Alive talk # 2. Open a Business in 2020 in Cyprus / Открыть бизнес в 2020 году на Кипре.
A wet towel it is dripping from me Sasha breaks into Youtube in her own style If I come after midnight I will not be frieds with you anymore I was kicked out from three schools in Moscow You should go to politics Food Vibes What? You have to do something Move forward Is there a crisis now? Will the prices fall? We need two months to start And then everything would be brilliant While they are sleeping we are making money Freeze! Weird 2020 How difficult and unpredictible was this year I think it is obvious to all of us However it is very interesting that many of my friends and clients Started a new business this year These were people who wanted to start their business for a long time ago When the situation was better, but postponed it Today I am going to tell you two stories About people who became enterpreneurs in this tough year My name is Alexanrda Menskaya, we are in Cyprus and this is Alive Talk 2 (music) Old Town is the historical center of Limassol We are on this street, because in August 2020 My friends opened a new restaurant Today we will see with you how it looks from inside Hi, Dragon! Hi! You have a very instagram like place You can make stories on every inch of this place Who developed the concept? Alena developed it. Half of what you see in here is her creativity. Yes, that's what we wanted- nice place where people can come for good food and pictures. Sometimes we receive notifications that you were tagged in some online journal. There are 40 placed in Limassol, and we are ranked in top 5. Food vibes- 4th place for breakfast in Limassol (music) When I got to know that you opened your restaurant, I was extremely happy I told you about it I knew that you wanted to do that for a long time And finally you decided Why now? Why this year? I spent three month at home during quarantine thinking of why should I work for someone When you can open your own business and work any time you want In this situation many business owner did not behave well Many employees lost their jobs. You start to understand That if we owned our own business We could have been moving forward You see other's mistakes You can say when some does something wrong. And people start questioning you, why do not you do it
It is the Old Town. Everything is okey It is an atmosphere Tell me During crisis we had too many mistakes We did not have an experience, and so we had to deal with everything by ourselves. For example we had decided to paint the walls by ourselves. We spend two weeks on it! At that moment we had already been paying the rent So we could have taken three man and they would have done it on three days We would have paid the same amount of money and had two weeks saved And we had many situations like that Next time we will do everything differently It is an experience You learn on these mistakes Unfortunately we have to learn on our own mistakes, but it is life (music) We are in Cyprus, in one of the most prestigious areas of Limassol- Agios Tychonas We are on the hill a bit far from the sea, but you can appreciate the view from here It is not worth a million dollars, but 800000 seems reasonable This villa costs five million euros There are six bedrooms, six bathrooms, Many more other things, gym, sauna We work as a managment company We either rent the property out or we maintain it.
When I worked in the immigration and sold the property I saw this need in maintenance. People bought a flat, then they left and came back in half a year to the flat That was empty all this time. There is no discussion of its profitability. My clients who bought it for passport program told me that they did not want to give it to anybody. So they looked for a person that could take care of these objects. Yes, the person they could trust
Who would always be in contact The most important is the trust to the person that can do it here in Cyprus. Wait, Ilya, I will interrupt you now. This is the heaven This is really cool! It is a small one Yes, small, but still a nice one I think you can fit in here with your husband, you will take this part, and he will take the rest No, we will place an additional wardrobe for Sergei in another room (music) Guys, how do you structure your work? When do you come to work and open this door with a key? At 7.30 am the latest I am here. Before that we have a purchase. Dragon wakes up exremely early.
What time? 06.00-06.30. Depends on the day If we need to buy certain products, then I wake up earlier What time do you get home? Around midnight. Now earlier because of the curfew Usually it depends on clients We are staying until the last cient leaves. Some people are sitting for a long time, and we do not want to kick them out at 12 am So, you do not kick them out? No, we are always waiting for the, to finish. In my interview with Kostya Kim, he told me that when he worked in Belgium, There was a moment when the kitchen is already cleaned And another client enters the restaurant, and the whole team is "Nooo" We hated these people! Absolutely! Do not come late to the restaurant! You are right! Do you feel happy that another client came? Not at the moment when you have cleaned everything! But we still serve him the way we would normally do. Even if the cook has already left, Dragon goes to the kitchen himself and cooks that meal.
