How Eugene Lebedev Scaled Vidi Corp Into a $1M+ Data Analytics and Automation Consultancy in 3 Years

My name is Eugene Lebedev, and I’m the founder of Vidi Corp LTD. We are a data analytics and automation consultancy.

We help companies automate business processes, build management reporting systems, and turn their operational data into insights that help them make better decisions. Most of our work is custom project-based consulting, so we work with clients around their specific requirements.

Our main technology stack includes Power BI, Tableau, Looker Studio, PowerApps, Power Automate, and SharePoint. We also have productized solutions, mainly data connectors that allow companies to automatically extract data from platforms like QuickBooks Online, Xero, QuickApp, and similar systems. Alongside those connectors, we provide free Power BI templates so customers can start analyzing their data more quickly.

What inspired you to start this business?

I always knew I wanted to run a business. Everyone in my family is an entrepreneur, so business was something I was exposed to from an early age.

At university, I had my first real experience running a service-based company. Together with a few friends, we started a recruitment business supplying waiters and bar staff to the biggest local hotel in our university town. I was responsible for hiring people, organizing shifts, and managing most of the day-to-day operations.

That experience taught me that I understood service businesses quite well, and that I was comfortable managing people, clients, and delivery.

After university, I started working as a Power BI developer. I gained technical skills, began freelancing on the side, and from the beginning I saw freelancing not just as a way to earn extra income, but as a stepping stone toward building an agency. That is what eventually led me to start VTCorp.

What was your background before starting the company?

My background was in business analytics. I completed a master’s degree in Business Analytics at the University of Surrey, where I studied BI tools, coding, data analysis, and reporting.

After that, I did an internship at Autodesk, where I worked on migrating Excel reports into Power BI. That gave me a practical foundation in business intelligence and helped me build the first skills I needed to start freelancing.

But honestly, I learned the most once I started doing real projects for real clients. Every client had different data, different systems, and different business problems, so the learning curve was very steep.

How did you land your first few customers or clients?

I started by creating profiles on freelance marketplaces like Freelancer.com and Upwork. At the beginning, I did not have a lot of experience or reviews, so I focused on getting small projects and building credibility.

I was doing jobs for around $10 to $100, not because they were highly profitable, but because I wanted to collect positive reviews and build trust on my profile.

Once I had enough good reviews, I increased my hourly rate to around $30 per hour. That was a big turning point. I actually started getting more replies to my proposals because clients began seeing me as more professional and credible.

What was your original business model, and how has it changed?

In the beginning, the business model was purely consulting.

I would charge clients around $30 per hour, and I would work with freelancers who were paid around $10 to $15 per hour. My margin came from managing the project, communicating with the client, reviewing the work, and making sure the delivery was successful.

That model worked well in the beginning, but over time I realized it had limitations. Nothing really accumulated. Every month, you had to keep finding new projects, winning new clients, and starting again. Searching for projects all the time is exhausting, and it makes growth difficult.

So we added another offering: productized data connectors sold on a subscription basis. That gave us recurring annual revenue, which accumulates over time. It is one of the main reasons we are now seeing year-over-year growth.

What was your exact timeline to $1 million in revenue?

The first six months were very slow. I was still working a full-time job, freelancing on the side, and doing quite a lot of work for very little money. At that point, I was mainly focused on getting reviews and experience, so I was charging around $10 to $15 per hour.

After about six months, I tested increasing my rate to around $30 per hour. Surprisingly, that helped me get more replies and better clients. Around that time, I started reaching approximately $10,000 per month in revenue, which was a huge breakthrough for me.

After around nine months, I hired the first person to help manage projects. Over time, he became more like a business partner.

The second year was much stronger. We had more consistent monthly revenue, and we landed a project with Google, which was a major credibility boost for the company.

Overall, it took us about three years to reach our first $1 million in revenue.

What was the biggest turning point in your growth journey?

The biggest turning point was probably when my Upwork account got banned.

For a long time, Upwork was my main source of business. I had built a very strong profile, with over 300 reviews and more than $1 million earned on the platform.

But over time, the platform changed. What worked in the beginning became less effective, and I felt more pressure from the platform’s rules and economics. Eventually, the account was banned, and that forced me to rethink the business.

At the time, it felt like a disaster. But looking back, it pushed me to build something more sustainable. I started focusing seriously on SEO. I taught myself how to write blog content, optimize for search, and build organic traffic.

Within about a year, we went from essentially zero traffic from Google to around 10,000 visits per month. That became a much more defensible growth channel for the business.

What channels brought you to your first million?

The first major channels were Freelancer.com and Upwork. I was doing outbound every day, sending proposals to different projects and trying to win work.

Later, I also started using Fiverr, which turned out to be a very good channel for inbound leads. Fiverr charges a higher commission, but the client acquisition cost is basically built into the platform. Once you complete orders successfully, the platform can start showing your profile to more potential buyers.

For freelancers who are just beginning, I think platforms like Fiverr can be very useful because they help you get early traction without needing to build a full marketing machine.

Another important thing is to save the contact details of everyone you speak with. Even if they do not become a client immediately, you can stay in touch through email, LinkedIn, or another channel. Some of those relationships can turn into projects later.

What were the top three challenges you faced?

The first challenge was building sustainable revenue growth.

At the beginning, you mainly need organizational skills. You need to deliver projects, communicate with clients, and manage people. But to grow the company, you need a different set of skills. You need to think strategically. You need to ask: what assets am I building inside the company that will enable growth in the future?

That forced me to learn marketing, sales, SEO, and more recently, AI.

The second challenge was building a team I could rely on. At one point, we had two separate teams: one focused on Microsoft technologies and one focused on Google technologies. I eventually had to let go of the entire Google technologies team and rebuild it from scratch because the commitment to quality and customer outcomes was not where it needed to be. That was a very difficult decision, but it was necessary.

