In this Prime Talk Podcast Video Sponsored by GETIDA, Augustas Kligys discusses how he is educating Amazon sellers worldwide. Augustas is the founder and CEO of Orange Klik. He shares the journey that led him into eCommerce.
The Amazon world is an ever-changing dynamic industry. And it can oftentimes be difficult for Amazon sellers to keep up with all these changes. There are many summits and conferences out there where sellers can learn the newest and most innovative strategies or the new rules of the game. But even then, which conference or event do you choose? Yoni Mazor of Prime Talk discusses one of the conferences available to sellers out there created by Orange Klik.
In today’s episode, Prime Talk is joined by Augustus Kligys, the founder and CEO of Orange Klik, a leading educational platform for Amazon sellers around the world. Orange Klik has organized over 400 interviews with Amazon industry experts as part of their virtual summits or for their YouTube channel. They feature content designed to educate as well as inform Amazon sellers from all over the world.
Augustus Kligys shares his incredible journey from being one of the first digital nomads exploring the world to the creation of his unique brand Orange Klik. So if you’re an Amazon seller who needs inspiration and motivation, or if you want to break into a new marketplace and grow your business, then this episode is for you!
Learn more about Orange Klik!
Learn more about GETIDA’s Amazon reimbursement solution software
Yoni Mazor 0:06
Hi, everybody, welcome to another episode of Prime Talk. Today I'm really happy to have a special guest. I'm having Augustus Kligys. Did I say it correctly?
Augustus Kligys 0:15
Yeah, more or less Augustus Kligys. Thank you for trying.
Yoni Mazor 0:20
Augustus Kligys. I just call him Augustus. I know. It's also my pleasure to speak to him. Augustus is pretty much the founder and CEO of Orange Klik, which is a leading educational platform for Amazon sellers. And he's also the founder of AMZ Summits. AMZ Summits is a global database of Amazon conferences and meetups all over the world. So if you're looking to kind of find the next Amazon conference, you know, anywhere in the world, you just go hit up AMZ summit, and voila, it's just right there. And I love it because you know, I use it for myself. I want to know what's out there. I go there and I check it out and it cost me a lot of money by the way. So thank you for that, Augustus, because I find these events I try to go and sponsor or at least participate and it costs money, but it's an awesome list. Augustus Welcome to the show.
Augustus Kligys 1:06
Thank you very much, Yoni. It's a pleasure to be speaking to you.
Yoni Mazor 1:11
Awesome. Where am I finding you right now? Where are you located?
Augustus Kligys 1:14
Right at the moment, I'm in the south of Spain, it's quite hot and I had to turn on the air conditioning for this interview.
Yoni Mazor 1:22
Awesome. Here we are having one of the last days of the sun out here in New Jersey, it's about to hit the fall and is going to get probably colder, but where it's been exactly just to be more accurate. Which part of Spain was it called over there?
Augustus Kligys 1:34
We can say not far from Malaga. But yeah, it's very south not far from Gibraltar like maybe fe few hours from Gibraltar and...
Yoni Mazor 1:45
Sounds wonderful. Sounds like a place I want to be one day. Gibraltar especially I know the big cliff and rock. It's pretty cool. Okay, so listen today without further ado, we're gonna be focusing on you and your story. You know, just you're going to share with us: Who are you? Where are you from? Where did you go to school? How did you begin your professional career? And what led you into e-commerce. So without further ado, let's get right into it.
2:08
Oh, it's too much you want to know Yoni. Where are you from? Oh Yoni.
Yoni Mazor 2:15
My story is I, you know, I think you're gonna interview for my story. Because Augustus has his own podcasting show so anybody wants to learn about me? You should check out that episode.
Augustus Kligys 2:25
Yeah, maybe, maybe for me it myself is not so interesting. What I was doing. Like, I don't so much believe in schools or well, the school was school, but kind of I don't...we have a kid and we, we practice unschooling, so I, how to say? The person can skip school, and I would...I think it would be much more beneficial for that person if they educate at home and do things they can do without sitting obligatory during the classes. But
Yoni Mazor 3:02
So you’re saying for your own child, your own kid, are you doing homeschooling?
Augustus Kligys 3:05
Yeah, yeah, we’re doing that.
Yoni Mazor 3:06
This because of Corona or this is before the Corona?
Augustus Kligys 3:08
This is before. It's our decision before he was born. So yeah, so kind of I'm not giving...it was nice times of course at school. It was in Vilnius, in the capital of Lithuania, I’m from...
Yoni Mazor 3:20
Hold on, hold on. Let's go back and forward back. Let's back it up. So you were born and raised in which country? Lithuania right? And from which city? Vilnius, that's the capital city. I think. In English we say an America is Vilnius or Vilna?
Augustus Kligys 3:35
Well no, Vilna is more maybe well actually I don’t know what's the English name, but I would say it's Vilnius. Vilnai is usually in Poland. They call this town ...
Yoni Mazor 3:45
Got it. Coming from my country and so we say Vilna, so I thought maybe it's also in English, but I, you’re probably right. So it's Vilnius in Lithuania. So okay, born and raised there?
Augustus Kligys 3:55
Yeah, basically, I'm from the capital city, you know, the boy from the capital and I studied there all kinds of...all the school years and then...
Yoni Mazor 4:06
University as well?
Augustus Kligys 4:07
Yeah, computer science four years bachelor. And then I went to Denmark to study Master degree of computer science. But to be honest, during the sixth year of computer science studies, I was not really happy. I was just studying because, you know, 20 years ago, computer science or mathematics...Well, computers were like something on the wave. And it was IT I think, was just rising. And it was something where everybody wanted to study. And I just followed this kind of mainstream.
Yoni Mazor 4:36
And when Denmark? Copenhagen?
