Rolling Up Your Sleeves: Lessons From Launching Umbrella Real Estate

Timofei Sheludiakov has been building businesses since he was 16, moving from games and digital services into the physical world of real estate and investment after relocating to Dubai. Today he is the co-founder and managing partner of Umbrella Real Estate, which he runs with his brother Ilia, and the force behind VALTERRA, their internal investment office. He is also the author of Pure Nerve: The Noovitalist Manifesto and the founder of STOA, a free educational library spanning philosophy, economics, mathematics and the humanities.

In the conversation below, Timofei talks candidly about what it actually takes to build a boutique agency in a new country, the role of networking and reputation when advertising spend falls flat, and how he thinks about the relationship between entrepreneurship, management and personal responsibility. His answers draw as much from philosophy and negotiation theory as they do from the day-to-day grind of meetings, site visits and partnerships, a combination that reflects how he approaches both his work and his writing.

Tell us about yourself and your business.

I’m Timofei Sheludiakov, a Dubai-based entrepreneur, investor, and author. I started building businesses at 16, initially in games and digital services. Today, my work centres on real estate and investment. I’m the co-founder and managing partner of Umbrella Real Estate, working alongside my brother and business partner, Ilia. We also have VALTERRA, our internal investment office, through which we pursue our own investments and private development projects.

Alongside business, I write about philosophy, action and responsibility. My book, Pure Nerve: The Noovitalist Manifesto, explores Noovitalism, an outlook centred on intellect and vitality. It is about bringing thought, curiosity, ambition and the appetite for life into a coherent relationship with action and responsibility.

I also founded STOA, an educational project with a free library covering philosophy, economics, mathematics and the humanities. These interests are connected for me. I enjoy understanding how the world works, building things within it, and thinking about what makes that work worth doing.

How does your business make money?

There are two main sides to our business. Umbrella earns commissions through real estate transactions. Alongside that, we make our own property investments and work on private development, including large projects.

We invest independently and alongside clients. Our involvement therefore extends from helping clients evaluate opportunities and complete transactions to committing our own capital and developing projects ourselves. VALTERRA, our internal investment office, supports that investment side of our work.

What was your inspiration for starting the business?

I’ve wanted to build businesses since I was young. My earlier ventures involved games, websites, branding, and hospitality-related IT consulting. After moving to Dubai, I shifted towards physical businesses, real estate and investment.

That brought me into a working life of meetings, negotiations, site visits, and tangible assets. It was a direction I wanted to pursue, and Umbrella became part of building that life. I enjoy the combination of understanding an opportunity, bringing people together, and making something happen in the real world.

How and when did you launch the business?

We launched Umbrella in 2022 with our own money and built it from zero. We were establishing ourselves in a new country while learning how to reach the right people and develop partnerships.

The business grew through personal contacts and networking into a boutique agency with an international team, a flat sales structure, and a strong administrative back office.

How is the business funded? 

We funded the launch ourselves. We committed our own money and developed the business from scratch.

That meant taking responsibility for the investment and for the mistakes we made along the way. Some things worked, and some cost us money before we understood what suited our business.

How did you find your first few clients or customers?

Through networking, personal contacts, and partnerships. Much of it developed organically. You have to remain involved in the industry, keep meeting people, and stay open to conversations whose value might only become clear later.

For a founder, building that network is a separate responsibility from managing the internal team. You are also assembling an external team of partners and people you can work with. Once a partnership creates a concrete opportunity, the sales team takes the transaction forward and closes it.

Especially in the first year, creating those relationships rested heavily on us as founders. We were running the company and developing the network around it at the same time.

What was your first year in business like?

It was crazy. There were late nights, constant meetings, and a lot of conversations. We were in a new country and initially did not understand how to reach the people we needed to meet.

We had to figure that out while running the business. There was no neat sequence where we could finish building the network and then start operating. Management, finding partners, meeting people, and developing opportunities all happened simultaneously.

That is something people can miss about networking. It develops organically, but it requires constant participation. You have to stay in the flow of the industry. An introduction leads to a conversation, the conversation leads to another person, and eventually you reach a partnership you could not have mapped out at the beginning.

What strategies did you use to grow the business?

The most effective approach has been rolling up our sleeves and working in the field. Meeting people, developing partnerships, and staying involved in what is happening on the ground have been central to our growth.

During the first year, we spent considerable money on lead generation. Much of it was wasted. It helped us understand that our particular business needed a different approach. We had to focus on quality partnerships, long-term relationships, and reaching the people who could make decisions.

We are a boutique agency, and a good relationship can create opportunities over many years. Building it takes time and repeated effort. You have to keep showing up, understand the people you work with and deliver when an opportunity arrives.

For us, that personal work has been fundamental. It is something a founder has to take seriously and remain involved in, even while building a team capable of executing the transactions.

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome?

