This January I celebrate 18 years since I started my first business as a spin-off from the family business. I was 20 at the time and in my second year of college. Although I was studying Finance and Banking, I was already working part-time in several places, including as a kids supervisor, a dance teacher in a kindergarten, selling cosmetics, and teaching French to the kids in the neighborhood. These jobs were unrelated to my studies, but I was strongly motivated to earn my own money.
When I was offered to continue my working contract as a kids supervisor for an unlimited period of time, my dad made me another offer to join his company and sell their stocks to small stores around the factory. He and his brother had a factory producing rubber boots and they were trying to sell their first stock of imported slippers. I said no and went to my room. A few hours later, I made him another offer: I would sell the goods to big chains of supermarkets and hypermarkets. That was a kind of activity I could consider leaving my primary job for. He asked me how I would do that and my answer was: I don’t know, but if I don’t succeed in 4 months, I would go back to my part time jobs. However, if I did succeed, I was not going to become their employee, but rather their partner in business. I am almost certain that my dad said yes without envisioning the challenges that came with my realized goal.
When I started, I did not know what I did not know. I am happy I knew nothing about sales, negotiations, or dealing with big clients. Understanding how many things I didn’t know could have scared me. My attitude was towards making things happen. When I signed the first contracts with Cora Romania it was the first and the longest contract I had ever signed. Later on, I came to understand all the clauses and only then decided to work with a lawyer to help me.
Don’t sell what you would buy. I was mesmerized by the variety of footwear models I could sell. In 2006 I started traveling to China and Turkey to work with more than 50 factories. Over the last 18 years, we sold more than 10 million pairs of footwear through big retail chains in Romania and other south-European countries. I became an expert in the textures and materials of home slippers. I wanted to import the fluffiest, nicest ones and make customers happy. I later discovered that it wasn’t what I personally wanted to wear that the end customers wanted to buy. I had to learn how to appreciate the product based on its potential, not on how much I liked its look and feel.
Before hiring a team, I had to do every role of the team by myself. In the first few years, I was working evenings, weekends, and after my classes, as I was still studying. This meant doing all the paperwork at home in the evenings and going to the warehouse on the weekends to prepare the orders. During holidays, I was there full time. When the orders were bigger, workers from the factory helped me to label the products and prepare the shipment. It was only after almost two years that I had an office and my first employees.
B2B is more a relationship building activity than selling. One of the benefits of working with big clients is that there are not many on the market. This is also a downside, but that is a different story. Working with a limited number of clients leads to building up a connection with them and understanding their profile, their needs, and their strategy. The business is not only about selling the goods they look for, but having a joint growing plan to meet the needs of both parties. Every good collection is a new brick on the partnership and trust wall. On top of that, we actually serve the end consumers’ needs while we build relationships with our big retail chain clients.
There are blessings and challenges in a family business. When I joined the business, my vision was high, but my skills were not so high. It helped a lot in my negotiation process to be backed by a Romanian factory with more than 10 years of experience. My father and uncle were the first professionals I learned the art of business from, and I am very grateful for that. Conversely, they also applied their own story to my dreams and goals and that created a lot of tension sometimes. Especially, when my skills improved significantly. I can only say that family relationships are complicated and family business relationships are ten times more complicated. Usually, when appearances seem fine on the outside, people assume everything behind the curtains goes well too.
I firstly did what they teach in business schools, then I went to study in a business school. I was in business for ten years already when I decided to move abroad for an MBA. I felt my learning curve was steep, but I had a strong need to be part of an international business environment. When I was accepted at INSEAD, I had less than two months to hire someone to replace me and prepare the team. When I started the classes I was in a constant surprise to find out the names for the tools or frameworks I had been using instinctively. Learning about bottlenecks strategies and RACE framework was a confirmation that business brings up challenges and solutions equally, before bringing the theory.
Everything happening in the long term meets more stages. Without underestimating my work, I was lucky to start my business in 2005 in a proper economic boom in Romania. All the sales projections were below the real demand, sometimes even ten times bigger. As Malcolm Gladwell mentions in his book Outliers, the trend and timing are essential for an idea to succeed. Then, when I faced the first economic crisis, I had to ride the wave wisely and use my experience to pivot to products customers were looking for in challenging economic times. This happened more than once, and shows me that every long term process has its dynamics with more stages of high and low.
Looking back, I am glad to see that the general feeling is a good one, but the reality is that 18 years of business building is a story of many challenges, lessons, and a lot of work–both professional and personal, as well as a school for many skills. I am still processing other lessons and I am sure there will be a second part as well.
Which lesson resonated with you the most?
How would you summarize the lessons from your last years in business or career?