39 | How Taras Oliinyk Uses AI to Build and Brand at Speed

What happens when you treat AI like a team member? Taras Oliinyk, founder of U1CORE, did just that—scaling to half a million in revenue with a lean team and smarter workflows. In this episode, he breaks down how AI powers everything from generating proposals to automating content and designing websites in record time. 

Audrey Chia digs into Oliinyk’s lean startup mindset, why fast iteration beats perfection, and what the future holds for creatives who embrace AI. If you want to see what’s possible at the intersection of design and automation, this episode is a must.

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Transcript

Audrey Chia: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the AI Market Playbook, where we cover actionable frameworks to help you leverage both AI and marketing strategies and your business. I'm Audrey Chia Host, and today I have with me Tarass Oliinyk, the founder and CEO of U one Core and AI and Web3 product design and development company. Now, in just one year, Taras grew his company from zero to nearly. 500 K in annual revenue with a 25 person in-house team. They have worked with major clients including mpo, LVMH, and even the FBI. But beyond that, they have built over 20 AI sales platforms and have fully integrated AI across every part of their business. From processes to operations and sales Tarass, I am super glad to have you with us.

Taras Oliinyk: 0:49

Thank you so much for nice introduction, Audrey. That's really awesome to hear that. And yeah, thanks for inviting me. I'm really happy that I'm here and I can share, you know, like how we integrate in AI systems to our actually operational structure and to the company itself. So thank you so much for inviting and for the nice introduction. Yeah.

Audrey Chia: 1:05

Perfect. So to get us started, right, can you tell us more a bit about your origin story? What inspired your company?

Taras Oliinyk: 1:13

Yeah, sure. So I was starting like from very, very beginning. It was maybe a couple of, maybe almost six years ago. So I was a solo designer and AI was actually not so popular during that times. And yeah, I used to work as a designer for a while delivering projects around the world and around the globe. So it was really cool. And after that, actually, I've just found an opportunity, you know, like to scale a bit. And, design is something what I'm passionate about. I started in 15 and it was like a big, big dream for me. So based on that, using lean startup methodology, I know like started to engage in more people to making the design company itself moving structure. And after that boom, AI revolution happened, and I'm just like. Wow, we have to use it right now. If you wanna be actually advanced, if you wanna go forward and really move fast, we should definitely start thinking about that, thinking about the future. So my personal story starts in my high school as the solo designer. After that, I've just started my company, from zero without anything else. And now I believe we are going through the big jump. Because we have started, you know, like to grow not already as a startup, as a company already, and using AI things itself. So yeah, that's in short about me and my background, I.

Audrey Chia: 2:29

Wow. I have so many exciting follow up questions for that. Now, maybe I want to dive a bit deeper, firstly into the Lean Startup methodology. Tell us more about that, because even before ai, you were already scaling your company at quite a fast pace, right? Mm-hmm. What is that methodology and how did it work for you?

Taras Oliinyk: 2:46

Sure. So I can say in startup is something like a Bible for me. why? Actually it started with, one project where I used to work as the solo designer and I had a colleague, he was our product owner, and that guy just said to me, Hmm, you know, read interesting book. Lets start up with Eric Rice. You'll definitely like it. I'm just like, okay, let's do this. I've started to reading and I'm just like, wow, that's, that's good. So actually that's maybe the secret of successful company. So what is that in general? So Lean Startup is something which. I can call a strategy growing system. So you are starting with something small, and the main goal is just to launch quickly, just to launch anything, just to build something which will work even for one person, but it'll work. And after that, you'll be able already to test the market, to see the audience, to receive first feedback. Even receive some money to move forward. So that's like Unco was built. So I started, you know, like with one person in house. After that we started to sell in this design stuff. It was just completely not ready product. It was just like, Hey, do you need the website? We can do this for you. But we already started. We gained some money, some revenue, and after that I'm just bringing that money and reinvesting again. But in that May, I'm building a bit better product, including feedback from previous interaction and interaction by interaction, reinvesting by reinvesting. It actually helps to build really big, big organizations and big, big companies. So Lean Startup is like a think when you starting something really fast, just like 24 hours and boom, you have a product. You have a company receiving first feedback, first results, even bad results. Anyway, that's a result, and you can use them as the advantage. And after that, you're using that knowledge, assets, revenue, and building something. Just a bit better. And in that way, continuously you are building a good structure, a good product. And moreover, you have lots of experience already because when somebody just, you know, like trying to make something ideal from the first attempt, I. It is cool as well, but it takes time. But if you wanna really grow fast, gain experience, you need to move really quick. And in that case, mean startup is good because while somebody just only starting something, you already full of loses. But you have huge experience, knowledge, and resources to make big Step ahead and be the first in that race.

