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Raised by the Web...
Ilya Pozin

words by Devoe Yates
photo by Robert Todd Williamson

As an early immigrant to Maryland from the far reaches of Russia, Ilya Pozin ended up spending an inordinate amount of time in the world of computers throughout his formative years:  “I was taking English classes, but because I didn’t really know the language, I didn’t really have any friends.  It’s a bit of a sad tale, but an old computer my parents got me when I was eight-years-old ended up being my best friend, and I learned it inside and out.”  
By high school, Ilya had a thirst to make himself financially independent and take advantage of the land of opportunity.  With the help of two high school tech friends, he began his web building company, Ciplex.  “I found the business and clients around town. One of us programmed, one designed, and we made websites.  The money was good for us, because we were in high school, so when someone paid us $600 to do a website, each of us got $200 and that was awesome! 

Coming out of high school, I had a couple of thousand dollars put away into a savings account. When my family moved here, we didn’t have a lot, so I was raised to be frugal.”  

And then something most strange happened. “I was working at CompUSA part-time and this guy named Tom Antion came in with a list of questions, really difficult ones.  And he was going around to all the employees to see who could answer them, and every single employee pointed to me, ‘That guy knows all the answers.’  He ended up not really caring much about the answers. He was an internet marketing guru just trying to recruit a computer nerd to help him with his business. He slipped me a piece of paper that said, ‘Come work for me, I’ll pay you double what you’re making here.’  So I jumped on it and took that job with him.”
Over the years, Ilya rose to power as Tom’s right hand man, groomed with the magical secrets of internet marketing.  “He was really my inspiration, he was a successful multi-millionaire running his business out of his 8,000 sq. ft. mansion in Virginia Beach. He worked with hundreds of companies every single month from small start-ups to entrepreneurs, helping them develop a product from scratch, take it online, market it, and market themselves.”  

As you can imagine, all of these people needed to create their own websites, and rather than send them out to 3rd parties, Ilya began taking on the business of creating sites for these multitudes.  Eventually, he found himself overwhelmed with clients and it soon came time for him to make his own way, and so with Tom’s blessing, Ilya took his knowledge of building websites and what Tom had taught him in the world of internet marketing, and journeyed to one of the land’s greatest hubs of business, Los Angeles.  

Now, at the mere age of 24, he runs L.A.’s number one web-building and marketing company, Ciplex (find ‘em at www.ciplex.com), and he’s about to expand his multi-million dollar business into other territories.  Ilya and his merry band of web-lords specialize in building websites for small businesses and the simple man alike for extraordinarily low costs, even though they’ve been working for some of the biggest car and phone companies around (I’d tell you their names, but it would put me in a heap of trouble).  If you’re in need of a website to market your latest invention or special brand of flavored mustard, or even if you just need help marketing your wares online, he’s your man.

Here are Illya’s top six reasons why you should take your business online:

1. Save on Rent –  You’ll avoid all the nasty expenses of a retail storefront and paying top dollar for a hot location in a fancy area.
2. Save on Marketing – The truth of the matter is, online marketing has the highest return on investment over any traditional advertising and can bring an exponentially larger amount of traffic to your website versus a physical office or store.  And…online marketing will only set you back a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising.
3. Save on Start-up & Overhead Costs – There’s no reason to stock inventory.  You’ll save tons of greenbacks annually and when your business is online, you can display endless lists of products and when the orders are placed, they can be shipped directly from the manufacturer. In addition, when your business is online you need less employees and because they telecommute, their salaries are lower. And lastly, with no physical store to impress shoppers with, there won’t be any need to buy posh furniture and expensive interior design.
4. Show the World – That’s right.  Think about it.  Why market to a small group of fickle shoppers in your local market?  Having a website allows you to reach billions of weirdos across the globe.
5. Take your business with you – A no-brainer. If your business is online, you can run it from practically anywhere; an island beach, a cottage in France, or even your secret underground layer…and you can even do it wearing a strange costume or eee gads, nothing at all.
6. Do both! – If you’re still being hard-headed after all this, then have it your way.  Do you already have a business with an office or storefront? Don't close down, go online and you might be able to double or even triple your revenue if your website has got the goods.  And since you already have the staff at hand, use the Internet as an additional low-cost marketing magnet.