Ivan Bunin’s Story
Ivan Bunin was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1997 to a family of police officers. From a young age, Ivan displayed considerable curiosity and branched out from the usual pursuits of childhood, experimenting with BMX biking, gymnastics, parkour, magic tricks and hip hop. Many of his formative years were dedicated to playing computer games, primarily Counter-Strike 1.6 and later Dota 2 for which he attained over 3000 hours of playtime.
Start of entrepreneurship
At the age of eight, Ivan began the first of his numerous business ventures: during his morning walk to school he would stop by a store to purchase snacks or toys which he then resold at school. He soon took up portrait drawing in order to create additional merchandise for classmates and friends. Later on this skill developed into graphic and web design which became Ivan’s initial freelance profession. At sixteen years old Ivan opened an online store selling Rolex Daytona replicas, and after his first sale he decided that this was not something he wanted to do long term and thus shutting down his website.
High School
In pursuit of higher education Ivan moved to a small Polish town near Olsztyn where there was a Ukrainian school; it was here that Ivan encountered his future wife Ksenia while residing in the dormitory adjoining the school. With nothing else to do in their spare time, Ivan started focusing on personal development through self-learning new skills such as logo design, website building and general digital design work which immediately attracted customers from all around the globe; within six months he had managed to close his first bigger project that earned him an adequate income – this is when he realised that money can be made online!
After graduating high school and taking his final exams, Ivan returned to Kyiv for the summer prior to starting his Bachelor’s degree at Collegium Da Vinci in Poland. During this short period he was hired by LogoMaster Design Studio for a full-time 8am to 5pm job. For the duration of four months Ivan had over 50 clients from diverse fields and created numerous websites with WordPress, Wix, SquareSpace and Adobe Muse. As part of the job, he was also in contact with clients directly, honing his interpersonal abilities.
University
In October 2016 Ivan began studying Graphic Design at Collegium Da Vinci; here he learnt painting, sculpture and animation amongst other disciplines that enabled him to showcase his calligraphy, lettering and handwriting on Behance and Dribbble resulting in an invitation to design a logo for Hercules Holding – an emerging beverages company based in Poland. The success achieved with the logo ushered in a plethora of label designs for various products that Hercules Holding wished to launch with Fulvica Black Water topping them all. In addition to design work he also took upon himself responsibility for social media marketing, merchandise designs and research as well. Up until now Fulvica Black Water can be purchased at major Polish groceries or eco stores.
Service Design
After finishing a year of graphics courses Ivan shifted focus to Service Design where he was taught business law, plans, service design, audience research, team building fundamentals, management strategies, accounting principles as well as psychology; such vigorous training made him a more astute entrepreneur than ever before. As part of these studies Ivan collaborated with some of the largest Polish companies such as Goplana Chocolate.
Freelance
Meanwhile Ivan continued providing freelance services to various organisations worldwide – one particular instance being HelloZEE – a Californian startup that had devised an iPhone case capable of increasing battery life and memory capacity. He contributed by creating a WordPress e-commerce website alongside setting up adverts that yielded successful sales within no time at all!
In 2018, Ivan Bunin joined Australia-based camping store Bushstalker that was dropshipping hiking gear and selling its own coolers and tumblers. He helped to build a Shopify store from scratch, researching and connecting winning dropshipping products and setting up Google Ads, Facebook Ads and Remarketing campaigns to promote the store. This is when Ivan began learning digital marketing and getting familiar with creating campaigns.
Solutions 8
Following a year of freelancing, Ivan applied for a full time position as a virtual assistant for Kasim Aslam at Solutions 8, where he joined a team of six people providing services in Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Content Marketing, and web development. Upon joining the team, Ivan quickly applied his practical knowledge by recommending and then building a website which had previously gone untouched for years. This new website proved successful in bringing leads within two years after its completion.
After two months of employment, Solutions 8 shifted focus solely towards Google Ads services; with this transition came Ivan’s responsibility to manage the Google Ads account of Nido Marketing, handling more than 30 clients as both Specialist and Client Manager while also developing an internal SOP for managing Google Ad accounts.
On the last year of his university studies Ivan developed a strong passion towards cigars and whiskeys and start visiting local cigar club on a weekly basis.
After a year of work, Ivan assumed a position of Technical Team Lead and started managing his small team. Ivan helped to build automations that simplified onboarding and ofboarding for both clients and employees, and implemented technical setup that insured the optimal work of a Solutions 8 team.
In 2020, Ivan helped build several large projects within Solutions 8; one such project being the 3X Shopify Challenge – a three day online webinar for Shopify Store owners seeking guidance on how to start their own online store and grow it using Google Ads. Ivan Bunin was responsible for building a conversions funnel, landing pages, ads, automations and CRM in order to accommodate all 3,000+ participants.
In 2021, Ivan went on to master Facebook Ads and was handling various major clients of Solutions 8 within the same year. During this time period Ivan directed over $400k in advertisement expenses which generated more than $2.5 million in revenue for the client solely due to his devised Facebook Ads strategy. As a reward for his achievements he obtained a promotion which enabled him to become CTO of Solutions 8, providing technical direction throughout the organization.