I recently had the pleasure of drinking a few "remote" brews with Payment Ninja CEO Daria Dubinina. Originally from the Ukraine, Daria has been flexing her entrepreneurial muscles since she was 21. Prior to heading up Payment Ninja, she owned her own DJ'ing store and worked for a large payment processing company by the name of RBK Money. At RBK Money Daria started in customer service and worked her way up to becoming their VP of Global Business Development. After RBK Money sold in 2015 Daria left to join one of her former co-workers on a new initiative - Payment Ninja - which she now leads. Payment Ninja is a company that focuses on payment processing for small and medium-sized businesses. Based in San Francisco, Daria tells me that Payment Ninja is the world's first free payment processing system. In addition to processing payments for free, Payment Ninja also helps merchants sell more of what they're selling by helping them optimize their advertising. Here's an example: Think about buying shoes on the internet. Once you buy them, you don't need the shoes anymore...but you still see ads for the shoes. Payment Ninja helps to make sure that future ads that you see are for laces (or shoe polish, or socks, or whatever) as opposed to the same shoes. Daria is Ukrainian but has also lived in Latvia and based on our discussion of various countries I could tell that she is a seasoned world traveler. I knew Daria would make a great BLIB'er given that she likes beer, travels the world, and is an entrepreneur and business leader.
The Beer:
Daria and I kicked off our bi-coastal beer drinking session over Skype. Daria told me that she likes to drink dark beers and that she enjoys the deep taste of beer (and that she doesn't like light beers that she can hardly taste). Daria schooled me in the basics of Ukrainian beer and explained that while people in the Ukraine enjoy beer, there isn't a craft beer scene like there is in the U.S. Don't go to the Ukraine and expect craft breweries on every corner that sell all different types of craft brews. Daria explained that the Ukrainians tend to drink their beer for the effect, not for the taste. Bottles of beer usually come in 2 liter sizes and are often are on the lighter side. Because of this she finds the small 12 oz bottles we have in the U.S. strange, and she absolutely cannot stand drinking from cans. Daria chose to pick up an Anchor Steam Porter (92) and a Lost Coast Downtown Brown (83). I found it interesting that both of Daria's beers were from West Coast breweries. Famous for their Anchor Steam beer, Anchor Brewing has a reputation for being a good regional beer that has made its way across the country. Around since the late 1800's, Anchor was acquired by a San Francisco based group (The Griffin Group) back in 2010. I always tend to think that what Anchor Brewing is to San Francisco, Shiner is to Austin/San Antonio -- good regional breweries that have managed to gain some national notoriety. Lost Coast Brewery is a woman-owned brewery that has some fantastic beer (I like the 8 Ball Oatmeal Stout that they make). I decided to represent D.C. by grabbing DC Brau's The Citizen (81) as well as an Atlas Brew Works' Rowdy (83) and spread the D.C. beer gospel. The Citizen is a great Belgian style ale that you'll enjoy if like stronger trappist/belgian style beers. I wasn't as big of a fan of the Rowdy. Atlas calls it a Hop Forward Rye Ale. It's a little too bitter for me, and you can definitely taste the hoppiness of the beer, but the rye spiciness was a little too much for me.
The Bar:
Since Daria and I were on Skype, we weren't able to talk about the bar that we were in. Instead, we talked about some of Daria's favorite bars and restaurants. I knew that Daria's status as a world traveler would mean I'd get some interesting recommendations from her. Daria likes all sorts of food and enjoys pairing wine with Italian food and beer with Chinese/Asian food. One of her favorite restaurant/bars is a local place called The Trident in Sausalito, California. And one of Daria's go-to beer spots in San Francisco is Sessions. She likes Sessions because of their great beer selection and variety. I took a look at their online draft menu, which contained some great beers, including Heretic's Evil Twin (88) and Firestone's Doublejack (95). Daria also recommended a restaurant in Latvia called The Three Chefs (for when our BLIB readers are in Latvia) and a Ukranian restaurant/bar whose name translates into The Sheep Hunter. Daria told me that the latter is one of the best restaurants in Kiev, Ukraine. Daria is lucky enough to live by the ocean, and when I originally asked her where she liked to drink beer (assuming she'd tell me a local bar), she told me that one of her favorite past-times is grabbing a bottle of beer and drinking it while sitting by the ocean.
The Business Leader:
Payment Ninja currently has 6 employees and will be hiring a few more developers and client support/account representatives in the near future. They'll also be hiring in Europe. The company is currently bootstrapped, but they may be looking for some investment at some point as well. One of Daria's biggest challenges is "putting everything together" or assembling and joining all of the moving parts of her business. She also mentioned that getting rid of fear and doubt and moving forward is incredibly important. We heard that from Kevin May in our last BLIB as well! It's becoming more and more obvious that CEO's and business leaders aren't immune from the fear and doubt bug. When it comes to what Daria needs from the Universe, she told me that she would like to increase sales, which would then allow her to grow her company at a more rapid pace. She also would like to continue thinking about how she could attract more investment into her company. When I asked her what sort of advice she has for other business leaders, Daria told me this: It's easy to give up, but don't. Just keep working. Make sure that there's movement every day. Don't let fear get in the way of the work that you are doing. Daria also encourages others to pick someone who you admire and ask yourself "what would that person do in my situation." Daria is currently reading Dan Lyon's new book Disrupted and recommends others read it as well.
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