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For example, there are people who try to be in all clearings, in all things, that's what I'm talking about. I think that when a person starts a business, has a small or medium-sized company, and can't delegate those things, I understand that, but you need to be able to distinguish what is important, what moves me where I want to go, what pulls me towards the goal I have set, and the ballast around it, the side activities, and when it's not possible, when I don't have a large enough team, I try to get rid of them as quickly as possible with the least amount of time and focus on the essential.

Well, I didn't get to that. I don't know myself, because I got to it gradually, in circles. Because first I really went after that I was with my dad in the company where I was in charge of sales, and suddenly he was halfway there, and I perceived that my dad at his age, almost retirement age for many people, but he's an active sportsman at 83, so for him not, but for many people, he took on debt again for a long time, and I think if the family had known at the beginning of the business everything that was mortgaged and so on, they would have been much more scared than they were, but they took that risk, which I admire, because when you compare, I don't know if I would want to invest half of my turnover today, I would be relatively sweaty.

But I say hats off to those pioneers who put everything on one card, I admire them, great respect.

Me too, because I was reading the next question.

So I was first in that stage where I was trying to save the situation, then I had a stage where I was angry that the market didn't perceive that we had better goods, so I wanted to somehow rectify that injustice. Then based on that, I came up with a brand and started thinking and learning about how to direct it, and then the idea was to succeed with that brand. At that time, success meant different goals than what we have achieved today, and if someone had told me then, I wouldn't have believed it. So I'm being honest: I didn't have such a big ambition. But then appetite grows with eating, so we grew gradually. I remember in our industry there is an award at a conference where all the products meet. A few years ago we won that first prize when we had revenues just over one billion. Before that, when someone asked me what I wanted to achieve, I would jokingly say we'll do a billion. That was always my ambition, to show those Westerners, because I was that student in America who cleaned floors to pay for his studies, and the 90s left something in us, so I had a healthy ambition to show that we can do it better. So I got that award, some international recognition, and the billion also happened. Then I woke up in Amsterdam after a great party with a hangover, and I started feeling: these two things worked, so what next? That's what interests me, how it continues, because a lot of people burn out at that point. That was a difficult period. I had to think and even seek advice, and start really doing things. Until then, the strategic plans were in my head and I was the one pulling it alone. From then on, I started creating strategic plans with my team, involving more people, formulating and sharing them. Before that, maybe some people understood because we were close, but we didn't have it. It wasn't just me but also my closest team. But it was more like sitting around one table. Now it needed to be formulated for a larger team. So there was some formulation. Then comes a period when a person might not have that ambition anymore, but I see it as responsibility. When there are more employees, people join with motivation, and you can't just throw in the towel. And it comes from my absolute conviction that you can't just maintain; I believe it's a sport discipline where you must constantly progress. Whoever stops for a moment falls behind. So even when you don't feel like it, you have to get up and go on, because I believe you can't stop.

We, I would say, went from two extremes. From the beginning when I spent a lot of time with my dad, and all our family gatherings were undoubtedly influenced by business, but we talked not only about our business but also about the business of other family members. That was a period that had great meaning for me because I learned a lot. Now we are at a stage where we all take great care not to ruin the weekend. The family celebrations are a bit more boring because of that, but I try to make it a voluntary topic, not a necessity. I still consider us a family business. One of my closest colleagues is my brother. My oldest children are still in high school, so we have time. I try to talk about business and show them, but in a relatively small measure because I believe in personal choice and that the will must come from the other side. I think they should find their own path. I still talk about business with my dad, even though from his side it's beyond my alternative, but it's nice to know you can consult with someone. That's the advantage of family business, especially across generations. I believe there will always be help, an open opinion. I'm very grateful for that, and also for having friends from high school who tell me when I'm being an idiot. So family business is not just about the owner. We also have many employees who work with us across generations, and that is perhaps even more important for our company culture. We don't avoid it, even though it can have negative consequences, but that's how it is.

