2 months of internship and Zernoff

It's been two months since I wrote an entry on this blog, but to be fair, I've been pretty busy with my internship in Kolding.

I've been working at Terkelsen A/S (and yes, as the name suggests I'm related to the owner - he's my dad) and it has been a positive yet also time/energy consuming internship. One of our employees got sick, yet the doctors still hasn't found out what he was ill with - the result was that he couldn't keep up with his work. That meant that I had to take over his responsibilities in logistics while maintaining my own in accounting/sales - and of course work on my damn internship report. All the while, I've been living at my girlfriend in Kolding which was a positive experience. I'm less anxious now about the thought of moving in together, though it's still an issue for future Jesper (I've heard he's really good at tackling serious relationship issues).

On the "entrepreneurship" side I've spent November and December negotiating with Zernoff, an Moldovan vodka producer, for the opportunity to promote and sell their product in Denmark. I can't get exclusive rights to sell to Denmark before I can show that I can actually sell the product (which I respect and understand), but I will the opportunity to try. So finally, on December the 27th, I drove to Kastrup, paid customs, and got my "samples": 48 bottles of fine vodka at a very competitive price. 

The samples are 12 Zernoff Original, 12 Zernoff Wheat, 12 Zernoff Rye, 6 Pertrovskaia Silver and 6 Petrovskaia Platinum. The idea is to sell it to support myself the last semester of school - while doing my masters special of course :)

I will talk more about the vodka later - but here's some pictures of the bottles

Last week in Moldova, week 43 (Day 21 - 27)

On Monday I researching the market for ground heating in Moldova because the prices on gas and electricity have been increasing rapidly in the last 3 years. As a result we're currently in preliminary negotiations with Buderus (part of Bosch Group) about installing their products to our clients.

I also had a meeting with Mr Daniel Dragomir, the technical manager of Grundfos Romania, about buying and selling their products to the agricultural sector in Moldova - but this also requires that they can sell their products to the EU so I got to find some buyers in EU for them (You got to love a challenge)

Week 43 was also the week where I officially invested in a company - STAR Coffee :) I invested 10.000 € and I really believe that the company can win a lot of market shares and even increase their profit pr. sold cup with some improvements. As part of BCD who is also helping STAR Coffee, I'm searching for a strategic partners in EU that can provide them with better and cheaper materials than their current supplier. I'm currently discussing with the owner of Merrild, a dutch company that is the market leader in coffee vending machine supplies.

I also had a meeting with the export manager of Zernoff Vodka, and I've been given the task of selling their product on the market in Northwest and Central part of EU (Scandinavia, GB, and Germany primarily). I'm actually involved in the creation and negotiations with a logistics company that can transport it to Denmark for a low price. So my task is to find a major distributor of the product, and brand it - which will mean bonus and percentages for yours truly.

On Friday I was on a field trip at some Textile producers, both small and big. With a monthly pay of around 2500 and 3000 lei (1200 and 1400 DKK) and a good work moral, plus great location to Denmark vs. China I also got to find someone who would like to get their products, textile, produced in Moldova.

As you can hear, I got a lot on my plate - and I still need to finish my Internship at Terkelsen A/S, the intern report, and my master thesis. So am I stressed? Not at all! I'm enjoying that I'm in the middle of a lot of opportunities and the experiences is something I believe that can help me in the future. I also have an idea I would like to start by myself, which I think will be my master thesis.

Monday and Tuesday, my last two days, are going to be used to visit some fruit producers and the Zernoff Vodka factory. After the visit I'm going to board my plane and fly back to Denmark. Good timing, since I'm starting to get a bit sick (come on body, keep up!) so I can get well and back to business soon :)

J

Week 42 (Day 14 - 20) in Moldova

Long time since I blogged so it's about time to update people on the state of Jesper :)

In week 42 I worked on a lot of research and getting meetings done and scheduled - both in Moldova and Denmark.

I meet with a young girl called Tatiana who I would be working together with on the BCD social platform for businesses. Basically she would translate companies information from Rumanian or Russian to English and act as an translator between Danish and Moldovan companies, when needed, when they want to do business. However, I wasn't impressed by her English skills, so I said to my boss "That's a no-go" and he agreed.