Augustus Kligys 4:38
No, it was Aaolburg, opposite side of Denmark, north of Denmark. Yeah. Aaolburg. Yes.
Yoni Mazor 4:43
Got it. Okay, so you finished your studies in Denmark and where’d you head up next?
KO 4:47
Oh, then I ended up not knowing what I want to do. Professor offered to do a Ph.D. but I was not really feeling like I want to do a Ph.D. at university. So I worked a little bit at university for a few more months and then I just traveled and I was like a digital nomad from then.
Yoni Mazor 5:08
And what year was this if I can ask? The year that you have basically left university and became a digital nomad?
Augustus Kligys 5:14
I finished school I think in like 90, the school, 90, maybe six. And then in 97, I started to travel by hitchhiking in, in my country and in surrounding countries.
Yoni Mazor 5:26
But you said digital nomads. 97 you will say that was the early beginning of the digital nomad era?
Augustus Kligys 5:32
Okay. 97 is when I was interested, I got passion of traveling. And for me traveling was everything. So then plus six years 2002 I finished Master degree and in 2003 kind of I finished working at university. This is what I did after my studies and from 2003 kind of I started to travel. 2004 I went to Africa for half a year. And during that time...
Yoni Mazor 5:56
Where did you go in Africa? That sounds exciting.
Augustus Kligys 5:59
It was from Ethiopia to...Are we going to talk about traveling?
Yoni Mazor 6:03
We’re gonna talk about you and your story. And just have context of all the stations that brought you into where you are now. Yeah.
Augustus Kligys 6:10
Alright, so yeah, I traveled from Ethiopia to South Africa, and East Africa basically.
Yoni Mazor 6:16
You walked it? You bussed it? Or you airplaned it?
Augustus Kligys 6:19
Half buses, half hitchhiking and then I lived in South Africa for four months and three months in Cape Town, doing voluntary work as a white person basically working as a volunteer in the municipality. And at that time, 2004 there were still a lot of like white people in municipality. And we were living in, you know, a house with a lot of protection. But then for one month, with my Slovakian friend, we moved to a township, which is where only black people live or colored people live 1 million people population in that area. And it's the most dangerous place in the whole South Africa. But we enjoyed so much we..
Yoni Mazor 7:03
Which municipality is this? Johannesburg, Cape Town?
Augustus Kligys 7:05
Cape Town.
Yoni Mazor 7:06
Cape Town. So you went there? What were you doing there with the community?
Augustus Kligys 7:11
Well, we worked the first three months at the environmental department of municipalities. So we were traveling through all the beaches of Cape Town, and we could see all these white people beaches, black people beaches, at that time already was 10 years democracy, but you could still see this kind of how it was in the past. And you could still see that black people still tend to go to where they used to go during apartheid and white people where they used to go during apartheid as well. So yeah, we're doing some kind of environmental thing. It was just opportunity for me to explore the world. And I applied for some, you know, program for volunteering, they accepted me and in that project, of course, the idea was maybe to use my kind of computer knowledge and databases, so I think I was working on programming something also related to databases of plants or animals. I don't exactly remember...
Yoni Mazor 8:17
But this is what 2003? 2004ish? Yeah. Okay. Seems like forever, right? In the e-commerce days, but um, okay, so you're saying there's countries you travel was Ethiopia, South Africa, what's in between? Which other countries?
Augustus Kligys 8:31
Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, I just crossed with the bus and then
Yoni Mazor 8:35
Okay, so from this list of countries, what was your I guess your most, I don't wanna say favorite, favorite is not a good choice to say about cultures like that. It just might. What was the, I guess, the most surprising country for you from the list?
Augustus Kligys 8:50
I think I don't say...I would not say I liked very much South Africa, but is the most diverse. It's very interesting. Like I would compare it to in Latin America to Belize, which is very mixed.
Yoni Mazor 9:06
You’ve been there also?
Augustus Kligys 9:06
Yeah, in Belize, I was, and also in Australia, I would compare to Australia a little bit because Australia is also a mix of different cultures. And South Africa is just a mix of, you know, different cultures and ethnicities.
Yoni Mazor 9:19
Yeah, we're gonna dive in a little bit the history, but then we're gonna go back into the business world, but South Africa, I guess, as far as I'm aware, the origins was from British but also Dutch, right. There was a Dutch influence from the Netherlands, I mean, and also English, that makes into some sort of superiority of the white population. You know, and they control that since I guess Inception was in the 40s 50s. It detached from the British Empire?
Augustus Kligys 9:47
Yeah, it was like for 50 years until 94. When Nelson Mandela started to be a president.
Yoni Mazor 9:54
He got released from jail, and then he got elected and then it changed and they started to basically break down Apartheid and integrate the whole country. Okay, so you found that longer travels to be a very, very interesting point of view for you at that intersection. Okay 2004 What was your next station? Where do you go next?
Augustus Kligys 10:12
Well, I didn't have much money left after Africa and I had to go back to Europe so basically asked if there are any projects in the university in Denmark and I joined there again to work a little bit so ended up like working a little bit in Denmark and then traveling, working a little bit in Denmark, and then traveling.
Yoni Mazor 10:30
So Denmark for a little while was your hub, your mainstay?
Augustus Kligys 10:33
Yeah, a few times, few times. But during this years, also I met my wife and we, we both shared the same dream to travel the world. So actually 2006 we, we just decided to go to travel and we went to...
Yoni Mazor 10:50
Your wife is Danish, or?
Augustus Kligys 10:51
She is German.
Yoni Mazor 10:54
But she was also in Denmark? You met her in Denmark?
Augustus Kligys 10:55
No, she was in Spain.
Yoni Mazor 10:57
Where did you guys meet? Where did you guys meet?
Yoni Mazor 10:59
Spain,in Spain.
Yoni Mazor 11:00
So during your time in Denmark, you also had...you were visiting Spain?
