Fanis Koutouvelis: A software “retailer” for the offline shopping
A very dear friend of mine once told me the definition of hell; on your last day on earth, the person you could have become will meet the person you became.
When you’re still in your 20s, aspiring to be an entrepreneur, Fanis might resemble this definition of hell.
He is young, good looking, smart and already successful by most standards.
Now on top of that, he is in his early 30s, so think about what lies ahead.
From the beginning, he welcomed me with a very humble and friendly tone. I admit, I was expecting him to be very cocky due to his age, but he surprised me by showing a very mature and down to earth attitude.
He told me all about the hardships and the early years of his company Intale, hitting the road and trying to find customers before launching his product.
So let’s get straight on with his golden nuggets of wisdom.
Dissatisfied with the status quo
He told me a story of a fellow university student who once said...
- “Guys, I am all set, I have found a good steady job in the public sector, working for less than 6h a day and paying me 1500 euros a month”
And he tought to himself, “What am I studying then for? To be that guy getting a pay check for the rest of my life and doing nothing?”
Something clicked.
If you’re that type of guy, and there’s an itch inside you, then do it. You don’t need more motivation than that.
We don’t need more entrepreneurs just for the sake of it, or because it is cool. However, we need the ones that are willing to sacrifice a lot and have the “producer” mentality instead of the “consumer” one, like the fellow student of Fanis had.
...we need the ones that are willing to sacrifice a lot and have the “producer” mentality
Problem Seeker / Solution Provider
The idea behind Intale was born, while Fanis observed some guys at a kiosk fighting over whose products would be displayed more prominently.
He understood that the problem was the lack of “data” and he thought he could be the one providing data for both the kiosk owner and the companies promoting their products.
He soon realised this concept was not yet implemented in Greece, and boom, “i-kiosk” was born, later rebranded to “Intale”.
The mentality of an entrepreneur, is not about making money, that comes later. It is about creating a solution for a problem that the market is experiencing.
I once watched a talk of the Slack founder, Stewart Butterfield, who said he is dissatisfied with everything.
He had to cross the road on a rainy day, and people kept coming at him with their umbrellas pointing at him and consequently into his face. So he kept on thinking if there is a way to make them tilting their hand just a little bit or making the umbrella have an angle so that people wouldn’t create this problem to others.
You obviously don’t need to care about the umbrella, but you need to care for the people “suffering” from a problem and try to serve them.
That is actually how entrepreneurs think.
Character building through hardships
For Fanis, getting through this early period of not having customers or a working product yet, made him what he is today.
Hitting doors and cold calling potential customers, makes you resilient. You get desensitized after hearing the word “No” repeatedly.
You ought to “be” that guy, you have to do things that don’t scale at first.
Always aim to surpass your past self, because if you’re not going to do it, the market will show you the way out. And in more harsh way, than having a potential customer saying no to your face.
Oussama Ammar has described very eloquently in his bootstrapping video.
Vacations, vacations, vacations
We have this image of entrepreneurs drinking Pina Coladas in the Bahamas, but in the early days, the image is much uglier.
It’s actually working 7/7, for at least 10h a day, while girlfriends dump you and friends are out partying, texting/tempting you to come over.
If you’re more of a “balanced” type of person, I am deeply sorry to mess with your dream.
As for Fanis, he had taken 2 years off from vacations while he was building his company from scratch. He didn’t think of anyone else existed besides his customers at that point.
Nowadays, he is enjoying some of the perks of being successful but don’t get distracted by that.
You have to go through hell, if you want to reach heaven.
You have to go through hell, if you want to reach heaven.
Boldness
Probably, the first characteristic of a young, untested entrepreneur is to be bold enough to enter a market with competitors that “dwarf” him in terms of capital, and industry knowledge.
You need to pinpoint the right problems and provide a working solution. Then it’s just a matter of how bad you want this to work.
Shy engineers who are building stuff in their basement only for their own needs, are going to stay at the basement.
You need to go out, believe you are capable of providing solutions for all these people and prove that to them. If you are not confident enough, it’s going to show and people won’t trust you with their hard earned money.
Fanis’s and Intale’s goal is to connect and unify the convenience retail industry. If you want to be part of this future, you visit this link to know more about Intale and you can apply here to any job opening fits your profile.