Of course, because I admit that at the beginning I almost exclusively looked at the person's desire to do it. We needed someone with some skills, but the role of 'he wants to, so he'll learn' was much more important. I still think that's the most important quality. But today we have to look for experts who have specific skills that are key for our business. As we grow, we need people who bring expertise. We have managers who have both soft skills and hard skills, which is great when it happens. I remember several times sitting in an interview with someone from a big company who has good skills and says they want to try something new with more responsibility and autonomy. I usually sit there and say, 'You'll get more autonomy than you'll like.' They shake their heads and think 'no way.' A few times they came back after a few months and said they needed some guidance. So that happens. It's good when you feel that people have it in them. Of course, as we grew and made acquisitions, we had teams with different skills and cultures that we had to adapt a bit. But I still consider the people the most important. I agree with Henry Ford: take my factories, but leave me my people, and I'll build it all again. To a certain extent, I still believe that.

I think the most you keep people is by being fair and by truly including them in your business. Some want to be more included, some less. Everyone says they want full responsibility, but there are people who just want to work 8 hours. I think many are somewhere in between. I jokingly say they do their performance but need distance from the company. Or they can't take on such a big share of responsibility or risk. That doesn't mean they don't live with the company. I think it's more common in our case that people think about the company completely. I even have colleagues I have to actively tell to slow down and spend time with family or themselves, because it's more beneficial for everyone. But if you asked them, they would say they are ready to do anything for the company, and I fully believe that. But the degree of involvement has its limits. The most important thing is to share both the benefits and the negatives with people, to be as open as possible. Of course, it's hard when the team is large. I feel uncomfortable now because I used to do this personally when the team was up to a few hundred people, and I was proud to know every worker by name. That's no longer true. I spend very little time on that now, and I'm almost ashamed. But fortunately, we have more people in the company who have taken over that role. When we are over 1000, it can only go so far.

It's because I'm no longer involved in the executive at all. I consider that my stronger side, that even when I was fully involved, I could think with a certain perspective. Maybe it helped that I saw my dad, who was more immersed in the executive, and I thought about how I could do it a little better. One thing, maybe the only one, where I think I was better than my dad, was that because I wasn't the first generation, I could be a bit less involved and have more perspective. Today it's paradoxically quite easy because I'm very little in the executive; I have a strong executive team. My role is only to look at the company from a higher perspective, think about what will happen in a longer time horizon. Sometimes it's hard because I sit with someone and we don't understand each other because they think in terms of six months or a year, and I think in terms of five years. That's logical because they have their plan. So that's my role today. I don't consider it very difficult because I've been doing it for a while and I'm not in the executive. For someone who is in the executive, I would recommend that once every two weeks, go to a cottage for half a day and deliberately think differently. If you don't do that at regular intervals, you'll get stuck.

I perceived it as... you've been part of the program from the very beginning. It's hard to find words because it's quite important to me. I think it's necessary to support entrepreneurship, even in the sense of enterprise. It's a theme that accompanies me because I believe that a society with more entrepreneurial people, whether in business or in other activities like coaching kids in sports, is harder to manipulate, more cultivated, and more resistant to unpleasant things we feel around us. So I see it as an inner need to show that entrepreneurship is a good and necessary thing, not only for the economy, but also for the activity itself. It's a good theme. I also liked that it started during the Covid time, when I experienced how bad that period was, and how hard it is when you're alone and they close your business. I saw it as a way to give symbolic support, because we can't always help in reality, but at least by talking, listening, giving courage. Because sometimes you have to close your business or lay off employees you've worked with for years. Everyone thinks it's easy, but even today, if I had to fire someone, my hands would shake. So giving that person courage and support was the pure motivation. And I'm very glad it found its way. Many people like you and others joined, which is great because entrepreneurship can be lonely. So maybe this role is just to share things and hear what others think. That alone can be very nice.