So, if I come after midnight- We will not be friend anymore! I will get an opportunity to try some food cooked by the owner of the restaurant? Yes, probably, if he is in a good mood! Alena said that she invented the name Food Vibes in the shower We thought about it for more than a week. And suddenly she runs out of the shower- I am in the towel, the water is running down from me I scream "Food Vibes" he was like "What?" I repeate Food Vibes. He liked it Dragon, we have to recall the number of languages you speak. I know that you are a bit worried that you mix them I know that you speak Russian perfectly How many more languages do you speak? Yes, but sometimes you can hear some unknown Serbian word I speak Serbian, Bulgarian, English, Russian and Greeek But only 50/50 So, 5 languages You know 5 languages. Yes! You are really cool! Now we come to the kitchen. We have very good supplies in here. All is Miele. Everything is very stylish and minimalistic.
You can eat there when it is rainy, you can it here when the sun is shining. Ilya, how did you get to Cyprus? I was brought here. I was working in a big company That was working with programs for the immigration citizenship My career in this profession began at Saint Kitts and Nevis island. These are Caribs
There is a program- you invest in property and you get a Caribbean passport Please explain for people who do not know why they might need Caribbean passport Pavel Durov got a passport there It is an indefinite Schengen visa When Malta and Cyprus opened their boarders, demand for Caribs dropped. When this demand drops, all you do is serf the kite, chill and watch the sun. This is all you can get there. Many people dream of living like that! But it was not for you. No! As I understood, you studied in Switzerland and in Ireland Yes. In Moscow I was suspended from three schools
For my misbehavior. And thanks to my mom She decided to send me to Ireland When I arrived there, it turned out that it is a Catholic school Under the Franciscan order I never understood that I had to respect elder people Were you a spoiled child? Probably spoiled, but I do not think it is the upbringing It is more about my surroundigs Ireland gave me a cultural shock It made me fully responsible for myself. That is what my mother always wanted. Is your family rich? Where are they sending you money? She was wealthy enough to send me to study abroad. She had money, but not outstandingly much She was working a lot? Yes, she worked really hard, and I believe that also affected me You have to work, do something, move forward My first money- me and my friends collected some flowers and were carrying them home to our mothers I sold my bouquet on the way You was carrying it to your mother and you sold it to someone? How much did you earn? Not much, but my mom was proud of me Since my childhood I knew that I wanted to be a businessman I wanted to open my business But I did not know how I could do it. Some people said that one day I would catch the idea and I would be so motivated that I would start doing it But eventually it happened that this side business Started to grow so quickly that I had to spend all my time on it That was a perspective ... This is why I went into this business
Now we have around 40 properties That we maintain The pick of investments in Cyprus occured in 2016-2017 And now, everything that was bought at that time had finished all the constructions in 2019 You can see it yourself ... You drive through Limassol and you can see empty blocks of flats around So, these properties that were bought for this investment program is now maintained by somebody And all of them are your potential clients We are fully occupied now, but we are planning to expand When I talk to all people that started their business in 2020, they have an advantage. Because everyone who started their business before, they did not know about covid and quarantine We did not know about lockdown No one prepared their business for these problems We did not consider it in our strategy. And the ones who started their business this year, you were aware How did it influence your business strategy if it influenced at all So that your business will be more prepared for such things in the future? I am such a person, when I start working with someone on something, I consider a long perspecrive for it. But my personal growth and development I never really prepare a long term plan I am more of a short term person It used to be bad. But it 2020 it turned out to be a benefit for me
No one can do any long term plans now If the quarantine has not started We would probably never opened a restaurant We would have worked for catering. I would have still be shooting weddings There was no need to move on We had to decide- either we do not change anything and continue to do our jobs Or we can open something ourselves. Certainly it is more difficult to start A new business. You are always thinking how to attract new clients How to find money and so on. These are extreme nerves! And if we had opened something bigger I think I would not stand it At first we did not look for a restaurant, we were trying to find a kitchen We looked for a kitchen, because we were expecting a good season. We had a lot of caterings with a closed date This year caterings are helping us to survive in such situation Because if we did only restaurant, we would have been in a trouble This is an answer to my major question What is the base for the business that opened this year I think that people are doing many things at once They try different things and choose the one that works best for them This is a cabinet. Yes, we made a cabinet there
Now people are coming from UK, because they hae harsh restrictions there And we have again a raise in demand in Cyprus. People are willing to stay here for half a year and more You promote Cyprus. Is it a part of your work? Or do you say it from your heart? Yes, I love Cyprus. I lived in different countries. Tell me which countries I was born in Moscow. Then I was send to Ireland I fiished my school there, then I studied at university in Switzerland Then Saint Kitts and Nevis And then Cyprus. This means 5