Audrey Chia: 5:02

I love that. I love that you say that even though you are, you know, your journey could be full of like losses and maybe failures, right? But then you gain so much more experience to move faster than everyone else. I think you also said something about reinvesting your resources, right? And making the product better. So, given that you're a service based company, right? How do you actually make that service or offer better from, you know, the first version?

Taras Oliinyk: 5:27

Yeah, sure. So, the most know, like simple way is to have a cost dev with your clients. So we usually know, like thinking about the feedback, always asking for this and trying to make it better. So that's the first thing, which always help us. Another thing we have like. The service brainstorms in the team. So it's like when we're sitting together and we are starting revamping everything from the user journey perspective, so what is the service in general? It's like an opportunity to make somebody's life easier. So let's think how we can make a. Our client's life easier. Maybe if you'll integrate Stripe and we'll have a payment via link, it'll be easier as in via transfers. Yes. Let's do this. That's a service. Wow. Okay. If you can follow up our client, not one time per month, but three times per week. I. Is it okay? Yes, because that guy will be always up to date with the progress. So we know like things like that always like monthly we are doing, just to be sure is that our service is good. And of course we are asking about the feedback in the chat via interviews, via calls, and it's always know like opportunity to be better and better and better. Of course, in service business you cannot be ideal. I guess that's impossible, but you can be better than your competitors and that's like actually business looks like if you. Step away from your competitor, you are more successful. That's it. So that's how we usually. Thinking about that and making improvements with the service. But for example, in startup works in different areas. So let's say about sellings, we just had, you know, like some sale meetings. It was unsuccessful. Cool. Why it was unsuccessful. Just let's ask client why he not bought our service. And based on that feedback loops, we are okay in next meeting we should have a good micro, for example, or in next meeting we should have, you know, like better objections to be sure that we are on the same page or better offer or interesting proposal, whatever. So always interaction by interaction in each specific sector of the company. We can integrate the startup stuff and use it as our advantage. Of course I definitely have. Much more loses than my competitors, but at the same time, I have more victories than them. So I guess that's the most important

Audrey Chia: 7:30

I. Yeah. Wow. I love that mentality. Right? And it's really like putting in the reps until you get to a point where you know what you have learned enough and now you're able to execute it for the next client and know that you have a higher chance of success. Now, you also talked about ai, right? So what was that pivot like for you? Because for a lot of service-based companies, for example, my copywriting consultancy, I also had to make the pivot and figure out how on earth do I integrate AI into my business? So. How was that for your business? What kind of changes did you guys make? Yeah,

