It's time to tell about myself, because many people think that everything happens by itself and we are born with Apple technology, we have money just from the fact that we have an office and employees. Entrepreneurs will understand, the masses can run into criticism) But, once you read the post to the end everything will become a little clearer.
My name is Ruslan and I was born in Orenburg in 1990. It so happened that my mother had to leave my father when I was only a year old, I do not remember any of my relatives and saw them only when I earned my first, relatively big, money in Moscow at a building construction in 2013 with the aiming to see my own father. My childhood was not like everyone else's, when some people say that everyone lived like that. Take a trip to my hometown of Lokhvitsa. It's on the way to Kyiv, a town of 12,000 people where I grew up. Go to the director of school #1 without asking if you remember..., just ask him to tell about Yumagulov Ruslan, it will be effective and to the point of tears. You will understand everything at once. There wasn't much money in the family. My stepfather, who brought me up, worked in a factory as an operator. My mother, who at that time I constantly accused of something, worked from season to season in people's gardens with a shovel and a «hoe», to earn at least some money. It was like that for as long as we lived there. I, in turn, did not want to be different from those around me and tried as much as possible to look wealthier than I really was.
Everyone remembers me as a super active teenager, who was always in the limelight. I took part in all events, both good and bad, I did not like the rich people, we called them «majors» then, and in every way tried to cling to even the slightest income))) When I was little, I went with my mother to the vegetable garden. When I grew up, my friends and I started to collect metal at drill pits, and it was cheap then. As I remember it now - 28 kopecks per kg. The amount that we managed to dig out made me sky rich for a day.
It was all down to silliness and sweets, which were just for show. Then there were construction sites and anything else where my energy and time could be used. I even remember a month of work in a sewing factory, where I managed to break the record for sewing buttons on coats, which was fun. The shop had about 80 women and everyone's favorite Ruslan, who was in 9th grade at the time. There was so little money that I remember how much it hurt when my feet warmed up on the radiator because I had to walk in fall shoes. Then they didn't want to move me to the 10th grade because of my behavior and low grades, but my grandfather promised me that I would improve myself and I still managed to graduate with a 7.8 points. I was ashamed to go to school in Lokhvitsa in front of my classmates, because everyone was going to high schools and colleges, so I went to 14 technical school in Romny, away from home, as a bricklayer. There were also some difficulties with our stepfather, who was always getting on my nerves and we often left him and then came back. In 2006 we left him forever. I actually changed my place of residence about 15 times before I was 17, I have so many stamps in my passport that everyone gets tired of leafing through the pages) Then the technical school, where I managed to earn the highest point in the group and I was constantly taken by masters to earn money because I was always different with my skills. It wasn't really skills, it was the experience of making money and activity, without which I probably wouldn't live the way I do now.
But let's skip my entire youth because not everything was pleasant there and some moments even bring back funny memories that I can't tell, but I never went beyond human limits and always listened to the advice of an adult friend of mine. He once said: «Always stay human, no matter what happens to you». I did, and I pass that advice on to everyone now.
Then I lived in Kyiv for two months, then I wanted to join the army and with flat feet I managed to get into the Airborne Forces (I had to fake foot scans for a chocolate bar). Served in the heights and came in as a senior soldier. In the city of Lochvitsa I had the biggest and scariest company of young people, which, except for how to fight and make money for the evening, was not interested in anything, no goals, no plans, just fun and sometimes tension with the police... But somehow I ended up in the construction team, where I became a specialist in the first month of work, again my activity won out. After that, it happened that the mine named Zasyadko, Donetsk, rented land for harvesting and other purposes. Donetsk, leased land for harvesting and other purposes throughout Ukraine and in 2011 they rented a village near Lokhvitsa. I got into it's construction team, which was repairing local schools and kindergartens for the village. And here again my energy and desire to be better than possible wins out. I was made a foreman at the age of 21 and sent to Crimea, the «Sun Stone» resort, where I did beautiful paving paths with my team. We did a lot, did quickly and again I was noticed and sent to a complex object in Donetsk with a very tight schedule and there we were able to surprise. The guys in the brigade respected and valued me, because I commanded with a hammer in my hands and motivated them by my own example to break records)
Then there were many different events: I left the company in Lokhvitsa, my social circle began to change. Elections in 2012 were held, such an expensive and large team of construction workers on business trips was not needed, as the expense and everyone was cut except me, leaving me at the mine to build the hotel «Olympus», Donetsk. I quickly got bored with the local lazybones I was given and resigned. I went to work in Moscow, but I managed to get a taste of money, because my salary was enough to spend a couple of days in my native Lokhvitsa... I'll skip again, you can't tell everything, and I will move on to how I ended up in Sumy.
