Founder-First Philosophy Disrupts Asia: Why Adil Nurgozhin’s Big Sky Capital Approach Works

Anthony Codispoti : Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codispoti and today’s guest is Adil Nurgozhin, founding partner at Big Sky Capital, DC. His firm is dedicated to guiding early stage startups towards success through a founder-first mentality. With a $20 million fund won, they aim to support entrepreneurs in emerging markets, particularly those building powerful software and tech solutions. Big Sky Capital has been recognized for its innovative approach, earning multiple accolades and helping founders shape the future of industries like Vintech and SaaS. Adil himself brings a wealth of expertise from his previous roles in venture capital and board membership, where he honed skills in deal structuring, risk management and fundraising. His background includes an MBA from the University of Montana and executive education from NCAD focusing on leading digital transformation and innovation. Before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at adbackbenefits.com. Alright back to our guest today, the managing partner at Big Sky Capital. Adil, I appreciate you making the time to share your story today. Good to see you, Anthony. So Adil, you’ve had a lot of experience investing and sitting on the boards of different companies. We’re talking about Kazakhstan, Singapore, USA. I’m curious, what first sparked your interest in the world of startups?

Adil Nurgozhin : Well it kind of started all the way down, all the way back to the university in IceCo, where we did all kind of interesting stuff in terms of entrepreneurship experience. We were selling the newspapers on the streets in Sartu, Magic, and it sounded really, really something, maybe you will see in retro movies.

But that was it. There was a newspaper named Caravan that was distributed just like that on the streets, where the cars were driving and one of my ickyles just bought me a bunch of documents, papers like 100 pieces and said, sell all this, whatever my money, make it all yours. And then doing, you know, trying to buy wholesale watermelons and then selling those by cutting, go kind of stuff like that. Very emerging markets, very streets, very poor country at the time, where I’m from in Kazakhstan. And that was the early 90s when everyone was doing something just to survive and to put you know, some bread on the table. And that’s how we grew up and we had to move all the time. It becomes a habit and becomes part of you and you just continue, you know, doing stuff. So it’s a poor environment.

Anthony Codispoti : You guys have to work hard just to put bread on the table. Why was it you were moving around all the time? Was there a safety issue?

Adil Nurgozhin : But it actually was. I mean, any movie that you could see about Latin America, I guess it’s easier to imagine or any kind of Asian poor country. It was a very similar story in Kazakhstan at the time. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the country was in very deep crisis. We had inflation of 1000% per year. And sometimes we couldn’t make it to the store with the money that my mom gave me to buy a piece of bread. And I had to ask the shopkeeper to cut it into half because my money was not as helpful.

We’ve gone through that. My dad was working in three jobs. He comes back at whatever he comes back and then he takes our old Mazda on the streets and drives all the way until four or five o’clock in the morning just to bring something to the table. It was that kind of situation that led to a formation, if you wish, when we have to just move, continue moving.

A lot of street fights, very different kind of back of a grouac. But then all of a sudden we discovered oil in Kazakhstan and in whatever three years situation changed, everything started all of a sudden developing 11% GDP growth and the whole thing skyrads. And within one generation we saw poverty, we saw crazy money, we saw skyscrapers, all kind of developments and it’s all in one life. So it was a lot of change and there is no stability and I guess you kind of get used to it if that’s possible. When you used to do stuff.

Anthony Codispoti : How old were you when the oil was discovered and things started to change very rapidly?

Adil Nurgozhin : So the oil discovered was long time ago, Soviet geologists did it, but never no one managed to put it into a capacity or a proper oil field development. Only a few companies in the world at the time possessed those technologies like Chevron, like those big guys. So in 1994 or 95 I don’t remember, the first contract was signed with the American company Chevron at the time and then within another three to five years all the rest of them came like you name it.

And I, Italians, Conoco, Philips, Shell, whatever, everyone British withdrawal impacts Japanese, everyone and everyone started to use. It’s a very, it was at the time, very deep kind of oil field, you only have to drill very deep and has its own complexities because the oil is heavy. It’s not like Arab sweet or any Brent or anything like that. It’s very, it has a lot of sulfur, what do you call it sulfuric, was it sulfur? Serum, whatever.

Anthony Codispoti : All kind of other chemicals that makes it very difficult. Yeah, it’s harder to get it out from there. You need to do the separation work well, but anyway. So those companies start showing up, opening the offices and drilling it and etc. Finally proving it and putting it properly to the balance by the George standard to whatever the standards they have in oil and gas and then

Adil Nurgozhin : finally the country start kind of pulling itself out of the deep shit that it was. I got myself into a scholarship with Kazakh Turkish school that kind of kept me out of the streets because they put us into the boarding school and they taught us English and Turkish and other languages and took care of us. It essentially was a charity project at the time by some Turkish foundation. How did you qualify?

How did you get in? I was in a regular public school and then they did all kind of tests on us, which now I remember was way ahead of the time. So if you know what is Gallup test, they did something like that on to us, not only mathematics, English and all the science stuff that you usually do on whatever, 6th, 8th, 9th, 7th grade, but they also do a proper psychological test and then identified probably identified the other skills or leadership characteristics or whatever, something.

And that was a big chunk of the decision making process and assessment. And then that’s how they identified those kids, I think, because all of our alumni guys are all successful, not a single person failed in their life.