Taras Oliinyk: 8:01

sure. Honestly, I can say, first of all, it's again the service based stuff. So we just like, we exploring ai, not like as the tool or something like that. We exploring this. Is the good, good assistant is a good service because, it can make our life easier. So, first of all, what we've started, we've just made a couple of GPT votes, which helping us with the proposals, with the replies to emails, with the messages. So I was like watched one time as my sales guy writing email by himself and it. Took him maybe a couple of hours and I'm just like, man, you are really crazy why we are paying you money. You have to actually do something by ai. Why we have to wait. And in that case, we've started to know, like to using ai firstly for the communication purposes even, you know, like sometimes we just using dictionary, you know, like to say something and AI will prepare the prompt, the answer for us. So it saves ton of time because when we have. Actually 30 clients. We have 25 people, we have two, four project managers, for example. That's really hard to talk to everyone, so just optimize the time. By communication, we've started using ai, first of all, for that purpose. And of course, if you're talking about technical aspects, we are design company. And AI can do really crazy stuff. First of all, it can generate for you lots of ideas. AI can be your friend, you can actually talk to him. You can, you know, like in the last years we've just like talked to ourselves when we wanted to do something, but now we can talk to AI and it's much more productive. We can exchange the ideas, we can have new inspiration. So that's really like a best friend. Another thing, structuring of the processes. You don't need to think about grammar stuff. You don't need to think about form. You just have to put the best and the biggest value you have. I. Even AI doesn't have it, actually your brain. So we just need to put this and AI will structure it and will make it even better. So that's another way how we're using this. And maybe the last one, of course, it's graphic design. So we just using AI to generate pictures, to generate graphics, to generate inspiration. After that, we using another AI to transform that picture into vector graphic, for example, and another AI to make it actually animated. So that's really crazy because now we have a lot of. Tools and we just need as a designers to have idea and after that, AI will do the rest. So that's, you know, like the sort and maybe the biggest, way how we're using AI and how we integrated that tool to our systems. And yeah, that's, maybe that's it.

Audrey Chia: 10:27

I think in that single kind of train of thought, you already have so many ideas for business owners who are listening to this podcast on how they can leverage ai, right? Leveraging it for your communications, your internal operations. That is one way asking it to bounce ideas with you. That is another way, and then also using it in your disease. Design slash copywriting process. I think you would see a lot of perhaps potential savings from that. I have seen huge productivity savings. What are kind of like tangible, you know, time or cost savings that you have seen for your business while using ai?

Taras Oliinyk: 11:01

I can say like the biggest value, if that's a question. I believe time saving. And of course, idea generation. When you have no like opportunity to get to the internet, to check everything, to brainstorm something, you have more freedom in general. And even our company name U Encore, that's not like we've invented by ourselves. AI just helped to do that. So, you know, like that's a really interesting story because we've started with, you know, like some ideas. We had one only vision. We are building unicorns. So we are working with startups and our long-term vision to build a unicorn for our client. And, we just like said, Chad, GPT, please help us. We have that vision, what we can do. And we started to thinking about it, a couple ideas from ai, a couple ideas from the team, and we just like, okay, let's have something similar to the unicorn. Let's use UAN core. But why UAN core? U one. It's like ui, user interface, user first, U first, whatever. That's a lot of sense. Corn. Corn is like, like a vegetable. We cannot use it. Corn, let's use another word. And it's just like, okay, if you wanna be a partner for the companies, for the startups, we should be a core of their business. So let's say core and boom, you want core. thank you to GPT for inspiration. It's really helped us to make a brand guideline, and I can say even more once we made at the branding, the brand power was so huge and we received more than 100,000 K of profit only because of rebrand here, because lots of clients, even now the biggest clients we had, they just like, we scroll to lots of agencies and we just like found you with that. Unicorn on your logo. Cool name. We just got the idea from the beginning. We decided to visit your website. In your website. We just get the full understanding of you and we started the, conversations with you and after that, we actually transformed them to the clients and approximately it's 100 K, and. I can say even more. It continuously growing because the brand becomes powerful. We have lots of brand activities right now, so we only only expand on this topic because we are fully confident. So that's a long-term story. And again, thanks AI for helping us.

Audrey Chia: 13:11

And I think that's also a testament to the power of branding, right? Because people sometimes don't realize how powerful branding can be. And maybe the, the smaller companies might be like, oh, but why do I need branding? I'm just, I'm selling something, right? Do I really need that? But that's really such an incredible story of how brand can help you to position yourself apart in the marketplace and speak directly to the audience that you want so that they can relate to your brand. I think, the seed of the idea actually came from the human, not the ai. Right. And the seed of the idea came from, the team came from that starting thought of let's build unicorns. And I think that's the beautiful part about that human AI kind of, combination. Right. Do you also find yourself, you know, really bringing both the human and the AI in your own creative processes, how does that look like for you guys?