Everything happened very easy) When I came from Moscow, a girl from Sumy, she liked me in VK, then wrote hi, were corresponding half the night, and the next day I was already in Sumy))) Then few more trips - friendship - relationships - joint plans and all pretty good, but the mine again needed cool builders from Lokhvitsa. I was contacted and again I'm in Crimea, and from there I already went to Sumy, where we started to rent a place together in Romenska. Everything ended quickly due to the events and I decided to stay in Sumy. There was a program at the employment center, which included handing out the entire amount of payments for the year in advance. I took advantage of it. But there was a condition that only after registration, as an entrepreneur, I could get the money. What can't you do for them) I did a two-week course, hoping to further develop the topic of construction, but I was upset by the business plan, which said that my payments are not enough for that. I had to quickly decide which other things to do, and I thought that the idea of installing monitors in the buses was just brilliant) I spent all the money I had, as much as 18 000 hryvnias, on them and thought «now how it will sprinkle», but it turned out that this niche has long been outlived and nobody in Sumy needs it... I ran out of money on my credit card already - 10 000 and in a crisis moment not bad thoughts usually fly in. I came up with the idea that in the aperture, where there was a monitor, you can put something else, familiar to everyone, a little improvement and all) This is where my lighted booths were born, with business cards handed out above the driver. I found where to borrow another 5 000 hryvnias and put up my first 20 stands.... Next, everyone understands a little bit that the stands were making money, the competitors didn't take them seriously. As it was clear I didn't have the strength to get into a very busy and most competitive type of business - advertising) But they did not know about my activity and the amount of time and energy I am ready to invest in order to change the story of his family and prove to all that I'm capable of something.
A lot of cold nights in dirty parks. I remember setting up stands when it was -7 outside and the security guard was driving me in because I would get too cold and no one would want me sick)) Still, I was able to multiply them, get through the difficult stage of all the beginnings. In 4 months I paid all my debts, gave up monitors, earned my few thousand and wondered what would be next. I began to study a lot, I watched YouTube 24 hours a day and attended everything where I could meet people necessary for my development. And on one of these events I promised many people that on September the 1st (in two months) I would open my own advertising agency... Having kept my word, I found a like-minded person, who complimented me with his consistency, and I from my side with energy and straight hands) On August 19 we opened our first agency called it «Vreklame». I was still worried that Durov would call and tell me that we couldn't be called that, remember (a broad imagination is harmful!). First office 30 m². Businessman status, all the same, no money, but how happy between renting an office and renting an apartment))) But again, persistence wins, the ability to survive and spin without money. There is a great idea of my grandfather, who also heard this idea somewhere: «For money even a fool will buy, you buy without money » and so it turned out.... Next, we believed in the Internet and very quickly, with the help of educational content available on the network, have become experts in it in the Sumy market. We learned how to take clients from all difficult sources, quickly grew in skills and level of influence on the market. With ambition we grew from an office on Petropavlovskaya Street and managed to rent an office that was 4 times our need, we increased our expenses and the law «You want to increase income, just increase expenses!». Uncontrolled growth in all areas - transportation, online, printed materials, recognition in the market, the first signs, the rapid increase in the number of people led us to a new goal - two guys from poor families (one shoemaker, the other bricklayer by training) wanted an office with windows from ceiling to floor and they are all so cool and do not care that the expense exceeds income))) Next, moving again. We wanted to go to the Acropolis, missed a little. Came to the former Kyivstar and took the biggest office in the downtown square) Next was the exhibition Freshbiz 2016, which made a resonance and shook