Viktor Popovic grew up in what was then Yugoslavia. When civil war broke out in the early nineties he left for Hungary as a refugee, along with the girlfriend he had met in high school who would later become his wife. They arrived with nothing. Their idea of a night out in Budapest was splitting a single McDonald's hamburger and hunting for discount movie tickets because full price was out of reach.

Four and a half years later an opportunity brought them to the United States. Viktor studied aviation at Embry Riddle, graduated straight into the collapse of the airline industry after 9/11, and took the first real opportunity that came his way instead, a friend's idea to sell pressure washers online. That business, Ultimate Washer, survived a brutal Google algorithm update that wiped out their organic traffic overnight, forced a pivot into Amazon, and ran for twenty one years before Viktor sold it in 2024.

He didn't stay retired long. Today he is co founder and president of Avendo, a FinTech company built around a simple but overlooked problem. Merchants have almost no idea what they are actually paying to process a credit card. Avendo evaluates each transaction the instant it happens, reading factors like card type, transaction size, and whether it is domestic or international, then routes that single transaction to whichever processor offers the best available rate for it. All of it happens in milliseconds, on the back end, invisible to the customer.

This conversation covers what it actually costs to leave everything behind twice, why the person next to you can carry you through decisions you cannot make alone, and why almost nobody, including business owners processing millions in transactions, has ever checked their own rate.

What we cover

Leaving Yugoslavia during the civil war and starting over in Hungary as a refugee
Splitting a hamburger in Budapest and building a life from zero with the woman who became his wife
Studying aviation, graduating into 9/11, and saying yes to an idea with no connection to his degree
Surviving a Google algorithm update that erased twenty one years of organic traffic overnight
Selling Ultimate Washer after two decades and starting over in FinTech
How Avendo reads risk factors in real time and routes each transaction to the cheapest available processor
Why most business owners have never once looked at what they actually pay per transaction

Connect with Viktor here

https://www.linkedin.com/in/viktor-popovic-b8a6b416/

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