Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:43
I love it. Yeah. And one of the things that, you know, if you are listening to the audio, we are at Opus Connect Comm and you go to the resources and we are on the how to perform a personal SWOT analysis here. I’m curious when the light bulb came, you know, went on for you on even doing this in the first place personally. And just I want to just summarize a couple things. One, it sounds like when you do this, people start to get rid of the stuff they don’t like doing and maybe is not a good value of time so they can focus on kind of their zone of genius there. But when did the light bulb go on for you that oh, we should be doing this personally.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 20:26
Personally? For ourselves?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:28
No, personally, for like, you know, most people, you said do the SWOT analysis for the business. They’re not doing it for themselves. And so.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 20:36
Okay.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 20:36
Why I mean what made you even think of doing that?
Lou Sokolovskiy: 20:43
One, it was a long time ago, I think I was finishing up my business school, which I graduated almost 16 years ago. So 16, 17 years ago. So you have that knowledge and you look in the business and you’re like, I’m business, I want I was an entrepreneur, so forget about what am I doing. Job title. Yes. I had like some technology venture at the time. Who am I and what I’m doing because I had to. I was a career switcher. I’m like, I need to find to do something different.
I enjoy doing this, but I’m not making money, so I don’t think I’m the first one to apply it, but I don’t know if I don’t remember seeing anyone tell me to do it. I’m like, okay, let me apply that to myself. And it really helped out, really helped out. But it was more from, you know, probably if I had a good corporate job at that time, I would not do it because I was an entrepreneur and, you know, career switcher. I had to find creative ways to do it.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 21:48
You know, I’m curious, you know, from your standpoint, I know you went to UCLA. Are there any other things that you remember that came out of your experience with, you know, the business school at UCLA that you still use and take today that was helpful for you?
Lou Sokolovskiy: 22:09
I actually want to thank UCLA Career Center. Counselor for helping me to navigate through some of these opportunities because, you know, I was good at many things. You know, actually, let me think I was not good at anything. I was good in 1 or 2 things, and I was trying to pursue other things. And so I just focus on what you’re good at.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 22:34
What were you good at?
Lou Sokolovskiy: 22:36
I organized like a networking events, you know, and it came very natural. I would get like 200 people to shop, buy tickets and I’ll get sponsorship. I’ll make some money. It was more like sidekick when I was in business school. So, like, it sounds like you’re really good at it. I’m like, no, but I want to pursue this. Other things I want to become join a private equity fund. So she really encouraged me to focus on like, okay, leverage what you’re good at. And I still pursue, you know, investing. And I’ve done a couple of deals that helped me out to kind of get to the next level as a personal achievements. But that’s why when I was introducing, I still my passion. I’m good at it and enjoy doing it. Is it highest rate of return on my time? Probably not. You know, I could do other things, but I would not enjoy them as much.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 23:30
One thing that sticks out there was a book that was influential for me. And I’m curious. You. But it was a Marcus Buckingham. Now discover your strengths. And that book, it made me realize. Yeah. Why am I focusing on the stuff I’m not good at? And maybe I don’t like doing usually the stuff that I’m not that good at.
I don’t like doing as much anyways, but that that really struck to me, even with my kids, when I’m looking at them and like what their strengths are, instead of trying to maybe boost up. Not like saying, well, forget the other things, but boost up a little bit, focusing on boosting up maybe what they’re not good at, like really zeroing in on what they are good at. So it’s helped me as like a parent, I think just help them focus in on that stuff too. Are there any what books stick out to you that have been influential?
Lou Sokolovskiy: 24:22
Started with why? Definitely is one of them. There is. You know, I have mentioned to you before the call we have a book club, so we read quite a read quite a bit. It’s I would 7 Habits of Successful People. I know this book kind of mass produced but they’re really powerful. There’s definitely more like books that oh my God, I never heard about it. We read those books in our book club, and I read personally a lot. And but, you know, those kind of books.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 24:57
Stephen Covey is a classic.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 24:59
Covey helps and I know it’s taught, you know, in recommended business school and in rabbinical schools at the same time, you know, you’ll be surprised how universal those things are. I think if people driven to learn, you don’t. I recommend everyone to be a reader, even if you maybe don’t enjoy it because not you’re not going to find a perfect book. But if you read a lot of them, it really helps. And sometimes, like in Seven habits, you get seven great ideas. For example, in some books you only get one great good idea, but it will be phenomenal.
