There's a difference between someone who's read case studies about building businesses and someone who's actually done it. Between someone who can cite frameworks from business school and someone who's made payroll during a financial crisis. Between someone who talks about operational excellence and someone who's built processes that scaled a company from 5 to 500 employees.
I'm not a consultant who studied businesses. I'm an operator who built them.
For over 30 years, I've been in the trenches—starting companies from zero, scaling them across borders, navigating regulatory complexity, building teams, surviving market crashes, and adapting to technological shifts that transformed entire industries.
This isn't a resume. It's the story of why that experience matters when I work with your portfolio companies.
The Early Years: Building Infrastructure in Chaos
My journey started in the early 1990s, in an environment most Silicon Valley founders can't even imagine.
The Soviet Union had just collapsed. There was no functioning market economy. No banking system. No legal framework for private business. No infrastructure. Everything had to be built from scratch, often while the rules changed weekly.
I started in telecom and security systems—video surveillance, alarm systems, communications infrastructure. Not sexy Silicon Valley tech, but essential building blocks that businesses and institutions desperately needed.
Here's what I learned building in that environment:
Resourcefulness matters more than resources. We didn't have access to venture capital, sophisticated tools, or established vendors. We figured out how to source equipment internationally, navigate customs, build local supply chains. When you can't throw money at problems, you learn to solve them creatively.
Execution beats strategy in uncertain environments. We couldn't plan five years ahead when regulations changed monthly and economic conditions shifted weekly. We learned to move fast, test quickly, adapt constantly. Build, learn, iterate—not as startup methodology, but as survival necessity.
Trust and relationships are everything. In the absence of reliable legal frameworks and established business norms, business ran on relationships and reputation. If you didn't deliver, word spread fast. If you were reliable, opportunities followed. This wasn't networking—it was the foundation of how business got done.
Operations scale companies, not just ideas. Everyone had ideas. Few could actually execute and deliver consistently. We built processes, trained teams, created systems. The companies that survived weren't necessarily the ones with the best concepts—they were the ones that could execute reliably at scale.
These weren't lessons from books. They were lessons from trying to build real businesses in an environment where nothing was certain and everything was hard.
The Internet Era: Scaling Digital Services
As the 1990s progressed, the internet arrived. Not the mature, ubiquitous internet we know today, but dial-up connections, emerging infrastructure, and massive opportunity for those who could see where things were heading.
We pivoted into internet services—ISPs, connectivity, IP telephony, wireless communications. We were building the digital infrastructure that would enable the next wave of innovation.
This era taught me different lessons:
Technology changes fast, but operational fundamentals don't. The specific technologies evolved constantly—new protocols, new equipment, new standards. But the fundamentals of running a service business remained consistent: deliver reliably, support customers well, manage costs carefully, scale methodically.
Hiring and team building make or break companies. As we scaled from 10 to 50 to 200+ employees, the challenges shifted from technical to organizational. How do you maintain culture? How do you delegate without losing control? How do you build middle management? These operational challenges matter more than most founders realize.
International expansion is harder than it looks. We expanded across multiple cities, then multiple countries. Each market had different regulations, customer expectations, competitive dynamics. What worked in one place often failed in another. Success required local adaptation, not just copying a playbook.
Cash flow and unit economics matter more than revenue growth. We watched competitors raise money, grow fast, and implode when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000-2001. We survived because we built sustainable business models, managed cash carefully, and understood our unit economics. Growth is great, but survival requires profitability.
By the mid-2000s, we'd built substantial operations across multiple geographies, managed hundreds of employees, and navigated a major market crash. The experience was invaluable.
The Fintech Years: Building in Regulated Markets
As digital infrastructure matured, new opportunities emerged. Online payments, digital financial services, e-commerce enablement—the infrastructure was ready, and consumers were ready, but the financial industry was not.
I moved into fintech and payment systems, building platforms that enabled digital transactions, credit services, and financial distribution. This was before "fintech" was even a term, when most banks still thought the internet was a fad.
Building in financial services taught me entirely new operational dimensions:
Regulatory complexity is a feature, not a bug. Most founders see regulation as an obstacle. I learned it's also a moat. If you can navigate compliance while competitors struggle, you have a sustainable advantage. But it requires deep operational sophistication—proper processes, documentation, risk management, audit readiness.
Partnership and ecosystem dynamics matter enormously. Fintech doesn't exist in isolation. You're integrating with banks, payment networks, merchants, regulators. Success requires managing complex multi-party relationships where you don't control all the variables. This is operational complexity of a different order.
