Artful Endeavors: Dmitry Portnyagin

L'Officiel Arabia: What role does art play in your life?

Dmitry Portnyagin: I’ve been running a business for 17 years and there is one thing I know for sure – entrepreneurship is undoubtedly an art if we see it as a lifetime project. Just because of the fact, that every day an entrepreneur creates something new, trying to surprise, simplify routine and transform the outworld. Look around, almost everything at home, in your office, even in the street in 99% of cases is created or invented by entrepreneurs – people who wanted to make life easier and more comfortable. In addition, each entrepreneur has his or her own mission, based on a unique vision. They have their own idea of what is going to be in demand, and what challenge they will face tomorrow. That’s why it doesn't matter what specifically we are talking about restaurant business, manufacturing or creating toys. All of this is definitely related to art.

If we discourse of a contemporary art as an artistic understanding of reality, it has always inspired me. I love going to galleries, and exhibitions, socializing with artists, and I do my best to be surrounded by creative people since I consider myself to be somewhat creative. Art gives birth to a lot of ideas, and unique solutions. It fills my life with colors and emotions. It helps me to grow and develop.

L'O A: Your latest project is the development of collectible art toys TUD. Please tell us a little bit more about its values, features, and the background behind its appearance.

D.P.: After 30, I realized that there are at least three points of support in the real man's life.

First, it’s a need and an ability to share experience. This can refer to your children's social media audience or a business team. It’s important to discharge your accumulated knowledge and skills. It seems to me this desire is laid down somewhere at a genetic level.

Secondly, it is creating something with your own hands. Let it be a garage, car stuff, furniture or building and construction. Whatever, the most important thing here is the opportunity to seclude yourself and work with your hands.

And thirdly, the man should certainly have a collection. The choice of what exactly to collect is up to each individual, anyway sooner or later we all come to it.

Earlier I had neither had a need nor a particular interest in collecting, even as a child. Curiosity came with time. I started collecting shoes, so I had a collection of sneakers that took up half of my apartment. Yet I didn't see any potential or energy in it. Then one day I got a plastic toy as a present, and I really loved it. I remember how I put it on a front burner and noticed that the space around somehow changed, and became seemingly noticeable, significant for me. It came to me that a toy is more fascinating than paintings, which I also had. A toy is more than a decoration, it's a real piece of art that can change the mood and affect the world around you. That's how I started collecting toys. I have been buying them at auctions for the last 7 years, I get toys from friends and partners. At some point the collection filled the whole office, so I moved the toys to a country house. Toys infuse everything around with emotions and add colors. I’d been constantly asked where they were bought, whose collaborations they were from and which brands were involved in production. It was very inspiring and I caught myself thinking about the creation of my own collectible toy, a work of art, I dare say, that would contain some deep meaning. I’d been reflecting on this idea for several years.

I remember when I was about 17, I was hit by a story about an ugly duckling. I suddenly saw myself in the main character, a guy from a small town who had lost his father at the age of 10, with no higher education, and who worked as a security guard in a supermarket. On the one hand, I saw my potential, but on the other, I felt as if I wasn't worthy of the life I dreamed of. I looked at the expensive cars with well-dressed high-status men and beautiful girls, at the companies that came together and along in their cars, and I strived for the same. I desired to travel, doing what I loved to do. I did not want to count money but wanted to go the opposite way – to reach the top in creating my own product, which would later bring me fame and, accordingly, make me a wealthy man.

As it turned out, almost no one believed in me. As soon as I started doing something, my friends would say: “It's not for you”, and “There's no future in it”. It was hard to be continuously devalued. At a certain point, I almost believed it all. Still, somehow the willingness to try to change things and create the life I strived for, was growing inside me. There was a picture in my mind: a spacious apartment in a skyscraper, a fancy car, great business, successful friends, and creativity. I’d been living with that image for a very long time. And those feelings of a self-conscious but fantasizing duckling still emerge sometimes. Even now I keep noticing that people don't have faith in my success. However, I realized a long time ago how irrelevant it is. I learned that I should listen only to my heart, and evaluate my own potential, ambitions, and speed. Perseverance is something that can never be taken away from us. And it is already enough for great results.

That's how we came up with the idea of The Ugly Duck, a toy that anyone who feels insecure or unworthy could put in a visible place, look at and recognize that this duckling has a big story behind it and a hard road of downs that eventually led to victories. Now we make these toys together with celebrities and companies that once were ducklings from the fairy tale. They succeeded in overcoming the environmental resistance and now they promote their story to the world. I want to encourage guys like me to succeed.

L'O A: Your ideas have always been strikingly exceptional. How did you achieve such resonance and emotion?

