I started my first company on the day I turned 18. Not because I had a brilliant plan, but because the law did not allow me to do it any earlier. It was a small factory packaging popcorn for retail shops, Bucharest Popcorn, and I have never been anyone’s employee since.
More than 20 years have passed. I have done manufacturing, distribution, transport and insurance, and then I fell in love with the internet: MarketOnline, Mediadot, Azerty, Floria, Știri de Bine (a positive-news site) and, more recently, Retargeting. Some did very well, others less so. I sold some and regretted it, and I should have closed others sooner. As the year ends, I wrote down what I have learned. These are not universal rules, just my own lessons, paid for with money, sleepless nights and a few grey hairs.
1. The idea matters less than you think
At 18 I believed the secret was the idea. Today I know the idea is maybe 10% of success. The rest is execution: how fast you deliver, how well you treat your customers, how closely you watch the numbers. Popcorn was already sold in every cinema. We just put it on the shelf, in a bag, at the right time. I have seen dozens of brilliant ideas die in PowerPoint decks and ordinary ideas make millions because someone insisted on doing them well.
2. Cash is oxygen, profit is just an opinion
I have had years with nice profits on paper and empty bank accounts in reality. When you grow on supplier credit, you are at the mercy of the first crisis. In 2009 I learned this the hard way: I had to sell the majority stake in my online businesses because the alternative was bankruptcy. Floria came out of that experience, but the lesson stayed with me: always keep a reserve and track your cash flow every week, not at the end of the year.
3. A crisis is the best time to start something
It sounds like a paradox, but my most solid businesses were born in bad times. In a crisis rents go down, good people are available, weak competitors disappear and customers pay more attention to value. If you survive your first year in a tough market, you have built something that lasts.
4. People make the difference, not the business plan
Every good business I have had was backed by a good team. Every big problem came from one person in the wrong role, whom I kept too long out of convenience or pity. Hire slowly, part ways quickly and pay well those who carry the load. One prepared person is worth ten unprepared ones.
5. Choose your partners more carefully than your customers
A bad customer costs you an order. A partner with a different vision can cost you the company. Before you sign a partnership, talk openly: where do you want to be in five years, how much are you willing to risk, what happens if one of you wants to sell and the other does not. It sounds unromantic, but it is the only way friendship survives business.
6. Online, the numbers don’t lie, but you have to read them
The big difference between traditional retail and ecommerce is that online you can measure almost everything: where the customer comes from, what they search for, where they stop, why they leave. Most entrepreneurs have the data but do not look at it. Conversion rate, average order value, acquisition cost and returning customers are four numbers every online store owner should know by heart.
7. A returning customer is worth more than a new one
For years I spent a lot of money on ads to bring in new customers and far too little to keep the ones I had. A customer who buys a second time is much cheaper than a new one and usually buys more. That frustration is also where Retargeting started: helping online stores bring back their visitors and customers with the right message at the right time.
8. The state won’t help you, so don’t build your business on it
In 20 years I have seen laws changed overnight, inspections that were not looking for problems but for “arrangements”, and public contracts won by the usual suspects. I always chose to work with private customers and pay my taxes on time, so I would not depend on anyone’s goodwill. It is harder in the short term and far more peaceful in the long run.
9. Selling a business is a craft too
Nobody teaches you how to exit a business. My first sale happened under pressure and I regretted it for a long time. Since then I try to build every company as if I wanted to sell it tomorrow: paperwork in order, written processes and a team that can run without me. The irony is that companies built this way are exactly the ones you do not want to sell.
10. Regret what you did, not what you didn’t do
Looking back, I have no regrets about the projects that failed. I only regret the ones I did not try out of caution. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone and it is not a quiet road. But if you feel you have to build something of your own, do not wait for the perfect moment. It never comes.
What have you learned from your own business? I would love to hear it, because the best lessons I ever got came from other entrepreneurs.