Anthony Codispoti : They identified some early traits in you, said, hey, these people, including a deal yourself, you’re well positioned for success, you’re bright, you have these capabilities, get into this boarding school, that helps to set you up for future success because they’re teaching you the foundations of what you need to know. They’re teaching you foreign languages. And so when you leave that school, how did you eventually find yourself in sort of the world of startups?

Adil Nurgozhin : Yeah, so I entered in one of our national university in Kazakhstan. But I only studied the first year. I found it very boring. My major was law and then inside that was an international law minor. I kind of got bored easily out of that stuff. Then we were having a lot of friends who did the used car business. We did a lot of import expert operations from China, cheap cell phones, all kind of fake shit that was selling fast and cheap.

I said, it could take a signal, all right. So we drove 300 kilometers towards the border that we have with China and just smuggled it in. I took it from the smugglers and then went back to the city and distributed and sold it. And then because my English was allowing me to communicate with all the traders that was very helpful. The other thing we did was we opened the company trying to be close with the foreigners who entered the country. And then in the app or they have this special hall, like whatever hallway VIP or VVIP, where they pass through all these fancy people coming from oil and gas. Some other fancy companies, they need a translator and they need the butler to handle the luggage and make sure they’re in time, blah, blah, blah, blah. The chauffeur is in time.

So we organized the company that essentially provided such services. What you do is you remember what this particular dude likes to drink, for instance, a macallan. And he likes to read the Washington Post and then he has his own very table and he comes five minutes before the departure, not earlier than that. He has one assistant that comes like 20 minutes before, handle the luggage, blah, blah, blah, family, lover, whomever. You have to know all the names and you have to just make sure everyone’s happy, put everything in place. And then he kind of gets used to you as a part of interior. And when you’re not there, he kind of misses you. It’s like the bottom on the particular place of the toilet that even if you’re half asleep, you still go like push it. And if you don’t find it, something’s wrong, something like that.

Anthony Codispoti : So you’re saying you were the partner of the handle on the toilet?

Adil Nurgozhin : Yeah, yeah, whatever. Yeah, toilet door or a hanger that is there, you know, put your hat and you just throw it, you know, it’s there. What if I’m not there?

Anthony Codispoti : I like that better. I don’t want to refer you as a part of a toilet. I think maybe the, yeah, the hat hook.

Adil Nurgozhin : Yeah, I don’t mind. I don’t really, I don’t care. So yeah, and then if they’re in a good mood, they’d call some fancy deal, they just gives you know, like a tip, which is like my monthly normal budget to leave. You know, that includes rent and my food and whatever, everything including my fun.

So all of a sudden I start having money. I fired three of my fellow students and four of us were serving all these people. Most of the flights were at night. So we work like shifts, you know, 24 hours you work in the airport, you never get out. And then you pick up one day and then you go another shift.

And we usually do doubles because at the peak when the defense or KLM or American Airlines or United, somebody lands large, it’s impossible to serve all of them and they need attention those people. So, so that kind of business we did, he brought a lot of money actually, it was pretty good. I bought myself an old used Hyundai the time. It’s pretty, pretty happy. We, we went clubbing, dating, burning money.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, and I mean, just from the couple of stories that you’ve shared, clearly there’s an entrepreneurial, smuggling stuff across the border, you know, phones and all kinds of shit.

Adil Nurgozhin : Yeah, this kind of stuff. I eventually graduated. I eventually graduated the university. In between, I got a couple other scholarships. State department was at the time and Source Foundation was distributing on the competition base and the one year exchange program student, whatever is sponsored by the taxpayers of the United States of America, pretty much. And then I got into, dragged into one of those programs I somehow wanted and they sent me all over to Montana and I was 18. Oh, no, I was 19. Yeah, I was 19 sophomore year student flying all over from Kazakhstan first time in Montana. I saw the plane for the first time. It was a very long parking flight. It took me, I don’t know how long it took me two days to reach.

Anthony Codispoti : It’s a long flight from Asia to the US. Yeah.

Adil Nurgozhin : Yeah, and I made it to Montana that way. And hence, hence that’s where I met Jean, my partner now at Big Sky Capital and hence the Big Sky is the name. It’s a big sky country. That’s how the whole thing starts developing. That, that place was one of the, one of the, one of the places.

Anthony Codispoti : So is John American or was he an international student as well?

Adil Nurgozhin : He was an international. He was the first Kazakh who arrived there even earlier, even weirder ways. Because he came when he was 16 right after the high school from a deep sheet place called Taras, which is, which is nobody knows that it exists actually. It doesn’t matter.

It’s a dot on the spot. He was a capital of criminal activities at the time. The gangs were fighting every day and somebody’s dead. So there was a, some kind of church, one of those American churches.

I don’t even remember what was the name of that church anyway. So they, they took him in and he flew to Montana. Parents were happy because he was off the streets and he wouldn’t get shot or stabbed.

So whatever they sent him off and gave him $200 and fucking go. He went to a high school, the church sponsored that and somehow get into Montana University and then, and then the story goes from there. And I arrived third year of his being, him being there, or fourth year.

By the time he’s already applied for citizenship or whatever, something else, he, he was no longer the member of that church. He was a member of the athletic team of the university for, I don’t even know for what, for running, I guess. He cannot run really. Just he got in somehow.

It doesn’t matter. It’s just so that there was a place to leave. And, you know, he was, he was cleaning the toilets. He was a janitor for the dorm and they used to have a room down at the basement for those people who you can live for free. There’s a small window there, but then you clean the toilets.