Clients. More specifically, the sustained, repetitive work of finding people, reaching them, and building contacts. There is a monotonous side to entrepreneurship that is easy to leave out of the story. You spend a lot of time searching, making introductions, and having conversations without an immediate result.

It becomes much easier as your capabilities and reputation grow. More people know what you can do, and the network starts to build on itself. There is a snowball effect, but getting it moving takes a lot of work.

What have been the most significant keys to your business’s success?

Getting out into the field, building a network, understanding people, and being able to close deals. You need to understand what matters to the other person and where an agreement can genuinely work.

Negotiation is especially important. One very useful concept is BATNA: your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. Understanding what you can actually do if a deal does not happen gives you a much clearer sense of your position. It helps you negotiate deliberately and recognise when walking away is the better decision.

Tell us about your team.

We have an international team of around 30 people. It combines top sales professionals, a strong administrative back office and international divisions.

The sales structure is flat. We do not organise experienced salespeople around layers of hierarchy and rigid day-to-day supervision. We work with people who know their business and deliver, supported by the administrative capability needed to carry the work through.

What is the most important lesson you’ve learned growing the business?

One important lesson is that entrepreneurship and management are different skills. Management is a significant part of business, but organising an internal team is only one way of creating a product and making it commercially successful.

An entrepreneur sees how different resources can work together. That might involve employees, external specialists, other business owners, partners or investors. The essential skills include communication, building relationships, positioning an offering and recognising useful combinations. You look at the people and resources available and ask what you could create with them that would be valuable to someone.

That is where the commercial result comes from. You take a risk, bring together resources and deliver a useful product, solution or idea. You earn money through the additional value you create. Learning to do that is a much broader task than learning to manage people.

What separates your business from your competitors?

Our approach is relationship-led rather than advertising-led. We develop personal connections and long-term partnerships, invest alongside clients and participate directly in the markets where we work.

The founders remain involved in the projects and investment decisions. We bring our own investment experience and capital into that work, including through private development. That gives us a practical understanding of the risks, decisions and responsibilities involved in owning and developing assets.

The combination of personal involvement, market knowledge and real investment experience is central to how we work with clients and partners.

What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?

Do not be afraid to fail, and do not let one business define you. Entrepreneurship is a way of thinking and living. You can lose a company, or even several companies, and still be an entrepreneur if you are prepared to get up and build again.

For me, being an entrepreneur means being able to find another opportunity, bring people together and create something useful. If your entire identity depends on one particular company continuing to exist, you risk becoming an employee of your own business. Your capabilities should extend beyond the company you happen to be running today.

And be willing to roll up your sleeves. An entrepreneur cannot expect to sit comfortably in a carriage while everyone else pulls it. You have to be out in front, pulling too, sometimes on your own.

What is your favorite quote?

I like a line Mick Jagger sings in the Rolling Stones’ Divine Intervention, from Foreign Tongues: “Life is a gambling game.” It captures something about both life and entrepreneurship: you make choices without knowing exactly how they will turn out. You can prepare, think carefully and understand the risks, but at some point you have to act.

Another idea that stayed with me comes from Trump: Never Give Up. My way of putting it is that what separates winners from losers is that, at some point, the losers stopped trying. A business can fail, but that does not have to be the end of you as an entrepreneur. You can get up and build again.

What are your future plans for the business?

International expansion is a major priority. We want to enter more countries, develop our network, and open additional branches.

At the same time, we are placing greater emphasis on our own investments and private development. We want to participate in new investment projects and become more directly involved in developing assets ourselves. VALTERRA, our internal investment office, is part of that direction.

If you had to start from scratch, where would you begin?

I would begin with relationships and reputation. If I arrived in a new city with nothing, I would get into the market, meet people, and understand who was doing what. I would speak with brokers, clients, developers, and potential partners, then look for ways to be useful.

At its core, business is about money and people, and I believe people are the more important starting point. Capital does not appear simply because you need it, but you can always begin by meeting people. Those relationships can bring together resources, expertise, and opportunities that you do not possess on your own.

You can build an external team before you have a large internal one. I would focus on finding good partners, connecting the right people, and earning a reputation through the work. My starting point would be exactly that: getting into the field.

What are some of your favorite books, blogs, podcasts, or YouTube channels?

I would mention The Richest Man in Babylon, Trump: Never Give Up, and The Art of the Deal. The latter two are particularly interesting if you want a sense of entrepreneurship in real estate and real assets: how people negotiate, develop relationships, build networks, and move projects forward. I find that world recognisable and inspiring.

For reading online, I prefer Substack to short-form Instagram content. I follow its recommendations across business, life, literature, philosophy, and people’s reflections. I like encountering different subjects and ways of thinking.

I don’t really watch business podcasts. I’m much more likely to watch scientists discussing quantum physics or astronomy. That comes from curiosity. I enjoy learning about things far outside my everyday work.