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That said, Kogan the company likes to hire graduates.
'When we recruit at Kogan we look at people favourably when they have a uni degree. But we don't care what sort of degree it is. It's all about their ability to commit to something and university is more about learning how to learn rather than what you actually learn.
'When someone has a uni degree it says this person will be able to commit to a project, meet the deadline and do all necessary research for the project -whether degree in bio med, or arts or law we don't care.
'And we tell everyone they will never be training in their job - there's no training at Kogan. Our view is that people who want to look like they are learning go on training courses, people who want to actually learn something go on Google.'
I really hope my kids aren't reading this. I'm trying to steer them away from Google as the arbiter of academe; I don't want to do their washing for ever no matter how successful they are; and their Dad makes the best minestrone in this house. What they and their generation could learn from Kogan though is the single minded purpose he has, the determination to crash through the status quo and his willingness to go it alone.
'I don't think an entrepreneur can really have a mentor. It's very similar to being an inventor - you have to think of new ways to get things done and come up with new and unique ideas. Was it possible for Thomas Edison to have a mentor to tell him how to invent the light globe?
'I've had some people I've turned to for advice in certain areas - marketing or strategy - but some of the people I most respected, when I approached them and told them about the idea for Kogan they laughed and said 'as if anyone would buy a TV online'.' While he doesn't have a mentor, he does have some business heroes, nominating Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg (FaceBook according to Kogan is the planet's best chance for world peace (kids - stop reading this NOW) )and a young Richard Branson among that pantheon.
Like them - Kogan's taken on the status quo.
'We were the first TV to be sold online in Australia. That was at a time when online retail was very young in Australia - you had the doyen of Australian retail, Gerry Harvey, saying that online retail wasn't even an industry - that people will never sell and shop online.
'Kogan as a company played a huge part in showing what's possible with online retail. We're entering an age of revolution in retail that's all to do with information. Online allows free flowing information between manufacturers and consumers and that has never been possible in the past. In the past you needed all these middle men. If I went to start Kogan 15 years ago (Ruslan would have been 13 then - so perhaps a little overly precocious even by his standards) I would have needed a budget of at least $50 million to open showrooms Australia wide and buy millions of dollars of stock and taken so long. I started Kogan with zero dollars start-up capital and did it in four days.'