So you don’t have to pay for the dorm. Yeah. He survived that. He was just one of those crazy survivors. I was the luckier out of us too, actually, because I’m still winning some kind of scholarships and like, I know something, whatever. So I arrived there. We met and did all kinds of stuff there together. We become friends and we kept in touch since then. It doesn’t matter what the distance was.

Anthony Codispoti : So how did the idea come about for you and John to start Big Sky Capital? What was the inspiration there?

Adil Nurgozhin : So in between him and I, we did seven or eight ventures together. Out of that, in last whatever, since 2001. So how many years past? 24 years past? Yeah. 24 years past since then. So we did whatever, more noting, the moving, roofing, whatever. Did the used car exporting to Kazakhstan because all those fancy big hummers at the time were becoming popular. So what we did is we cut them half and then we brought them to Kazakhstan. He sent them off and I met them there at the customs. I took them and cleared them and then we extended it and put the elements in part.

Anthony Codispoti : Lengthwise here.

Adil Nurgozhin : Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We rented those for the weddings and blah blah blah stuff like that. And then Toyota Cambry is the most popular car in Kazakhstan. It’s better than the gold. It was at the time.

Most reliable car. You can sell it anytime. Mostly quit. Never lose this value.

Actually gains value all the time. So we didn’t have an official dealership of Toyota at the time in the country. So what was happening is I was just going there by collecting money from all the neighbors from whomever I could get money, getting his money, my money combined, essentially crowdfunding and getting one used Cambry after another or used Highlander, whatever used Toyota who could get a hands on in a better shape and send it either from New Jersey ports or Miami ports to Kazakhstan. And then I used to sell them there and then send the money and then do the whole thing again. Stuff like that. Doing that, eventually we kind of separated our way.

So I went back to Kazakhstan, went to China for one year. He was doing whatever he was doing. He was always close to IT. His background is in IT and I was always on the investment side, the other side, whatever.

And then one day he calls me in 2009. He says, well, so what’s up? What are you doing?

I haven’t seen you for some time. And that was happening in between. I was a, he married once and I was his best man at that first wedding. Then they got divorced, whatever.

And then he calls me again and says blah, blah, blah. So I have this crazy idea. Let’s do a clown of LinkedIn in 2009 for Asia. It was like, the fuck is LinkedIn? He sends me the link. He says, take a look at this. So we’re going to just fucking copy it and then just do it in our language. This is like, okay.

Anthony Codispoti : Specifically for Kazakhstan. So what do you want me to do? All of Asia, what is your thinking?

Adil Nurgozhin : We just started from Kazakhstan because physically I’m there. I mean, in Central Asia. And then we named it Mumkin. Mumkin in Kazakh and in all Turkic language means the same opportunity.

But it happens that in India Mumkin also means the same in Hindi. You know, Hindi is a mix of Turkic languages and local Hinduistic languages. The north of India was Turkic, ruled by the Turkic Empire at the time. Our ancestors ruled Northern India.

That’s how we become Muslim and become what they is now for 300 years. Anyway, so we changed the language. It’s the same. It’s our word essentially that works the same way there. And that’s the part of the story. So he says, this is a startup, bro. It’s like the fucking startup.

Anthony Codispoti : Startup is what you’re doing all along. All these hustles that you guys had.

Adil Nurgozhin : Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, he said, he said, it doesn’t matter. It’s just an online business. We need to fundraise. He’s like, okay, what do you want me to do?

He helped me to fund it. Okay, no problem. Are you in?

Yeah, I mean, what do you want me to do one more time? Okay, we registered the company in Delaware and start fundraising. We managed to raise almost $500,000. Only 17% percent. Yeah, I’ll explain. I’ll tell you not.

Anthony Codispoti : Sorry. You guys are kind of nobody. Nobody’s ever heard of you. You’ve never done this before.

Adil Nurgozhin : Nobody. Yeah, we have $1.5 billion. Yeah, well, in between, yeah, in between all that stuff. So he was doing his IT business, growing his IT career. He become a project manager in IT, got all the fancy letters after his last name, all the six sigmas, all the certifications, blah, blah, blah, building a splendid career in search rigs, ultimate software, maybe an hour, all the time in IT. I was shifting towards investments after China, went back to Montana, did my MBA that time without him. And then I came back and started getting into myself into an investment part of it. So since whatever, 2005 and 2009, we did meet and all that stuff happening. I was a junior associate and then a senior associate in the private equity firm. I already understood the modeling, blah, blah, blah, everything else, like that I started applied for a CFA because everyone else was doing it. I don’t know why, whatever. I just did the first stage because I understood it was useful that I just came up. Doesn’t make sense to me to have that, whatever.

It was boring. It’s for different type of personality. It was for analytical type of people. I’m not the kind of person I can analyze, but I don’t want to see it all the time. You need to be up moving.

Anthony Codispoti : So anyway, so he kept making things happen.

Adil Nurgozhin : Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotta be, I gotta be doing something like that fun, fun stuff. So anyway, so he came to me with this idea and then 2010 I said, bro, I cannot pull it out without you. You gotta come here is your idea. You’re the main founder.

What do you want me to sell? Like, I don’t even fucking understand how it works. And he introduced me everything. The IT part I didn’t understand the business part, of course, I understand them that modeling and everything else. So I drafted a business plan kind of stuff, like first financial models, blah, blah, blah, packaged it into somewhat, somewhat reasonable data room type of stuff.

