Позитивные изменения. Том 2, №4 (2022). Positive changes. Volume 2, Issue 4 (2022)
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It might take us a month, or two, or three, or even six months to substitute the remaining 35 %, but, unlike the Chinese wheelchairs, we are that import substitution.
They say the hardest part is getting started.
How did your project begin? Where did you look for investment at the start? Maybe someone advised you on how to launch a social enterprise?
I've been in business for a long time, so I have more ideas than the opportunities to implement them. I happily share my ideas so someone else can implement them.
It all started with wheelchair repairs. We were faced with the fact that there were no repair shops for electric wheelchairs. We got support from Vagit Alekperov's "Our Future” fund, which offered us an interest-free loan of 5 million rubles for five years. That's how we got our start.
Then, all of a sudden, I won the General Director Magazine award in 2013. The award was 100,000 dollars (3 million rubles back in the day). We used the money to build our first premises.
And where did you look for like-minded people and a team?
At first, I tried taking a sales manager and turning him or her into a
Who else supported you?
It seems to me that when you are into social entrepreneurship not for the money, but to solve a social problem, when your eyes are bright and you radiate the energy, the right people and money will automatically come into your life and to your project.
If suddenly they don't turn up, you will realize eventually, a year or two later, that you just weren't ready for the money at the time. You just weren't given the opportunity from above; and once you are ready morally and organizationally, the right people just come along.
Let me tell you the story of the EU Consul. We received a micro-grant of 100,000 euros, which was handed out by a local organization. We reported on our activities: the beaches, the workshops, the delivery of accessible environment, the social and tourist taxi, etc. After that, the EU Consul asked for a meeting. He came, he looked, and he said: "Why don't you apply to our grant competition?” I must have spent half an hour talking my way out of it. I told him: "We don't know how, we're not up to it." – "You still have to try it."
We ended up sending the application. Then solicited the head of the Department for Working with the Disabled of Kaliningrad Region government to work for us. We spent a year writing the grant application and won 750,000 euros at once, with which we began to develop the territory for the factory.
When you are into social entrepreneurship not for the money, but to solve a social problem, the right people and money will automatically come into your life and to your project.
Did you have any inspiring examples like people or organizations that helped you believe in yourself, in the success, in the technology?
Yes, we traveled a lot around Sweden, Germany, and Poland. I have an idol in Germany, an old man who is now 78 years old. He has a 16,000-square-meter factory with 400 employees. He has a cervical spine injury, just like me. And he makes the world's greatest catheters and urine receptacles. He also has a hotel there – two luxurious buildings sharing a glass roof. There are trees growing between the two buildings, and a beautiful restaurant in the courtyard. We borrowed the idea of cottages near the Observer factory from him, just added a kitchen.
You can live in this posh hotel or cottages for three days and be able to get into any room, even the swimming pool. You just ride up, push a 30-by-10-cm button on the wall, and you get into absolutely any room. It's not until day three that you realize you're living in a disguised rehabilitation center where wheelchair users brew beer right in the kitchen, where they cook their food. It's all very impressive.
I was sitting with him, talking. He has his own vineyard somewhere in the Canary Islands, and he was treating me to a Riesling. I told him: "Look, I have this idea to build a factory, but, man, I'm 45 years old.” He said: "Roma, 45 is the very age to get into an adventure called the factory. That's how I got in this trouble.
We traveled around Sweden a lot, too. It's "the land of victorious communism.” We had a lot to learn from them. The Swedish Minister of Welfare is now a friend of mine, and I asked him a question: "Look, I get it, we're coming to you because you are living in the future, but why are you coming to us?” He said: "Roma, it is easy to build communism when you have money growing on trees. But we are running out of money too, so we're very keen to see how you do it without the money.” That's also an interesting example.
We already started talking about the team, which is one of the components of success. Can you tell us a little more about your team of employees? What are the key roles of the participants? Are there development directors, operations directors? How many people do you have working for you?
It's not really hard. We are changing and growing so fast right now that our organizational structure cannot keep up with the changes. We now have four legal entities, each with its own tasks and activities, social organization, production, distribution.
We opened a sewing shop in January 2022. We make all the cushions, backrests, seat bases ourselves. It has its own supervisor, and I don't even go there. Everything just works perfectly. At the production site we have the chief engineer, who is also my partner, the head of production facility. We lured him from the Yantar plant. I do visit them and guide them from time to time. But generally my colleagues are handling the operations on their own anyway. There rehabilitation center is a separate entity. It is run by a girl who we poached from the Government of Kaliningrad Region. I am not worried about that side of operations at all. I make some strategic decisions, I attend the meetings, but basically this unit is almost entirely autonomous.