Taras Oliinyk: 13:59

Mm, I can say like the biggest human I. Let's say treasure here, it's the idea. So once we have the clear vision of what stands behind and how it should look like, we can go to AI for some support or just, polishing that idea. And after that we have the clear result, even let's say with the perplexity, I guess you definitely know about that. So that's a nice tool to have more advanced storage in the web with AI and as designers, as the product designers, we usually making this research, we usually making different discoveries and you know, like if you'll just say to perplexity, please make a research for us if doesn't work, because perplexity will not know what you exactly need. And as the expert, as the human, you have to be sure that you have a good prompt. Like I need research. About specific topic in specific timeframe. In specific world, in specific areas. And after that, AI can help. So I guess here is like connection between human and let's say artificial intelligence. When you. Giving a right prompt when you have a clear vision and goal and you need AI as your agent, as your helper, to optimize it and get you final result based on your vision, based on your prompt. So that's how I see it. And I guess it's really beautiful. And then somebody just saying AI doesn't work. Yeah. You know, like, we stole our job. Yes, it'll, but only if you don't have your own brains. In that case, AI will stall your job, but in other way, it's a great assistant, which you can definitely use. And again, I'm guessing on, I just already mentioned more than 10 ideas, how you can do this, but we are using it in more and more areas, so, yeah.

Audrey Chia: 15:45

And I think having that vision for what you are looking for helps a lot because it gives you the direction and then when you craft, like what you say, right, a prompt, it then becomes really specific because you as a human are giving that control. And that control then gives AI the ability to find answers to your questions, which matters a lot. Now, I know that you have also worked on building quite a number of AI sales platforms, right? By, you know, building so many AI CS platforms. What kind of trends have you been seeing so far? Because I know you have worked on many projects before.

Taras Oliinyk: 16:19

yeah, sure. So, you know, like, huh, that's a good one. We made one product, the main goal of this product using AI technology. Optimize sales process. So in short, they call into the client usually by phone, but it's really takes time to discuss something, to chat with that client and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's really hard, and the main goal of this product is to automate that process. And AI should be like a real agent. It should be like a real person, like a salesman. And we made lots of things like that. Everyone just trying to make something like this. And I guess the biggest trend here is the optimization. And, training of the AI model because even in that product, users has opportunity to edit the prompt, to reset the settings, to improve the script. And biggest trend I see is the hyper customization because. Everyone already able to identify where is AI and where is the real person. But if you have a good prompt, if you have a good, vision behind it, it's not so easy. So that is actually what we made for that client. And biggest strength, I guess it's of course. Using AI for routine tasks and using AI for selling, I guess. Why? Because sellings, it's like asking the right question and listening. So that's what sales, and as we can see, AI really can listen well, and AI really can talk to you and ask really right questions. So because of that. That's maybe a biggest trend, you know, like to optimize, optimize the processes and stay more neutral in the communication. Moreover, another trend with the agents, let's say it's a good, good things because it's a workflows, even a couple of content in my LinkedIn, it's automated because AI agent actually grabbing the topic, sending it to GPT after that, receiving the copy and posting in my LinkedIn, so that's like. A couple of seconds for the ai, but I really don't know if it was assumption or not. It's just doing the job. I know a guy actually, which prompted to the GPT everything I. What he has in the fridge and asked GPT to develop for him a personal like nutrition plan. And moreover, he connected that to Uber Eats. Actually, it's something different in Ukraine we have, but similar to Uber Eats. He just integrated this to Uber Eats. Boom. AI knows actually what are in the fridge. AI knows what he should eat. It's today and after that, AI actually can scan what needs to be bought in the grocery store and send in the request to Uber. And after that, that guy only paying for this and grabbing actually the product. Everything just by AI and that's crazy. That's a lot. I guess the biggest trend for the next couple of years, I believe most things will be fully, automated and, even simple things like that, like nutrition, like products, like groceries. So I guess that's the main trend. And I'm really worried what people will do if everything will be done by ai. I guess maybe we will start thinking about real future and invention, which we can see in futuristic films.