I also asked for a meeting with Merrild who could help with supplies for STAR Coffee - more on that later.  I also got an agreement with Coop Denmark about sending some samples of Moldovan wine with some price lists. All in all i'm going to get the task of selling and branding Moldovan Wine in Western Europe - and also Vodka and Cognac (The French has the copyright on the name so its called Divin).

In the weekend I meet up with Lena, the industrial designer, and she showed me around Chisinau - Check out some of the pics around town.

Ugh, all this time, and everybody wants to relax (Day 11 + 12)

Friday started out slow....very slow. The day before my meeting with Vlad had dragged out...to 2 am! We got talk some more business, about exporting to Denmark, expanding the current portfolio, and upgrading the webpage to make it easier to see the portfolio and quantities/quality of wine. The meeting was at a place where they had something called retro night - yup greatest hits from the 60s to the 90's....from Russia. Some good numbers in between and some weird ones too, but it was electrifying. I meet a girl, Helen, who was studying industrial design - her passion was shaping and reshaping cars. She also spoke english very good, so I had someone to talk to about other stuff than business. She was really nice, and I hope to talk to her again, and not only about the educational system but also a little more about this city. She seamed pretty glad that I wanted to hear about her town (Chisinau) and her study. I really want to get as many views as possible about everything down here - just so I don't get one group of peoples opinion but a broader view. 

Anyway, I was so destroyed friday that the only thing exciting was that I proposed a meeting to the Chamber of Commerce in Monaco for the beginning of December between me, my boss and the president of the CoC. Everybody had the day off, and I was told to just relax. Sigh...When you really want to keep working its pretty hard to relax, but I managed to anyway. Look how relaxed and peaceful I look ;) 

Saturday was more relaxing - and I spent that just chilling, watching a movie and writing on a business idea for Chile in the fall of 2012 (It's going to be awesome, but man I got to work out all the angles!). And blogging, spent saturday blogging a bit and trying to reflect a little about my experiences so far. 

This country is littered with possibilities, and the next generations is going to be very special because besides having free education and a lot is taking a college degree (a degree at a very high theoretical level), they are also learning English, French, Italian and German - and downplaying Russian. The problem is that the infrastructure can't keep up, so more and more people are working abroad in other countries or even moving away completely. Furthermore, according to Helen, the educational system is really focused on theory and very little on practical knowledge. So these young academics are in need of some practical knowledge, and perhaps more abroad. I fail to see how they aren't more targeted for international businesses since the average salary is ridiculous low in this country, yet the skill level is very high. The focus on theory I might add is for academics - for the technical schools it's the other way around. They have amazing technical skills, but they don't have access to the know-how and machines that we do - which means that they are excellent with their limited means, but they could be even better is they just had some more "tools". 

Well, enough for me - have a good saturday everyone! I try getting some more pictures so I can put them in the blog :) 

Working in the office (Day 9 + 10)

This wednesday was kind of slow. I wrote back to all the contacts that I made on Danish Days in Moldova and I finished my report with questions and improvements from the field day with STAR coffee. I also had a small chat with Truemax 3D school about Softexpert, and I redirected them to the CEO, so I hope they find out of something. I had dinner out in the city, where I took a picture of this small "bell" for waiters. I know its a small thing, but I sure would like that more danish cafe's and restaurants had those - I hate waiting to ask for the check or a ordering something more to drink!

Thursday was the last day of the week, since this Friday was the city's birthday which means holiday for all (my boss thinks that this country has way too many holidays - I got to agree, but what do I know?). I finished my recommendations on what we should propose to the chamber of commerce in Monaco, and my boss was very positive about my ideas - know I just have to execute. I also researched what the procedures where for starting up a company in Sweden, and I recommended some improvement on some webpages. The webpage improvement can be done by a great danish company that utilizes indian programmers to keep costs low, but still has that danish standard for quality and design. The company is called Commerce ApS and I can highly recommend it!
I ended the day with another meeting with Vlad, who works in the wine industry, financing of industrial machines, and also is the general director of a consultancy company (phew). So I had to dress up which wasn't good for my ego as the picture would tell you.

