Dmitry Belianin: A Masterclass in iGaming Leadership: Dimitry Belianin's Story of Grit and Growth

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To really Empower people educate and Mentor them like their best friend not like a big Mad Boss if you can find someone who does the thing at least 80% as good as you you should give it away I'm here to stay in this industry I'm here to build a legacy I want to understand how the business Dynamics and the world Dynamics will look in 3 to 5 years one of the biggest routines I came up with was waking up with the sunlight staring at the sun and the first time I tried it I was like wow my mind changed I think so clearly now welcome

to the igaming leader where we interview some of the most well-respected leaders inside the industry to uncover what has led them to their success today today I'm joined by a true industry Powerhouse Dimitri bellan he's been in the industry for over 17 years and has actually had the most successful year of his life this year he's launched multiple companies and is truly disrupting the industry with his products and services so I want you to join me today to hear his story about What's led him to his success today and what some of the advice is that he can give all of us to being more

successful in our careers as well let's dive in welcome to the I gaming leader super excited to have you here I've been wanting to interview you for a long time you're such an interesting character with such an interesting business and background first of all welcome to the show thanks a lot for having me I'm very excited and I'm a big fan as well thank you let's just start off off with where you started in the industry I was listening to one of your podcasts where you talking about having been in the industry for over half your life so tell me a little bit about how

you started and and maybe what some of the challenges were when you first kicked off in your ey gaming career I wasn't very competitive kids throughout my life I played video games on a high level I even attended World cyber games was a very curious and competitive kid I would say and the moment when everyone started playing online poker I was the first to try so I was s 19 years old and I I used my grandma's passport to be able to get my first time deposit at poker stars back then but the idea was very interesting about the poker itself you're playing pretty much

the same game but for real money and against real people and I started playing and discovered affiliation with one of the websites which I I came across was poker strategy.com so I I started studying their business model I tried to understand how these guys are making money I combined my col degree with software development and web development with the affiliation and this is how I've traded my very first website and I'm in gaming since then and it's been a beautiful and very rewarding Journey for me and I absolutely love it did you know that I actually started my ey gaming career at poker strategy wow

okay so probably we were on the same Forum at the same time you were probably with r right so rustom was one of the guys I was managing I I came over to jbr 15 16 years ago together with poker strategy from Germany I was one of the first six guys here in jalta and then headed up all of the different country managers so um yeah really cool wow yeah yeah so I was very active photo member I was actually recording some videos and I think I had almost the highest status like they had gold and then platinum or something yeah Platinum then Diamond then

black tell me a little bit more about that so you transitioned into affiliation what was your pivotal moments for you realizing this industry has hooked me this is what I'm going to keep on doing to be honest the very first website was just a pure HTML where with some text I wrote myself which was very simple text I I created a review of a website I played it myself coming from a player View and perspective what are the pros what are the cons how the players play here what is the game looking like Etc so I've created a riew of the website myself and it

was so easy to rank it if you look at the websites now you need like backlinks you need some old domain back then it was so easy like you just created a website uploaded the text there you go right and the pivotal moment for me was it was very hard to get a proper affiliate deal because some kid from B reach out here while a Skype asking for like affiliate L and people were like okay this is a pure scum usually this is a Nigerian prince but this is a kid from B so it was very hard to get a link but then I think

the moment I received a very few from first time depositors I was like okay this thing actually works I started doubling down so I got a few of my buddies from college they help me to create like a better design we build a better site I was still writing all these text myself and I think we got to almost 35 to 50 websites in just a few months it was challenging and fun for us we were just riding 24/7 and um I think in the in just like a few months we started making like a lot of money and we were even questioning whether we

should keep going with college at the same time I was still playing on my poker on a very competitive level I think it was like NL 50 then NL 100 so it was 50/50 and at some point when affiliation started making some ridiculous amount of money we all stopped playing online poker how did that decision go for you de there's some point where you you have to make that decision what was the them that kind of the one thing that make you decide all right this is the direction that I'm going to go I think the competition because I was always thinking okay what it