Audrey Chia: 19:33

Yeah, I think it's both exciting and maybe a tad bit scary, but I think if you actively take the time to still move your mind and your body, of course, then you'll still find ways to you know, be relevant, be interesting, and still experience the humanness the way it should be. Now, I think you also talked about, you know, Scaling your company from zero to 500 KARR, right. That is a massive feat. Was that done with the support of AI or even before ai, you were already growing the company at this pace?

Taras Oliinyk: 20:05

No, definitely with ai. I guess we've started just in six months after AI revolution and AI helped us, I guess, to reach that success because again. Business plans, even financial, actually predictions. I just gave a metrics to the ai. After that I received a calculation and step by step guide what I have to do to reach that things. Even in the company, we just have a joke. We say, who is the best employee of the month? Ai, always ai. So that's like a best friend of everyone Here we are using this for a while. We're using this for the workflow. We're using this in the hard times. So I guess we started with this at the beginning and without ai, I believe. We've not reached that level of success we have right now because again, if something can be done in a couple of hours with ai, it can be done in a couple of minutes. And if you will, you know, like track all of these little things, you'll see that we saved maybe a couple of years. I. In growing because of the ai. So I guess that's maybe a secret of the speed we have because we optimizing everything possible. Of course, we don't have a lots of processes yet, but I believe with AI we can have them really soon. So, yeah.

Audrey Chia: 21:18

And I think it's beautiful that your company as a whole is running with ai, right? Because what I've noticed is a lot of the larger companies, they're like, I'm not sure about ai. So they're sitting on the fence and then they don't really give their team the time and space to explore. And even if the team does it, it's always in silo. So there's no clear company AI operations, there's no clear work processes, which then slows them down, right?

Taras Oliinyk: 21:41

Yeah, totally, totally agree with you. I am even right now, we just thinking like how we can optimize something. For example, app work. We just using this for lead generation. Boom. We have a tool which automates proposals and cover letter creation. So we fired two people because we know needs them anymore. AI just doing that job. But at outside, we just hired the people again, but with the different positions. But I guess, right now we are in the time when we trying to make sure that everything optimized. Moreover, I heard about AI tools, which can. Replace all the performance with, AI agent, which can work while you're sleeping. So I guess we are going to that direction and maybe next couple of months we will have even more things optimized by ai. And when I'm saying optimized and not meant like we just optimize it and we forgot about that. No, we have strategic value. We have strategic power and control of it. But the old job has operated by ai and that's good because we are saving money, we're saving time, and we are really moving fast.

Audrey Chia: 22:46

Yes. I think one thing you said that stood out to me was you said you fired your team members, but then you hired them for something else. Right. So I think that is the secret, right? Because people think that with AI, jobs are going to be replaced, which is true, but also new jobs and roles could be created. Now let's talk about the design or creative space in general. How do you think the future is gonna change with ai? And perhaps what should people start? Doing about it because someone might still be like, I'm not touching AI because it's not creative, it's not for me. and I'm still gonna be on the other side of the fence. So what are your thoughts on the evolution of the creative space?