And then he came over, he moved his family and at that time he married second time. I don’t know, I’m at home, the younger ones is good night. Yeah. Yeah, good night.

Yeah. So, so, so we came in and he, he I said, just move back, bro, move Kazakhstan, your citizen already doesn’t hurt you nothing. You have the right passport discount. And let’s try fundraising. If a fundraise happened to have some cash, then you stay. If not, then you go back, we do whatever.

It’s okay. He comes for summer. And I just, you know, listed up all on whomever I could get my hands on and start talking to everyone and pitching every time we pitch, we just change the presentation, change it, change. Got to, got through like 300 people, every fucking contact I could get my hands on. We ended up having one Hungarian guy. I don’t know how did I get that guy. But anyway, his name was Sardor and the son, Shandor, and he used to work in Kazakhstan.

He was selling medical equipment. I don’t know why I know him anyway. I just pitched him. He said, I like the idea. Let me put on some cash. And since that European dude put first, whatever, 30,000 he put in, it become easier because we’ve actually did really well because it’s a Delaware company in America.

You have one American dude with me. Whatever I do, doesn’t matter because I’m a second co-founder with the smaller shares. And then we gave a little bit of shares to one of Jean’s bosses. He was at the time in Miami and maybe in Amara Bank for free, whatever, so that we could show his kind of face on every presentation.

Anthony Codispoti : Yeah, because who we are, I mean, like whatever. And he was an experimental thought. We thought it would be nice to have this kind of person behind us for the sake of it. And I didn’t know that that was the right thing to do.

It was just an experiment. And it worked out well. So I saw that guy’s like old fancy white face and then these guys, American passport and this Hungarian dude putting some cash all of a sudden, cousin people said, okay, seems like you’re selling something fancy. And that’s how it kind of chips in and got a lot of people involved and collected. Not at once, not at once, it took us, took us like a year maybe of humiliation to get somebody.

Anthony Codispoti : There’s like resiliency that’s just woven into your DNA. Because I mean, the stories that you’re telling here, you pitch 300 people, growing up in the tough streets, being concerned for your safety, just having to cut down like a piece of bread in half because that’s because of the inflation. That’s all you were able to afford in that moment.

So there’s from these hard life experiences, from your parents, I’m guessing too, like there’s a there’s a definitely a threat of resiliency here where you’re just tough, like you just bounce back and you kind of scrape through the hard stuff.

Adil Nurgozhin : This was our reality and you just, I don’t think we necessarily realized it or anyhow reflected on this. And I don’t think we actually thought about it now neither. Just part of the life, you just continue, whatever, it doesn’t matter. We’re savages, this is our background, both of us are coming from this part of the world and then we don’t mind, we don’t mind, you know, admitting it, we are comfortable saying it and we don’t give a shit. Oh, because we are. I mean, we’re, what is that word to you? We are. Yeah. We’ve gone through all kind of stuff.

It doesn’t necessarily, and we survived and the stats statistics of our generation surviving in the generation that was like three, five years older than us surviving on the street is like, whatever. After that, you don’t, you don’t care anymore. We just continue. We’re not polite. We’re not, we don’t care about all the touchy feelings things, all the new newly concepts.

They don’t stick to us because it doesn’t matter. And the day you show everything by doing. And we don’t mind talking to anybody like we don’t give a shit. I can talk to Bush. I can talk to Trump. I can’t, I don’t care.

Anthony Codispoti : You’re not intimidating. There is no authority. Impress you. They’re just people. Nothing.

Adil Nurgozhin : It doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. Doesn’t click. There’s nothing to land on. Because I don’t have even, it’s coming from a level of arrogance, I guess. And then because we don’t know who this person is and what he’s done and what was at the time Harvard and whatever, he, because we don’t know, he was easier for us to just keep moving.

Anthony Codispoti : If you know what I mean. A little bit. And I also think there’s probably an element and tell me if I’m right here that, I mean, you, you, you stared, you know, death in the face. I mean, the upbringing that you’re describing here, it’s, it’s pretty rough. And so after that, it’s like, what is there to be afraid of? I, I survived the hard stuff, having conversations with these, you know, wealthy people, these well educated people.

That doesn’t bother me. I’ve looked at a gun. I’ve looked at a knife. I’ve, am I right here? Am I sort of wrapping my head around sort of your life experience?

Adil Nurgozhin : Pretty, pretty much. I guess pretty much. I, we don’t necessarily talk about it much, but that was what it was. Okay. So, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti : So that was part of it, I guess. So I want to make sure that we carve out enough time here to talk about what you’re doing with big sky cap. So, so tell me what’s, what was the idea behind starting this? What is it that you guys are doing?

Adil Nurgozhin : So, so after we kind of met, we, this didn’t go well. Mumpkin, we raised the last cash from the one Indian millionaire family. We tried to launch it in India. Jean was flying to Delhi for quite some time.

I was flying there. We were way ahead of the time because India at that time had only call, call centers at all they had. Not much IT didn’t fucking understand what we were doing. So we fucked it up.

We lose our money. We went our own ways again. He went back to Miami, broke, spent all his money in like a couple years in Kazakhstan, whatever he said. I, I had to restart my own career again, which I did. And then after, after a while, I joined the venture capital fund because my background was that this actually helped to get the job with the venture capital fund afterwards.