Augustus Kligys 11:04
It was after my time in Denmark, like after my studies and my first big...
Yoni Mazor 11:11
Let's make it easier, what year was that when you met your wife? 2003. So this is before even your travels into South Africa. That's when you kind of met her you kind of only knew her. Alright, let's jump back to 2006. You said you and your future wife were on she was already your wife you decided to travel?
Augustus Kligys 11:28
Yeah, we traveled for...basically we lived “lived on the road”. Living on the road for maybe four or five years. That means that we sometimes traveled, sometimes we just stay in one country for six months, for example, like we stayed in Ecuador, we stayed in Belize. We stayed in Mexico in different parts. Also..
Yoni Mazor 11:49
So hardcore digital nomad thing, but how did you and your, your partner, you know, made an income?
Augustus Kligys 11:56
So our way of travelling was very low cost, we were spending like $12 a day. So basically, we needed like $400 per month for both of us to survive. So we had some income which we saved. When they worked in Denmark, my wife also she worked a little bit in Germany so well, she's not really proud what she studied. So she's not even doing but she worked when she was a student who worked, you know, for also at university, helping professors. So it was just side jobs. But later, yeah, when we traveled, I also started to do kind of programming. It was my passion. Out of this computer science studies, doing websites was my most interesting part. For me. This is not what we learned at university. But this is what I started doing just because I understood I was computer literate, you know, you knew how to do things with computer and internet. So I started to do websites, then some friend asked me to help with his website, his idea. And we started to cooperating and doing partnership with my friend. We built kind of a few affiliate websites, according to his, like he was idea guy I was implementer. And then yeah, basically four or five years, I was just, we were building this website with him.
Yoni Mazor 13:18
So is it fair to say that you have kind of more of a passion towards the front end? For construction websites? So the user user experience?
Augustus Kligys 13:26
No, actually, I like to review user experience, but I'm really bad kind of in, I struggled to find the good combination of colors and everything. But what I like is, what I liked in the past. Now I don't do programming, but to program some logic and some automation or some you know, yeah, these logics, which you have to...when you click a button, what happens when you click this button? Or if there is a selection, so...
Yoni Mazor 13:51
The chain reaction. Yeah, it's more back end logic. You know, the chain reaction. When you click a button, we understand what's going on. Got it. Okay. So you and your wife have traveled the world low budget, you need like $5,000 a year. So you're able to do it remotely, do some coding and website development. See this for five years? I guess this was 2016 uh 2006 until what 2011? Or 12? What was the time line?
14:14
Yeah, more or less about 2011. We, at that time we were in Australia, and then we just again had no money because we went to Australia after Asia. Australia was...
Yoni Mazor 14:25
Australia you can’t survive for $5,000 a year I would assume?
Augustus Kligys 14:28
At that time already, our kind of costs were much higher because you know, you start low but you raise your kind of lifestyle. Yeah. So we, at some point in the middle of this years, we were in Europe for a few months. And then we decided to go before Australia to go to India and in India our goal was just to live for half a year and rent a house. We didn't really travel in India, we just enjoyed living in warm countries. And kind of eating nice food and for me important was to have good internet which we had in the house and for like 100 bucks having a huge house with fast internet. It was really nice luxury life.
Yoni Mazor 15:14
You were living a good life. But tell me, quick question how many languages you speak so far?
Augustus Kligys 15:21
So I speak...fluent? Well, I could conversate easily in five.
Yoni Mazor 15:28
Let’s count. Russian, Lithuanian, English...
Augustus Kligys 15:29
Lithuanian is my mother tongue. Russian I learned at school and then English and then German and Spanish. I can also conversate yeah.
Yoni Mazor 15:39
So there's five or six. I'm counting. Let's count on one more time we've got the Russian, Lithuanian, English, Spanish, German, five. Okay, interesting. Very good. All right, that's probably useful, but at that time, I thought maybe you're gonna throw some coding languages in there. So it's good. No visual ASICs and no JavaScript and no dotnet or anything like that. Okay. Alright, so let's take me to the year okay, five, six years, India, Australia. Where do we land now? What's the next step for you? What's the next station?
Augustus Kligys 16:12
So yeah, this is where maybe things change. We kind of were a bit tired of wandering around, and we decided to go to Europe. So we ended up staying in Germany and my wife is German. So it was kind of connection. We stayed near Dresden, it's Eastern Germany. And there we kind of started to live. We rented apartment and we got pregnant. And then I was son today actually, yesterday was eight years old.
Yoni Mazor 16:43
Congratulations. So what year was that? 2012?
Augustus Kligys 16:45
Yeah, ‘12 is when he was born. And basically, we lived in Germany, but still kind of one day.. We lived in Germany for two years, our child was one year old. And then one day, one weekend, actually, we got signals, you know, sometimes you get this feeling from somewhere, from higher something. And both me and my wife separately got the signal that we have to go, we went to go to kind of to live in Spain. And at that time, we just, it was difficult decision. But because we didn't really have like, didn't see financially how we can make it and but we ended up in 2013.
Yoni Mazor 17:24
Do you mind sharing the signals? What were the kind of signals you're getting?
Augustus Kligys
17:26
You know this intuition, let's say intuition or feeling you know, yeah. So this kind of signals so and then you see, start seeing signs like you start, let's say, it was I think Saturday, we got like, both kind of feeling about Spain. And then you start getting signs about Spain, like someone on Monday, right sends you an email, some old friend from Spain, then on Tuesday, you go to the shop in Germany, and you hear like Spanish music. So this kind of, you know, signals come and after three months, we…
Yoni Mazor 17:58
Yeah, there’s another way to look at it, maybe you're noticing the signals of Spain you're getting attracted to it. It's another way to let's see it because if I go to the supermarket, I'm getting signals from all over the world, you know, for Mexican food, Italian food, to you know, whatever food today, Japanese food, but it's why you're heart to kind of be like you said intuition a guy that gets attracted to and say, You know what, I feel like I feel comfortable and this kind of environment. And let me go try to live there or at least taste of it in person for a while. So you guys made the move 2012, 2013 to Spain?