Taras Oliinyk: 23:20

Yeah, actually, I mean, it's scary even about that because I believe designer's job will be changed completely. Even right now, we can see the first generation of. AI designers, that's the people who doing design using AI technology. And that's already a big jump, I guess, because five years ago that position just doesn't exist. But right now, boom, we have this, I see lots of courses in educational programs like Join us today and tomorrow we will graduate with. And you, and you are all, you will have a grad, actually a degree of AI designer. So I guess that's how it will look like. nobody will need a common ui, ux, or product designers in the future. Everyone will need a. Experts, which can run a business, build a product, make a graphics, make a branding, whatever. But using AI or honestly doesn't matter what used, but it should be done really quick. So because, design will live forever, everything what around us. It's design. However, actually design creation really has impact. Design can increase your revenue. Design can make better conversions. Design can bring you investments, and it'll be forever, it'll not never changed, but the process of doing that will change. And for example, if. Our current designer, let's say, will charge$40 and 20 hours to make a website. He will lose competition to the designer, which will be able to work with 100 bucks per hour, but to work in two hours and build a website. Because actually, even if he expensive in total, it's less expensive. But the most important, it's time. He can do that in two hours instead of 20. And how he can do that, he can do that because of ai, because of operating AI tools. when somebody just saying like, oh, if AI can do a logo for me, I don't need you. But that's honestly, that's bullshit because, nobody, I. Have a time to really be sure that they are professionals in ai. So of course we have lots of things to optimize the processes. We even can build a house by ourselves, but we are not doing that because we have professionals which can do that, and we don't have time to do that. So the same is ai, and I believe designers. We'll still remain the trend and really needed position and role in the business world. However, designer which leverage AI through the process, which working faster, which working better and smarter. We'll be out of competition because he'll be just the best. He will have capacity, pricing and offer, which will be the best market fit for everyone. So that's, I guess we will have a revolution when, you know, like we will go from common figma designing and, design process into. AI design process creation results will stay the same. What we have now will be the same, what we'll have in five years, but the process of creating will be completely different. And the guys who will be AI product builders, they will be more successful, I guess, than common designers, which will do the work in the old approach. Let's not like. To analyze this topic. I can even remember 2018 before that everyone was used to work in Photoshop to make a website, but after that, Figma just launched and what happened? Designers, which work in Photoshop lost everything because Photoshop is so slow, it's not so cool like fema because of the implementation and. Photoshop took some more time to create something and clients like, why we have to pay more for the Photoshop development if you have a guy which already works in Figma, so it'll be even cheaper and quicker for us, so let's use him. And revolution happened. Everyone forgot about Photoshop. So the same will happen here. The alt approach will actually be the past and the new approach using AI technology will be a high trend. And designers who knows that already. We'll be really valuable for everyone.

Audrey Chia: 27:22

Yeah. And I think it's not even a thing that's gonna happen in the future. It's already happening. Yeah. Now. Right. And you can already see that companies are already making that shift. I think we are still probably in the, I. First 10 percentile of people using ai. But I think as companies realize that AI is here to stay, and the ROI of it, that shift is gonna happen and it's gonna happen very quickly. And then with that, then my question to you is, do you have the skillsets to adapt, to evolve and to be relevant in this new space? So speaking of Figma, like the one you said replacing, you know. What Photoshop used to do. I know that there are a few Figma AI tactics that you guys are also implementing. Could you show us what is perhaps possible right now?

Taras Oliinyk: 28:07

Yeah, sure. So let me do this. Honestly, what I said about the skills we, I'm not sure if you know everything you know, but we must know that the next even months I guess. So it's totally really something, we should work. Cool. Okay, so let's show something. So that's a Figma. So here we usually making designs and every design starts with, you know, like a common frame creation. And after that we just put in like buttons here, adding some text, and usually it's like this. Process of researching process, of making designs, creating content, and placing everything by other hand. So it's really takes time and that. An old approach. What we can do already in Figma using ai, we can hit this perfect button in actually in the bottom and the magic will happen. So first of all, let's say like create a wire frame of. The website, let's say. Great. A more frame for the website. Yeah. Let's see. Actually, you can use a things, so that's another AI plugin in Figma, So that's actually how AI works and in general, we made a good wire frame just in seconds, and that work usually takes, again, another 20 hours. So just by simple interaction in that revenue, we've saved maybe 40 hours just in one minute. And in that case, actually you can even, export this to the Figma. Let's use this one. or actually it'll take some time. So I will go directly to the Figma already and I wanna show you something else. For example, we have this hello World text. And using Figma ai, we now need to know, like copywriting things already. We can use translation and translate this, for example, to Dutch. Boom.

Audrey Chia: 30:10

Wow. This more handy. Wow.

Taras Oliinyk: 30:13

Absolutely. And we can actually rewrite this. Let's make it more bigger rewrite. And let's see, Uhhuh make changes. Why actually more casual. Let's make it more longer. Maybe in that case it'll be more clear. I no longer say about weather today. I'm going that way and let's see how it will work. Boom. And we have already a piece of content so you know, like, you know, need to go to change DPT, get back after that and et cetera. We already have a content which we can. Keep on the website and you know, need to spend time by generating something. We just already have things to discuss, things to do, and honestly, I wanna know how it sounds already. So let's translate this to the English back and let's see how it goes.