So phenomenal success if you read one a week. A couple years ago I challenged myself kind of side note to read one book a week. It was still end of the Covid, so we had a little bit more free time and it was phenomenal experience. I felt like I got a second MBA. I usually read like two books a month now on average speed, you know. But that was more of a push and it was phenomenal. It’s like I got my second MBA For the price of a couple hundred bucks.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 26:11
Totally. Yeah. I’m a huge audible person. Talk about the kind of inception of the book club, because that that was also impactful. The book club itself.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 26:23
Yeah. So I have a dear friend, Michael Korman. He lives in Dallas, recently raised an amazing. So I raise a new fund to back independent sponsor. He’s a great supporter of independent sponsor community. But very intellectual friend. You know I have a number of my friends, very intellectual, and we were just sharing book ideas and after couple books that went back and forth between us. You’re like, why don’t we start a book club? I’m like, sure, I’ll invite a couple people, you know? So that’s how it started. So Michael gets full credit, even though he’s not a member of the club anymore. After he raised a new fund, he became busy. But, you know, I will miss him and we’ll welcome him back anytime. But yeah, that was inspiration from a friend.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 27:14
And, you know, I’d love to hear, you know, there’s just two things on the business development you kind of talked about kind of the 12 steps a little bit. But I do want to talk about on from an Opus Connect standpoint and also from an investor standpoint, maybe talk about from an investor standpoint, how business development helped. And I remember there was early on a real estate deal that you came across because of that. So what talk about maybe the business development side of that, that real estate deal.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 27:47
Yeah. No, I’ll maybe start like step before that I started I didn’t start Opus. I just wanted to not work better, smarter to generate more deals and access to capital. I ended up being a CEO of a company. It’s not a huge company. We have like a dozen people at Opus and takes quite a bit of my time, which doesn’t allow me to do as many deals as I wish to. Now, I’m not in a position where I hired someone to help me on that side, day to day to run the deals, but the reason why I got that deal opportunity because of access to capital, we mean, I was invited to join a partnership with a colleague because of potential, you know, opportunity to access capital that otherwise would not be accessed by that partnership.
I didn’t source that specific deal, even though, you know, definitely network was built to do that. But I was invited just because of the network. Right. You know, so sometimes. That was a positive consequence of really building up productive network and having an opportunity to do deals maybe a little bit outside of the box. My goal was always to do more private equity type deals, but I end up making more having more success in a number of real estate deals, which just came as opportunity. If I did not work, I would not have those opportunities.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 29:17
Well, I’d love to hear how you invest and how that’s changed throughout the years, because it sounds like when we were talking before we record, it’s evolved how you invest now compared to maybe years ago. Can you talk about how you invest and maybe how it’s changed throughout the years?
Lou Sokolovskiy: 29:41
Look, with age, you your appetite for risk changes, even though you can afford maybe more of it because you have a little bit more chips to play with. But your appetite of for these changes. On a personal note, I got married at the age of 49. I have two amazing stepkids who are my kids and are now. My strategy is more one. It’s not length of my life span anymore, it’s of their life span as well. So playing more 50 year, I have a 5070 year plan now, not 30 year plan, you know, till I’m 80, whatever, whatever my life expectancy would be.
So it changed. It changed quite a bit. So there’s certain risk. You know I’ve done a lot. I’m partner in small VC fund here in Orange County, an investor in a number of VC type deals. Those kind of things went a little bit more to the side because I need more singles and I shoot a little bit less for home runs. I still have a budget for home runs, you know, more risky stuff, but it’s shrunk compared to five years ago, for example.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 30:56
It sounds like also you maybe before you were sourcing the deals and now you do more partners with people in specific industries. Can you talk about that?
Lou Sokolovskiy: 31:07
So one of the things that I try to do is play the strings back to the SWOT analysis, right. You know, I’m not good at everything. I’m barely good at 1 or 2 things. And one of two of those things are being a really good matchmaker who set up 80 weddings and dozens of deals, putting partners together that, you know, one has a deal, one has no knowledge how to structure it. And maybe I come in as help to raise money for the deal or other situations.