Danish Days in Moldova (Day 8)

This is kind of the day I've been pretty excited about - Danish days in Moldova. The "days" is actually a single day, but lets not get caught up in small details. The danish ambassador in Romania is also responsible for Moldova, and because he's not a narrow-minded guy, he actually explored and now a lot about Romania AND Moldova. Because of his knowledge he knows of the great potential for Danish companies that exist in Moldova - something I was told the former ambassador did not. So he and and a project team had been working since the beginning of 2011 with creating this event called "Danish days in Moldova" which invited Danish companies to come an learn about Moldova, the potential, and network with local players. Since I work for a organization that has a lot of contact to SME's I thought that we would be relevant - a lot of our members are farmers and could need new pumps, water irrigation and so on. Also, there was a lot of other potential needs and demands we could fill out, so I wrote to the team leader on the project. I wrote something a long the line "Hi I'm Jesper, this is what I'm doing here in Moldova, and this is why we should be invited". The ambassador then replied and said that we should join in, and we exchanged some mails the following days about the country, who I was, and what BCD was doing.

So at 9 am I arrive to Leogrand Hotel, which is the venue of the event. Representing the Danish companies was Carlsberg, Grundfos, Danfoss, Falck, Grontmij, Sondex, Vestas, Systematic, Industriens Fond for Udvikslingslande, og 10 andre selskaber. My wonderful girlfriend made 100 customized business cards, so I could pass them along, and since BCD didn't have my business card from them ready that meant that I was passing out "Jesper Villalobos Terkelsen - Entrepreneur". Awesome :)
I got to meet and talk with a long of people (I'm getting the hang of this networking) and had a meeting with Lisbeth Erlands from IFU with Vladislav from Easy Leasing (An explanation will follow another time). I also meet a group of Danish people that lived in Moldova permanently and started their own companies within agriculture, real-estate and IT-services - really a bunch of cool guys that had a ton of amazing tips and knowledge. They have a webpage called "Dasnkereimoldova" (Danes in Moldova) and if your ever going to Moldova, you should send those guys a mail.

The day ended at a restaurant called the wine-house - at which we got served unlimited Carlsberg and Tuborg beer (both is kind of premium down here). Me and the danish entrepreneurs joked about it: "Beer at the wine house? And Danish beer for Danes in Moldova?" I shall be honest - marketing is NOT their speciality in Moldova. If you study marketing, and you get hired down here, you would tear the place up.

All in all, an amazing day which ended at a bar with some colleagues and potential business partners, watching some football (Russia vs. Andora instead of Denmark vs. Portugal - come on!)

Field day - Monday (day 7)

The week started of with me going out in the "field" to learn some more about the vending machine operator STAR coffee. Basically, I tagged along with an employee who cleaned the machines, collected the money, and refilled it with coffee, sugar and other necessities.

It was a good way to know more about the business, and I noted down some questions for the management on how they run the business. Also, I had to determine if they should/could get some poster up - not hard to determine, but a task is a task. When I came back it was 18.00, so I worked for a couple of more hours at the office, and then went home for a late dinner. Quiet Monday day. Oh and I saw a old woman with her crew of goats for the first time - bawling down the road in a more country like part of Chisinau

Weekend in Moldova (day 4 -6) Part 1

Friday was kind of a quiet day - I finished a proposal for Softexpert and sent it out to 60 possible clients (cold clients) and I started to translate a list with some of our members to find interesting partners to visit in week 41, primarily focusing on honing producers, furniture manufactures, and textile producers - and explanation will follow later on why these companies. I got way to much room in my office, but at my boss says "Get some deals done, and you can fill it out ;)"

The day went with work, and I didn't really think about going out friday. Instead I worked to around 1.30 am and went to bed. I have a two persons bed, which I'm really glad for because I'm a major cover hog - I like to fill the entire bed. I'm truly horrible in that way ;)

  

Saturday I woke up and went with my boss out for brunch while we talked about what we were doing today. He wanted to show me a little more of Chisinau, some of his buildings, and buy a new car for the company. We went to the Toyota dealership, tried some cars (also cool considering the kamikaze way they drive here) and picked a Toyota Auris from 2011 at the staggering price of 15.000 € (it's times like that which make me wonder why I even own a car in Denmark)

I asked if this was a pretty nice car in Moldova, but I already knew the answer "It's a okay work car Jesper, but you got to have something better yourself...I prefer a Lexus Hybrid; good comfort, engine, milage - what more do you want?" A car like that is around 65.000 €. 

