How a Ukrainian Immigrant Built Millions Without a Degree

I'm a living breeding proved that American dreams still exist, and when I was 24, I realized that I made my first militant.

Victor Prozapass is an entrepreneur, investor, and business leader, with venture spanning hospitality, wellness, construction, and private investments. He builds purpose-driven businesses through strategic leadership, innovation, and a commitment to creating lasting value for people and communities.

“How important is faith and religion in your ventures?”

The business gives me influence, but only menace will give me purpose. There will be no person that's going to come to me, hate and say, like, invest in this. If it's going to go against my Christian value, you don't even bring it up. My values and virtues is more important than making this. You only have one chance, and that one chance uses it really well.

You can never be as successful as somebody else.

You can be successful as you are, because, you know, success is not about... It spans the goal. Like a super high school, internet elders. Today, Apple is going to reinvent football. It's not over! I'm telling how weird!

The living your legacy podcast, for those who live to leave a legacy. [Music] Hey, welcome everybody back to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast. We're here down in the studios at Miami Beach, and it's the World Cup fever. We've got a special guest, and he's come all the way from Ohio to join us.

“And, yeah, what's your name, and what's good with your business?”

Hello, my name is Victor Prasapas. I'm from Columbus, Ohio. And, first of all, I want to thank you for this opportunity. Yeah, I want to thank Red Rudy for inviting me here and giving me this opportunity. And it's really an awesome place, your studio, what you guys doing. I really love the atmosphere, so it's great.

But, I'm here to, I guess, to talk about what's happening in my life, and right now, my main company is Victor Ventures, and I'm Venture Now. Okay, Venture Now. It's a where? Well, this is something that I've, I'd love to do right now to invest in build companies, and build people, and kind of like I call it jump off without parachute.

Okay, okay, yeah, so that's the, the entrepreneurial journey. So you're investing in startups, or companies that already have kind of like a full either.

So I, I do it all, like, I always tell my friends, there's no crazy idea for me.

If somebody tells me the idea, and I like it, I will jump on that idea, even though it might never work out really well. Yeah, but I still, I like to see that process from beginning to end. Okay, so yeah, I mean, when, when startups are pitching to Ventures, right?

“What, what do you look at in a business? Like, do you, I mean, you have to go through all the financials, right?”

A lot of people invest in people also more than the numbers. They say, wow, you're, you're company, and but also just you as a, as a founder, you are someone that I could invest in. Like, what are the top things that you're looking at before you make an investment? For me, I invest more in people that numbers. Okay. And that's what I, I really need to kind of see that person. If the person is business minded, you know, have a good Christian values, it's a key for me, right?

Because I can, I can go with that person, I can relate to that person. And if I see that, then I might ignore all the numbers. And if the idea makes sense, if the idea have, you know, future or prospect at the surface, then we can go deep. Okay, okay. And yeah, so I hear you definitely have an accent, right? And you'd have a European name, Victor.

What's your background? So I am originally from Ukraine and I moved to the United States when I was 16 with my family with no English and no idea what I'm doing. Wow, 16, you're a little rampantious teenager, right? And where do you guys move to? So originally, we moved to Washington State, the place called Tri-Cities, okay? And that's what I started my journey.

All right. And I heard that you kind of picked up some odd jobs here and there when you were younger.

Right. That's where I learned how to make really good American burgers.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of like the all American first job, right?”

Oh, yeah. And then I think, you know, that job kind of taught me, you know, I want to say a purpose, but idea what the job is. Yeah. And then another incredible thing that I've read about you is that you made a lot of money at a young age. I was blessed. I was fortunate. Whatever you call it, I was it. You know, and I, I'm a living, breathing, you know, proved that American dreams still exist.

Yeah.

And when I was almost 24, I realized that I made my first million.

Oh, my God. And how did you make that? Because I heard you were, you did burking. You were also like mowing lawns, right? Yeah. So that was, so my first couple of years when I went to high school, I worked sometimes three different jobs. Yeah. I was cleaning school. I was in Pizza Hut, Burger King, retail store, you know, cleaning yards and so on and so on. When I finished high school, I went to into construction and then, you know, after about two years in construction, I opened my first company and that's where the American dream began.