Augustus Kligys 18:32
Yeah. ‘13 I think yeah, we went to Spain, but actually, we thought we will stay for long, but we ended up just less than one year. And then we went back again to live for two, three years in our countries, in Germany and Lithuania. So we really liked staying in Spain, but I think at that time was difficult also financially. And I was programming so I was like, full time web developer. So I was programming and you know, get
Yoni Mazor 19:02
You doing freelance or your own company?
Augustus Kligys 19:04
Freelancing, freelance, so it was a bit hard, you know, it's very unstable income, and you are paid per hour. So whenever we decided to move to Spain and traveling by car, it means I cannot work but it costs a lot of money to travel, you know, 3000 kilometers and staying everywhere on the way and so at the end, yeah, it was quite difficult financially this traveling and...
Yoni Mazor 19:31
Yeah, freelancing. Okay, so what's the next step for you? What was where did you settle? And what do you do, you know, for income after 2000 and, you were already bouncing into 2015-16?
Augustus Kligys 19:43
Yeah. 15-16 so those years we were in Lithuania and Germany and this is where Amazon journey started for me. Well, not Amazon selling but becoming kind of a face or person who does interviews in the industry and in 2016, exactly 4 years ago, I in September 2016, I launched my first virtual summit.
Yoni Mazor 20:09
So, so let's step back a little bit since 2016. It's all gonna go well, this is you know that we drove all the stations to get to these moments and I want to make sure we get this right. So 2016 you basically dive into the e-commerce slash Amazon world. And what brought you into it? If you mind touching that for a moment? What was the attraction? What was the thread that you pull that got you in there? What was the direction?
Augustus Kligys 20:32
So two things what happened in 2015, like one year before I jumped into this industry officially, I was introduced to Amazon FBA selling business model. And it's very interesting. It was my relative. She was already heard about it, he was selling, but he was selling like, some very cheap things. And you know, he needed like, like, you know, like, something like $1, what you says sell for eight or seven euros on Amazon. So he was making like 50 cents, I think it was like, adapters for SIM cards or something like that. So, but that guy, yeah, he showed me this kind of idea. And I was interested. And this is when I learned about all this. At that time, Jungle Scout also became kind of a new tool, 2015. And I started to follow all the Facebook groups, and I wanted to do this, I was looking for a product to sell. And my problem was that I didn't really have funds, I could invest like maximum, maybe 1000 euros or dollars, but maximum, it would be like already very painful. So I couldn't find a product. And you know, it's not an investment, it's impossible. So I was a bit very excited. But I couldn't start the business. So I was reading the Facebook groups. So it was very interesting for me. And then because I was still a website dev, a freelance web developer, I was all the day on the computer. And I was still looking and watching other webinars what other people are doing, how they earn money, and I found this virtual summit business model. I was surprised when from free, free virtual summit, you can make money and build business. And you know, kind of there are a lot of success stories which make a lot of money also from virtual summits and some other industries.
Yoni Mazor 22:26
So the original idea was virtual summits. That was kind of you said, You know, this is, I understand the industry, I see the enormous potential, I wasn't able to find myself a participant as a seller, per se. But nevertheless, on the educational level, you know, I do feel that I have the right skills and ability to create so much for them, or educational events for them to learn, educate themselves and prove themselves, but also inside that mix to create a business model for yourself, which is an interesting combination, kind of early on 2015-16 is kind of early on in terms of all the virtual events. Today, we're 2020 and everybody has a virtual event. But this is a, you know, you kind of seeing to the future in one way. And well, what's the business model like? I mean, if it's a free event, how does an organizer make any income from that?
Augustus Kligys 23:13
Yeah, that was my question when I learned about this, that people make money from this. And the idea is, this is the structure, I implemented all my seven by now, virtual summits. So it's advertised as a free event. So people are coming. And they will be registering to the website of the summit. And then when the summit is launched, it's usually for one week or 5, 7, 8 days, depends on the organizer. So during these days, all the attendees who register they're able to watch all the sessions for free. And these sessions are distributed, maybe like 5-6-7 sessions a day, if it's a lot of speakers. And everyday, you can watch five new, six new videos, but they are locked after 24 hours. And this is...that's why it's free. And for sure you can watch everything for free. But if you are tired of this, too many too much information for today for tomorrow, you can just upgrade to all access pass, which is also usually no brainer to pay because it's relatively cheap, much cheaper than any kind of courses, of course, virtual summit is not such you cannot compare to your course. But amount of information you get from speakers is big. And yeah, you monetize through upgrades. So this is how I monetize my first virtual summit.
Yoni Mazor 24:38
So the content sells itself at some point of the lifecycle. So there's the life cycle where it's all free. But some you know, that's, you know, it's a short cycle 24 to 48 hours, and 24 to 48 hours and then you know there's the evergreen stage where the conference was a success. People had a good taste or good or you know, a good impression. And then they realize, Oh, I want to see it again. I wanna remember what happens, instead of running all these nodes down, they could just either buy it and then open up anytime they want, and keep it in the database, or somebody didn't participate all that, but they want to learn as a favorite speaker or some speakers boom, they buy into it. And that's how basically you’re able to generate the income. That was it was in terms of the income from the model. There's other corners?
Augustus Kligys 25:20
Other corners, that in the next events, you know, I could already I was established, people knew about my event, I was like, pioneer in the industry with virtual summits. Nobody else did for Amazon sellers. They were summits for ecommerce sellers, but which will, for Amazon private label, not. And from the next events, I could monetize through sponsorship. And also, you know, after the virtual event, you have an email list. So it's kind of a business model to create an email list, I had zero people when I, like three weeks before my first virtual summit, I had zero and I was so nervous. And I was so happy when I got like first 100 subscribers.