Audrey Chia: 31:17

It is so cool that everything is housed now on Figma, and you don't even have to go to any other platform for it.

Taras Oliinyk: 31:23

Totally, and that's only Figma stuff. But for example, that's something which from plugins, from the out for the external links, but in Figma itself, we can actually. Show version history. Make something, transform something to the to the image lock. Unlock. Make some spellings. Check spellings. By the way, it's very good things because in design you usually making lots of typos and usually speak my ai. We already can check if that's any issues there and to be sure that everything can works really well. So. It's really cool and using, again, lots of clients, hypo ai, image trace umab. We can use external help to make things better, to make things faster, and that's, I guess, the most interesting thing of Figma and. I guess with the last update, we already have opportunity even to launch your website already from Figma, so we can generate a TML to assess code for you. So for example, if you will go to the the browser right now, I will show you the website, which was built completely in Figma without even coding. We used Figma AI to code even a design we made. So the whole development took us one day. you know, need right now, a couple of, you know, like weeks to make a simple landing page. We already can do this just straight away in Figma. So firstly, I will, oh, what I'm showing. Firstly, I will show you. Our new website using that technology. And after that I will show you how it works in Figma. So you no need to spend hours by doing that. You already can have it. So that website was completely built in Figma, completely even coding using ai. So let's wait when it'll be loaded and I will show you, because we already started, you know, like to using this advantage as the service. Because yeah, somebody you know, like needs to have a website in just 24 hours, and we cannot use small and old practices to make it happen. We have to go fast and because of this Figma is that new features allowing us to make it so we just design it. Even this website completely in Figma for I guess four hours, no more. Wow,

Audrey Chia: 33:39

this is so cool. Yeah,

Taras Oliinyk: 33:42

we designed this in code just in Figma for three hours.

Audrey Chia: 33:49

it's so cool that you're using Figma to design it and then offering it as the service. Yeah, exactly. To have other people design it is like mind blown. Using it for yourself and then also to serve other people. And then that's your unique value proposition that is very smart.

Taras Oliinyk: 34:04

Yeah, exactly. So you know, like we just. Decided, okay, if you wanna sell Figma ai site, which can be built in a couple of hours, so let's make something for ourselves and use it as the case study. So how we can sell something if you're not using that. So that's the reason why we, you know, like started with the Our own approach. And after that, start selling this to everyone else because again, I just shown for you this already in the browser, but if you'll open this file in the Figma. We'll clearly see that it was done here. Yeah, that's a Figma design of it. So we just made a design responsiveness and all of these things was generated by ai and even the code of this website was generated by ai. So yeah, we already have a name. We already have a domain. You already have all of these things and everything just using AI and Figma, so that's really crazy story.

Audrey Chia: 34:58

And the, the crazy part is I'm not a designer or a web developer, but I see, and I know it's, I appreciate the beauty and the thought and the process, and I can see how much time savings, it gives you while keeping the quality high. And as you can tell, it's still beautifully designed. There's a lot of thought and intention that goes behind it, just that now you're doing it in like four hours instead of weeks.

Taras Oliinyk: 35:19

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Because yeah, lots of no-code tools already exist in the world, but I guess Figma is their last update. It'll be the best because again, a couple of hours, a couple of, yeah, just hours. And you have fully customizable website already coded using AI technology in Figma, and it's really easy to edit because you just editing. Something in the design, which is so easy, and it's already edited in the published version. So that's really cool. And you don't need, you know, like to pay for the hosting. You just. Can connect your domain here in the settings and wow, connect Google Analytics if you want, and boom, that's it. You know, need something else. Everything just here without hosting the Ns, whatever. So it's really smooth. I guess that's a new era of making something. And the website world, the development world already has changed and I believe more things will come in near future.