takes to get onto the next level what is the next level right and when you set up this milestone for you you can immediately get it down into pieces to understand what is this next level consist of what kind of website we need to build what kind of traffic we need to acquire what kind of territories we need to enter right competitiveness of this industry and the challenge was always my main driver right build something better become like a better professional build a better brand etc for me that was the main Drive driver and a lot of people they still asking me what is your

inspiration to really grind this BU as I'm doing this right now it's still the same challenge it's still the same motivation to build great products I still see a lot of gaps and uh points of improvement in this industry and this is what drives me further you've got such unique products and such a unique view on how we should grow the market and your entire Vision on how we should diversify the market more how we should get outside uh interest into it is something I'd love to touch on in a bit but let's dive back into that history you've grown really fast then right starting

with affiliation business growing a lot of Revenue very quickly that must have had a lot of challenges with it as well you must have had some really difficult moments in that growth just thinking about if it's just poker for example black Wednesday there must have been some really difficult times what were some of the hardest times in in that 70-year career that you've had yeah so I think understanding the business itself when this is the first time you're building a business is probably the hardest combining the basic business structure hygiene Finance legal all that stuff and going through this the very first time is probably

the most challenging thing you can ever find right but at the same time you come up with something which our industry brings in on the table which is completely undiscovered and back then it was impossible to find any piece of information so he go to the forums like gpwa was was one of these forums 2 plus 2 was one of these forums so you go to The Forum and start collecting the information bit by bit there is no book there is no course there is no anyone can help you with that and still I think the education in our industry is something which no one

still did manage to uncover fully right so education exist but very well hidden if you know how to dig properly you will be able to find it so uh probably understanding the business and its basic hygiene and at the same time combining it with the I gaming principles the iation principles understanding the user Journey understanding the the basic behavioral patterns of the iding user and how to combine it with the business model of affiliation was something I needed to go through and seeing me and as the professional and the industry how it itol since I think we are now in the Forefront of the biggest

transformation in the history of the internet since the internet was invented right with all this like new AI search and everything for people like myself this like long journey could be erased with this like biggest behavioral shift in in the history of the internet which is happening right now and the the only thing you can do is adjust all of your findings and all the information you've accumulated previously and to try to do it like a new spin to be able to adjust to the new business realities one of the things I would say though is that those challenges that you've gone through and that

searching and that finding and that feeling uncomfortable maybe even imposter that's helped shap who you are today right and I sometimes worry about that shortcuts perhaps through AI search or whatever that is you don't get the same depth of knowledge and level of understanding to really provide solutions that are a perfect Market fit right and I don't know is that how do you see that to be honest I think to become a serious leader and understand what it takes to build this like a business and infrastructure there is no shortcuts as you mentioned and I keep saying this uh for a very long time is

that if you are an entrepreneur you take a risk you not only take a risk for you as as the person and your family you take a risk of all these people you hired you've take the risk of all these people you need to pay them salaries tomorrow right there is no day out there is no shortcuts there is no easy way out so you really need to embrace the grind and evolve every single that if you're not doing it then you're going to be gone tomorrow and sometimes I look at companies and people who feel like they found their comfort zone but it's not

like that in business one very smart person told me that you know in the business there is only two way outs either you go on the IPO and cash out through it or become a part of the private Capital so if you feel like you can find that comfort zone and stay there it's it's not the right path you either evve or you just stagnate that's where I sometimes worry right it's in the grind the not so comfortable moment where the biggest lessons are and they drive Real Performance long-term growth so working with different businesses and you've got a lot of people around you now

as well what have been some of the biggest lessons that you've learned from grinding through that hitting your head against the wall and all those kind of things I think one of the biggest learnings was something which allowed me to transform my leadership style Empower and Mentor against control and direct right so this is something which changed my Persona probably like 72 eight years back where I found a way to really Empower people educate and Mentor them like their best friend not like a big Mad Boss which is just always screaming and this has been my biggest learning and then the thing which you can