Five countries, and you consider Cyprus to be the best To be honest, I love it very much. Yesterday I watched the Youtube of our friend Alexandr What is his surname? Gadovnikov We will leave a link for his channel I did not really like that he mixed languages there. First he used Russian, then English and Greek Many people here know all three languages Please, Alexandr, make subtitles Because many people, for example from Russia, they want to get to know more about Cyprus But they can not do it. Unfortunately Sasha is breaking into Youtube in her style Everyone receives a comment No, what I want to say is that he is doing a great job! There is not much content in Youtube about great Cyprus, and it is so great he is doing it I really want to supprort him and I think it is amazing when someone promotes Cyprus I think it is beneficial to all of us. People will start comming and bringing money in here
This year your profession suffers a lot First is Covid 19 Second is the end of the citizenship program Investments exchange for a passport And now I can see that developers divided into to groups Because some of them tell me that they are doing fine operating Cyprus market And they are fine Others tell me exactly the opposite Tell me please do you see any crisis in your sphere now, or these are just rumors? It is a difficult period, but we have experience worse You should go to politics But tell me, is there a crisis? Would the prices go down? What should we expect? I think February-March of the next year If there are no deals, what is the point for droping the prices. They would go down, and what? I cannot imagine the price ging down by 50 percent. Certainly there will be some change in the market Such villas are in risk It is not for investments, it is for a lifestyle But if you decorate and present it properly, then you will find your client Who would like to live here (music) It is your first business. All business owners have similar business difficulties. Tell me about yours We had a brilliant business plan. In 2020? Yes, we had great expectations I presented it to my mom, and she was like 120,000 in first year, are you alright? I replied that Dragon told me we would have a certain number of clients each day We did not understand that the restaurant needs half a year, a year to start workin in its full power If you have 0 in six month, you are doing great We understand it now, but when we developed our business plan, we thought that in 1-2 months We will be fine We are three in the team now. So, you two and a chef. Yes, correctly You have a great chef. Pass him my warm wishes. We have to shoot him afterwards
He does not like camera. But he cares to much about our business. When we have no clients He gets upset and dreams of having more people in the restaurant We are having a really good connection with him So you have no problem with employees so far? I think it will not touch us. Because we have Dragon and he is one of the people in Cyprus Who can create brilliant team Dragon, then tell me about your secret There is no secret. You just have to respect people who work for you and bring you money Okey, but did you have a situation that you did everything for them as they wanted and they harmed you back For sure. All people are different
There was one time I came to his work and he was frustrated by someone And he is always so kind and nice to everyone. Tell me your secret, do you meditate? I cook, this is my meditation What are you risks? Which difficylties did you have? You are working somewhere safely with a salary And you get money from your side business. This is one thing And when you leave this safety, that is what you did You can relate only on yourself I was really lucky, because all of my bosses taught me lots of things When you have a boss, a corporation with lawyers and accountants behind you You do not face these legal and accounting issues When you work on your own, okey, you have people working for you, but you have to constantly work for this result To understand how this whole system would work When you have any problem, you have to go and solve it yourself Everything depends on you and you immediately become super busy And the most important thing is that you have to plan your day You give priority to big things and leave small once for later. Then in a week you see them all and you need another Couple of weeks to solve them. And this year all this government agencies have only half stuff Everyone started to work slover I spend a lot of time and nerves on these things I do not know if I would have enough health to bear all this. I do not complain about my health,
But what if I do it for 10,15, 20 years? Ideally I would love to work for 20 more years, but not in this format I talked about it with one of my clients. He is a big businessman We talked with him that business is a kind of a maraphon You have to be able to slip up your forces You cannot spend all your forces in the begining There are some project on which you spend all your mental and physicall forces to push them to the end But once you complete them, you immediately get another goal which you want to reach This is a drive and pleasure. I love it! You called me two days ago and asked me if I fought my morning routine And I asked you back And you told me you had you meditation, walked your dog, did your exercises and so on Tell me, how do you fill yourself with this energy ? You have to prepare youself for these things. I just told myself I have to make a morning routine I have to get up before everyine gets up, I have to do more stuff, because while everyone is sleeping, We are making money. What time do you wake up? Ideally I wake up at 6.30 am I wake up, I do a jasmine tea I read 20-30 pages of a book I go to my meditation How do you meditate? There is an app Head Space Yes, I just turn it on and start exercising It is an amazing experience. You start breathing, you wake up, open your eyes