At 6 pm I went out for some cigarettes and a beer - I settled for a 20 pack of Lucky Strike for nostalgia, and a 0,5 L Carlsberg. Carlsberg is one of the more expensive beers down here and cost me a whopping 18 MDL (9 DKK) and the cigarets cost me 11 MDL (5,5 DKK). Now, as some of you might know, I don't really smoke. Maybe a little when I'm having a few drinks, but I never actually carry a pack of cigarettes on me. However, as I have learned the last couple of days with meetings, is that a lot of people smoke in Moldova - especially business people. And they can and do smoke everywhere, so that's really something coming from a country where smoking indoors is illegal. Choosing to buy that pack of cigarettes would be a very good choice later that saturday night, but it's getting late and I have a meeting at Hotel Leogard tomorrow at something called "Danish days in Moldova". I'll tell the rest of what happened saturday night, sunday, and get up-to-date with what's happening down here. I'll leave you with some pictures from that saturday before night in downtown Chisinau - J out! 

Investing in Moldova day 3 - Welcome to Softexpert

So today started with going to a meeting at Softexpert, Moldova's second animation company and see their business. The company is run by CEO Eugeniu Frimu and the entire team consists of 9 young and creative talents who did everything in-house with animations; drawings, videos, composing sound and music. Currently they are working on making a pilot episode for an animation series, believing that they will get good response and get the show picked up by a network. They were also involved with all kinds of jobs concerning animations, video creation and editing, and until the animated series gets picked up, they earn money on doing web design or doing tasks that are very time consuming for other animation companies. The CEO said that "Our passion is in drawing and making animations, because anyone can make a webpage, but to make animations you need a team of creative talents to focus on realizing a vision - and that's why animation is our passion".

After the meeting I went back to my office, contacted some more investors about STAR Coffee, and made a file about Softexpert, got some pictures of the team and tomorrow I will contact some gaming companies and animation companies, and see if they would like to partner up with Softexpert, or have some projects they could help out with. Lastly, I contacted a german supplier for an catering company called lunch express. The company believes they could earn more money if they got cheaper disposable cups, tableware, soup bowls, etc. than buying from their current supplier - and after seeing what they are paying I believe it can be done. The biggest expense though it transport and the tax (Moldova is still not a EU country so taxes on imports apply). So I got to spend some time on using Alibaba to try to find some producers - and to no surprise the chinese rule supreme in that category.

All in all, a very quiet day where I saw some more of Chisinau, and even had time for a local brewed beer at Beer House - the dark beer was very good, but their pilsner was not that great.

Anyway, I'll keep you updated. I've been told that my field visits to SME's outside of Chisinau is coming next week, and I might even go to Monaco to meet the chamber of commerce - exciting stuff :)

J

Investing in Moldova - Day 1 and 2

So, I just started as the International Coordinator at BCD (Business Connect & Development) in Chisinau, Moldova. The team is young and energetic, and focused on helping their members improve their business and helping them grow through international business. Most of the companies are SME's (Small Medium Enterprises) who has a good product/service but is in need of investment. The problem is that the banking sector in Moldova has zero competition and is giving out loans at 12,5 % - If you are lucky! And they take forever to issue a loan, because the employees themselves want extra money to speed up the process. The people who suffer are the people who wants to expand their business but gets stuck waiting for additional finance, and then gets trapped by liquidity needs.

For my assignment I was presented to a company called STAR Coffee, a vending machine company that operated 200 machines in Moldova. They had set-up a good business and where making 11.000 € pr. month in profit - thats 132.000 € a year in profit (around 982.000 DKK). Now that's a sweet profit! They want to expand their business with 1000 machines, for which they would need an investment of 500.000 €. So that is my first task - go find some investors that want to make some money.

Besides that, I'm learning about other investment possibilities through the BCD network.

