The entrepreneurial adventure begins
I’m Bergamaschi Pietro Paolo, the co-owner of the company Dorelan, which was founded in 1968 by me and my partner Tura Diano, who is still in the company with us, with me and the sons, two sons, who work without being either forced or even pressured, they came spontaneously and all four of them have, before entering the structural part of the company, in the office, they all spent a year, a year and a half, two years with the employees within the company, working manually as our employees work.
With the very little money we had at the time Tura and I began to develop some ideas, relying solely on the economic possibilities that were those of the dismissal in the company where we worked that made mattresses. With that little money and something borrowed from our parents, we started this adventure. In a garage of about 50 square meters, they were different times, but it was also very nice because there was the enthusiasm of youth, the enthusiasm of wanting to do, the enthusiasm that surrounded us at 360 degrees.
The money to start
When we started in 1968, of course, the money was scarce, very scarce, it was what we had gotten from the dismissal from the company where I and Tura worked. We had gathered at that time one million (500 €), one million and 500 thousand (750 €), there was the lire at the time, something given to us by our parents, that was the beginning of our history and the beginning of economic possibilities. We did not even have access to finance from the bank, so it was difficult, being new customers the bank didn’t know us and could not give us any chance of having access to credit.
Of course, it was a difficult time, it was all a matter of trying to raise something, but it wasn’t easy, as I said, banks didn’t open bank accounts, didn’t give loans, didn’t give us access to credit. The suppliers, of course, not knowing us, were very reluctant to give us credit for a slightly longer-term payment, so we used to jump through hoops to be able to pay our suppliers with the little money we had, so we were trying to cover here and there our purchases to start producing something.
An advice that I can give to those who want to start their own business, even for the economic side, it’s not easy today because the banks are, are in a difficult situation. But, if there is will, with the help of family members, with some savings, with what you can even collect from the suppliers, if there is good will, the suppliers then, somehow, allow you a bit credit. And, be punctual in the first deadlines, even if they are small, I would recommend making small purchases, because otherwise then you can’t cover them, instead making small purchases and paying immediately you can then cash in to pay for supplies, the subsequent supplies.
A negative and a positive event
In our long history we have had positive events and negative ones, I can mention some of them.
For example, a positive one, at the time we were producing mattresses for factories producing armchairs, which are very cheap mattresses, a product that unfortunately at that time was of rather low quality, so with very, very low prices the profits were low. I, unsatisfied, began to probe if it was possible to get the help of some important agent, some salesman who could divulge our product and make us grow. I met a person from Rome, a very, very qualified seller, who visited our small business, which in the meantime had grown a bit, and understanding that he was talking to serious people, motivated people, gave us credit and began to represent us. We began, I remember, around mid year, the work that he produced in selling and other colleagues who joined, I remember that at the time we had a turnover of about 300 millions lire (150K €), within a year, that is in June of the following year we had reached 3 billion of the old lire (1,5M €). Every month I made the counts on the sold and paid the commissions on the sold, not on the accrued, monthly. So, these salesmen ran like desperates because they knew that at the end of the month everything they had sold, but not even delivered, then only on commissions, commissions arrived. This was really our first explosion and then there have been others. Our first explosion as a company and from there we really began to be, to understand that we were, we began to be an attractive company, because then the word spread among the salesmen, and more came and I almost filled all of Italy. In just over a calendar year, the commercial network was almost complete and we have always increased turnover. In 50 years of activity, because this year is the fiftieth year, we have never had a year of work that was inferior to the previous one, we have always grown between 8 to 18% annually.
Then there were also negative moments and I experienced them, but we never lost our motivation. I remember, we had a very big customer, we had insured him, so we felt safe, we were exposed with huge numbers, but we were still insured, so we did not worry. The month of August, during the holidays, the insurance brought us the quantum, they brought the insured from 350 millions lire (175K €) to 50 millions lire (25K €). When we returned, there was so much mail to go through, to browse all that had arrived, it took 7-8 days, in the meantime we made other deliveries: to make it short the customer failed and we lost 430 millions lire (215K €), which were a huge, really huge sum for us, however, we did not lose our motivation, we continued to work, we all continued to pull in the same direction and the company continued to grow, continued to progress.
Doing business in Italy
The state according to me, but not only to me, rages against companies, to think that it is the companies that create wealth. The possibility to work without all these rules, without working outside the rules, because they are put there on purpose to create problems and can be interpreted at any level. So if you do it in a way thinking it’s the right way, in the end someone will say no, it had to be done in a different way.
So it’s very difficult, why did we stay? Perhaps because we are tied to the territory, we are tied to our roots, we know one by one our employees, they are 250 I believe, more or less we all know them, so it is difficult. Today I would feel really bad, having to say: everyone at home because I take the company and take it somewhere else. Although I had the opportunity, to name one among others, to make this company, which had a 35 thousand square meters space, everything that revolved around the building concessions, the region, the province, the municipality and the district, it took twelve years: think about if a company can make plans twelve years in the future. We did not lose our motivation, but had many regrets, yes, because we sometimes thought, who made us do it? But then you roll up your sleeves and go on, and move on. In Italy to be an entrepreneur you have to be special, you need to have great passion, have the strength to face problems, because there will be every day, and never give up, because otherwise one abandons everything, raises his arms and goes away.
The key traits of an entrepreneur
The valid entrepreneur is not the one who can do everything, or the know-it-all, there is no know-it-all, there is no one who knows how to do everything. Believing in your ideas, having a lot of passion, the entrepreneur is the one who in the long run will be able to choose the best collaborators and give the opportunity to young people to grow up. We have here 8-10 young people who are special, they are exceptional and I thank them every day.
The entrepreneur is the one who, in my opinion, does not have a moment, almost does not have a moment of stasis. I’ll give an example: if today I face a problem or a good thing, whatever it is, I go to bed, I sleep, I dream something inherent in what I have in mind. This is the point, because it never gives up. When I’m at home or at parties, when I’m with my family and I am thankful for having a wonderful, wonderful family, I don’t want to talk about work, but in the end, my two sons and I finish after lunch and dinner talk about work. It’s strong, it’s stronger than us. This is the entrepreneur, it’s hard for him to separate himself, to unplug and to say now I do something else and I don’t think about it. He cannot, because he has it right inside, he has it in his heart, he has it in his blood.
When I went to elementary school, I remember that the fifth grade essay, the one that was done in the fifth grade exam, I wrote an essay where I had foreseen, not foreseen, I had imagined or thought about imagining my career in life. I remember a passage in that essay: in my life I want to do something important, something important, I want to do something that everyone acknowledges me for, but I didn’t know anything, I didn’t know what, I didn’t know where, I didn’t know when. I always had this idea in mind, then either because I was lucky, or perhaps because God Almighty helped me, or because things just went this way, but in the end I did it. To get there, it takes really many, many qualities, that I don’t know if I have them all, I probably have some of them, but in any case you really need to be special.
The future for the new generations
First of all young people have to believe in themselves, they must have some dreams, dreams do not always end at dawn, sometimes they continue, so if one has a dream and cultivates it well and believes in it, I also think that wanting means being capable of doing it, so, in my opinion, if I had to give advice to a young man, I would say:
“You have an idea in mind, an idea that you think is valid, maybe you talk about it to someone, maybe you share some thoughts, but if that idea is valid, work on it with so much strength, with so much dedication and believe in it, always believe in it.”
IP Crew