You feel your body differently After that you can easier decide and work What do you prepare yourself for? I tell myself that I have to complete my goals from the list (music) Let us make a small test You are a couple And you are partners at the same time Am I right? Is it a partership? Let us decide who is the leader in your business? Who has a net pass and password for an online banking? Okey, who has kitchen keys? If it is needed, I can also get them But obviously Dragon has them Who is the shareholder? We never though about it We just work. It is not about papers We still have a wedding contract Okey, and now the most important question Who has Instagram password? She has it! She does marketing. I am not interested in that. Who do you think, this Instagram promotion, the content you post and you online development For example yesterday, when we came in, Alena was taking pictures of tea You know how to cook, but with all this implementation of Instagram and so on, do you think it is important? There are many great restaurant, they simply do not have any nice pictures of what they make People do not get to know about them There are some people who come, open our instagram and say `` we want this '' they do not even check the menu They order their food by photographs They came to eat food they saw in instagram How many companies working in development and maintenance have their own instagram or youtube Does it work at all, or it is still better to work face to face with a personal connection It is unintegral part. They go together. Yes! People started watching instahram now. Videos that we made for Pandomus They were made correctly on the perfectly right time just before the lockdown We started promoting them and people started to notice us People started to copy us It is quite conservative, but no one knows yet how to do it the right way For example Ryan Serchant in New York, number one real estate agent in states And what he does, appart from all this course promotions he properly makes a personal contact He makes blog about real estate. And it works?
It works, and we had some new connections as well from social media You have to do it to stand out from the crowd of other companies If you make a good content, it becomes outstanding Returning to our previous conversation, we have to show the beauty of Cyprus and make a proper digital promotion. I am sure that you and your team will greatly succeed in it! For sure! Dragon, what do you consider to be your best dish? I do not think I have one yet We have a Serbiam burger in here You made it yourself! You collected it from different recepies and made one. Yes, this is right! Shy man! It seems that we came to your house! You are such wonderfull hosts! Let us cheers and guys will try your bruscetta, because I feel These glances on me, and I think this is the time.
For you! (music) The contest! You told me and me and the whole team tried your bruscetta during the break. And you have there you super secret special sauce Food Vibes special sauce We have a contest for the ones who would come here to try your sauce They will have to guess five main ingredients Is it enough? How many are in there? 12-15 You have a great choice. Five main ingredients Of Food Vibes' special sauce You also have to sign up for their and my instagrams Sign up for our Youtube channel And leave a comment under this video with a list of ingridients they think are included in this sauce What will we give them for it? We will give a voucher for 30 euros- it equal for breakfast for two With a glass of champagne from us My final question is how you see your business in 5 years And if you imagine that you already have it all, tell me What do you think in this moment It might sound weird, but I would love to retire in 5 years I do not think I can ever stop working I just want to retire and see that I have grown my business so much that I do not need to worry And there would be no stress on how to keep it working In five years you want your business to grow to its maximum when you will simply help it to work stabily How to reach it? Sleep more and do sports Stress less, because every situation would be resolved In just a few days I had a couch working with me two years ago She practiced with me this exercise of imagining yourself in five years. I did it She told me to give myself an advise I said that I should not be upset about every day difficulties, because they would be resolved this or that way But to understand my goal and make a few steps towards it every day Yes, this is what you gave to do even in the worst situation Probably it is slightly off topic, but that is what I always wish to my friends, family and colleagues, we should Always see a goal and move towards it You should see your goal and ignore any difficulties you have on that day Rules for our contest Write in comments which difficulties your business faced this year and the most unusual resolution you found for it Those who would write the most interesting comment and who will be signed up for Ilya's instagram On my Instagram and our Youtube channel And would write the most interesting comment would be chosen by Ilya and Nisso What we will give that person? Ilya will present him his book With his comments. He is an old-style paper book reader Yes, it is a book with a good spirit and cool notes I think it might be helpful to somebody Super! A book for the best comment. Yeah! Yeah! Thank you! When we developed this program I wanted to make it kind and positive in order to support Our collegues and tell you what a great job they did.
And certainly inspire someone for opening a new business. Who knows. Tell us what you think in comments Take part in our contests and certainly sign up to our channel Because we prepare new videos for you! Goodbye! (music)
2021-01-01 13:02