They used to export "Bio briquettes" for lightning up grills. Instead of using coal briquettes, these bio briquettes where made out of walnut shells, that were compressed and could heat up a grill for twice as long as coal, has no co2 emission, and didn't require  lighter fluid to ignite. They used to export to Denmark and Sweden, but the orders stopped due to problems with one of the suppliers. They are still making the product, they just need a buyer.

There are others possibilities which I will learn more of the coming days - tomorrow I'm going to visit a Moldovan Animation company, the second in the entire country, and see their business. I had a meeting with the CEO today and he seemed very professional and eager to get started with the business. He has a team in place, and it's going to be interesting to see the business.

Another CEO I met with shortly today had a company the "reads" the consumption of electricity for companies and private households. They had more than 200.000 clients and where interested in new ideas to improve their business, thus getting the tender for the next 5 years. I'm scheduled to met him again and learn more.

For now, I will go to bed before I visit the Animation company and return to my office (yes I have my own office).

I'll keep you updated :)

Jesper

So what's up with the name?

Well there is a deeper meaning to the name, and it starts with this quote:

"Trade must not be entered into as a thing of light concern; it is called business very properly; for it is a business for life, and ought to be followed as one of the great businesses of life. I do not say the chief, but one of the great businesses of life it certainly is; trade must, I say, be worked at, not played with; he that trades in jest, will certainly break in earnest; and this is one reason, indeed, why so many tradesmen come to so hasty a conclusion of their affairs." - Daniel Defoe

This was one of the first texts I read at the "Principles and Lessons on Leadership at Harvard summer school, and yet, for me, it was mentioned almost at every class afterwards. This "Business for life" is an idea, a belief in, that to be a successful business man, one must do so with ones full dedication. I do, to some degree, agree with this idea - there are many examples, both past and present, where the best are the those individuals who commit themselves to a goal and put in the effort and sacrifice to reach it.

But as Defoe mentions, there are many versions of "life". For me there are four that I primarily want to focus on - and which have had different meaning and importance during my life.

The first "life" is family life which, for me, means the relationship you have to your family. For me, family is very important because many of my current values and beliefs come from my upbringing and relationship with my family, something I will mention in other entries.

The second "life" is my social life. For me, social life involves the time spent with your friends and the personality that you have around them. For some people, the personality that they have with their friends might be more closer to who they really am, than the personality that they have around their family

The third "life" is business life, and it's here where some arguments can be made whether school/study life is part of it. I would argue, that if you are ambitious and have an understanding of where you want to go in life, you're school life, especially your exam preparations, become a part of your business life. In Denmark, everyone has the opportunity to study what they want, until a certain level, and thus can become what they want IF they put in the effort. However, your social life is also a huge part of your study life. For me, study life have become less part of my social life, and more part of my business life, because I know where I'm going, and what it requires of me.

All of those lives equate to the fourth "life" which is perceived life; how others view you. I often hear that "you shouldn't care about what others think". That may be true in some aspects of your life (or lives) but that saying is absolutely nonsense if you have to inspire others, or is in a position of leadership. No matter how much we want to acknowledge it, people talk about other people, both in a positive and in a negative manner. If you say you want to be the captain of your football team, but don't put in the effort at practice, no one is going to follow you.

For the better part of my life it's been all social life - having fun, meeting new people, and partying...a lot. Also, I haven't given any kind of thought of my perceived life, because my excuse was "Hey, I'm student - I can be serious when I'm done". Though my grades aren't bad, and I have few regrets, I realized this summer that I was at a cross path. If you want to be something in life, you have to practice what you preach.

I want to become an entrepreneur, to be an independent man, but I also have a good relationship with my family and friends. I understand that I have to sacrifice time with my family and friends, and focus on my craft, but I will not, and must not, live a pure business life. The hardest part though, will be be to think of my reputation, and present myself in a professional and confident manner.

More entries about my journey to become an entrepreneur, and balancing my four lives, will follow. For now, it's 03.59 at Copenhagen Airport, and I'm waiting to board the plane to Munich, and then transfer to Chisinau International Airport for a exciting month in Moldova - looking forward to getting my thought out there :)