034 When Something Goes Wrong – Always Blame Yourself – Vasily Malyshev

Two years ago, Vasily Malyshev founded Messapps, a top-rated application development company located in New York, which has built 28 mobile apps for clients world-wide. In addition, Vasily is among the few to have earned dual legal qualifications of Juris Doctor in the USA and Jurist in Russia.

When you meet Vasily, you do not readily observe his concentration and resolve. He grew up in Moscow, in a family of doctors and scientists dedicated to help other people. In Russia, practicing medicine has been one of the lower paid professions, especially during the 1990s - See NY Times Article – so the motive of most doctors there is truly altruistic. Thus, like many, Vasily grew up with his family sharing a small apartment with two other families, and a cat.

Vasily remembers his mother telling him that it does not matter how hard you work, or how many hours you put in, none of that matters if you don’t achieve the result. What he learned from his father, was – if something goes wrong, always blame yourself, that way you can keep control. Vasily took these words seriously. At the age of 16 he arrived in New York to attend college, and then law school, while he also completed a six year law degree program in Russia.

In this episode, Vasily explains how he developed his own app at the age of 19. He was working while he studied for his law school entrance exams. The only free time he had was on the New York subway, but his exam books were too big to bring everywhere, so he developed an app to put the LSAT study materials on his phone. It became a best seller.

He shares the steps for anyone to think through if their app can be successful. He also tells how some of his favorite clients are university students who have received funding from their university! Surprisingly, he told me that his firm occasionally takes equity in an app as an alternative to full payment.

At Messapps Vasily has built a team that he is very proud of: Raf, Shannon, Suresh, Kishan, Kamal, Chirag, Nathan, Maddie, and John. His team helps clients develop their idea, design the app itself, and then market and monetize it.

Vasily is super grateful to be in this country.

Also, he does not think that immigrants should have some special rules to make our life comfortable. If someone thinks that my nationality is a problem then reflecting his father’s words – it is his responsibility to prove to others that they are wrong – by producing superior quality products and services. “After all”, he says, “the more people criticize you the better you become!”

5 extractable points:

In 2015, funding is not a problem. Vasily’s clients who hired his company to build their app, include students who received funding from their university, and funding from a partner they found on the internet.

When there is a problem, always blame yourself. As an entrepreneur or in life, having this strong conviction allows you to stay in control of the situation. One of Vasily’s clients did not like that he was from Russia, so his attitude was not be resentful, but to work extra hard to earn the client’s trust and admiration.

Focus on your desired result. Don’t be satisfied with having worked hard.

If someone is doing better than you, than you have a lot of work to do.

If you an opportunity in a niche that is not occupied, then try it out. There is a big chance you will succeed. Vasily was 19 years old, sitting in the NY subway every day, wishing he could study for his law school entrance exams (LSAT). He decided to build an app, made lots of mistakes, but ended up selling it to tens of thousands of students who appreciated it.

Let’s go!!!