Eventually we felt the need to do something more serious, because someone's wives, someone's mothers kept coming to us, asking for help: "Hire, hire him” and we just didn't have any place left to hire people. And then we made up our mind to build a factory. However, we immediately ran into the problem that many key employees did not have housing, some lived on the other side of town. For starters, we built cottages for three of our employees, and then we thought we would also need a building for the rehabilitation center.
So we went on with the assisted living idea. That is, we would pull a man out of his family, someone who had never lived on his own. For example, a young man who got disabled at 16, lives on a fifth-floor in an apartment building and never goes out. We would move him to our cottage and teach him to live independently, so that he could cook for himself, wash himself, etc. Eventually, we would start full-on rehabilitation, with physical therapy and electrotherapy.
What helped you achieve these results?
What factors contributed to this?
First of all, we weren't afraid to set the bar high. Because if you set the bar at 30 cm, that's as high as you're going to jump. If you set it at two meters, you start looking for a pole to jump with, etc. We set the bar high right from the start.
Second, team play. I have a real professional team – competent people I can confidently delegate things to, without whom I wouldn't be able to do anything.
And the third point is cross-sector interaction, when you can approach the authorities and say: “Look, it just so happens that we're more in the loop than you are. Let's go there together and solve this problem together.”
We weren't afraid to set the bar high. Also I have a professional team – competent people I can confidently delegate things to, without whom I wouldn't be able to do anything.
Three or four years ago, the governor of Kaliningrad Region stood with me in the field where the Observer factory is now. I was explaining to him why this was the right spot to build. When foreign guests come to Russia and particularly to Kaliningrad Region, they will get their first impression of the country, starting with a green English lawn and a futuristic factory. He understood this and felt a sense of belonging.
We opened the factory together with the Minister of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation, Anton Kotyakov. I hope he also has the sense of belonging to the project. Like everyone else in power. Someone saw it at the stage of excavation and pouring the foundation. And now they can compare it to what we have today. One of the most important conditions is interaction and the sense of belonging.
It turns out that learning to cooperate with the authorities is a prerequisite for success?
Yes, that's right. I keep saying this all the time. You need people in the government to be able to come to you, feeling comfortable knowing that you're not going to beg for excessive favors, but that you, as a team, can actually do something.
So this is not the classic Russian story with the government in one corner and the NGOs and businesses in the other; we do everything together.
And what about the opposite? What hindered your development? What are the key deterrents?
Last year we barely had the time to produce and ship our wheelchairs; this year we have 300 units sitting in the warehouse. The deterrent here is not another domestic manufacturer appearing, but the government purchasing wheelchairs from China.
Is import substitution possible in your case?
As a matter of fact, we are import substitution. Our wheelchair is made of 65 % Russian parts. If, God forbid, China is closed down for political reasons or due to COVID, we will be the only company able to make our wheelchairs domestically.
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."
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,