actually extract of it is the power of Delegation right if you understand and find a way how to build this like a next generation of leaders inside of your organizations you can always give them more responsibilities you can find a way to uh allow them to come up with new responsibilities new functions new organizational twists empowering as the leadership style and delegation are probably two biggest things I uncovered throughout the year some of the portfolio companies I got this is something I keep telling to the CEOs and the founders that delegate as much as possible try to find the way how you Empower your leaders

try to find the way how you build Frameworks and Empower people against just doing everything by yourself yeah love that sir de we've got to delegate decisions not just tasks right and many of the people listening will actually be struggling with that because delegating like that can feel like losing control and therefore the quality of the work is going to go down so tell me a little bit about how 78 years ago when you first decided that's the route you were going to take in your leadership stuff how do you get to that decision and what were some of the fears or things that were

going through your head head as you were going through changing that leadership style of yours this is a really good question a lot of senior or middle management are going through in their career where they feel like okay if I start delegating I'm losing power I'm becoming more replaceable and uh I'm coming to the point where I gave everything myself so what I do now this is something going through my head as well especially you know they always keep saying and I think the the Alibaba founder said we hire people not to tell them what to do they should tell us what to do so

to follow that pass you need to hire stronger people than yourself you are becoming fragile at some point because this person you hired might replace yourself tomorrow right but at the same time which actually allows you to do at that stage is you can go to the next level yourself you can come up with new decisions new Frameworks you can start seeing things clearly and you're not this much digging into the operations you're not this much digging into day-to-day routine this allows you to start thinking about the business more clearly and understand and SE connections which previously you haven't seen before going all the way

back 7 years ago I had the same fear of Delegation but the moment I said to myself if if I'm the same competitive kid if I'm the same guy who was before all my life I will find a way through I will find a way to become better I remember when I hired the first marketing guy in my team it was a brilliant guy right it's actually now the CEO of Tesla right so he was a brilliant guy like I saw this is one of the smartest guys in my life I ever saw and it gave me extra motivation to become smarter myself to do

more become better Etc so that's the powers you can bring in your organization and you should not be afraid of Delegation and I think the golden role of Delegation if you can find someone who does the thing at least 80% as good as you you should give it away you should not be afraid of giving this to someone else because this gives you a new way of Leverage and this gives you a new way of empowering yourself and the organization feeling the fear and doing it anyway right even if it's at 80% of the quality because you will still be responsible for those decisions and

the output of that work I think that's maybe the fear that some people are stuck with so just sticking with that delegation topic here Deo what were some of the mistakes that you made early on and how did you recover from that oh probably number one mistake is just delegated blindly right number one is the person ready for it is the person got and out of context for it and making sure that the pass you opening in front of him is ready for him to be walked through right this is probably the number one mistake because if you work in the organization for a while

all these like little nties grees sometimes even politics within the organization and if someone just steps in blindly he would do a lot of mistakes so probably the number one rule for me is to prepare a proper uh guide wi routine for this person to take over the golden rule for me here is that the way I delegate things is should always come in with with the challenge so if you have a senior person and you know that he will absolutely smash that task is probably not the right thing you need to make sure that the task should be challenging enough for him so he

has this motivation to grow to challenge himself Etc so this always been my practice and one of the Frameworks I discovered many years back was objectives and key results okr the way okrs are designed is about setting up tasks in a very ambitious manner okr found found the perfect way in my playbook where I would set the okr for a person which is challenging very aspirational so then he has a Target to reach to so if he needs to drive me 100 customers I will set it at 125 so at least he has this challenging 25% okay where do I find him it's impossible and

you should find a way you got to create tension so like over the last year you've launched multiple Ventures simultaneously and I want to tell touch on that what have been some of the biggest drivers and challenges for you in launching those over the last year because it is a lot at the same time right yeah I think I call it the most expensive MBA in the world so um I've always been a fan of something the best education you can get is by doing something right so this year has been probably the most significant and the most foundational year throughout my whole career as