Yoni Mazor 26:01
How’d you find them? How’d you reach them? On social media? What was the main platform for you to create the awareness of the event, if you have no emails, or no, no prior connections?
Augustus Kligys 26:09
So in virtual summit, in this our industry, the best works when speakers or some kind of promotional partners help to promote. So most of the time, my traffic was coming through speakers, that's why kind of you need to strategically find speakers, not only those who are new and unknown, which I do, but also some who could potentially you could have a relationship with them. And potentially they could help you to promote your event, maybe later, you know, to in exchange to promote their products, like you know, their courses or whatever they have, or services. So this is yeah, what they wanted to say like...
Yoni Mazor 26:46
So you tasted success at the first event right away? Where you found boom, this is a eureka moment where this is success? This is, you know, a good income generated by nevertheless, it's it feels good, there's a good vibe, because you were probably helping a lot of sellers out there.
Augustus Kligys 26:59
It was yes, I made maybe I know 10,000 maybe dollars profit after five months of work. It took me a long. Now I'm doing a virtual summit and I produce it in two months. But the first one was long, you know, it's long process to understand how it works. But it was not only of course, it was rewarding to have money. But it was very interesting for me to do these interviews, I love making videos, or like I dream to do kind of videos. And with the virtual summits, I started to do videos. And I could just, how to say, xpress myself I was really fed up with programming. So I was looking for other opportunities because I was like, not happy. Let's say. Not happy yeah. And...
Yoni Mazor 27:45
You were able to air it out, express yourself, yourself, your heart and soul out there. But which is refreshing to you, because you're not doing things behind the scenes like you do with coding. But also, you know, connected probably a lot of elements of connections and networks from people all around the world, which is probably very rewarding all the exchanges you have with them. Small question about the name Orange Klik was the first time you got or that developed over time?
Augustus Kligys 28:08
Yeah, it developed over time, I think I started to use it only after one and a half years. So first, I just did virtual summit. It was called European Private Label Summit. And I was going with my brand, augustuskligys.com. And because I didn't really know how to brand and what I'm doing here. So you know, I popped up from nowhere. So and afterwards, I realized after one year, one and a half, that oh my god, what will happen if one day I want to step out, I cannot really like give this kind of what I'm doing to someone else. Or they cannot I cannot sell if I want. I'm not planning to sell Orange Klik or something. But just it can be difficult, you know, to step down, and then it will die. It's so difficult to see when there are websites and people are following and suddenly these people disappear.
Yoni Mazor 28:56
So in other words, you said I want to build a brand, but I don't want myself to be the brand because I can ...if because if I do build a brand, which is not me, I can always, you know, hand it to somebody else, even if even if you still own it, but somebody behind the scenes can take it and put that brand and keep pushing it forward. So this business will keep generating income or events or whatever it is and fulfill its purpose. And not only depending on you that's also very future looking element that you set up over there. It's interesting.
Augustus Kligys 29:26
Yeah, and actually, you know, now, people when we organize, we were organizing before corona times, five in person conferences in Europe and people loved them and they know it's Orange Klik event. And of course, some well, speakers mostly know that I am behind them. But for me, it's important that people know it's Orange Klik and then you know, maybe later I can outsource some of the events that I don't I just I know take you know just to manage everything but I really don't want to work on each event.
Yoni Mazor 29:56
Yeah like McDonald's franchises, somebody wants to do an event tonight. In the US, and you partner with them, they use your banner, the name of the brand Orange Klik, that's your private label, so to speak, right? But instead of selling products, you're selling education for Amazon sellers. That's pretty cool. Um, I guess another question for you is the physical events. So you said, we started, you know, 2015 or 16, as virtual events. When did you set the gear into physical events? There was an upgrade for you? That was a different approach, wasn't it?
Augustus Kligys 30:25
Yes. So I did the first virtual summit. And I did after when it's finished, I didn't really know what's happening now I was like, but after two weeks after the summit, I got another idea to make a second summit. So I did like three or four more virtual summits. And I started to feel like I'm tiring, tired of this routine. I'm excited to do this. But it's a routine. It's like going to job every time. So okay, now virtual summit. Now three months of hard work, we get money, maybe profit, we get the email list, we make people happy, and then rest and then again, so I was a bit tired of this routine. And I got again, intuition. Maybe one year later into the, like, one year into this what I was doing with virtual summits, I had the feeling that I will do a conference. But you know, this thought is very scary. Like imagine now. And if you never made any events, it's like, oh, my God, like so many. It's much bigger money. It's much bigger, I don't know the responsibilities. And like, now venue, now you're like, everything is online, it's easy. So you delete a file, or you delete or replace the video. But there it's like, oh, my God, people will come. What if like, I don't know, lights don’t work?
Yoni Mazor 31:37
Yeah. It's a bit more climactic, because computer is very comfortable for everybody around to kind of participate, you put your input, even the audience that come in from anywhere they want, they can jump right in. But when you do a physical event, they really have to commit not only their time, but also their physicality, they might you know, fly in, take a hotel from other, you know, countries and stuff like that. So you got to organize, you got the sponsors, you got the attendees. And all has to be climactic be done, you know, with the perfect execution for that moment. You want to clutch them in that moment, then when they physically interact everything else around has to feel good, the food, you know, the scheduling the organization, so much, much more elements to put together to make it a successful event. And I guess it elevates the pressure on you. So what year was the first physical event? And where was it?