People will laugh because we have, you know, all all different ages, but we recall that being a Jamaican because there was this funny comedy show of this Jamaican family. And they'd always be like, hey, man, what are you doing? And they'd be like, what do you mean, what am I going to the next job? I got three jobs, man. They're like, only three jobs. I got five jobs, man. You know, and the whole skit was like, then going to the job. You know, that was the whole skit. But back then, we used to all have a lot of jobs. You know, I was also a paper boy. I was working at a coffee shop and I was a soccer ref.

“And also picking up on the weekends, you know, bought my dad's lawnmower, low and lawn mowing some jobs. You know, it was like some good first job money, right?”

But it teaches you, you know, hard work and it still's a lot of good values when you're young.

Oh yeah, and especially I always suggest, you know, for my friends and everybody that I know teach the kids from the very early age.

Don't think about kids childhood, give them purpose from the very beginning, give them idea what to do, show them how to make money. Yeah, you know, we don't, we've lost a lot of those things like being a paper boy. There's no more of that. I know. And I think that's a big kind of problem for the kids because it's really hard to get in into something. And being a paper boy was probably one of the best in the kids could have done. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I was a paper boy. You know, through the rain or snow, right? You still had to get those papers, right? And on the front doorstep, waking up at five in the morning before school. Like, now who gets a paper delivered to their house? No one, right? So almighty internet.

Yeah, yeah. So how, how did that first million come? It came very quiet. I did not realize, you know, I cannot pinpoint and say, okay, that was the day. Because, you know, what I did from very beginning in the business when I started making money, I was able to or I, the mindset that I have, I was, you know, reinvested that money into projects that I have at that time.

I was putting the money or building my own personal house. So the, the moment I cannot pinpoint the moment said, oh, that was the day. Yeah. And it was really quiet. So I would say the next day was the same thing, same responsibility, same problems. So just the same coffee in the morning. And I, I don't want to say that that was the, the moment.

I, I want to say that the first time I made the business $10,000 was much more impressive to me than the milling.

Okay. Okay. So tell us that story. So I made my first contract was about $17,000. And I received a contract and I didn't have the company open. I didn't know how to read contracts. I didn't know how to submit invoices. I didn't know anything. Yeah. And what kind of contract? It was a construction.

Okay. So I had to install a granic countertops in a hotel. Okay. Nice. And that's a great first gig, right? And with no companies. No company. So you had to, you had some sales like, right? So what was it? Or how was your background? How do you get that with no company to sell granic countertops at a hotel? So what I did is I've installed some countertops before for somebody else.

Okay. And then out of the blue, somebody knew me from somewhere else. Yeah. And you know, they called me and reformed me to this company. High five development in Cincinnati area. And Tom Lennon gave me this first job. And I asked him, hey, I don't have a company. He's like, well, this is what you do. Yeah. Go apply for a company.

“All right. And I said to him, I don't have insurance. He's like, well, this is number you need to call.”

Yeah. And so on. So he kind of gave me, you know, the idea what I need to do.

And, you know, I remember the my first paycheck I received from the company. And that was substantial amount for me back then 17,000. That's a lot of money. That's a great first contract. So yes.

“It's almost like, you know, entrepreneurs, they'll take the leap, right?”

Without no, without any sales. Yeah, but just a concept. But you're taking the leap with the, with the 17,000 dollar contract on the line. And you're just like, oh, my God, I have to walk this step. You know, you know, I'd remember back then. So I did that job. And you know what happened after that. My mind opened up.

And it's like, okay, well, if I was able to do this, I can do much more. Yeah. And what happened is the next thing, you know, I know it's like people. General contract will ask me, hey, can you do this? Can you install cabinetry?

I've never done cabinetry, but you know, there will be never, no.

Yeah, I would always say, oh, yeah, I can do this. Yeah. In Richard Branson says, if you don't know how to do something, don't let that stop. You just do it and you'll figure it out along the way. Oh, yeah. And that was my motto. I don't want to say no. I will just go and learn it. All are find somebody who can do it for me. Yeah. Yeah. Great.

“So you, you, you grew that business, right? How big did you grow that business to?”

So we had my peak. I had about 85 employees. Oh, there you go. And we were across the United States. I was doing jobs in Boston, Seattle. Well done. Phoenix Miami. Yeah, everywhere.

I, I never was satisfied to say, okay, I'll just do this little town or this little city.