The third challenge was maintaining a strong reputation. In a services business, reputation is everything. You need to collect good reviews, but you also need to protect your reputation when something goes wrong. Sometimes that means finding a solution for an unhappy client, even if it is not ideal for you financially, because long-term trust matters more.

Was there a moment when you felt like quitting?

Yes. In 2024, I felt like I was working extremely hard, but the business was not really growing.

We were still relying heavily on Upwork, and Upwork had become less and less effective over the years. It felt like I was putting in a lot of effort, but the company had plateaued.

That was the moment I realized I needed to build a different growth engine. I decided to focus on SEO, even though it meant short-term pain. In 2025, after making that shift, there were a few months where I could not pay myself.

But it eventually worked. It took about a year before SEO started generating a meaningful number of sales, but once it started working, it became a much more sustainable channel.

What is one early mistake that taught you something valuable?

One of the most valuable lessons I learned is that you cannot make a good deal with a bad person.

You can try to write the perfect contract, but if someone is dishonest or unprofessional, they will always find a way to create problems, breach the agreement, or take advantage of the situation.

That applies to clients, but it also applies to people you hire. Sometimes someone has all the technical skills, but they do not have the professionalism, reliability, or attitude you need. And in many cases, you cannot train that into someone.

So I learned to say no earlier when something feels wrong, even if the client has money or the opportunity looks attractive.

What is one thing about hitting your first million that no one talks about?

One thing people do not talk about enough is that $1 million in revenue is not actually as much as it sounds like.

It is a huge achievement, of course, but it does not mean you are suddenly rich or that the business is easy. You probably have a business that is becoming stable, but there are still costs, payroll, taxes, reinvestment, and pressure to keep growing.

Also, making $1 million per year is genuinely difficult. A lot of entrepreneurs underestimate how hard that target is. So I would say: do not be too hard on yourself if it takes longer than expected. It is a serious milestone, and it requires a lot of persistence.

How has your role evolved over the years?

My role has changed massively.

In the beginning, I was fully involved in operations. I was managing clients, reviewing work, coordinating projects, hiring freelancers, and making sure everything got delivered.

Now my role is much more strategic. I am focused on managing our software development projects, leading our marketing strategy, improving quality control, and building long-term assets for the company.

The number one problem I need to solve now is making sure the company grows year over year. So most of my time is focused on the things that can make the business stronger in the long term.

What would you do differently if you had to start from scratch?

I would start collecting reviews on platforms like G2 and Clutch much earlier.

In the early days, I collected hundreds of reviews on Upwork, which was useful at the time, but those reviews were locked inside Upwork. Platforms like G2 and Clutch are better long-term assets because they improve your brand, help with credibility, and can bring exposure outside a single freelance marketplace.

I also wish I had started working on our website and SEO much earlier. It is difficult at the beginning, and it takes time to see results, but once your website starts ranking, it becomes a real competitive advantage. It is very hard for competitors to replicate because the content, authority, and traffic accumulate over time.

Where is the company today, and what are your future goals?

Today, we are forecasting around $800,000 USD in revenue for this year.

My goal is to reach $1 million USD next year, and after that, I want us to reach £1 million in annual revenue.

I also want to keep developing our website as a growth engine. One specific goal is to reach around 30,000 clicks per month from Google, with most of that traffic coming from the United States.

On the product side, I want to partner with larger companies like Shopify and HubSpot, and make our software available through their marketplaces. That would be a major step in turning our productized solutions into a much larger part of the business.

What are you currently obsessed with?

Right now, I am obsessed with quality control.

I think this is one of the most important parts of my job at the current stage of the business. I spend a lot of time reviewing everyone’s work, giving feedback, and coaching people on how to make things better.

That also applies to my own work. I am constantly trying to learn new skills, improve how I manage the company, and raise the quality of everything we produce.

For us, quality is not just about delivering a project. It is about building trust, protecting our reputation, and making sure clients want to come back.

Do you still feel connected to the mission that started it all?

Yes, I do.

I strongly believe in automation and data analytics. I believe smart people should spend their time on high-value work like analysis, decision-making, and strategy — not manually copying data, transforming spreadsheets, or preparing repetitive reports.

That is still the core mission of the company. We help people save time, reduce manual work, and get better insights from their data.

So yes, I still feel very connected to that mission. If anything, I believe in it more strongly now because I have seen how much impact it can have for clients.

What is your best advice for entrepreneurs trying to hit their first million?

My advice is to start building assets that accumulate over time as early as possible.

In the beginning, most entrepreneurs are hunters. They go out, search for clients, close projects, deliver the work, and then start again. That works, but it is exhausting if it is your only growth strategy.

I like to think about it as the difference between hunting and farming. Humans used to survive by hunting, but once we learned agriculture, everything changed because crops could be grown, stored, and scaled.

Business works in a similar way. If you only hunt for new projects, growth is always difficult. But if you start building assets — content, SEO, products, reviews, partnerships, recurring revenue — then the business becomes more stable over time.

So my advice is: do the hunting when you need to, but start farming as early as possible.

Are there any books that played a big role in your success?

Yes, there are a few books that had a big impact on how I think about business.

The first one is Managing the Professional Service Firm. It is a very useful book for understanding how service businesses actually work, especially around people, clients, profitability, and delivery.

Another one is Agencynomics. I would recommend it to anyone running or trying to build an agency. It helped me think more clearly about the structure and economics of an agency business.

And the third one is Good Strategy, Bad Strategy. That book helped me understand the difference between vague goals and real strategy. It made me think more carefully about where the business should focus and what kind of advantages we are actually trying to build.

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