There’s a smart phrase that says, “you cannot plan what you don’t know”. There are things that you just can’t prepare in advance.
You can produce risk management scenarios – what will we do if this happens etc – but what you don’t know will be very difficult to prepare for.
That’s how I actually went into the first deal. In my head, I knew the whole deal from A to Z and I had planned for all the mishaps I could think of.
I was surrounded by a team of locals who knew the process and, after a very long time of checking everything I possibly could, I felt I could complete this deal.

What didn’t I know though?

A lot, like everything in life, comes down to experience. The first transaction was filled with many surprises, some financial, some engineering, some small and some huge.

We entered a deal somewhere at the end of 2018. Looking back, the process seems to me to have taken an eternity then. But the deal was perfect for investors, the returns were great, my fee was worth it all. As a company, though, I can say today that it was not profitable.

The real profit of the deal was what I learned from it, what it created after and just the fact that I had this kind of deal, that started and ended with great success, under my belt.

Today’s article is about the most important thing, from my point of view, for an entrepreneur. It is your ability to ask questions and research events.
My starting point for the project is that I knew all about the deal. In theory I knew a lot but really, in practice, not everything.
During the transaction we got a few problems. The trick is to study these mistakes, to investigate at what stage they started (usually with these things you will find the problem, only it is already too late, and it is important to understand where it is rooted).

I often say that the greatness of a business like this is the ability to ask why. Asking questions is really not about weakness but about seriousness and striving for understanding.

After solving all the malfunctions that were in the first project, we decided to establish Pro Greece (until then the company worked as a private entity).

The next two months focused on finding a new real estate project, I knew its characteristics but that’s what I’ll write to you about in the next article.
“Characterizing a business – how do I choose our next projects?”

Until next time,
Gal Rubin.