Audrey Chia: 36:13

This is super exciting. I, I think it's also very refreshing to see that, because I don't play in this space, but I know of other designers and when I look at, for example, their WordPress processes compared to this, it's a whole world of difference and it's like. What is happening? When? How? How are we running at that speed when you can create something that is so amazing on Figma AI right now? Right. And that's the power of, I guess, knowledge, expertise, and the willingness to try learning and using AI tools. It's gonna really set you apart from everyone else super quickly, especially during this window. Maybe to, to then wrap up on a couple of, you know, final questions that I have. Right. I wanna talk a bit about your own journey as an entrepreneur. I know that you've done this for quite some time and you really have mastered the art of that lean startup methodology. What is one biggest lesson that you have learned on, on your this journey?

Taras Oliinyk: 37:11

Mm. Nice question. I believe the biggest lesson is. To go fast and be never afraid to try again and to, you know, like to lose because I believe if, actually that's a really popular quote, it's scary. It's only when you jump and if you jump, you are already higher than everyone else. You are already moving forward, so you don't need to be afraid. About the loses, about the problems, about the issues, you know, need to overthink. You just need to do the job, do the job quickly, test lots of things, lose too many times, but the most important win as well too many times. So I guess the biggest lesson is to always believe, be quick, be fast, and never afraid about any loses and issues because. Each lose, each crisis, each problem. It's your opportunity to grow because only under stress conditions you can grow. And again. Scary is only when you jump and if you already jump, you are moving in the right direction, you're moving forward. So I believe that's not like the best lesson I've received in that year and I want to continue in that way to move forward always and as well. That's a good point. Move forward. Even if you fall, you have to fall forward. So that's it.

Audrey Chia: 38:37

That's an important point for forward and maybe what's one thing you would tell people who are in the design slash creative space? What is maybe one piece of advice you can give them AI related or not?

Taras Oliinyk: 38:48

Mm-hmm. I would give one AI related. So first one, you shouldn't be scary about ai. You should integrate ai. Somebody thinks like AI is the big threat to the creative industry. But in reality, that's a big, big opportunity. So you definitely have to be sure that it'll help you and if you can integrate ai, do that, and actually not AI advice to the creative founders. I believe. Value of their work. So they should understand is that they not making pictures, videos, graphics, icons, you know, like these things which everyone saying, ha, that's easy to create a logo that's easy to create a graphic that's easy to create a banner. But again, all our services. Our big, big business tools, which can change everything, which can even our rebranding it print us too much revenue. And just that, just a logo, just the branding, just the design of everyone's saying, but no creative space is really huge. Huge value. Huge, huge business. I can say accelerator stuff because, When everything in this world will die, creativity and actually visuals will stay remains alive. It'll be alive. And using creative, creative tools, we can control people's emotions. We can engage people to do certain actions. So my biggest advice to really. Value your creative job, your creative outcomes you are doing, and in that case, you'll be always successful because you are knowing what you're selling. You know your product market feed. And if you know that if you're busy with product market feed, your business will continue perform. That's it.

Audrey Chia: 40:37

Wow. Thank you for that. And with that, Taras, where can people find you and who should reach out to you?

Taras Oliinyk: 40:43

honestly, you can find me in LinkedIn. You can find me in my YouTube channel, so you can definitely reach me there. So I'm completely open and transport to everyone who is in search and who is in the journey of building the company in creative space. I'm completely open to send the advice. Give some consultations if needed, because I was at the same position and I was like always in charge of somebody who can help me, and I really was so happy when somebody helped me. So I wanna be the same. And you can definitely reach me LinkedIn, by email, Instagram, YouTube, whatever. And feel free to text me if you need anything related to the creative business, to the AI integration. And in general, if you wanna talk about cool stuff.

Audrey Chia: 41:27

Paris, you have been one of my most inspiring speakers on the podcast. Thank you for sharing your insights, and thank you again folks for tuning in. Don't forget to hit the bell for more actionable AI and marketing insights. We'll see you next week. Take care.

Taras Oliinyk: 41:42

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, and yeah, thank you.