If you see your neighbor’s business flourishing, your first thought will be establishing the same type of business and waiting for the same profit. And there is nothing wrong with that, as many international companies, like even FedEx or eBay that cloned others, made millions.
However, what works for others won’t always work for you. Consequently, Nika Kimeridze decided to start a business based on one single question: what is something I can do, demanded on the market?
However, what works for others won’t always work for you. Consequently, Nika Kimeridze decided to start a business based on one single question: what is something I can do, demanded on the market?
Nika Kimeridze, 22, is currently the founder of two companies in Georgia and the third one is on its way. Both of the companies were established during the global health crisis, when the existed businesses did not manage to survive and were forced to shut down.
In his interview with BM.GE, Kimeridze shared his experience of establishing successful businesses during the global crisis and shared the lessons learned from COVID-19.
After graduating from Ostfold University College (Norway) and Hochschule Koblenz, University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Kimeridze returned back to Georgia in the middle of Feb 2020, with the hope to start work. While being in Germany, he has been in touch with four different companies operating in Georgia, which offered him serious jobs, definitely with competitive salary. One of the companies grabbed his attention the most and it was almost certain that he would agree to work with them. Since coming to Georgia, Kimeridze had about 10 days to get ready and begin a new chapter in his life, when WHO announced Covid-19 outbreak and fearing the upcoming economic crisis, his potential employer had to delay his contract. It was when he has realized that all four companies have decided to put him on hold until the further information would have become clear.
“Even though, it was a little bit disappointing, I have soon opened my foreign language center - “English with Nika”, which is very successful and perspective now. Later, I have added another company - BeHero and now being the CEO of two companies, I think that my life has shifted towards better. I have realized that if we want to become successful, we should not be lazy, and do all of our best to achieve the goal. Even though, my schedule became overcrowded since the Covid-19 outbreak, this is the life I have always wanted to live,” he recalled.
Even though Kimeridze has thought about everything, the only thing he had to decide was to either give up or to start thinking outside of the box. One would probably lead towards becoming homeless, and another had the potential of finding something he could really enjoy.
“Before getting public about how bad the life is, how unstable the situation in Georgia is becoming, how is our government or any other authority behaving, I asked to myself the one single question: “what is something I can do, demanded on our market?” he added.
After opening his foreign language center, its founder has soon realized that teaching foreign languages can help him to gain some money. So, that’s what he has done. Using his previous experience, he has started building the social media website and when he has received his first clients, he felt enormous satisfaction. Since that, the quantity of clients has increased hugely.
Soon afterward, Kimeridze and his friend Tariel Lomaia have launched a new company - BeHero, which is an innovative product and helps students to write Olympiads in different subjects such as English Language and Literature or Mathematics online. This one has been very interesting as well, as the company helps high school and university students to examine themselves and their knowledge in different subjects.
According to Kimeridze, the sector of education was the one, which probably was the most affected by Covid-19. That is why they decided to enhance the education accessibility all around Georgia. Even though it was challenging to assure people to trust online Olympiads, they have overcome this step and now, they are only moving forward, becoming stronger and stronger.
“We also care about the environment and global climate change, as we don’t print anything to organize the Olympiad. We make everything online, on our secured server. Therefore, we minimize negative effects on the global climate change and try to be very environmentally-friendly,” he added.
The only things helping him to focus on future steps were: good time-management strategy, amazing teammates, great knowledge of business-development and the belief that everything is possible.
Funnily enough, an upcoming third business idea is meant to be a tourist company, offering innovative and very interesting tours all over Georgia. Even though the creation of the third company greatly depends on regulations, Kimeridze thinks that soon, he and his partner will have the chance to establish it. Herewith he added that as for now, they are just waiting for the right moment. When the right moment comes, they will be ready to step ahead and join the market.
While discussing the fact why some well-established companies fail to survive the crisis and how others manage to start from zero and succeed, Kimeridze says, that the most important conclusion is that when companies are stable on the market, they do not really try to adapt to new challenges that might arise quickly. Their long-term strategies, especially crisis management strategy, do not consider rapid adaptation possibilities. He thinks that there is logic behind it because companies have been performing positively for a long period of time. Understanding that their strategy has been successful for a while, they create the feeling of safety and turn of the alarming sense of change.
“Even though this particular sense should not always be active, every organization should definitely be aware that emergency plan exists. I personally presume that most of the companies knew that they should be able to get adapted to new challenges but they have never put such kind of plan into action. They didn’t have the hands-on experience of crisis management and when the moment arose, the crisis management team could not propose particular steps towards handling the new market demand,” Kimeridze told.
As for other companies, the founder of the newly established two new companies thinks that they succeeded because they were flexible enough to cope with changes. Some decided to propose selling their products and services online, while others changed the variety of products they have offered.
“All in all, it was a dilemma of adaptation. Some of the companies were fast to adapt, while others took a long time to respond to the crisis. Those who adopted fast stayed on the market, others had to close down or even leave the market,” Kimeridze concluded.
As for the lesson from the global health crisis, according to Kimeridze, Covid-19 has taught us very important lessons, some of which can be pivotal for survival. “The first lesson we should take from it is: we should always think outside of the box and find solutions based on the present situation. This lesson helps us to survive even in the most difficult circumstances and while dealing with uncertainty.
The second lesson is that the faster we adapt the stronger we become on the long-run scale. Adaptation helps us to stay on the market and when our competitors close down even for a short period of time, we already get a competitive advantage. The third lesson is to always put all of the strategies into practice. We might have an excellent theoretical strategy, which aims at stabilizing our company’s position during the market fluctuation, but if we put it into its practical appliance, we will know for sure that the theoretical plan is effective.
And the most important lesson is to never give up and seek new opportunities. The search process is something that distinguishes every successful individual and organization.”
“I hope that all of these lessons help every company or individual to find their path,” Kimeridze told BM.GE.