Risk management becomes existential. In many businesses, operational mistakes cost money. In financial services, they can put you out of business instantly. Fraud, compliance failures, security breaches—the stakes are high. Building robust operational frameworks isn't optional, it's survival.
Scalability means different things in different contexts. Scaling infrastructure to handle transaction volume is one challenge. Scaling compliance operations is another. Scaling risk management is yet another. These all require different operational approaches, and they all have to work together.
We built payment platforms that processed significant transaction volumes, navigated evolving regulations, managed fraud and risk, and created sustainable economics in a highly competitive market. The operational sophistication required was orders of magnitude beyond earlier ventures.
Market Crashes, Pivots, and Resilience
Across three decades, I've lived through every type of business challenge:
The dot-com crash (2000-2001). Watched companies with massive funding implode overnight. Learned that sustainable business models beat hypergrowth funded by venture capital with no path to profitability.
The global financial crisis (2008-2009). Managed through a period when capital disappeared, customers stopped spending, and survival required brutal efficiency. Learned how to cut costs without killing the business, how to maintain team morale in terrible conditions, how to find opportunities when everyone else is panicking.
Regulatory upheavals. Navigated sudden changes in telecommunications regulations, financial services rules, data privacy requirements. Learned that compliance isn't just legal—it's operational, and companies that can adapt quickly have enormous advantages.
Technology platform shifts. From dial-up to broadband. From desktop to mobile. From on-premise to cloud. Each shift created opportunities for those who adapted and casualties for those who didn't. Learned to recognize inflection points and move decisively.
Competitive dynamics. Faced competition from established players with more resources, from startups with better funding, from international companies entering our markets. Learned that operational excellence—faster, better, more reliable—beats resources when you execute well.
Market pivots. Not every bet works. Multiple times, we had to recognize that our current direction wasn't working and pivot. Learned how to make difficult decisions, how to restructure without destroying momentum, how to maintain team confidence through major strategic shifts.
These experiences weren't comfortable at the time. But they created pattern recognition that's invaluable when working with startups today. I've seen these movies before. I know which problems are existential and which are growing pains. I know what works under pressure and what doesn't.
Why This Experience Matters for Your Portfolio
Silicon Valley has no shortage of smart people with opinions. Former consultants who analyzed businesses. Junior operators from successful companies who saw part of the journey. Domain experts with deep knowledge of specific verticals.
What's rare is someone who has:
Built businesses from absolute zero. Not joined as employee 50 when product-market fit was proven and funding was secured. Started with nothing, figured out what to build, found the first customers, hired the first employees, survived the early chaos.
Scaled operations across stages. From 5 people to 50 to 500. Each transition requires different operational approaches. Processes that work at 10 people break at 50. Organizational structures that work at 50 break at 200. I've navigated these transitions multiple times.
Operated in multiple industries and geographies. Telecom, internet services, fintech, digital distribution. Eastern Europe, emerging markets, now Silicon Valley. B2B, B2C, B2B2C. Regulated and unregulated markets. Each context requires different operational approaches, but principles translate.
Survived multiple crises and market cycles. Startups are volatile. Market conditions change. Competition intensifies. Funding disappears. Regulations shift. I've navigated these situations repeatedly, under pressure, with real consequences. That experience is impossible to replicate from books or case studies.
Built in resource-constrained environments. Most operational advice assumes abundant capital and resources. "Hire the best people." "Use the best tools." "Build comprehensive processes." That's fine if you have unlimited funding. Most startups don't. I learned to build effectively with limited resources, which is where most portfolio companies actually operate.
Maintained founder/CEO perspective. I wasn't a VP running a department. I was the person responsible for everything—strategy, fundraising, operations, team, customers, partners, board. I understand the weight of those decisions because I made them.
The Operator vs. Consultant Difference
Let me be blunt about the difference between operational consulting and operational execution:
Consultants deliver recommendations. They analyze situations, create frameworks, produce slide decks. The advice might be excellent, but implementation is someone else's problem.
Operators deliver results. We don't just tell you what to do—we help you do it. We roll up sleeves, build the process, train the team, work through the messy details. We're accountable for outcomes, not just insights.
Consultants study companies. They've seen patterns across clients, which creates valuable perspective. But their knowledge is second-hand, observed from outside.
Operators built companies. We've made the decisions, felt the consequences, learned from mistakes. Our knowledge is first-hand, earned through experience. We know what works because we did it, not because we read about it.
Consultants provide analysis. They identify problems and recommend solutions based on best practices and frameworks.