The night to be a New York headquartered venture fund with some Russian Jews and some, some other, some European Jews, like a bunch of Jews. I don’t know why I was there, but they got me hired. I was representing them and then helped them to raise first fund, second fund. I got into a VC full, full flesh already by 2011 after we fucked up the Mumpkin startup.

And I was building a career. I become a partner with them. I got already two funds under management. I got invited into a national welfare fund.

I’m squeezing everything in a very short period of time anyway. I used to work as a C level executive at national welfare fund, doing again investments and digitalization, whatever. Then I quit my career there in 2021. I called him again. I said, yeah, what’s up? He says, he’s married by the time already have three kids. I think I had four.

Yeah, I was, yeah, I had four that time already. Call him out. I said, I’m looking at your pictures here on Instagram. You’re fucking bored, bored, bored in that Miami of yours. Like all they do, show all you do is drinking some smoothies lying down on the beach. I cannot imagine anything more boring than that. He says, yeah, I’m bored. What’s up?

Cause I decided to do my own fun. It was like, okay, I’m in. That was a conversation. That was like, and then we, you know, interesting part, the things that I thought he already did of vice versa. So it was like, I start discussing something. He says, okay, I do this, I do do it.

It’s not like, it’s not like I have to explain shit. At the time he was right as well. He was already doing all right, saved enough, you know, invested enough, real estate was good, whatever. Everything was fine in his comfort zone, but he was bored.

Anthony Codispoti : And I know him really well.

Adil Nurgozhin : It’s not good when he’s bored. Something bad happens to him. I called him up, I said, okay, bro, let’s do it. And then he says, I mean, he says, okay, let me fly into Miami and let’s catch up. I flew in, he lives in Fort Lauderdale, a state like a week or so. We were drafted the first teaser presentation and et cetera.

Went through all our options in terms of structuring and all that like everything else. And the name, the name Big Sky Capital came in from a big sky country where we from. Montana. From Montana because he spent five years of his most important time of his life there. And for me it was very important because I also meet my wife during my MBA years there.

And what are from there? We spent, I spent four years there, all in all. He spent like five years, that’s our country. And it’s important. And we like the people there and every single of them, every single of them was kind enough to support us. And many of them, and we remember all of them by name, all of them supported us in many different ways to people from nowhere.

And then many, many things. Somebody got us a scholarship, somebody gave us a place to stay, somebody got us a job, somebody just took care of us. It’s just so many people that took care of us in that particular place.

Anthony Codispoti : And very kind people, very honest people, very hard working people.

Adil Nurgozhin : Some of them were very religious as well, but those are the people who build America. People don’t understand who build America. Those people build America. And if you think about it, yeah. So it’s important that that is where we’re from, not only Kazakhstan, but also from there. And that’s our story. Yeah, that’s why it’s a big-sky country.

And he wasn’t even discussed. I said, the name will be Big-Sky Capital. He says, yeah, okay, I got it. And we start fundraising again. 2021, the fucking the worst time to do fundraising. Like it was a stupid idea actually. Yeah, yeah, just come out from the COVID and the market shrank and went into the VC winter, 22, 23, and we were fundraising all 22. Again, going through another 300 humiliating meetings.

Anthony Codispoti : How did you get your first one? Your first investor for Big-Sky.

Adil Nurgozhin : It’s all our relations and all our human capital, if you wish our reputation. By the time close people already, former bosses, bosses, bosses, kind of worth individuals, family offices structured in way. A lot of them are people who know us for whatever years already. It’s like for friends and family, same stuff as startups.

Like this is a big message for us. The startup thing, those VCs, the fancy, sometimes roots, sometimes whatever investors and blah, blah, blah. There’s this blur of fancy investors, some kind of image there. But we’re doing the same stuff. We’re essentially working in a sandwich environment, if you wish, because we are fundraising on one side and we have to deploy on the other side. And our investors are actually more difficult to deal with. More difficult than the farmers. It’s not, no, our investors are more difficult to deal with than the typical VCs. Because VCs at least know what the fuck you’re doing and what is startup and stuff.

And now investors have no idea. And there’s a lot of education to do, a lot of patience to do, a lot of babysitting to do, a lot of listening to do, and a lot of egos to deal with. And all kinds of stories we have to go through, especially in the beginning. The institutionals is another thing. You have to be very patient, very diligent, very, there’s a lot of chasing to do. And it’s usually like two years of chasing before you close anything from there, maybe sometimes three years. So for startups, they need to understand this.

This is a message, it’s not that easy. We are also entrepreneurs, same way as they are. But we have a pressure from up and we have a pressure from down. And we are right in the middle of it. We don’t mind, we enjoy it a lot. That’s another thing, we like paying probably.

Anthony Codispoti : Because you grew up with so much of it, huh? It’s just part of you now.

Adil Nurgozhin : Yeah, probably, probably. Yeah, probably.

Anthony Codispoti : So what’s the investment that you’re thinking? Like what are you guys aiming to do? What kinds of companies do you look to invest in?

Adil Nurgozhin : Yeah, so we decided not to go too fancy and just do what we understand the most. The prior to Big Sky Capital, the funds where I used to work was all B2B.

Always was and is. So since 2011 to 2021, 10 years, I was investing in B2B. One way or another, B2B sales, vertical sales, enterprise solutions.