D. P.: To do something unique, to evoke vivid emotions in people, you just have to act from the heart, to do your job with love. You have to be a fanatic. That is how I feel about what I do. I think I devote almost 18 hours a day to my business, my products, my team. About 90% of the time I spend thinking about what other cool things I can do. A lot of business schools teach you to start by looking at people's needs, and their pain. The way I approach it, though, is to begin with myself. I write down as a thesis a description of a product that I would buy myself and recommend to friends, and would be glad to pay more for an alternative. And it works most frequently. Of course, we learn from competitors, we always look at the market, conduct market research, study customer experience, and do a lot of tests, but my idea of the final product is always in the basis of it all. So, the idea that comes from the heart, a sincere need, as a result, develops into a unique product. This is the base, which is later transformed by the experience and ambitions of the team. It leads to a project with a huge potential on the market. I suppose this little secret can be written in books. It certainly works! This is how I advise everyone who dares to create something new to get going.

Can you share any experiences or specific challenges you've faced along the way in creating your product?

D. P.: I believe that there are no easy paths to great goals. But for me it doesn't seem to be a problem. Creating any product is a game, a process of mastering new levels. Difficulties are inevitable, and quite often they do not correlate with the reality you have pictured for yourself at all. I guess here is a thrill of entrepreneurship – you have to solve completely new problems every day.

Specifically in our case, we had no idea what the final product exactly would look like, what material it would be made of, its volume, its packaging. How much it would cost, after all, what should its happy owner be like? At first, my partner (he is an artist) and I drew a simple picture. And then it became clear what emotions the character would provoke, and what position in space it should occupy. We knew that an image, that would be recognized by millions and would inspire a great number of people, had been born. When we released a pilot batch of 250 simply black ducklings, and they flew away in 5 hours at a cost of just a little less than $2,000, that was absolutely incredible. We came to realize that we had created something very special. The story of the ugly duckling is well-known and lives in so many hearts that people got our message straight. The audience responded to the reference to a familiar figure primarily.

Of course, there were some disappointing samples as well. We searched for a manufacturer suitable in terms of quality (the final product should have no odors), we went through a huge number of packaging options – we needed the one that was easy to open. We played with color, toning, and polishing, as it was important to get a noble matte black. We puzzled our brains over the balance, the way our duckling looks in different lighting. It was essential to convey equanimity in the duck’s eyes. Now it may look a bit silly, but it’s obviously self-confident. In general, there were so many parameters that it was difficult to list them all at once. Finally, after lots of mistakes and failures, we got not perfect but the closest to the desired model, which we called simply “The sample”. There were uneven joints, paint leaked somewhere, part of the packages got crumpled during transportation, but that was the very first unique lot. This duckling called “The sample” isn't perfect, just like me, it has a strange look, it’s black in color, and apparently doesn’t differ from the others, but it has got own unlike vibes. It has desire and passion. So, all in all it was an earnest job that we lived through. And each of the rough edges is honest as well. This is the uniqueness of TUD.

L'O A: Despite the fact that the company is quite young, you have already managed to collaborate with celebrities, for example, with Mike Tyson. Tell us about your plans, what outstanding collaborations are you working on now?

D. P.: Right, in the 10 months of TUD's existence, we did manage to make two interesting collaborations – with Mike Tyson, the world boxing legend, and the talented artist Punk Me Tender, who came from France to Hollywood for a new life... with two thousand dollars in his pocket. Nowadays he’s got a large studio and his paintings are bought by famous and wealthy people all over the world.

We are not going to stop. At the moment we are working on a collaboration with another legend, albeit the one who had passed away, Michael Jackson. We are in the process of doing a project with his son. I think that Jackson was a true ugly duckling, who had a very hard path and passed away unexpectedly early. Yet he left a whole generation that grew up on his music. Everyone who has been inspired by his art overcomes his own unique obstacles on the road to the dream.

There are also plans to collaborate with the UFC. I absolutely adore this brand and have been observing its development for more than 10 years. I remember the stages of its revival, the first small halls, I remember that it is always the UFC that has the best sports promotion and I know that the biggest mixed martial arts company has grown solely on the founders' belief in their idea. So now in honor of their 30th anniversary, I'm excited to do a collaboration and pick a few fighters as examples of turning real ugly ducklings into world renowned champions. Looking at them now, no one would ever think that anyone worked as a bartender or security guard in a club. These guys are living proof of how little birthplace and background matter, and how important is what you believe in. I think the UFC is a treasure trove of these stories, stories of people with similar values.

Now we are negotiating with several companies and outstanding personalities, but I don't think we should announce the names before final agreements are reached. If you follow our creative work, you will soon know everything from TUD's social networks.

L'O A: What are the global goals for the TUD project over the next couple of years?

D. P.: We will continue to work together with world-class brands whose values are similar to ours and stories can be seen as an example of an ugly duckling turning into a swan. I think you’ll hear about it soon.

