Un monde à entreprendre

A few days before reaching Mongolia, Christopher sent us a message telling us that he had to fly to Paris for business purposes and that we would not be able to meet him in UlanBataar. We therefore scheduled a Skype video call from Siberia to Paris in order to talk about his experience as an entrepreneur in Mongolia… I guess this is what we call globalization, right?

In spite of his Belgian nationality, Christopher has never actually lived in Belgium. As his parents were working as diplomats, he has luckily spent a huge part of his life travelling the world, especially in the ex-USSR countries, as well as Asia and Africa. He graduated from Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom, and has since been working in many different countries, mostly in Asia (China, Japan, Mongolia, Hong Kong). Based on his international experience and the knowledge he acquired abroad, he made up his mind in order to decide in which country he wanted to settle/invest, based on the main followings points:

· Political stability of the country (i.e. real democracy)

· Under developed / developing country (as these are the countries in which the growth rate are the most important)

· Possibility to invest on his own name (i.e. no restriction for foreign investments)

Considering this, and evaluating the different markets, Christopher shortlisted a few countries and decided that Mongolia was the one presenting the most benefits, as China has strong needs for minerals that Mongolia has in big quantities (i.e. gold, copper, uranium).

Even though Christopher felt into travelling when he was young, entrepreneurship was not a path he had chosen long ago (he describes himself on his personal website as being an “accidental entrepreneur” http://www.degruben.com). Christopher arrived in 2004 in Mongolia, where he started to work for an American real estate company. He spent four years working there, until he decided that he had to work differently. Indeed, he did not fancy the way some of the business and its clients were handled. Quitting his job made him lose his Mongolian visa. The only possibility for him at that point to get another one was to create his own business; which led to the creation of M.A.D. Corporate Services (MAD stands for Make A Difference). Following the creation of M.A.D. Corporate Services, he decided to start a sandwich business (roughly based on the same business model as Subway) with an initial capital of USD 20.000. He therefore set up two businesses… in order to get a visa!

He trained himself as being a founder and a CEO of a company with the sandwich business, and after around 6 months, he decided to actually do something with M.A.D. Corporate Services. As aforementioned, Christopher wanted to do business in a more transparent way than it was usually done in Mongolia. He thought that transparency and honesty were values that not only would help to make this country a better place for business, but were also values that clients would look for. Big foreign companies are usually very reluctant to pay bribes as it could potentially damage their reputation, and overall Mongolia is changing which makes this approach to business more and more sustainable. The fees paid by his clients are always fixed fees for example as he does not want the interests of his company to be in conflict with the interests of its clients (i.e. with a floating fee, Christopher may be looking for bigger offices than actually needed by his clients in order to increase the amount of the fees).

Christopher first started to produce a few clean reports for international companies on the Mongolian market. Thanks to his growing reputation, he won new clients, and decided to start another activity for M.A.D. Corporate Services. He started to create business plans and developed market studies for his clients. As they were happy with the quality of his work, they asked for help to start their business in Mongolia. Christopher would for example help them to find offices to rent, write the work contracts for them or help them with the administrative paperwork. Helping companies to get implemented in Mongolia and listening to people around him, Christopher realized that they were no relocation services company in the country. He therefore decided to expand his services to include relocation. He now owns the only relocation services company in Mongolia, and is currently considering expanding in China (in 2011) as he feels that there are interesting market opportunities. As a matter of fact, it appears that Mongolians and Chinese do not trust each other, and therefore a person like him who would be neutral could work as a broker between the two counterparts. His business currently employs 8 people and should reach 10 or 11 in 2011.

When he looks back at his experience as an entrepreneur, Christopher does not regret having chosen this path as it taught him a lot from a business perspective (i.e. it helped him to understand all the underlying between all the aspects of a business and to think to all options before making a decision) and gave him more freedom than he ever had before in his career. He however believes that this is not something that everyone can do as you have to be ready to live with risk, especially in Mongolia where the assets of your company are your own assets. Living as an entrepreneur therefore leads you to accept working without a safety net. It involves a great sense of responsibilities as you are somewhat not only responsible for all the strategic decisions of your business, but also responsible for providing a salary that will allow your employees and their families to live.

He therefore advises people who want to create their own company, and in particular abroad to be sure to have a great idea to start and to be sure that you are ready to work hard as the learning curve will be sharp. The second advice (I like that one) is to start spending other’s money before you start spending yours. That basically means that you should probably start working for someone in the country in which you want to start a business in order to feel the market and make the first few mistakes in the country at someone else’s expense. A funny anecdote he told us was that you do not sign a contract or make an important decision on Tuesdays in Mongolia, which is a good example of things not to do that you only learn once you are in the business. As he has seen many people who did not have enough money to wait for their business to be profitable, he advises not to spend all your capital at once, but to keep a safety mattress which would allow you to overcome the first difficulties and make your business sustainable.

Thanks a lot for you time Christopher, and thanks a lot for lending us your apartment (and what an apartment!) for a few days. It is a pity we did not have a chance to meet in person, but I am pretty sure we will fix this sooner or later.

Benoit