Augustus Kligys 32:27
So when I got the feeling, I will do physical events, I knew it will be in Prague in the center in Czech Republic in the center of Europe, basically. So the first event we launched 2019, I basically made with some...I organized with a freelancer from Upwork. So basically, it happened 2019 in March, but
Yoni Mazor 32:51
So this means that for like the first three, four years is all digital, it was all virtual, correct?
Augustus Kligys 32:56
Yes, until 2018, I was doing digital, but the Prague event was on my mind already two years before. And then for one year, I was like, still like not sure. And then when I took a decision to do it was 2018 summer. And then already 2018, I visited a couple of Prague venues and I chose the venue. And I think I even signed the contract with venue 2018 August. So for nine, eight months, we were working on this, but you know, it was me and another Czech girl, which was helping me. We were doing from scratch, like we never had any experience organizing something like that. So it was interesting, too. And plus a lot of people who are laughing during the first conference, when I said on the stage that actually, I was only one time in kind of conference, experiencing myself just one time one year before in some German Amazon conference. And that's it. I didn't really like as a programmer, I didn't go to any kind of conferences.
Yoni Mazor 33:55
So no real physical experience with actual events, you have to understand what you know, never not having experience, it's hard to even it's a bit even harder to create some sort of what a career for the crowds where, you know, what should they experience or expect if you don't have any experience? So like completely blank paper, right? I know let me share with you I you know, I already I also created physical events, but I've been to so many so I said you know what, I went to all these events, let me try to create an event which might differentiate itself taken from all these experience from other events and create a special blend, if you like, as if this was whiskey or something, you know, different kind of blend for you to really make it all up from scratch and how did it go 2019 Prague was a spring or summer?
Augustus Kligys 34:42
It was March, so yeah, it was super successful. We got 180 attendees and a lot of you know people who, like Danny McMillan and other people who used to participate in dozens or 20-30 of these kinds of events. They were really saying Giving very high feedback, very good feedback. And I understood that I'm doing something good and correct and right. And yeah, talking about this no experience. When I was thinking about the event, I was always thinking about how I want to experience that. So maybe it was good that I didn't have much experience I couldn't, you know, interfere with.
Yoni Mazor 35:21
I agree, because that leaves room for me because being something authentic and original, that nobody really saw before. For me, it was more like, take a few elements and try to blend it in, maybe really create something new. But why gamble? For you it was a complete gamble for the, you know, from the beginning, everything was a gamble. So like, let's do it. And it was probably refreshing to all the attendees out there, which is, yeah, for sure. It can become an advantage or disadvantage, but it sounds like it was an advantage for you. So congratulations for that. What was the next event? Because I think there was another event.
Augustus Kligys 35:50
So when we're so basically before we even launched, before it happened, the March 2019 event already one or one month or six weeks before I was chatting with one of the speakers from Israel. And I said to him, why people from Israel are buying tickets to go to Prague? Don't you have, because there was quite, let's say a significant amount like six or 10 tickets from Israel going to Prague, I asked my speaker, why people are coming? Don't you have events? And he said, not really. So this is how we...
Yoni Mazor 36:23
Who was the person if I can ask?
Augustus Kligys 36:26
The...from this ninja...Quantify Ninja?
Yoni Mazor 36:31
I don't know, ok. You don’t remember the name? Okay. Doesn't matter. Yeah. Shout out to Quantify Ninja.
Augustus Kligys 36:36
I'm blanking out.
Yoni Mazor 36:37
Okay. Keep going. He might pick it up.
Augustus Kligys 36:41
Yinan Shiryan. Yinan Shiryan.
Yoni Mazor 36:43
Yinan Shiryan. So you’re speaking to Yinan and he said, How come you know you guys don't have in Israel? You said we just don't. And then what happened after that?
Augustus Kligys 36:49
So yeah, with him we started to plan the Israel event. And we knew after Prague, we had working hard on this. And we did with him Seller Fest Israel. This is how I created the Seller Fest brand. The idea was to bring events to the countries where you know, they don't really have Amazon.
Yoni Mazor 37:06
So hold on for a second. So the event in Prague was under the Orange Klik banner?
Yoni Mazor 37:13
Yes, it was Orange Klik banner, I think. Yeah, at that time, I have Orange Klik, but it was called European Seller Conference. And the branding was just blue European Seller Conference, I still didn't have that orange branding, which I'm pushing now. And this branding full orange, I actually I was a bit confused. So I did you know, European Seller Conference, I did Seller Fest Israel. After a few months we did Lithuania. And I was like thinking, oh my God, I have so many like virtual events. I have these different havens, but they want people to know that it's coming from the same company. And at that time, I think when I was working on Seller Fest event, I consulted some branding specialists, and my friend and he gave me an idea, like do everything, you know, all logos similar, and use the same font on the logo, so people will know. And then add by Orange Klik. That's why very often you see by Orange Klik, because they wanted still to have different names for different types of events.
Yoni Mazor 38:17
And I can safely say I'm talking to some sort of global Empire leader of educational seller conferences, events. So not only that you were physically active with creating all these events. You also create a directory, the AMZ summits, you know, mapping out, you know, I guess you can, obviously organically include your events, but also all the other global events that's happening out there. We're going to touch that in a very quick moment. So 2019, I can really identify that was a breakout year for you on a physical event to really smash out all these physical events were in several Seller conferences. And then as the storm was going, he said, I got to bundle it all up consolidated into one logical brand banner that will carry forward and so all the participants know this comes from this quality from the same guys as Orange Klik, and I guess take us for what happened next.