And especially like back in 2008 and 2009, we have that recession. That was one of my best years. Wow. Because I was able to go and hunt the job. Instead of just sitting and waiting in one place, I was able to go across the United States. And I was able to find those jobs that sometimes there was not a company who can do it in that particular small town. Let's say in more than Minnesota. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I've done those jobs.

All right. So did, did you go to college at all? Or if you got a high school, you, you just entered business? No, I never went to college. I never went to a, you know, even do like later on and about 10 years ago, I still went and did my Tealogy, bachelor theology and then master theology. Okay. So, but original, no, I didn't go to college. My, you know, the construction field, construction side. That was my college in university.

And then as a venture out to many different things. So every time I start something new, I tell myself, I just got accepted in new university. Yeah. Yeah.

“New, that's how I did it. New education in the school of life, right? Yes. Yeah.”

It's funny that what life teaches us, right? It's like everyone in America, well, not everyone. But the American mindset is go to college, go to college, go to college. And also that, you know, when you're going to school, it's like, you got to get the good grades. And then trade school in high school, right, is looked down upon. But the trade school and, you know, learning the blue collar jobs with in construction, working your hands.

It's so important. And it's even more important now because of AI and all the knowledge-based jobs are just being, you know, up and replaced by AI. So they're even more important now. Yeah. So if you think about it.

So 56% of college graduates never will work the job that they graduated from.

Yeah. And that kind of brings us to a perspective to say, okay, there's a college education important. And I say, yes, if you have a ability to go to college, go. But, you know, at the same time, never rely on just on college education. Go and get a real skill while you are acquiring your degree. Go get a real skills and you never know where you're going to end up.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's almost like if you took that money that university and college cost and just invested it, right? Or I said, hey, would you rather have $150,000 or $200,000 to start a business or, you know, like, do what you love, right? Do something in what you love or go to college, right? If you give kids that choice, I wonder what they would choose. Well, so I have kids. I have three boys and one of them is Tony already. And he just finished about year and half of college and he's going for business.

And he's going to college, not because he wants it, because I'm telling him to do it.

And from somebody who can, you know, who wants you to succeed, because I always say that as a parent,

I'm the only one person in the world who wants to succeed for my kids to, for the, that they will succeed more that I am. Yeah, yeah, I'm the only one, everybody else will end the ill be jealous of yours, my kid success, I will never be. I want to them to do 10 times better. Yeah, and that will be happy for it. But a lot of the times, this is what we need to teach the young generation to say, listen, you know, a lot of the times, if you have no clue, talk to somebody who has a clue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now you've got your ventures, right?

And you also mentioned about faith within the ventures, if they have good kind of religious qualities or I forget the term that you use.

“But how important is faith in religion in your ventures or life and business in general?”

So I was born in a Christian family and I've been involved in the church ministries all my life. So this is the faith in association with the church is really important to me. And especially when I go and talk to other people and I say, listen, the business gives me influence. But only ministry will give me purpose. And I can bring the influence into ministry and put two things together.

And influence and purpose. And that creates a legacy. That builds, you know, the God's kingdom. And it's really important for us to not only to concentrate only on influence, because without the purpose that influence is will fade away real quickly. Wow. And so when you talk to the businesses that come to you, right? How do you bring up faith in that conversation?

I would say that a lot of the people come to me, they know who I am. So that's obvious. Nobody, there will be no person that's going to come to me and say, like, invest in this. If what's going to go against my Christian value, you know, don't even bring it up. Yeah, not because it's a bad business, just because I will not do it. I will not participate in that. For me, it's my values and virtues is more important in making money.

All right. And so what do you got going today?

“Are there additional things, businesses that you have outside of the ventures?”

So right now, I'm kind of concentrating on a couple of things. And one of them, we're building a coffee shop in Columbus, Ohio. Okay. We already have one in a brick and mortar coffee shop. Yes.

How big is this place? It's going to be a 43 hundred square feet. It will be it's called Mundial coffee and roasting. Right. You will roast our own coffee. We have, I would say we have a little bit different philosophy about behind the coffee and how we're going to present.

And then what do we do it? It's totally designed by me and my partner, Igor Mundial. And we are building that and we want to bring that atmosphere and the feeling, I'm a really coffee drinker. Okay. I love coffee.

How do you like your coffee? Only black. Okay. Right on. Yeah.