So really playing to the strengths because if I will try to be good at everything one is now I have ability to maybe hire people to help me, which is great. I didn’t have that a decade ago. But I also have ability to partner up with people that are smarter. My model is whoever I partner up with. They’re always smarter than I am in multiple things that I’m not as good at. If they are identical to me, you know, meaning they have the same big network but don’t have the patience, which I don’t have a lot of. I probably not going to partner up with them. But if they’re very patient and very diligent and maybe don’t have that network, great synergy. Let’s do it together.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:27
Lou, you’ve seen a lot of deals. I know you know Opus connect through Opus Connect, people have seen a lot of deals. And, you know, the question of how to prepare a company for sale. I’d love to hear some of the mistakes you see these companies making when they’re preparing for a sale.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 32:47
It’s a big question. I’m, you know, thank you for asking it. It’s one of the things we started helping a number of our entrepreneurs in our network to think about it strategically. One of the most common mistake people think. They’re like, oh, January 1st I’m going to sell my company and I want to sell it by. End of summer, because I’m going to Europe with my family. So I want to be done with this deal. Oh my God, biggest mistake ever you just made. When you are considering. And the good thing is, if you’re considering to sell, you don’t have to. Sell. But if you’re considering that, you might want to sell your company in 3 to 5 years from now. The right time to start getting ready for it is yesterday. Today the second best choice? So start preparing for it.
So the common mistakes people make, they think if they get a phone call from buyers. I’ll sell my company anytime. Yes, you will sell your company anytime. Will you sell it? Successfully. That’s a different question. And it’s not even the number that you have in mind. Because. the number of most entrepreneurs have in mind, and what the market is, is you have a significant gap. Usually entrepreneurs feel they company were small. So educate yourself about the market. Educate yourself what is popular? What is not. Educate yourself what is easily sellable business and what is not easily sellable business. The great thing is, if you prepare your company for sale and it’s really, really, really ready to sell, you don’t have to sell because that is probably sounds like an absentee ownership. You barely involved in the business.
You don’t need to shop in the office at 8:00. That’s the company that every investor wants to buy, right? You know, the owner actually is not there. There is a CEO there. One of the funny, sad stories that I’ll say, you know, I’ve seen it multiple times when the whole executive team has the same last name or the members of the same family. Nobody wants to buy that business. Oh, but my mom is an accountant. How long was she accountant for? For two years before she got married. And now she’s a CFO. Yes. And how are your financials? Oh, we don’t know if we’re making money or not. I’m like, have you considered hiring outside CFO? No. But, you know, why would we spend money on a CFO when mom is an accountant? Like being an accountant.
Being CFO is two different things. It’s like being a sole, you know, marine versus being a general. You need a general. You have a marine doing the general’s job. So the list is pretty deep, you know, by the way, check out our CEO forums, a few of them coming up this fall. Might you guys might want to attend. It was not intended as commercial, but there’s so much knowledge that you need to get to have a successful exit.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 35:43
Where is that on the website when we look at Opus Connect.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 35:46
Oh, there is under it.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 35:51
Forums we’re under here. So people go to events and see what is up and coming.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 35:59
Next one in November for healthcare investors and a few more are going to be planned.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 36:04
I gotcha.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 36:05
And plan later on. We’re going to be available online in the next few months.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 36:10
Yeah, people go check it out. Openconnect.com and then there’s an events page if you’re interested in what’s up and coming. I’d love to hear Lou, a couple of your mentors or colleagues you respect in the industry and maybe something you’ve learned.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 36:27
I am really blessed to. Have met people that just been generous with the time that some of them friends. And there’s a number of them members of my book club whom I love all dearly, end up being good friends and sounding board for things outside of books that we read. One of the people that really played an instrumental role and still plays 20 years later, is Larry Horvitz. Larry is a phenomenal genius who graduated Harvard Business School in the 60s until now, remembers not only names, but phone numbers of every single classmate of his.
The. But not only being a genius, he also was very generous with his time and support, and both of my deals in Opus Connect ended up playing very instrumental role. There is a number of other individuals as Sullivan, Gerber and many others that I really want to thank for that. But Larry really was generous with his time beyond what one could even ask for. So thank you, Larry, If you’re listening to this.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:48
I have one last question, and I don’t know if you have another meeting you have to get to. If you do, then I will end it here.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 37:56
We can keep going.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 37:57
I, I really what I’m one thing that just sticks out to me about you and what I think about is. Well, one, I love the concept of the proactive giving, which is kind of the foundation for a lot of these things. But I want to know about the immigrant mentality. Okay. Because a lot of the immigrants I meet, and even in my family, they just have this drive about them. So I’d love to hear a little bit about your upbringing and you know your why. You know what drives you from your, you know, way back when.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 38:41
Look, every day I look, you see the past differently every day. So, you know, like today, see my past differently than I saw five years ago. I moved to states at age of 18, which is not a great age because you have an accent like I still do today, 30-something years later. Culturally, you know, you almost there but never fully there. So I’m on the one hand, I’m really blessed because I know both cultures more or less as a native. Definitely cultural, but never 100%. Being an immigrant. And this is why I see immigrants being more entrepreneurial, getting a job, or getting promoted, I saw it not going to be as easy. Yes, I got a Fortune 500 job out of college, graduate top of the class at USC, got a job at HP, but I knew I’m not going to be moving up there.