you mentioned I embarked on the completely New Journey I've never done in my life previously on the same scale I've invested previously I built companies previously but on the scale I reached these days it's unimaginable to go there without proper preparation so the the number one challenge was to find right people to hire these people to empower these people to find them a right function or the right area of responsibilities within the organization because the way uh it's been built I had no idea about it myself I was experimenting a lot and this is where finding the right people was a big challenge sometimes and

realizing okay this is not the right person for this job whether I can you know find him a better meaning or get him into some other place in the organization to not waste his time not waste his talent that's attract it's been very tough Journey very draining very I'd say stressful with a lot of emotional roller coaster but I think this is like the only way how you can become better become stronger and looking at what we've achieved throughout this year is insane I kept saying we're not moving fast enough we're not strong enough we're not good enough but looking at what we've achieved this

year is just insane thinking about it 5 years ago 10 10 years ago what we've achieved right now would have been a dream for me and I think this is something which a big problem for me and a lot of people you really need to find how you ground yourself there there will always be a new challenge tomorrow there will always be a new Milestone but you really need to find way to satisfy yourself in the moment uh understand achievements properly evaluate them and satisfy yourself and your inner Beast because sometimes this inner beast in me is is never enough for him and I still

fighting against myself to find like a good place to switch off after some time but it's still hard I'm still learning and as I mentioned this been probably the most foundational year of my career and the amount of learnings amount of people amount of amazing conversations had is probably the biggest MBA I could have gotten better than going to any of the colleges because that was work and the real effort me and all my colleagues and partners put all together why do you think this year was so much more successful than any other year if you would have to put it down to one thing

what would happy uh I think the amount of people I've met and insights I got from these people has been the reason number one and uh I kept saying the I gaming is a very C industry people they don't share their learnings their victories they they try to keep everything to to themselves and be very protective I'm very open-minded I openly BR about my victories about my losses this is something which I think started Gathering the same white-m minded people around myself and this is where it gives you a completely different perspective on things and I remember I want to highlight one person niiko chamoo

I remember at a game in next this year 25 minutes conversation I had with him was probably like years of education so I think people meeting people talking with people understanding their Journey understanding their victories and their failes was probably the biggest thing I've done this year that really touches on the next subject I wanted to talk about which is your vision about creating more openness and not just by hiring from outside of the industry and creating what Petra was calling crossport peration but also about what I loved about you launching those businesses how much you've built in public like this building in public and

openly with the launch of your podcast with Blas with everything you are really openly talking about and creating excitement around your products and around what you're building so tell me a little bit more about that DEA why do you find it so important to hire from the outside what's Driven this big vision of yours that you keep talking about the Fearless approach towards possible failures is something I embrace daily if we fail if something goes wrong this is where we learn this has been my motto since day one I'm not afraid of making mistakes I'm not afraid of actually learning and building on on on

top of this mistakes so this led me to something which I started using a lot in my previous organization hiring people from the outside getting people with the relevant skill set from relevant Industries has been one of my biggest superpowers getting these people and injecting and empowering all this monstrous I gaming experience either I had or organization I used to work for was probably one of the biggest things I've done because I remember the first day I said Okay I want to get there was a very smart lady from the fmcg sector I said this going to be the biggest CMO of all times if

we give her a chance and people they started criticizing me like no we cannot effort to get in not really person we need a person right now give me a two months this Fearless mindset allowed me to think about it and get this person to risk a possible business uplift to risk a possible failure because I wasn't afraid of that and she became indeed one of the one of the best cosos I've ever seen in my life and I think getting people with the right mindset with the right attitude towards education people who are open-minded because sometimes from the outside I gaming look like like

