Business is business: 60 true stories about how ordinary people started their own business and succeeded. I. Gansvind, A. Bilzho, K. Ghazaryan

This book is based on 60 interviews with Russian business representatives who told their true stories about how they started their own business and succeeded. These stories were published on the pages of the daily newspaper "Business". The uniqueness of this publication is that the first part of the book is a frank and practical analysis of the patterns of formation of domestic "startups". This is a kind of step-by-step guide to starting a business, written by the "blood" of those who have already passed this difficult path. The second part of the book - 60 stories - reads like an adventurous novel of our time, like a detailed picture of the crazy nineties, when the foundations of free enterprise were laid. The publication is recommended primarily for those who are going to surpass the heroes of this book, or at least repeat their success.

ABOUT THE BOOK
“In the 1990s, all paths were open. Those who were in the right place at the right time became billionaires. Those who did not manage to take half a step became medium-sized businesses. In the small - the people went. But the phenomenon did not become widespread. For well known reasons. Despite all the difficulties, small and medium-sized businesses are gaining strength, realizing and defending their interests. But hardly anyone in the early 1990s imagined the true scale of the upcoming changes. Our "Chicago boys" are more remembered for tracksuits and canned beer at presentations. A genuine, lively account of the past fifteen years through the mouths of the direct participants in these events is a unique document of the era. "From golden chains to Western business schools" - a long way has been traveled" Yury Rovensky, CEO of RBC

“Business is everything “from the evil one”, if there is no genius, but there is only desire and luck up to a certain point. Ups and downs, pain - and you do not want to go back into cold water. And the will - it decides everything and everything. It should not be confused with stubbornness. If there is a gene, then this is the gene for which you will have to work all your life. Ready to work - then this book is for you!
Boris Yesenkin, holding director of Biblio-Globus Trading House

“I have always been interested in people and useful in work by those who do business as business. Not just rakes up more money, but brings benefits others and receives money for it. Not only because they are my clients, but also because they are my teachers. One of the six basic principles of the company "1C" - "Study someone else's experience, but think with your own head." This is exactly what the heroes of this book did, and that is why it can be very useful not only for novice businessmen and managers, but also for quite experienced and successful ones.

Boris Nuraliev, Director of 1C

“To adopt the experience of entrepreneurship from multinational companies is as unnatural and senseless as if a baby were learning to walk by imitating the run of an Olympic champion. Much more useful for a novice entrepreneur are the “birth pangs” and “growing pains” of firms created from scratch. Therefore, feel free to throw empty Talmuds about Coca-Cola or Nestle into the trash, and put this book in the vacant place.

Samvel Avetisyan, Marketing Director, Tinkoff

“Why should you run your own business? Firstly, this is the best way to spend the time allotted by fate with passion. Secondly, your work gives freedom. And not only economic - the freedom to be yourself and next to those with whom you consider it right to be near. And it is also an opportunity to light a flame of hope in people and make them a little magicians. It’s wonderful that the heroes of the book succeeded.”

Alexander Kravtsov, President of the Ruyan Group

“You must love money, and it will lead you to any goal. Satisfy your aspirations and desires. Will allow you to freely enter into trading relationships where the supreme judge is the mind, not the fists. Where the best product, the best organization of labor, wins, the person with the highest development wins. There, the level of human creativity turns into the level of his rebirth. This is a moral code for those for whom money is a means of creation, not a luxury. So writes Ayn Rand. So I think and I advise everyone who is ready to love money to think. The people about whom this book teaches the main thing: it is right to love money.

Vladimir Melnikov, President of Gloria Jeans

“The society is dominated by the view that entrepreneurs are not like everyone else: they are different. This book can make a difference. Not public opinion, of course. But yours personally. The authors dug deep into the minds of dozens of Russian businessmen who started from scratch and achieved enviable results. The mosaic of their passions, motives and actions formed the basis of this very sincere book. This is by no means propaganda of a different lifestyle - quite the contrary. The author in almost every chapter focuses on the reverse side of the coin. Nevertheless, the book sets you up for the positive: you can too.

Andrey Ozolin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the network of last-minute stores

“Businessmen who have gone through the difficult path of mastering this profession are already heroes. Because they took the risk of being responsible for other people's destinies. They are statesmen, at their own expense create jobs and solve the social problems of the country. And by their example they do an even more important thing: they help to overcome fear to those potential entrepreneurs who have not yet decided to embark on the path of their own business. I hope that the interviews collected in this book will be the stone that will tip the scales and add your determination.

Irina Eldarkhanova, CEO of Konfael

“Having chosen the path of entrepreneurship, do not forget: victory is given primarily due to the inner strength of the soul, and not the physical overcoming of external obstacles. I am sure that it is on this basis that the Russian business model is now being born, which is destined for a triumphant future. Confirmation of this - 60 success stories that made up this book "

Vladimir Samokhin, President of OJSC Rocolor

This book is based on 60 interviews with Russian business representatives who told their true stories about how they started their own business and succeeded. These stories were published on the pages of the daily newspaper "Business". The uniqueness of this publication is that the first part of the book is a frank and practical analysis of the patterns of formation of domestic "startups". This is a kind of step-by-step guide to starting a business, written by the "blood" of those who have already passed this difficult path. The second part of the book - 60 stories - reads like an adventurous novel of our time, like a detailed picture of the crazy nineties, when the foundations of free enterprise were laid. The publication is recommended primarily for those who are going to surpass the heroes of this book, or at least repeat their success.

Foreword by the Editor-in-Chief
15 years ago two students Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University were going to an important business meeting. Dressed in inappropriate occasion "threes" (jeans, sweater, windbreaker), with an expression on their faces that left no doubt about the absolute significance of what was happening, they moved quickly and silently. Everyone thought about his own and at the same time about the same thing: about an incredible gift of fate in the form of this batch of computers; about the fact that now the ingenious deal, which took so long, will finally be completed; Well, and of course, what to do next with this crazy money. They ran towards their luck.

Nothing happened. The deal fell through, luck slipped out of my hands ... I (one of these "businessmen") remember well my state then. Anger at the whole wide world, which flared up instantly, as soon as they showed us the door, just as quickly gave way to violent resentment, which then turned into some kind of relaxing, emotionally empty indifference, inevitably creeping into regret - and so on in a circle: anger, resentment, indifference, regret. But the lesson was learned. And in the future, on my own examples and on the examples of my friends and acquaintances, I was more than once convinced that: a) there is no easy money; b) entrepreneurship is hard work that takes up all your time and fills almost your entire life, and in order to achieve something significant in business, you need to be ready for this; c) failures, losses and sacrifices are inevitable - and you also need to be prepared for them so as not to break down, not to give up, not to lose heart. Sixty Moscow entrepreneurs, with whom the journalists of the newspaper "Business" met and talked heart to heart and interviews with whom are now collected in this book, I am sure, without reservations, will subscribe to the words spoken. They, who raised their business from scratch, are well aware of not only the joys, but also the sorrows of entrepreneurial life - especially in our country, with its illusory business law, high administrative barriers and exorbitant appetites of officials. They do not have and never had the notorious administrative resource; they received no