I understand it really well. And Jean, it happens that he was selling B2B on the IT side to large customers, like Facebook, like whatever. And he was managing the teams within the B2B environment and et cetera, et cetera. It was very easy for us to decide what we wanna do. So yeah, so we just decided and it was kind of consistent as well with both of our experiences. He understands as enterprise software really well.

Because he’s been doing it, he’s been managing teams there, he’s been developing it and deploying it and et cetera, et cetera. On that side, my side was investing into this thing and actually making exits out of them. Vertical sales goes the same way. It’s just the number of clients is larger and the tickets is smaller and you happen to sell it over subscription. All of these have been under a pressure and disruption with AI and multi-agents and everything else, but fundamentally B2B sales cycle doesn’t change.

Anthony Codispoti : And why do you say they’ve been under pressure because of AI? Is it because it’s so easy for competitors to replicate what you’re doing?

Adil Nurgozhin : It’s just most of the solutions that are present in the market have a certain legacy to deal with, in terms of both in terms of technology, which is obsolete by now, in terms of the forces, both in sales force and then IT people and everything that cannot be rethought and retrained fast.

That’s why it’s just easier to get rid of them all together. And then that’s another thing and that’s AI is coding for you. It’s designing the architecture for you in taking care of all the workflow, all the processes for you.

And that is a big chunk of the work that you used to do, coding, actually, programming, quality checking, making sure the perimeter is safe, blah, blah, all that work is already being disrupted now and the pace is too high and et cetera, et cetera. So what we have done is we kind of saw it coming. We decided to keep ourselves away in Big Sky from all the hype and the buzz and all that big game that big guys were doing in terms of infrastructure play, all these big models, language models, et cetera, because you cannot compete there with the tickets that you have.

We decided to wait through and go after niches. Again, B2P and go deep in verticals, in unique data sets, in industry expertise, in peculiarities and minute differences that actually make the difference, that actually make it by a cell kind of decision. Can you give me an example?

Well, I can give you an example. So we’ve invested in the company, a guy, his name is Artemis, Ukrainian, also a savage that somehow what I give away here, why you’re not here in the United States, state coded, all little kind of shit, and then landed on this farm, all right, in Northern California, dairy farm, with a bunch of 25,000 cows, do milking, whatever. And just was helping them with some, you know, backlog issues and then, you know, doing some work with servers and stuff like that.

Nothing really special. But then he started looking at it, he figured though there’s business processes involved, okay, and then the cows tend to get ill, they’re in a different mood and whatever, if you don’t clean them well, everything, everything, everything, every small thing affects the amount, the gallons of milk that you can, you know, get from the cow, end of day. And that exactly your bottom line afterwards. So, so he, and he’s a typical IT nerd, right? Like, he looks like one actually, very thin like, you know, with the glasses and stuff. And he got himself cameras, got an open code platform, start coding, figured out the computer vision part of it, start collecting data, just put like first five cameras everywhere. And then put another 10 collecting data. The task was to, to, to get as much data as possible, put it through your model and analyze all the inefficiencies and all the discrepancies and all the problems that are in the business process, end of the day, that might affect the, the business overall.

Anthony Codispoti : So like, how often you clean the cow and what makes the cow sort of upset?

Adil Nurgozhin : Everything, the people who are interacting with the cows and going through the place in an efficient manner, like these kinds of things. Okay. So it turns out all that stuff affects. And then this particular, in this particular farm, because of the relations that he already built, they allowed him to do it within one kind of box. I don’t know how you call this thing, where certain amount of cows can feed it. And he proved it by the pilot that if you eliminate many places human being, which is actually the problem and the cause of all the illness and the, and the cause of violence and cause of all kinds of issues, actually, cow will be happier and it will give you more milk.

And he proved it by the numbers that this thing can actually increase your bottom line to 10 to 12%. That’s a lot. Yes. And then, yeah. And then, and then he raised money on that.

He figured, okay, I’m, I’m going to do something. The most important part is, I looked at his cap table when we found the guy and we have this advantage, right? We know every goddamn founder from Central Asia, from our part of the world, from Ukraine, from Russia, from Belarus, from whatever, that’s our domain. We know all of them, we know how to talk to them, we know their psychology, we know what to do with the buses and whatever. And then usually they’re really good technically, strong technical background. They know the product really well, good engineers, really bad communication skills.

Like this stock actually. I don’t know, that’s the package. You always get the same shit. That’s where you guys come in, right? This is part of your skills? Yes, that’s what we do.

We communicate, yeah. So we got the guy and I look at his cap table, turns out all this, you know, Scrooge, Gritty, farmers and owners chipped in everyone 20, you know, 30K and funded the guy. That’s the best funding you can ever get. That’s best, better than VC, that’s better than any kind of funding.

This is the real industry funding that comes with an expertise, with a network, with all kinds of stuff. So when I saw that I said, okay, we’re in, doesn’t matter, can you give me like two telephone numbers I can talk to? So he gave me this old dude from Wyoming, was a large farm there. And he gave me this original guy from California, whom I talked to. And these guys are third generation farmers that do only one thing for all this time, right? They said, listen, the long story short, he saved me money.

And my bottom line is growing. I don’t know how he does it, I don’t understand, fuck how he does it, doesn’t matter. He knows, he knows this, he can do it, he knows.