So I, we are bringing that to the, to the public in Columbus.

And then I also work on opening first my first location, Arctic elevation.

That's a wellness center in Columbus, Ohio as well. And because, you know, all my friends now or most of my friends is beyond 40. Yeah. And it's kind of funny when we get together for birthdays. We start wishing each other good health.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I'm like, okay. Well, if we start wishing good health, I need to do something about it. And we're open the Arctic elevation in Columbus, Ohio.

So in that wellness center, I hope to bring people to say, listen, you know, pay attention to your health now so you can be better off later. Yeah.

“So Arctic elevations, is that cryotherapy or what kind of health and wellness?”

So it's, it's basically a lot of traditional things in wellness centers, such as cryotherapy

or red light therapy, oxygen chambers, cold lips, cold lips. We are thinking about it. Yeah. But, you know, because there's a lot of things plus and minuses. And we want to bring, like, the therapist that we want to bring together, that has

a proven, you know, studies behind it. Yeah. So I don't want to say anything bad about anything else, but I just want to say, listen, that's what we wanted to do. If I offer to my clients and said, listen, do this, I want to tell them why.

Yeah. And a lot of the times, when you go to this new facilities, if you don't know or if they don't

Yeah. You know, you don't want to be what we call the snake oil salesmen. Yeah. Right. You assume that the real scientifically back stuff, and say, this is exactly why

“you should be doing it at your age regenerative or whatever, you know, and why specific.”

Yeah. It's the biohack and then rejuvenation and wellness. It's such a, I want to say, new and old idea. Yeah. But it's a symptom. There's so much new stuff coming out.

And a lot of the stuff is always, you know, it sounds really well.

But you got to give, sometimes time for that idea to mature and, you know, some good science to be built behind it. Yeah. And so what do you do for yourself in terms of health and wellness? Are you doing a lot of cryo also?

Not yet, not because it's not open yet. But what I do for myself, the best in that you any man can do, eat less. Eat less. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Going fasting. So do you practice fasting?

Intermittent fasting, I guess. I don't want to say a lot, but they do here and there. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of seafood, right, see everything and just eat it, right? You got to go on almost like a, you know, like, you know, watch yourself.

Right. Just do like you, what you just said, seafood only look. Yeah. You have absolutely right. Yeah. I did cryotherapy one time a friend to take of me. And, you know, it was quite the experience.

But, like, honestly, for me, it was, it was like, I'm something with my Coyonis, right? It was, it was a little, it was too cold for me down down in the Nether regions, you know, and I was like, oh, you know? So I had felt something, I kind of like had to be like, I think

something's off here. So I had to step out.

Well, you see, like, anything you do, you will never be satisfied

if you've done it on the one time. Yeah. You have to do it several times. And, you know, that's, that's the beauty, special with a cryotherapy. It's the, I want to say, it's the easiest way to burn the calories.

Yeah. Yeah. Because your body has to produce so much heat to keep up

“that you burn a lot of calories, and that's what I like about it.”

Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, there's a lot of science that backs it up, right? It's like putting, I guess everything in a lot of things in health

pushes to the limits, right? When it's, when it's going on fasting, and then the body activates all these kinds of chemicals, right? That only happens when you need food. It's okay.

It's burning visceral fat, right? Or, or whatever the body does. And then that's the same for cryotherapy. It's like, your body's going into this, like, hypothermia state. And so it releases all these good things, right?

So, and even when we're kind of in life, you said that you came to the states, no English, no money. You're mentally, you had to be like, okay. I'm in a state of, I have to learn this. I have to push myself, and I have to earn money this way

and do five different jobs. So, it's like, everything good is on the other side of something that's tough to do, where your body is either in a state of hypothermia or in a state of hunger, right? So, it's almost like so many different things in life

is when it doesn't come easy. You see, it's all about what kind of fuel do you give yourself? Yeah. You know, some people are become a junkie of all kinds of different sort of stuff.

Yeah, yeah. So, for me, when I came to the United States,

because I was always under pressure pressure

became my fuel. And I performed better under stress. Yeah, yeah. I cannot imagine when I am finished with, you know, there was to be a time on my life,

sometimes that I finish all my projects. And there's nothing new starting right away. And I, it drives me crazy because, you know, I want to be under pressure and, you know, I'm always telling myself, don't look back.

