To impose millions: how the Russian woman knit children's hats and conquered the world
'01.02.2018'
At first, Gulnara Bildanova was perceived as "a rich girl, whom her husband gave money." This did not prevent the founder of the company Chobi to build a business with a million turnover.
Children hats Chobi - for the premium segment - 43-year-old Gulnara Bildanova came up with in 2005, writes Forbes. At that moment, she was a housewife with a medical education (in her fifth year she realized that she didn’t want to prescribe medications to patients all her life), raised her daughters 5 and 8 for years.
Not that Gulnara dreamed of being a businesswoman, but her daughters had nothing to wear:
“The Italian hats are beautiful, but impractical, not for our winter, and the Scandinavian ones are warm, but unsightly.” Mom vigorously set to work.
“The surrounding people were skeptical: you can sew hats, only who needs it, especially in the expensive segment. But I decided to try, ”Gulnara continues. Confidence that everything will turn out, added MBA degree in strategic management and experience in the network of shoe stores Parad.
Money for business, $ 90 000, was given by a husband-entrepreneur. Bildanova found two designers, ordered Italian yarn from them (she chose the most expensive and pleasant to the touch), but then for the first time an entrepreneur was deceived. The designers did not warn that the yarn she chose requires a special prewash in a professional machine, otherwise the product will be prickly. For Bildanova, who immediately ordered a large batch, this was a difficult ordeal.
She complained to her husband, but he calmly threw: "Then close everything." It shook me up, Gulnara admits.
Bildanova bade farewell to unscrupulous designers. At the same time, the director of the company, where she bought the yarn, introduced her to her client - the first in Russia owner of the magic washing machine. At its production in the Yaroslavl region, Gulnara washed and bound the first batch of hats. The whole process - from design to communication with seamstresses - she already controlled herself.
“There were cases when I came with sketches, but they told me: this is impossible. I ask: why? Answer: we never did. I had to persuade the craftswomen all the time, it was very exhausting, ”recalls Bildanova.
The businesswoman had to sell the first collection herself: she went shopping with a full trunk of hats, persuaded to see the goods. But no one wanted to deal with products made in Russia. And she wanted to prove: made in Russia can be high quality and beautiful. Build up the courage, Bildanova called the store manager Bosco - since she was their regular client, she asked to be introduced to the buyer.
Caps in Bosco appreciated and taken in GUM and Petrovsky Passage a test batch. In the second year of work, the entrepreneur managed to go to zero, and in 2008, she organized her own production, and after a year and a half the investments paid off.
The first time, Gulnara literally lived in production, replaced the masters, otparival products.
Employees were amazed: “You will succeed. We have never seen the hostess herself vacuumed. "
Seamstresses, cutters, boarders, knitters, programmers - with the first employees Bildanova personally interviewed. Team gathered bit by bit, now in Chobi 70 people. “I am in favor of instilling aesthetics in the staff, cultivating their taste,” says Bildanova.
Together with the business, Bildanova’s daughters are also growing: Mom is testing new items for them. The older the girls become, the wider the range Chobi - there are teenage collections, fur hats, polar fox hats with jewelry brooches. “Do not wear us the" enemy "hats of competitors!" - laughs Bildanova.