And it’s not only him, they’re like a team of people by the time, like whatever, six, seven people. So I said, this is it, I don’t need anything else. I don’t need to confirm anything, I just, what else you need?

Here’s the first check and we organized a small round of funding, whatever, first meal, second meal, whatever. Now that is something that AI will never be able to do fast because there is a lot of industry specific details, knowledge, nuances that comes only with meticulous collection of the data, analyzing it, putting it through all the models, it gives you like at least two, three years of head start. That’s fascinating. And it doesn’t matter how fancy Facebook you are, you can be 10 times, 10 times, whatever, open AI, it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter because you don’t know.

Anthony Codispoti : You’ve got a little bit of a moat here because of the depth of knowledge that you now have with the industry and all the data that has been collected to sort of inform the models on here are the inefficiencies and here’s how to fix them.

Adil Nurgozhin : Yeah, it’s very, very important and that’s the play we do. That’s how we differentiate. We go very deep into the verticals and we dig it, dig it, dig it until we understand it that we like the industries that are and are not being disrupted yet. Because everything, you know what happens, you know?

All the IT comes into the place where IT is already is. Usually, because it’s a pathway that is easier to do and then he comes and he says, blah, blah, blah, I have better features on faster and cheaper, whatever. But you actually should avoid that, you should go different places.

Anthony Codispoti : There’s a value to go where nobody’s gone to tech before.

Adil Nurgozhin : Where there is a value, where there is a value, where there is a value. So we do that, we do that. And we look for those, like, you know, a bunch of, like, whatever, public toilet managers, if you have like 20,000 of them all across the country, you’re all client.

We have to figure out how to make it efficient, works better, blah, blah, blah, blah, and if we can optimize on, if we have people like you all over the world, who are willing to pay for this shit, yes, whatever.

Anthony Codispoti : See what I mean? Much so. Tell me about the founder’s first mentality, why this is so important to you.

Adil Nurgozhin : Because, well, first of all, we were in the skin, many, many, many, many types. And second of all, it’s the matter of, well, you know, founders are very lonely people, like really lonely people. And they’re lonely because nobody sometimes believes them, or trust their word, and it’s really hard to communicate, and et cetera. They have a lot of issues like that, and there should be a person who’s gonna be able to, well, first of all, listen, understand, and second of all, support, not by words, not by tapping on the shoulder, but actually with action, with cash, with something that is real, tangible, and because he’s actually betting more, he’s more courageous, he is stronger, he’s many ways better than us. Because if you look at it, we are co-workers, that we are not doing what he does, or we are less intelligent, or we are lacking something, if you think about it that way, you will understand that this guy, some way better than you, definitely better. And if he’s better, you might as well learn something, A, B, you might as well help and support, and help him to flourish, and that’s something we kind of enjoy. That’s the understanding, because we were lucky because we always have each other to bounce off, because we lost money together before, we fought for money, whatever, it was all kind of shit we went through, and we were lucky because we can still communicate. And it’s not because of anything, it just happened like that, you know, stars aligned if you wish, whatever, something.

And it’s very rare. Whereas usually the CEO and the main guy who needs to make a decision, he and the end of the days kind of left along in the room to decide. And that’s the burden, and then we respect that. We respect that, we admire that, and I think we are there to try helping.

Anthony Codispoti : Is this an uncommon mentality in Asia, you’re part of the world?

Adil Nurgozhin : It is, overall failure is a problem, as you know. I mean, I’m in Asia now fully, right? I spent a year of helping in China, my wife is Japanese, and I know this Asian mentality by now really well.

But it’s not only here, it’s in Southeast Asian, Asian, and Central Asian, Asian, and somewhat similar, except for Kazakh, Kazakh will be weird because we miss too much. But it’s there, is this, people don’t like failure, they don’t accept failure, they kind of blame you for that, and they kind of don’t forgive that. You know what I mean? They don’t like mistakes. And it’s like that, in the school like that, it’s in the family like that, and everywhere in the society.

Anthony Codispoti : So did you face some of that when your LinkedIn clone was unsuccessful with your investments?

Adil Nurgozhin : Well, I lost half of my people, half of my friends, and half of my mentors, whatever there was. And that’s it, they got. People don’t like to lose. I mean, nobody likes to lose. It’s just, it’s just the, how can I say, cannot accept it, maybe.

Anthony Codispoti : Are you more accepting of it? Is that part of what forms this bond with the founders that you invest in because you’ve been through it, just like they have?

Adil Nurgozhin : I think so, I can relate to that. I definitely understand it’s not pleasant when everyone says you’re wrong. And sometimes, rudely, tells you right into your face, hopefully in a polite, kind manner, which is most of the time not the case. They actually tell you you’re full, and you know you’re not. And there’s a conflict there, and they’re really not pleasant at all. See? Like.

Anthony Codispoti : Say more about the differences in kind of leadership style, between the West and Asia, that you’ve had experience in kind of both sides of the pond. What differences do you see there?

Adil Nurgozhin : See, West is too big of a term. I think it’s the only concerns two countries, yeah, US and into the certain extent, Australia.

Anthony Codispoti : US and Australia are similar. West that is in Europe, those Westerners are different type of people. Yeah. And how would you categorize the difference between what the US and the Australians are like with leadership styles versus what you’ve experienced in Asia?

Adil Nurgozhin : Well, if you just dig into history, you will understand it easier, because those are the second sons, essentially. The pirates, the most adventurers out of them, the boldest, the most courageous, those people were already under pressure. Those people were unneeded. Those people were already deprived from something.