up the market a bit with a mass of emotions. By fall - cash gap due to mega growth, we were in top 5 advertising agencies in two years and bypassed 25 colleague organizations which were several years in advertising) And then the exhibition was over, a lot of energy spent, people were very tired. Then the cash gap, debts to suppliers and other difficulties because of which we just had to close. We had a conversation with a colleague that had a sad ending and I, with faith in my life position, would be able to bail out and get the agency back on its feet, taking on all the debt and obligations to everyone and getting the situation out. Because closing the «Vreklama» agency meant that we had lost to this market. Oh, I forgot to tell you, we also managed to register a Vymex company with VAT and all the complications it entails... We disbanded almost all the employees and it still happened that Sasha agreed to leave the business, believing that I would succeed. Or maybe he didn't believe it, but he kept supporting me and we became really strong friends, even though we were no longer colleagues. By the new year, the debt was more than the cost of the car from the salon. Even though it was Ukrainian-made, for me it was an amount I had never held in my hands before.
Three months of intense stress, which, as it turned out, develops even faster than any courses and trainings, I had to work 110 hours a week, saving on my personal life and optimizing processes. In the new year, when everything calmed down and the holidays began, I started to build systems of accounting, receiving applications and processing them so thoroughly that now what I have on virtual drives is worth more money than all the physical property of the enterprise. I learned the hard way how to recruit and select the right candidates for myself, everyone who has been with me through these three months has really become some of the dearest people in my life, to whom I owe more than anything for their belief in the company and goals which I have set for us.
Let's get to the good stuff, because somehow I have painted a lot for 1.8 years of existence, as it seemed (a simple) an ordinary agency)
Today we have one of the largest advertising agencies in the region, in terms of market volume we are in second or third place, all processes are set up at the highest level, accounting system and control indicators honed to the limit, I closed all the debts and put the company in the black over the winter. «Vreklame» has taken a vector of development and set up processes of its own production of outdoor advertising, which today is our main priority over our competitors, we have the largest coverage for advertising in transport. This is 158 vehicles with their own stands, which so far no one has been able to exceed. Our company has included delivery of outdoor advertising in all regions of Ukraine. We have won and worked perfectly a lot of state tenders, production is growing every day, we were accepted as partners to the biggest, by training entrepreneurs, event in Kyiv «Laboratory of Online Business», for which we prepare the brightest photo-zones in Ukraine and exhibition stands. Production is loaded a month ahead, but we still continue to fulfill all orders on time ... Yes, we reject now all the orders that have a low or average check, because the calculated cost of time for processing these orders exceeds profits.
Defined the mission of the company, which states that we will try by all means to become «An affordable manufacturer of outdoor advertising in all regions of Ukraine, with certainty in quality and timeliness of performance.»
And our vision says that with this kind of love, dedication and belief in what we do, we're going to be that national company represented in every area in the next couple of years. That's the goal by the end of 2018. It may not close as I see it, but I'm sure the people around me now will never say that I'm a parent money-pumped kid who doesn't know how to make money, has bought himself iPhones and statuses, and other undeserved things, I can get away with anything and such certainly live....
Thank you to all my family and friends! I am insanely grateful to my mom, who was able to cry it out and didn't give up when things were tough. Planted her own vegetable gardens and took me with her, «getting in her face» from a life that is not all that easy)))
I had to write all this, as a little accumulated emotions and it is better to put them on paper, because we are all good, who do not give up. When even everything says it's time...
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