I'm not going that way. You know, it's only forward. And a lot of the times I even do something crazy to myself, I will cut or burn the bridge. I will never come back.

Yeah. So what I was doing yesterday.

“And that's why to bring it back full circle.”

That's why we got to teach our kids. Put them into that having a job, right? Because if they don't have that stress or the responsibilities to learn, then everything comes easy because you've worked hard to make it that way.

They're not going to, they're not going to understand that, right? I tell, like, my kids personally, I tell them, look, Listen, any job you do would be the best to audit. You know, if you push in cards, no problem. Yeah.

Push in a way that you will be the best at it. Yeah. You know, never allow anybody to yell at you. Not because you're going to yell back,

Yeah. And if you do the stains, you know, you will build a system in you. You will create a, your personal role to success. Yeah.

“So I asked everyone, what are you most excited about right now?”

I'm going to start with personal. So when my kids were born, I was excited to see them walk. And I was excited to see them right bicycle.

I was excited to go to the first grade and finish high school,

driving the car and things like that. So I'm excited to see my two older boys get married. You know, say, I'm the family. I'm excited about it. Yeah.

And then if I go and, you know, ministry, I'm excited about our church. I'm excited that we are, you know, it's grown, it's grown. And we are developing and we have influenced some people's life. We're bringing two worlds together, you know, they influence and purpose.

We give in people hope. And then, you know, if I look in the business, I'm excited for that I will be, I'm a part of beautiful things right now that, you know, I'm building people.

I'm building a company and I'm building, I want to say, future. Yeah, okay. Amazing. All positive things. I like you got a lot of good things going for you.

So how can people find you? You can, I am not really good with social media and everything else in the world, but you can still find me on Facebook and Instagram, it's Victor Prosapas. You can find me there. And then if you happen to be in Columbus,

a module coffee, I might be there. Yeah. And also Arctic elevation. Arctic elevation. Alright, that's another thing.

Amazing. So yeah, thank you for joining us here today in our studios. Have you got any plans for kind of any of the World Cup action going on here? So you've, a soccer is really big in Europe. Yeah.

I grew up playing soccer and high school and things like that. So I'm excited that, you know, it's one of those things like, if you look at sport, I would probably say that's the most influence that kids have in their life. It comes from sport.

And if we can, you know, as a parent as, you know, influencers, if we can bring that, you know, to more masses to say, listen, you know, instead of playing on your phone, play with the soccer ball and then you have a potential to become something you could change their lives.

Yeah. I said that to myself one day in college, and I was playing video games. And I was like, man, I was playing James Bond, right? And I was like, I know all these rooms, right? And all these levels, because it was like the big thing back then, right?

And I was like, but why? Why do I care about this stuff? And I was like, if I just spent that time in my guitar and new all the songs, right? I've been so much better at guitar, which is so much more meaningful to me, right?

You know, for me, the way I look at it, you can never repeat somebody else's success.

You can never be as successful as somebody else.

“You can be successful as you are because, you know, success is not about, you know,”

how much money you have or where you go. Success is all those little things that happens in your life. And when you put them all together, you are happy with yourself. You don't want to look back and say, oh, I wish I would have done this. Yeah.

You know, you look, one of the saddest things is to go up to a man and see that they live with a lot of regrets. Yes. Yeah. You know, there is a story that we always say that, you know, Ukrainian person went to Germany cemetery. And, you know, he walks in by the tombstone.

And he read and once he was born in 1931 and died in 1999. And at the bottom it says, you know, I lived only 15 years. Oh, no. And, you know, he asked a question like, why? Because then, you know, the person explains, like, listen, because of everything else in the world,

he finally realized that he's alive and only, you know, had 15 years of happy life.

And he said, well, in that case, put me on my tombstone, I was born dead.

“You know, so you have to, you have to understand or every person he needs to understand that you only have one chance.”

And that one chance used it really well. There's so much things that's not important in our lives. And so little things that are really important in that it will have effect on me. It will have effect on you and it will have effect on special in the family. Well, thank you for joining us here down in Miami.

And if you are looking forward to another episode of Kingdom Creators in hearing more of his journey, then tune in to his episode. And thank you for joining us here on Living Your Legacy Podcast.

Appreciate, thank you. All right, cheers everyone. (upbeat music)