This is my way to China (part 1)
Like many other stories of creating a business, my story also began when I had patience to accept the “rules of the game” from narrow-minded leaders and officials, and to go blindly through life, towards destiny.
So, in the yard - November 2005. The beginning of the era of "hydrocarbon fever." I have had many years of work in the structure of commercial departments of alcohol companies and distilleries. And dozens of exhibitions and business trips to the cities of our Motherland - helped to accumulate experience, which in the future turned out to be invaluable to me!
The time has come for the alcohol market to redraw the spheres of influence and introduce the “new rules” to regulate the circulation of alcoholic beverages. And it was then that I decided that the time had come when I had to start my own business and try to depend as little as possible on the decisions of the officials! But where to start? For the organization of the alcohol business, which was studied by me thoroughly - I did not have sufficient start-up capital. And the future business was supposed to start giving returns in a short time, because I did not have time for a “run-up”!
I had a positive example, some close acquaintances who had their own business, but it was mainly the shuttle business and the subsequent sale of goods through the wholesale clothing markets. I didn’t want to go to this segment, but I was very interested in the topic of import, because it was with this business scheme that one could receive high profits at the very beginning! And here EMU (His Majesty Chance) helped. One of my distant relatives, who came to conquer the capital from sunny Uzbekistan, had already begun, at that time, to work in the sale of consumables for various printing equipment. I must clarify that in addition to Jamshut and Ravshan - in the republics of Central Asia there are still people who use their heads, not only to eat pilaf and drink tea, but also for other purposes. But my relative did not do very well, as he lacked experience and specific knowledge on the organization and development of business, and I just had enough of this “good”. We sat down, talked - and agreed to cooperate, already as partners. And then they began to build our business.
')
Soon our company had already opened its own online store, through which we positioned ourselves in the business sector of the Internet, and also through it the main realization of our goods took place. It was a completely new direction for me, here I discovered new opportunities. In the alcohol industry at that time - the Internet did not attach any importance, and even more so, no company had a store in its network. This, of course, is primarily due to the rules of the alcohol trade, but to a greater extent to the inhibition of the management staff and unwillingness to think about business development.
Our main activity was the purchase of “consumables” from wholesale companies in large quantities and large quantities of containers (packaging), and then we repackaged them in small containers and sold them under a brand that belonged only to us. Thus, we became interesting to those consumers who needed these materials, but they were able to purchase them - only from us, because at that time no one else in Russia offered them in such an assortment and packaging. It was amazing, but true!
After some time, after about 5-6 months, we decided that it was time for us to go directly to the manufacturers of these consumables, because it was at the stage of the procurement and further supply of materials to Russia that the main profit surfaced. We sent out letters of cooperation with many Korean, European and American companies. But we began work with only two of them. It was a manufacturer of consumables from South Korea and an American company from Los Angeles.
But one thing is a letter and a verbal agreement on cooperation, and quite another thing is to actually bring the goods to Russia, then clear it, process it, and then sell it in the right form and quality! At the same time, it is necessary to understand that our company is only 4 people, each of whom combined several professions simultaneously. And we had to work a lot, because on weekdays we dealt with current problems, and on weekends we developed infrastructure, i.e. they themselves collected shelving, rebuilt the premises, serviced the filling equipment, tested new types of containers, closures, and so on. I can only say that in the first year of the formation of the case - we did not have days off. It was the most golden time for our business, because none of the large companies - did not see much potential in this market segment for developing a new direction, and small companies were busy with their pressing problems and also didn’t stick their nose into this segment. And at that time we caught by the tail "our" firebird.
From the business that was made at the beginning of the journey in the literal sense of the word “on the knees”, we grew up to be a distributor of well-known world brands in the market of consumables.
But life makes its own adjustments. Read about them in the next post .
So, in the yard - November 2005. The beginning of the era of "hydrocarbon fever." I have had many years of work in the structure of commercial departments of alcohol companies and distilleries. And dozens of exhibitions and business trips to the cities of our Motherland - helped to accumulate experience, which in the future turned out to be invaluable to me!
The time has come for the alcohol market to redraw the spheres of influence and introduce the “new rules” to regulate the circulation of alcoholic beverages. And it was then that I decided that the time had come when I had to start my own business and try to depend as little as possible on the decisions of the officials! But where to start? For the organization of the alcohol business, which was studied by me thoroughly - I did not have sufficient start-up capital. And the future business was supposed to start giving returns in a short time, because I did not have time for a “run-up”!
I had a positive example, some close acquaintances who had their own business, but it was mainly the shuttle business and the subsequent sale of goods through the wholesale clothing markets. I didn’t want to go to this segment, but I was very interested in the topic of import, because it was with this business scheme that one could receive high profits at the very beginning! And here EMU (His Majesty Chance) helped. One of my distant relatives, who came to conquer the capital from sunny Uzbekistan, had already begun, at that time, to work in the sale of consumables for various printing equipment. I must clarify that in addition to Jamshut and Ravshan - in the republics of Central Asia there are still people who use their heads, not only to eat pilaf and drink tea, but also for other purposes. But my relative did not do very well, as he lacked experience and specific knowledge on the organization and development of business, and I just had enough of this “good”. We sat down, talked - and agreed to cooperate, already as partners. And then they began to build our business.
')
Soon our company had already opened its own online store, through which we positioned ourselves in the business sector of the Internet, and also through it the main realization of our goods took place. It was a completely new direction for me, here I discovered new opportunities. In the alcohol industry at that time - the Internet did not attach any importance, and even more so, no company had a store in its network. This, of course, is primarily due to the rules of the alcohol trade, but to a greater extent to the inhibition of the management staff and unwillingness to think about business development.
Our main activity was the purchase of “consumables” from wholesale companies in large quantities and large quantities of containers (packaging), and then we repackaged them in small containers and sold them under a brand that belonged only to us. Thus, we became interesting to those consumers who needed these materials, but they were able to purchase them - only from us, because at that time no one else in Russia offered them in such an assortment and packaging. It was amazing, but true!
After some time, after about 5-6 months, we decided that it was time for us to go directly to the manufacturers of these consumables, because it was at the stage of the procurement and further supply of materials to Russia that the main profit surfaced. We sent out letters of cooperation with many Korean, European and American companies. But we began work with only two of them. It was a manufacturer of consumables from South Korea and an American company from Los Angeles.
But one thing is a letter and a verbal agreement on cooperation, and quite another thing is to actually bring the goods to Russia, then clear it, process it, and then sell it in the right form and quality! At the same time, it is necessary to understand that our company is only 4 people, each of whom combined several professions simultaneously. And we had to work a lot, because on weekdays we dealt with current problems, and on weekends we developed infrastructure, i.e. they themselves collected shelving, rebuilt the premises, serviced the filling equipment, tested new types of containers, closures, and so on. I can only say that in the first year of the formation of the case - we did not have days off. It was the most golden time for our business, because none of the large companies - did not see much potential in this market segment for developing a new direction, and small companies were busy with their pressing problems and also didn’t stick their nose into this segment. And at that time we caught by the tail "our" firebird.
From the business that was made at the beginning of the journey in the literal sense of the word “on the knees”, we grew up to be a distributor of well-known world brands in the market of consumables.
But life makes its own adjustments. Read about them in the next post .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/99873/
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