We also plan to introduce our product to collectors at the world's largest exhibitions of contemporary art. And, most likely, we’ll debut in this format by 2024. We want our ducklings to appear in iconic locations and participate in the largest festivals so that as many people as possible can learn the TUD philosophy and become part of the community.

We certainly intend to carry on creating objects that will be sold at auctions in single copies. We put our soul into these unique projects, and we “thread” a particular message in it. It's crucial for us that the collector enjoys not only buying a toy, unpacking it, contemplating it in space, but he or she also joins the growing community of people around the world who are united by similar life stories, inspiring each other.

Like any creator, we need to realize that our art resonates in the hearts of people worldwide. I suppose this is how we can formulate the main goal of our campaign.

 

L'O A: What do you think, what is the difference between your creative work and other projects on the art market?

D. P.: I cannot evaluate other projects, but I’ll add a few more words about us. In my opinion, what makes TUD exceptional is its honesty. We are not trying to prove that we are the most successful, the most popular in the world or that we have the greatest potential. No, we're not perfect. But we do convey our idea with sincerity and transparency that comes from the bottom of the heart. We do believe that it can unite a huge number of people around the world, and become a sign for those who keep waiting for some special conditions to finally change their lives. There is no perfect moment to start! You can act and move towards your dreams right now! I feel that if we loudly proclaim ourselves and our product, we’ll be heard by those who share this philosophy. And then huge flocks of ugly ducklings all over the world will come together and fly south, to meet their dreams and goals, to their better future.

L'O A: What would you advise to those who want to launch their own art business or pursue similar creative endeavors?

D. P.: I think the best way to enter the creative field is to remember what you loved most in your childhood and try to reproduce the moments or actions that gave you the most pleasure back then. What gave you the strength and energy? What were you passionately striving for? What made you feel as if time had stopped? That is where you should look for the source of inspiration.

Currently, I have one and a half million subscribers on YouTube, but I did not become a popular business blogger at once. This story goes back to my childhood. I was fond of performing on a stage, standing on a chair and telling poems to my family during dinner. I really liked to express myself in that way. And later I understood that you can take a camera in your hands, speak and get an effect similar to reciting poetry from a chair (laughs). Such childhood hobbies contain a huge amount of energy, which literally fills you again and again if you reproduce the same actions. You have to remember the things you loved back then. Remember your dreams, your views on the world. As adults, we need to turn off this adulthood more often and turn to the inner child with its unique outlook on life. In other words, having the resources of an adult is necessary to help your little one to materialize his or her dreams. That would be the best creative solution. For me, The Ugly Duck is first and foremost a toy. And as a child, I dreamed of buying as many of them as I wanted. Of course, I didn't have such a chance at that time. But I have it now. Moreover, besides the fact that I collect toys, I invent and produce them myself. This is the best example of a child's dream materialization.

L'O A: You always look stylish. What would you call the key factor in choosing clothes — comfort, style or trend relevance?

D. P.: I can't say that I follow or delve into fashion trends in any way. My appearance simply corresponds to my mood and partly reflects a certain stage. There is a certain cyclicality in a person's life, changes that occur, roughly, once in two or three years. These shifts manifest themselves on an external level in clothes. Now I really like loose, spacious clothes, I prefer oversized ones. I appreciate comfort, but at the same time, quality is important to me. I've noticed that I'm less and less attracted to brands and bright, flashy logos. I have a diverse stock of clothes and when I wake up in the morning, I look at the schedule on the phone, and my first question is what my mood is, and how I'd like to look today. Even if there's a meeting which I should preferably attend in a shirt and classic jeans, but I’ve got a clear urge to wear a hoodie, I choose a hoodie, shorts, and sneakers. In my point of view, sincerity and honesty towards myself, are more precious than external circumstances. And, by the way, I want to say that this has never prevented me from making deals and working the room. Rather, on the contrary, it facilitated communication.

L'O A: What fashion trends do you find overrated or uninteresting?

D. P.: Undoubtedly, I would very much like to answer: “Everything that belongs to limited collections”. On the one hand, I create such projects myself, and on the other, there is a wide range of people for whom this is an essential characteristic. So inaccessibility, whether for financial reasons or because it's physically impossible to find the object, makes it even more appealing. The search becomes a challenge. Therefore, I’ll answer the question this way – there is enormous potential in seemingly overrated items, whether it be toys, shoes, or handbags. Yes, the world is overflowing with goods at absolutely any price now, and it is precisely due to the apparent availability of everything everywhere the interest is aroused by those items that require a lot of effort to hunt for. This means that the trend for hard-to-find objects, regardless of the sphere of application, will continue to gain popularity.

Credits:

Star: Dmitry Portnyagin @portnyagin

Photographer: Alex Flint @alex_flint_ph