I am an optimist. I believe the future is bright. I think people who see life painted in dark colors are the ones who do not take ownership.
Competition is good because we need to educate customers, and Ozon.ru itself will not be able to do it.
Consumers learn the value of being sure that what you want to buy is what you buy.
I have learned that I must take a holiday at least once each year if I want to survive!
The Russians are not as addicted to coffee as the Americans. We should work on that!
While I accept that large investment rounds will always garner headlines, it's almost as if the magic number of how much cash you've managed to raise has become both a stamp of approval and the main metric for gauging a business's true worth.
I think Russia is a difficult country, and it's very difficult for people to adapt here, especially if they don't speak the language well.
The pickup points are a natural additional network for delivery. For me, the surprise is that Amazon didn't come up with that idea.
The general message would be to say to all these young people: If you have entrepreneurial aspirations, there is money, there are consumers, there is a huge market. The only thing you need to do is to go there and start doing things.
After I completed the project for BCG, I was offered the position of Director of Marketing for Ozon.ru.
There's always a fine line between being too focused and missing opportunities, or being too wide and taking on too many.
That's the mantra I use when the team tells me something is too complicated. People keep saying, 'We need more prioritization.' I say, 'Guys, what you want is less work. And that is not going to happen.'
The biggest deficit in terms of gender equality at Ozon lay in our IT department. So we made a decision, along with our key IT leaders, to remove all filters and systemically interview all the women who apply.
From the consumer perspective, what happened in the U.S. 10 years ago and Europe five years ago is now happening in Russia. People are beginning to understand that e-commerce is easy and safe.
The fundamental vision hasn't changed. What does change is how you get there, because there are still problems you have to figure out.
Russians are not a very friendly people. It's hard to get them to speak nicely to the customers. It's just not in their culture.
Russia is an amazing country to be an entrepreneur.
The goal wasn't to create a billion-dollar company. The goal was to create something useful where I could learn things.
If you have drive and energy, everything is possible.
I can be more cold than people would like me to be.
