10 Founder Mistakes: How Revenue Grew from RUB 200M to RUB 2B

This is my personal review of ten mistakes that cost me years, money and nerves. While we sold absorption chillers, Cold Energy (NCT) was stuck at RUB 200 million in revenue. When we moved into cooling towers and chillers, it grew to RUB 2 billion. The difference comes down to one mistake I repeated for years: I tried to create a market instead of entering one that already existed. The other nine are about money, order, people and the handoffs between departments. It is written for owners of manufacturing and engineering businesses who grow slower than they could, and for buyers choosing an equipment supplier who want to see what stands behind the promises in a quote. The PDF is in Russian; the key points are below in English.

What is inside the review?

• Mistake 1. I built the business for myself, not for the market.

• Mistake 2. I did not count money properly.

• Mistake 3. I ignored international experience.

• Mistake 4. I thought I did not need to keep learning.

• Mistake 5. I trusted without checking.

• Mistake 6. I did not put things in order.

• Mistake 7. I did not build cooperation between departments.

• Mistake 8. I talked about problems too much.

• Mistake 9. I forgot about the internal customer.

• Mistake 10. I hired people for less than the result is worth.

• Why this matters to a customer: what you actually buy together with the equipment.

For each mistake: what I did, what it cost, and a short conclusion you can take for your own company.

Key takeaways

Do not create a market, find one. I fell in love with absorption chillers and spent years "educating the market" at my own expense: long sales cycles, one-off deals. As soon as we turned to what the market needed right now, chillers and cooling towers, revenue grew tenfold. Existing demand is always cheaper than demand you try to create.

Numbers are eyesight, not bookkeeping. While I lived with a feeling that "we seem to be making money", I could not tell how much I could pay people, where to invest or what price to hold. The chain reaction follows: you hire below the value of the result, get weaker people, and lose quality and speed.

Saving on salaries is the most expensive saving. A weak specialist costs several times more than a strong one: errors, rework, lost customers. It is a direct consequence of poor accounting.

The founder is the bottleneck. A company cannot grow beyond its owner. Growth started when I began to study management, finance and people systematically.

Chaos gets more expensive as revenue grows. "We will sort it out once we grow" does not work. Today almost every process in our company is written down: every employee has a procedure and a defined area of responsibility. For the customer this means predictable lead times and repeatable quality, not luck with a particular manager.

Department wars are paid for with the customer's missed deadlines. An end-to-end process from contract signing to shipment matters more than the efficiency of each department on its own. I am still fixing this wall; it is ongoing work, not a one-time task.

Every department is a supplier to the next one. Our equipment selection team works for the sales team, and its "customer" has to be satisfied too. Output quality is never higher than the quality of internal handoffs.

The founder's tone becomes the team's mood. We have produced more than 1,000 units of equipment. If five of them have issues, statistically that is zero, but when you spend the whole day on those five cases, it feels like everything is falling apart. Good news has to be talked about deliberately and often.

Who is it for?

• Owners and directors of manufacturing and engineering companies that have hit a growth ceiling.

• Founders stepping back from day-to-day operations and looking for a balance between trust and control.

• Buyers choosing a cooling equipment supplier: these ten points show how a company counts money, keeps deadlines and takes responsibility for defects.

FAQ

Which of the ten mistakes cost the most?

The first one. For years I pushed absorption chillers where there was no demand and paid for educating customers out of my own pocket. Turning to chillers and cooling towers grew revenue tenfold, from RUB 200 million to RUB 2 billion.

What does this have to do with choosing an equipment supplier?

When you buy cooling for a site, you buy not only hardware but the order behind it: accurate accounting, written processes, end-to-end responsibility from sale to service, and people who are paid for results. All of that is the flip side of the mistakes in this review.

Should a founder step out of operations completely?

In my experience, no. I swung between extremes: controlling everything myself, then letting go entirely. Stepping out completely means losing control over quality, and therefore over reputation. Trust people, but keep a hand on the pulse.

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