It just was not my cup of tea for many reasons. So it kind of drives you, you know, to get out of your comfort zone. One of you already done it as an immigrant and it kind of keep doing it. Rinse and repeat. Okay, you know, I’m starting from scratch again. I’m 25. Actually, I was 26. I started my first company. I didn’t have a Fortune 500 job, but I didn’t like it, so I’ll start again. That failed. Okay, I need to start again. So once you move physical spaces, you move more. Open to move out of your comfort zone. Again and again and again.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 40:17
And that’s one of the steps of your business development too, is get out of your comfort zone. What was it like you got here? 18. Yeah, right. What was it like? What was their culture shock? What were you.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 40:35
All shock. You have to keep in mind that I moved here right after the Berlin Wall came down. So I moved not from current situation in Eastern Europe, which is more integrated even though there’s conflict going on, obviously. But I moved from Soviet Union. That was there was a wall, you know, till age of 16. I never left the country. And two years later I moved here. So it’s like being behind the wall, moving to the west. There’s a lot bigger cultural shock then. And, you know, being 18, going to go to college, not speaking the language. ET cetera. ET cetera. It was fun times. But, you know, it builds that resilience which great resilience, whatever you want to call it.
You know, really appreciate because one, I appreciate things that I have a lot more than they were given to me in many regards by my parents because they gave me the mindset to get them, but I got them, most of them myself. They helped me out. It was a college a little, but I got scholarship mainly, but they encouraged me. I think the blessing I have, the privilege, like people talk about privilege, is the one privilege that I had that my parents taught me a little bit nuts to get more and more. Only in one department. Education. My father was a law professor. My mom was a teacher. It’s just education. Money? Not important.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 42:07
Did they stay there? And you came here or did they.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 42:09
All came.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 42:09
Together? You all came together? Yeah. What was the decision? I know a lot of people, you know, stayed. What made you, the family, decide to uproot your life in the Soviet Union and come to the US?
Lou Sokolovskiy: 42:21
Yeah, the Soviet Union just came down. I was like 15 or 16. I’m like, I’m out. And my parents were brave enough, were coming with you.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 42:30
So you were deciding like, no matter what, I’m going, you can come with me or not.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 42:35
I mean, now it sounds like I don’t think I have prophecy that I saw the future, that the whole region is going to be a mess for a long time, but which we now obviously see even bigger mess than it was for the last 30 years. But I knew nothing good is going to be there and that it was time to go. It was time to go. My family been in Europe for the last thousand years, give or take, you know, Ashkenazi Jew. But I’m like, okay, this is it. You know, this experiment expired.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 43:09
What was it like growing up there?
Lou Sokolovskiy: 43:14
Wow. It’s a long time ago. It was different, right? Very different that the things that we have now with our kids, you know, in terms of stuff that they have toys, they have, the clothes they have. It was different, you know, it. And I was pretty privileged. My family was pretty well-to-do. But I still have one jacket. Winter jacket. One of these. And that’s it. You know, we were privileged. We had a car. Simple car. Now you’ll see. That car compared to stuff that we drive. Will sound will look funny. You know, no AC, nothing like that.
So you grow up a lot more humble, but happier in a way, because you don’t compete with others in a way that, you know, in a West consumer mindset, which I’m guilty of now. You know, I like good things and I like giving them to my kids and my wife and all of it. But you grow up a little. With slightly different values. Culture was a little, a lot bigger. We read more. There was not 20 channels of TV. There was two channels, both government-run. So, you know, you can imagine. So you read more, you do other things, more sports. I didn’t do a lot of sports with people. People did a lot more sports and other activities.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 44:33
Yeah, Lou, I just want to be the first one to thank you. Thanks for sharing your journey. And it’s amazing. I always, when I see someone you know who came, like they basically uprooted their life in another country to come to a different country. It’s like it’s got to be just a big culture shock and difficult and you know, it. It gives someone kind of the perseverance to do whatever they want to do. And so I appreciate you sharing the journey of Opus Connect and what you’re doing. People can check it out. And I just want to thank you for sharing your journey and lessons. Thanks, Lou.
Lou Sokolovskiy: 45:10
Thank you Jeremy, I appreciate it.
