opportunity to go to college, or have to start earning to support their family before they can graduate to college? They can’t get financing.
Igor Dobrosavljević (39m 57s):
They don’t want to get into that. It seems very limiting. Inspired by the things that I have seen and learned in the Germany, we also want to serve as an example. If a company our size can successfully start an IT apprenticeship and bring people into the field that otherwise wouldn’t have, I’m hoping that down the road, many industries will look at this example and effectuate the same thing. A lot of careers don’t require a college degree. A lot of careers
Igor Dobrosavljević (40m 42s):
People can make a ton of money doing that sort of work. I don’t know why anybody would dismiss a job like that, but IT is like that. We can teach the job. We can show people how to do it, and then have them grow from there. I’m hoping that a lot of other industries can kind of take that example and do the same.
Alina Warrick (41m 1s):
Yes, you are going to be the leading example.
Igor Dobrosavljević (41m 4s):
Sure.
Alina Warrick (41m 4s):
I love it. Igor, is giving back, either volunteering time or giving back to the community, something that is part of your business values?
Igor Dobrosavljević (41m 13s):
Absolutely. Apprenticeship is one of the examples that we feel we can actually back straight and give back to the community. We have, as part of our compensation program at the company, we allow our employees to take paid time off to volunteer, so volunteer time off. They can volunteer in the community. My wife is on the board for Habitat for Humanity. My wife’s family actually was one of the recipients of those houses back in the day as well. It is extremely important to give back to your community and be part of it as much as possible.
Alina Warrick (41m 52s):
Yes, you are giving back in so many ways, especially with the apprentice program that you have. It’s so powerful and it speaks volumes in your industry. That’s awesome. Igor, what are some things that you would advise the next aspiring immigrant that wants to start their own business listening to you right now?
Igor Dobrosavljević (42m 9s):
Very good question.
Alina Warrick (42m 10s):
This is deep.
Igor Dobrosavljević (42m 11s):
Yes, it is super deep. I don’t know that I give any other answer than that’s been given before. That’s just to try. I suspect a lot of people are being held back by a failure, so not be afraid of failure. Now, there are sometimes legitimate reasons why somebody shouldn’t start a business. I will say, it’s not necessarily for everybody. Risking your family’s livelihood is definitely a hard calculation that somebody has to make, but the one thing that anybody that started a successful business has in common is that they just believed in themselves and the path that they took. If you don’t listen to that voice, you’re not necessarily going to get really anywhere.
Igor Dobrosavljević (42m 52s):
Yes, just believe in yourself. Do good work. Good things can happen.
Alina Warrick (42m 56s):
Such powerful advice. Thank you. Thank you so much. I wanted to wrap up with some super-fast questions if that’s okay with you.
Igor Dobrosavljević (43m 3s):
Yes, sure.
Alina Warrick (43m 5s):
What time do you normally start your day?
Igor Dobrosavljević (43m 7s):
With kids, it’s usually around 7:00 AM. We try and help with school. This year has been different, obviously. They’ve done a bunch of virtual learning and things like that. Yes, around 7:00 AM. I’m a late sleeper. I go to bed really late. I am better late than in the morning. Oftentimes, I am not in bed until 1:00 AM. If I go to bed at midnight, that’s early for me.
Alina Warrick (43m 31s):
All right. How many employees do you have?
Igor Dobrosavljević (43m 34s):
Currently, we have seven full-time employees, and one part-time, and a couple of contractors that we contract work out for different types of things.
Alina Warrick (43m 44s):
How often do you watch TV in a week?
Igor Dobrosavljević (43m 47s):
TV in a week? I’d say I play video games more than I watch TV. I watch TV with my kids. I like watching shows with my kids, and we bond over that, like the Airbender, and Last Kids on Earth, and Gravity Falls shows. Yes, enjoy that time together with them.
Alina Warrick (44m 7s):
The last one is, how many hours of work do you normally put in, say, in a week?
Igor Dobrosavljević (44m 11s):
Good question. Sixty, 50-60.
Alina Warrick (44m 12s):
Okay, yes. Not bad.
Igor Dobrosavljević (44m 51s):
Yes. The problem is that it doesn’t feel like work when you do the thing that you love but yes, around 50 to 60. We tried to have a healthy balance of work-life. If I miss my children’s upbringing in growing up, I know that later in life, I’m probably going to regret it. I feel like, yes, maybe I could grow my business a lot more, a lot faster if I put in a lot more work into it, but I’m happy with where we’re at right now. I’m happy the path that we’re on. I don’t know that I’m the best example of massing as much money as possible, as fast as possible. As long as there is growth, and as long as we can get new clients on board and we can hire and start working with new talented people, we’re happy. If this amount of work gets me there, and I get to enjoy my kids growing up, and raise them with my wife then, yes, that’s good.
Alina Warrick (45m 44s):
Yes, work-life balance is so important. Good stuff. All right. Igor, thank you so much for coming on to the Immigrant Entrepreneurs podcast, and sharing your amazing journey coming from a refugee to a business owner and immigrant. You got lots of successes. Don’t fall yourself short. You are extremely innovative and you’re doing some powerful things in the IT field. Hey, again, thank you so much. I am truly honored to share your story.
Igor Dobrosavljević (45m 46s):
Thank you so much for having me. This was super fun.
Alina Warrick (46m 16s):
All right, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it. I just wanted to ask for a quick favor. If you could please leave a rating wherever you are listening to this podcast, on whatever platform you’re on. Also, if you’re an immigrant entrepreneur and would love to be on my podcast, please email me and we’ll get connected. I’ll see you guys on next time for another exciting and impactful episode. Take care.
[/read]