Angry menacing industry right and it's when people they see it from a different angle as technological as very competitive very Innovative industry this is where people they Embrace this opportunity and they Jo because fintech fmcg Automotive Mobile all these industries they are very similar if you find a way to apply the skill set from this industry towards game you will be unstoppable D is so right because after coaching over 200 igaming leaders I've discovered one simple truth success in your career really isn't about Talent it's about your skills and skills you can develop so if you're ahead of VP director or executive and you want

to accelerate your career in a way that you can achieve sustainable high performance then the igaming leader Mastermind might be a great fit for you inside we help people just like you live lead and perform better in less than 20 minutes a day so if you would like to join please apply at igaming leer.com one of the things I hear you talk about a lot is how how much of a short-term Vision there often is in gaming right and uh you talk about it a lot when you talk about acquisition marketing uh specifically Performance Marketing how if that dries up then many businesses they haven't

got a business anymore brand is obviously a little more long-term how do you balance in your case with your Ventures that balance between short-term results and long-term opportunities how do you stay sane in those competing kind of forces that's a really good question and we had a great example in one of our Ventures earlier one of the guys he came in onto a very senior role and he was like looking at immediate returns he was looking at okay the uplifts of their revenue here and there and I was like dude don't do it like we're here to stay and everything you do right now all

these like little lles all these little Investments are here to build like the Monstrous Synergy within the organization and Export one day if you start looking at everything from that perspective you understand okay all this like little pieces of the puzzle all this like little seeds you planting right now are aim to bring Revenue 3 to 5 years one of the smartest people um in our industry mentioned that we switched from 5 years planning to three years planning then to onee planning right so for them they need to be accomplishing within one year and planning within one year I'm not looking like that and I'm

not thinking like that I'm here to stay in this industry I'm here to build a legacy I'm here to build a next generation of projects I want you understand how the business Dynamics and the world Dynamics will look in 3 to 5 years this allows me to start building a foundation to be able to exploit in the next 3 to 5 years so I think this long-term thinking is applying onto hiring people as I mentioned education is very big part of my routine hiring people from the outside is also that because you cannot start extracting the value of the person right now in the day

one right building the new projects which are taking years to build thinking about products thinking about Brands thinking about communities because it's very hard to build and it's taking years to unfold because this is where I think the internet goes right now and this is where businesses are going to as well because with all this Ai and generated content only the genuine businesses only the businesses which has values which has something which will stay deeply inside of the heart and soul of the consumer only these kind of businesses Will Survive and this takes time to build so this is my mindset so true it's all

about people to people not business to business I wanted to touch a little bit on your well-being I know you've mentioned it to me a few times that you've been on a big journey in how you've changed your approach to your personal health as a foundational area to drive your own performance with everything that's going on in your professional life and personal life I think it's been a game changer for you so tell us a little more about that what's started that mindset of focusing on your well-being what are some of the most important things that help you through these daily pressures yeah absolutely enjoy

that conversation by the way uh the last and I think you are one of a few experts in this industry who really understand the Mana on this highest level I actually learned a few things from you last time we spoke and I started using them journaling was one of these things I'm I'm still a beginner and the way I'm doing everything when it comes to business or myself is by experimenting sleep habits routines and everything and this this is how I find the way to something which really means a lot to me and has an influence on my body and mindset so so one of

the biggest routines I came up with was waking up with the sunlight staring at the sun and briefing is something which the first time I tried it I was like wow my mind changed I think so clearly now I was so pumped up I started just testing new routines applying them so sunlight briefing I was I was a fan of intermediate fasting for a very long time so I I started applying this now I took a pose to check how my body reacts if I'm not doing this I'm I'm going everywhere with a very experimental and and proven approach also I think one of the

things is sleep probably the number one doctor for you making sure that your sleep routine is well balanced you're going to sleep at the same time you're waking up at the same time I'm not using the alarm clock I'm just waking up myself staring at the first light trying to get as much water as possible throughout the day all this like little basic steps are actually turning myself into a real lless superhuman being I I had a chat about it with a friend he's ah I'm not going to give up drinking alcohol I'm like dude I'm fine with that then I will always have a

handicap against you so um I stopped drinking alcohol and it was probably one of the biggest discoveries um I I ever found because I don't think I ever in my life stopped drinking alcohol for more than 30 days and when I've done this 90 days experiment I was like wow I'm not going back right and sometimes people they become slightly offensive no you're not going to drink I was like no dude that's my new mindset it's not because of you it's not because of the achievements the business like got nothing it has nothing to do with you it's just about myself and my future mindset

