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 «social-mind» worker. Turns out it doesn't work that way. So we changed direction. We started sourcing "social mind" workers from the Ark events (kayaking and adapted beaches in Kaliningrad Region). These were students fascinated by the project idea. Then we turned these «social-mind» worker into press secretaries, sales managers, and other employees. That's how we eventually built our team.
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."