And therefore, they put themselves into the ships and boats and crossed the oceans and made it to far, far away places to restart the life again. And that mentality is not… It’s not in Europe. You don’t find it in Europe. It doesn’t exist. It’s only in few places like Australia and US.

So, yeah. And that is not true for Spanish people, for instance, or French people. I traveled extensively all across Europe. I know those people never move their ass from one place. They’re going to sit there for seven generations in the same castle if they can, or near the castle, or whatever.

They’ll be totally fine and happy with that. And those who left the mainland and made it, made it imagine whatever 16th century on the boat to US, those are something very interesting. Those are the strongest. And this is a completely different mentality. As I say, it’s very few places in the world has it.

So, that’s the difference. The rest of the world doesn’t work like that. Asia as well. The majority of Asian people stay in Asia. Most of it 99.999999, whatever percent, all of them are there.

Anthony Codispoti : So, you’re saying the people who have the gumption, the courage, maybe the restlessness to move from their safe home base. There’s something in them. There’s something in that DNA that gets passed along that allows them to be sort of bigger risk takers, bigger movers, bigger shakers.

Adil Nurgozhin : Yes. That’s the culture that was in… That’s how America become America. That’s what is driving the whole thing and will continue driving. It’s not American dream, per se. Those people that they couldn’t fit in the boxes where they are from the beginning.

There are explorers. Yeah. They’re from the same… Yeah, yeah. And that’s the essence. And then that essence went into the value system and the value system turned into a country. And then they declare themselves a nation. It’s not a typical nation, per se, as you know. There’s just a bunch of people from a bunch of different places in the world.

Anthony Codispoti : The ultimate melting pot. That’s it. Adeel, I’ve just got one more question for you. But before I ask it, I want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you or to follow your story. What would that be?

Adil Nurgozhin : I’m on Facebook and LinkedIn. I don’t have Instagram, TikTok or Twitter.

Anthony Codispoti : Just a little too much for me. And we’ll direct people to your website as well, which is bigskycapital.co. So last question for you, Adeel. As you kind of look, I don’t know, where we are now and where we’re heading in the next, call it, two years, what are the trends that you’re most excited to keep an eye on and to be a part of?

Adil Nurgozhin : We want to continue investing into our emerging market founders. We can see how the development accelerates so fast that the borders don’t matter anything anymore. It doesn’t matter. We can see that our founders are competitive from this part of the world, creating really cool stuff, never being, never use the plane. And that is so cool. Like they just sit there, they know already, they know all the models, they have a good mathematical skills and etc. And they start doing it from here.

And they are competitive already day one. And that’s what’s driving me a lot. I can see that happening a lot more and more. And that is something we’ve been kind of working on as a part of the ecosystems in the emerging markets.

And that drives us a lot because you actually make an impact. Five years ago, in Central Asia, there was no such thing as venture funds. I created the first three when I was in the National Welfare Fund. And we created the Astana hub, the IT hub.

That was nothing. And now they export up close to a billion dollars worth of IT services. And annually, we close like 250 million dollars worth of deals.

It’s all small tickets and very early stage, blah, blah, blah. But it didn’t exist. It didn’t exist at all. If you think about it, it’s like, wow, that was fast. And then now you hear three of our founders came into the valley in one race around within whatever two weeks.

It was General Catalyst for his new model. And then the two guys that I knew grew up on my ice, 22 years old dude, just closed the third round. It was a valuation of 120 million with his AI model from my hometown.

And all in all, it’s only 13 months past from the day he started to launch his startup. It’s like, wow, that is really cool. That means our talent is competitive. That means our guys are smart and bold and encourages and talented and competent. And they moved already in the Silicon Valley. I can tell you it’s that’s really cool.

Anthony Codispoti : Your model’s got a competitive advantage built in and that you’re getting access to talent that the rest of the world has just been ignoring.

Adil Nurgozhin : Yes, and we’ll continue doing so. That’s our arbitrage. That’s where we came from, where we’re coming from, and we’ll continue doing so. And then in Southeast Asia, for instance, I have 700 million people population. Nobody knows. Nobody hears about. And it happens that they’re developing like 67% annually. And it happens that 35% of this population is young.

And most of them already know English. And the whole thing is moving so fast, you have no idea how fast. And there aren’t many places in the world that are both understandable, comprehensible for our minds and our values and et cetera, but also growing at the same time. And we’ll continue growing for another 30 years and has laws and regulations, et cetera, et cetera.

Many, many factors are coming in together now. And there are two places in the world. It’s Central Asia and Southeast Asia.

Central Asia 85 million and Southeast Asia 700 million. Africa, we don’t know nothing about. Like no white person or no Kazakh person or no European understands nothing about Africa, whatever they say. No Chinese person understands Africa. You have to be African to understand Africa. And Africa is actually very different, for instance, you know, Eastern Africa, West Africa and whatever South Africa. That is another point of growth in the world, which everyone is ignoring, which nobody knows about actually, and which will continue growing. And you will hear a lot of surprises coming from there. It’s just we are not there and we cannot be there.

Anthony Codispoti : Another untapped market to be explored in the future. A deal under Goshen. Yeah, yeah.

Adil Nurgozhin : So that’s, yeah, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Anthony Codispoti : It’s fun. I’m talking to you. That’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.