Operators provide judgment. We identify problems and know which ones matter most, which solutions will actually work in your context, and how to prioritize when everything feels urgent. That judgment comes from experience, not analysis.
When your portfolio company is facing a critical decision—should we pivot? Should we fire this executive? Should we expand internationally now or wait?—you don't need another analysis. You need judgment from someone who's made those decisions before and lived with the consequences.
Why I Moved to Silicon Valley
After 30+ years building businesses internationally, I recently relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area. Some people asked why—I'd already had success, built companies, made a career. Why start over in a new ecosystem?
The answer is simple: I want to work with the most ambitious founders solving the biggest problems with the best resources.
Silicon Valley remains the epicenter of technological innovation and startup ambition. The density of talent, capital, ideas, and execution here is unmatched. This is where founders think biggest and move fastest.
But here's what I bring that's different:
International perspective. Most Bay Area operators have deep Valley experience but limited exposure to building in emerging markets, navigating international expansion, or understanding non-US business contexts. I've built across multiple geographies and can help portfolio companies expand globally.
Crisis-tested experience. Many successful operators here built during the golden age of abundant venture capital and growth-at-all-costs. That's valuable, but different from building in resource-constrained, high-uncertainty environments. When capital becomes scarce or markets shift, my experience navigating difficult conditions becomes especially valuable.
Pre-product-market-fit operational skills. Much of Silicon Valley operational expertise comes from scaling companies that already found PMF. But the operational challenges pre-PMF are different—how to structure experiments, how to iterate fast, how to manage a team through uncertainty. I've started businesses from zero repeatedly and understand these earlier-stage operational needs.
Fintech and regulated market expertise. As fintech, insurtech, and other regulated tech sectors grow, operational expertise in compliance, risk management, and partnership ecosystems becomes critical. This is deeply familiar territory for me.
I'm not here to critique how things work in the Valley. I'm here to bring complementary experience that helps portfolio companies succeed, especially when they face challenges outside the standard playbook.
What This Means When I Work With Your Portfolio
When I engage with a portfolio company, here's what you're actually getting:
Pattern recognition across 30+ years and dozens of situations. When a founder describes a challenge, I can usually say: "I've seen this before. Here's what worked, here's what didn't, here's why."
Operational frameworks built from real experience. Not best practices copied from books, but approaches I developed, tested, and refined through actual implementation. Processes that I know work because I built companies using them.
Comfort with ambiguity and uncertainty. Startups are chaotic. Nothing is certain. Information is incomplete. I'm comfortable making decisions and moving forward despite uncertainty, because I've done it hundreds of times.
Bias toward execution. I don't produce reports and disappear. I stay engaged, help implement, work through the messy details. If we identify that a company needs a sales process, we build the sales process together. If they need to fix their financials, we fix the financials together.
Judgment about what matters. Startups face dozens of challenges simultaneously. Founders often can't distinguish between critical and cosmetic issues. I can help prioritize—what needs attention now, what can wait, what doesn't matter at all.
No ego about being right. I've failed enough to know I don't have all the answers. But I've succeeded enough to know what questions to ask and how to find answers. I'm wrong sometimes, and I'm fine admitting it and adjusting.
This isn't theoretical capability. It's practical experience applied to your portfolio's real challenges.
Beyond the Resume
Look, anyone can list accomplishments on a website. The question that matters is: Can this person actually help my portfolio companies execute better and win more?
Here's how you find out:
Start with a pilot. Pick 2-3 portfolio companies with specific challenges. Let me work with them for 4-6 weeks. Judge the results. If I deliver value, we expand. If not, we part ways. Simple.
Talk to founders I've worked with. Results matter more than credentials. Ask founders whether working with me made a difference. Whether they'd want me involved in their next company. Whether the engagement delivered actual outcomes, not just advice.
Assess fit with your portfolio. My background is broad, but not infinite. I'm particularly strong in fintech, B2B infrastructure, international expansion, and early-stage operations. If your portfolio is heavy in biotech or consumer social, I'm probably not the best fit. Honest assessment of fit matters.
See if our working styles align. Some investors want hands-off service providers. I'm more collaborative—I want to understand your portfolio strategy, your investment thesis, your goals. If you want someone who just executes tasks without strategic context, I'm not right for you.
The credential that matters most isn't on my resume. It's whether I can help your portfolio companies execute better and deliver better returns. That's proven through work, not words.
Ready to Discuss Your Portfolio?
Let's talk about whether my experience aligns with your portfolio's needs.
Contact Vitaly Solten: vitaly@gnx.vc
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area | Serving investors and portfolio companies globally