I like the way my mind works when I'm not drinking I like waking up fresh energized and this sets me onto this like Relentless medicine mood where there is no like barriers in front of me it just me and the challenge in front of me I want to make a comparison here de if you would have had the same habits and behaviors as you had a few years ago and you would have had the same year as this year what would have happened I would have been so productive I would have been so relentless in everything I do and I regret that some of the

routines I started only recently I wasn't applying them earlier you know I read a lot I consume a lot of content and some of these things I knew for years people been talking about it for years and I thought no this is scam think else is a scam thing right I was stupid not listening and I regret I haven't done it earlier but still I keep asking this question to myself I'm still young I'm still5 I'm turning 36 in a few weeks but you I'm still young I still have such a long journey in front of me so this is where I I'm blessed that

I found these routines from I'm blessed that I started applying them and seeing such a crazy difference in my mental health and my body I would have been Unstoppable if I started earlier so I gave everyone a little bit of a handicap love that hey and my last question I I'd like to leave listeners with something actionable so if you kind of teleport yourself back a few years maybe when you were starting out like you were saying what would you some of the advice that you would give yourself or some other steps that you would recommend you take probably the health and being routine this

is something I would of prioritize against everything else building a well balanced work life balance routine as well walking more going to gym more going until some sports I love sports I play football but not enough I play tennis not enough Etc so prioritizing Health wellbe prioritizing Sports and routines and number three is being less fearful when it comes to opening up to people talking with people reaching out asking questions the moment many years back I understood that I need a mentor and I I send this like signal to the universe that I need a mentor that this has been one of the biggest like

changing moments of my life so doing this earlier right finding a mentor opening up to people asking questions admitting that you don't know just being very honest being very transparent I don't know that thing not only in front of everyone but in front of of yourself because this gives you a leverage and this opening up a pass towards a new education so the education probably will be the next piece because reading a lot I took a few mini mbas in my life and some of them they were very good and opening my eyes onto something so probably this will be the number four four thing

which I probably not did enough in the last 7 to eight years thank you very much div hey I just want to say great job and fantastic work on your business I really love what you're doing love your vision for what you want to achieve within the industry and how you want to help transform the industry so thank you very much for opening up and sharing your story with us it was absolute my absolute pleasure and to be honest I feel everything I I said with a little bit sarcastic matter so please don't take some of these things super seriously I just really want to

empower more people and help to build the next generation of leaders and whatever I find is working for me whatever I find working for the business I I'm I'm here to share and help this industry to become a better place so I'm I'm on the mission and the moment I will probably become uh like bloody rich I will I will just spend 24/7 just helping people love it man thank you very much thanks wow what a great interview with Dima I really enjoyed talking to him and I loved what he shared about what it takes to be a high performance ey gaming leader there are

three takeaways that I think you could take from this episode the first one is that it's so important to delegate in a way that we create the next generation of leaders inside of our business because that will accelerate the growth that we all want to achieve the second thing was all about embracing long-term Vision over short-term gains and almost thinking about the Legacy that you leave behind with your business and the third thing was all about how important it is to prioritize your own health and wellbeing because that is the foundation to sustainable high performance as an i gaming leader so those were the three

key takeaways if you enjoyed this episode please make sure you leave a rating and review super important for helping other igaming leaders find this show as well it'll take you less than 10 seconds and I'll be forever grateful so please leave a rating and review and then next week we're interviewing Maria Hammond who's marketing director at relax gaming super inspirational woman I've seen a speak a few times live she's doing amazing with how she's developing her own personal brand very inspirational woman so I can't wait for you to listen to that episode as well I hope to see you there take care

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