Augustus Kligys 39:13
So yeah, in 2019, we did four events, two times Seller Fest in Lithuania and Israel. So Seller Fest was the idea that it's events for local communities. To bring international speakers and local speakers, European Seller Conference in March in Prague is like global European event, but of course, all the world is welcome. But you get a lot of European people. And then we also got an idea for PPC Congress, which we did in September 2019. October, in Amsterdam. Yeah. And it was like specially for community of advertising specialists, which was first event for them. And then I had already big plans 2020, 6 or eight events and maybe 2021 twenty events like, you know, to become like a machine of events. But in a way I'm happy corona things happened because I slowed down, I, you know, I realized, maybe I don't need to because it's very stressful to make these events. I still didn't learn properly how to outsource kind of my vision. So I can tell the people what to do. But when it's about, Okay, show me design, I still want to look at all the designs, I have to approve them, I cannot dedicate yet to this work. So it's a lot of passion.
Yoni Mazor 40:32
I can say clearly say that the passion is still within you. So it's very hard to delegate the passion.
Augustus Kligys 40:39
Yeah, it's nice. Nicely said. Yeah. So then I thought yeah, when it's not 20 events, maybe it's possible. I could be like very managing everything, but it's still I will feel stressful, and I will want to control things. So now, during lockdown, you know, when there were no possibilities to plan in person events, I was thinking one day, why should I stress myself, why not to spend more time with family and to make just six events, good, quality events per year. So I will see what happens. You know, we don't know what's happening with event industry. But now at this moment, we are planning the third edition of European Seller Conference in Prague in March, middle of March, we are talking to the venue. But depends, you know, what are the regulations, if there are social distancing, I don't know if we can afford to run an international event when there is social distancing, because it's quite costly to have like twice less people unless people are ready to pay twice the price. But that's why...Yeah, this autumn 2020, I decided to launch a virtual summit, even though there are a lot of virtual summits in only Amazon industry, like one or two per month.
Yoni Mazor 41:55
Let's talk about this upcoming event. So first of all, I'm proud to say that my side, you know, Getida is a proud sponsor of this event. And we do appreciate the opportunity to you know, contribute and help you in a run another event on a virtual level and help Amazon sellers get educated. So talk about, you know, the upcoming event. What you know, people can experience, expect, you know, with this event, and why is it different from other events around?
Augustus Kligys 42:21
Yeah, it was difficult for me to think how to make it more different. The whole structure or implementation might be similar to other events. It’s because I'm following my formula, which worked before I don't really want to innovate too strong. I'm with every event, I'm testing something new technologies or new ideas, but in terms of let's say, content, now, we are trying really to push speakers to deliver high quality content. Of course, I will be honest, it's not always possible with 50 speakers. And but
Yoni Mazor 42:55
That's when you choose, you know, you don't have to nobody's pulling a gun and to the sellers head, I said, every single speak, as there are no presentation, you're gonna have to watch and summarize and get tested. You know, you see a whole spectrum is saying this is a spectrum. This is where I think I maybe have a weakness, I would like to learn more. That's what makes it a beautiful thing to have selection. Right? That's, that's kind of the wide selection of topics and speakers. But selection is important. So that's a differentiation. It's, you know, a serious selection.
Augustus Kligys 43:22
Yeah, actually comparing it to other events, virtual events in the industry, I would say that our event will, we'll be talking about all marketplaces on Amazon. But we'll have quite a lot of European or non-US based experts, which are more hard to find. This is what I'm doing sometimes just randomly shooting message on LinkedIn or Facebook, I see someone is talking good smart things on the Facebook groups, and I just connect to that person. And I had several speakers in the past on my virtual summits as well in this way.
Yoni Mazor 43:57
So special scouting for top talent for the presentations?
Augustus Kligys 44:01
Yeah, I'm trying to shoot for the talents, talents, and it's not always maybe successful, but that's my idea. You know, maybe I will have 10 new names in my summit. But maybe three of them will be something which for them will help to in their career in that maybe, of course, most of them are service providers, but I know several service providers which their business just boomed after they appeared just like this out of nowhere on my virtual summit just because I spotted them and I offered an opportunity. So I'm trying to play kind of it's a risky...because these new names they don't have audience so they will not really help me to promote, but I make it more interesting for listeners, for attendees. Also, I believe that my production is I hope it's the highest quality. When I see how others are running summits, even on similar structures similar maybe. Yeah, idea how it's done, but I kinda Sit for 12 or more hours per day to make sure that every detail is implemented correctly. And there is a flow in the user interface user experience. What else?
Yoni Mazor 45:11
If this was like the movie world, there's B-grade movies, secret movies, but there's a top Hollywood blockbusters, that's kind of the mindset that has to be high, you know, top, top notch, you know, blockbuster smooth, you know, beautiful experience of, to the mind and the business minds of sellers. If I had to say it, you know, from my perspective, so it's really appreciated. Nevertheless, that's what we actually decided that we're going to take part in this and participate. And help about. Okay, so big selection, you had picked some new talents. So this is, no matter what there's gonna be fresh things out, you know, it's not gonna be as repetitive as, you know, some sellers might expect for things to be because you're actually trying to recruit new talent and new speakers and new ideas. Right? So the quality, the whole experience should be smooth and nice and beautiful and entertaining. There's elements of entertainment, I know that you care about. So that's always good. So it's not only just you know, receiving data, receiving data, there's also an element of receiving it in a entertaining matter. With looks you in the eyes and said, Okay, this what we're doing. I know, because we're preparing some surprises out there. In terms of entertainment. So I look forward to that. Okay, I want to touch a little bit, you know, about AMZ Summits. When did this happen? How did this happen? What was the purpose? And where is it out right now?
46:31
So www.amzsummits.com is a website where manually me or whenever I see an event, I ask my VA to enter it into the database. So it's a platform where you can see upcoming events or past events for Amazon sellers, also meetups on meetup.com platform. And the idea of this website came up three years ago, I think 2017, when I was looking for events to attend, so I had...
Yoni Mazor 46:59
What were you looking for events? Yeah, yourself, or you generate them, but what were you looking to participate in from your end?
