Last week, we hosted an Ask me Anything (AMA) online session with Nikos Drandakis, serial entrepreneur and founder of Beat. Nikos shared with the entrepreneurs of our network the knowledge he has acquired from his personal experience, he disclosed the challenges he has encountered up to now and he focused on the importance of selecting and managing the right people, as one of the most significant features of a company.
Regarding the challenges he came across during the expansion of his company in Brazil, Nikos claimed that he had not realized how large the market was and the immense capital he had to raise, as he had underestimated the rising competition. “As a result, local competitors with a better understanding of the market appeared, and started to grow faster. As my team was located in Athens and we did not have the necessary resources at our disposal, I assigned the management of my company to people I cooperated with… Soon enough I understood why the numbers were going down. I realized that I was missing that team that would help me figure out what was wrong. The most important lesson I learned was that you have to be close to your team.”
Nikos also underlined that it is essential to select the right people and manage them in a proper way. “All the lessons I have learned have to do with the managment of people,” he claimed. “People are not the most substantial asset of a company; however, the right people are the most substantial asset of it,” he added. According to the founder of Beat, what is of utmost importance is the culture of a company. “Privileges are not part of the culture of a company, they rather constitute an additional expense, as the company strives to make its remuneration package more attractive. Culture is a lot more than that; it has to do with who you hire, who you promote and who you decide to lay off. In this way, you set the tone for the kind of people you would like to have in your company and the kind of company you would like to build. A company is made by its people.”
After listening to the interesting session with Nikos Drandakis, we realized that people are the most valuable asset of a company. No matter how good your application is or how innovative your product might be, it is the proficient and suitable employees that determine the course of a company!