Charge the batteries (29)

In the mid-eighties, my girlfriend and I buy a small cottage in the archipelago of the Swedish west coast. We are working so much and need a small hide-away, a place to relax and recharge. The house is small and needs a lot of work. Every time we reach the house we can breathe and enjoy the quietness of the countryside and do a different type of work.

To have your own business means a lot of work, but people who don't have their own business often have a different idea about the self-employed people.

The work I do is hard work, hands-on work. I have to walk, talk and persuade. Deal, buy, sell, all at the same time. When you start a new business, nothing will come for free. Only from hard work.

Sometimes I hear people say: "Oh, you have your own business. How nice! Then you can take as much annual leave as you like." I have to hide a smile. More likely no annual leave at all. All your time awake is spent on getting your business to survive and grow. When you succeed, nothing is more rewarding.

But there is also more than work, that is family and friends. They must not be forgotten. The house we now have bought will keep us together in many more ways than just work.

Finding the way (28)

This is how a story starts about two young guys, one Hong Kong Chinese and one Swedish, trying a new way of buying directly from the warehouses in Shenzhen. We will buy what they want or need to sell, at a really good price, and send it to Sweden.

The first time we go around to the different warehouses they look at us skeptically. Luckily I have Jacky Choy who speaks Cantonese and Mandarin. We have to pay cash for our first containers, but as time goes by we earn more trust and they start recognizing us when we come back again and again.

To save money wherever we can, we pack the containers ourselves just to keep the prices down. I love a good workout and this is better than going to any gym.

There are of course traders in Hong Kong buying for customers directly from the warehouses as well. The difference between them and us is that we buy for ourselves and only buy what we know we can sell. This means that we can say yes or no to a price immediately and make a fast deal.

This became a breakthrough for our way of purchasing in the early years.

Creative buying (27)

We have now found a way to get new customers that want to buy bigger quantities. How should we make this work in the future? How can we ensure that we still can make a profit? The things we can take control over is the price we buy for and the price we sell for.

I travel to Hong Kong to meet up with my supplier and friend Jacky Choy. We toss ideas and work through the night. We don't want to buy a container of 88 PASA per month from a factory if we are not sure to sell it. If we do, we cannot buy stock offers when the occasion arises. We don't want to be stuck in any deal.

Many glove factories keep the production going even if it means that the stock will be too large. Not all provinces have a harbor and so a lot of the stock is sent down to Shenzhen, close to the traders in Hong Kong. Would it be possible for us to go there and try buying directly from the warehouses? To our knowledge no purchaser from Europe has tried this before.

Will anyone believe in two young guys under the age of thirty? Will they trust that we know what we are doing?

Marketing (26)

With four people working together we can sit down and just throw ideas at each other. It is amazing how many good suggestions we get. We realize that we are too few to travel all over Sweden so we need to come up with an idea how to get the customers attention and get them to buy bigger quantities. What to do?

The most popular glove at this time is the 88 PASA. Everyone is buying it. How about sending a sample to everyone we want as a customer and offer them a try of the glove at a really good price? We never knew how well this would turn out.

This was quite a new thing in the early 90's and a lot of customers started calling us, wanting to buy gloves from this small but innovative company. Now it was time for step 2: To be able to buy the gloves to send to our new customers. Time to call my friends in China and Hongkong to see what we could do. Time for more travelling to Asia.

We were not too well prepared back then. Just happy and wanting to work hard for what we wanted. Still a lot to learn!