Augustus Kligys 47:07
So at that point, I had like, already two or at least two original semi successful ones. And people knew me. And now I was ready to travel to the events to meet my speakers, and just to, you know, to see what it's like. And as I said, at that time, I think 2017, I started to have the feeling that I will do a virtual in person event. So I wanted to attend at least one to see how it looks like. Then I went to computer, you know, I want to this summer 2017. I want to attend the events, where can I go? What to look for? Is like what to Google Amazon event like where? So I was lost. At that time. I think we lived in Germany. So I look, I knew a lot what's happening in German space. So that's why my first and only basically conference before my first I organized was in Germany, I just traveled to an event to look to experience. And this is how I started this portal, this website because I wanted to collect and I like to research information. And I like to kind of be on a radar, and maybe I don't take this information. I don't remember the dates or something. But I kind of very observant. So if you in one podcast, you will mention, oh, I am going to Romania to an event and then what I will do, I will start googling. You said you're going next month, okay, October. So I googled you know, Romania, October Amazon event, and I find it and put in my database. So I like very much, you know, observant what other people are talking or if I have connection to the people, I ask them...
Yoni Mazor 48:38
That's your radar, your radar is always on for Seller events. And I appreciate that, because I utilize this website or this database. And it's great. Just it maps out everything that's available on a global level with, you know, Amazon, selling on Amazon, no other way to put it besides this ingenious. It’s ingenious because you saw a need for something wasn't there before. And then clearly it can be so useful. You just created, you know, three years into the mix. I think it's probably growing and, and, you know, usage. I think it's really because selling on Amazon and all the Amazon sellers are really a global community, which is very exciting. very dynamic, vibrant, things just keep moving so fast and so rapidly. And these events are fun, they really are. Once you go to really go to physical events are a few of them. realize, wow, this is a cool place to be in terms of the business world. Because you know, altogether the all the sellers together are really a part of some sort of revolution. That is unheard of, you know, there's no sellers. There's no marketplace, there's no selections, there's no competition. There's no Amazon, right, so this is like the people in the creative and the ingenious people behind everything that people are just consuming out there. So it's fun to see the faces, you know, the characters, the talents, it makes it very, very cool. Very fun. All right, very good. So, I guess before we could close down the body of the episode, I want to know a few last remarks you want to say either the upcoming event or your storyline, some sort of last touch?
Augustus Kligys 50:04
So yeah, if you would like to experience my way of how I do virtual summits in the past, so you're welcome to join www.sellerfest.online virtual event which is happening September 22 to 30th. It's a nine day event with seven days of content.
Yoni Mazor 50:22
If you're listening to this episode after the event, don't worry, visit the website. It's all recorded, it's gonna be, you know, available for you to download and view afterwards. It's evergreen, it's just always there for you and for this year, and probably from other years in the past. So if you want to go old school retro, even though it's only a few months ago, a few years ago, every day that moves in the e commerce world is like a whole year or 10 years of regular businesses, because things always keep moving and updating. But check it out. You were saying?
Augustus Kligys 50:49
Yeah, so basically, we at Orange Klik, you know, we focus on creating events. So whenever we'll have possibility to create in person events, please check our website, www.orangeklik.com. And there is a menu of events. We put upcoming information about upcoming events. And the next one we're planning is Europe Seller Conference in March, and it will be always happening in March, I think. And besides that, I invite you to visit our YouTube channel Orange Klik, it’s called Orange Klik. And here we basically do similar things what we do in virtual summit, we do interviews with industry experts, ourselves, I'm not an Amazon seller. Now in the last half a year, I do have a co host, which is helping me she's helping me to host the events at the videos and virtual summit event as well. So she has more experience in Amazon than me. She works with the Amazon brands. So sometimes when it's very difficult topic you will see her maybe because she knows more insights. But yeah, we...Besides, you know, creating this happy experiences for people and delivering, bringing kind of through the YouTube channel, ideas, what other kinds of services exist, we are not promoting services, but you can see experts sharing their knowledge and then...
Yoni Mazor 52:11
Yeah, that's where it becomes useful for the sellers when you know, there's knowledge that gets poured out and shared. Alright, very good. Thank you for that, I guess let's sign off with I guess your message of inspiration and hope for entrepreneurs listening out there.
Augustus Kligys 52:27
I think what helped me, what I realized, what made my change in my life in 2016, when I changed from web developer to having online business. And with some, let's say what people dream of passive income, was taking action. I had a lot of fears. And I was very scared to do this first virtual summit because I'm not a native English speaker. I'm from small country, Lithuania, you know, and nobody knew in the industry my name so...but kind of I was consistent and some of my friends which they see my newsletters and everything they see there is a consistency, I think I'm in stress. And I'm like, Oh my god, I have to send a newsletter, I think it's I'm in a mess. But people from outside sees consistency. So I think it's important to be kind of consistent. Always, maybe too. Also what helped me was that, before I had this online success with the Amazon industry, I decided that I want to serve people. So my goal started to be from one day to another to kind of to see the way how I can help people. And now whenever I do, whenever a decision, I take in Orange Klik or whatever daily life I'm thinking how t will help people and how many people the more people you help, the more you will get back. Financials or you know, relationships, so, so I would say also like to focus on helping others and then the rest will come
Yoni Mazor 53:59
beautiful. Let me help you package it. So if you're listening out there, the main message of hope and inspiration of Augustus is basically try to focus on how you can help people and as many people as possible, but whenever you identify that, start doing it, but stay consistent, be religious about it, stay consistent and over time is going to bring good results, success, hopefully happiness and many many good things to come. Beautiful Augustus thank you so much for sharing your story. I found it to be remarkably interesting and refreshing. I learned a lot. I wish you much success with the upcoming events and future events. Stay safe, stay healthy. Goodbye, everybody. Until next time.
Augustus Kligys 54:36
Thank you very much. Bye bye
