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Victoria Mindova

It is common opinion that Greece is currently in one of its most difficult periods for the last thirty years. Truism is that solutions to all problems are found by the appropriate people. Unintentionally or not, GRReporter embarked in search of a new type of people who can give a new look and strength to Greece – the one we know and love. The search did not turn out to be hard at all! 

Dimitris Grindzos owns a landscaping company Garden Delight, which is the culmination of his dream to be his own boss. Dimitris is one of those people who refuel you with energy and optimism after every conversation with them. Ambitious, focused, but very funny and accessible, the young entrepreneur, represents a new generation of Greeks who have the power and ability to change the face of his country in this difficult period. He does not fit the cliché of a typical Greek lover with Rey Ban sunglasses and frappe in his hand at five in the afternoon. He works and lives with pathos, he loves extreme sports and every winter he spends at least one week in Bansko snowboarding. 

For years and wisdom 

I am 31! After going over thirty I feel very good. It seems as if I finally reach maturity inside, and people around take me more seriously. My opinion has more weight. I do not know whether this is due to my inner confidence or there is a psychological barrier associated with age, but there is definitely a difference in people's attitude towards me, both in work and in personal life. I believe it is natural development for a human to change his view of the world with the accumulation of years and experience. Some fundamental constants may never change, but the vicissitudes of life definitely change us to some extent. The inner maturity we are talking about carries the meaning of a revaluation of the surrounding world than any fateful getting wiser, after the age of thirty. This certainly applies to my professional growth. Currently, the way I plan and organize my work is very different from what I did in the beginning. 

I can swim without buoy! 

This month we celebrated our three year private business anniversary. I cannot even realize when that time flew by. Before opening my own business, for two years I was working as chief landscapist in a hotel in Athens. Along the way I was doing small private projects, but overall I was just an employee. I enjoyed my work and I was getting good money, but deep down inside I knew that I cannot be a subordinate all my life. I do not like the concept of having to ask when you can go on vacation, for example. I cannot deny that this job was giving me more security without differing much from what I am doing right now. Simply, I one day to work and I resigned. I had been thinking a lot about it and I finally had decided that the time had come. I wanted to be own boss. At that point I did not have any clients but I knew how to do my job very well. 

Luck goes with the brave ones 

Apparently I'm lucky because my first major contract was soon after I opened the company. A friend of a former classmate of mine was opening a coffee bar in the neighborhood of Filotei. She was looking for someone to design and build her outer garden, which occupies about 70% of the commercial area of the café. She was very pleased with what I did, but I must admit that whenever I go there I see different things that I could have done differently. This is why people say that knowledge comes with experience. Back then this was just a job, which brought me some money. This was my first contract and I could have made a mistake in the budget but I guess this is where luck came in. Of course now I know much more about business management and finance issues than in the beginning. In this line of thought I can say that the financial plan of the first order was very successful without me having the knowledge that comes with experience. Today I still maintain this café and every time we make small changes to freshen the atmosphere. Three years later I believe that with the knowledge I have now, I could have done a completely different project, without this meaning that the original plan was not good. 

Old generation 

When I decided that I wanted to open my own business, my parents tried to dissuade me. Both are public employees, who belong to the familiar Greek way of thinking, built during the good old times: to have a good job, to get paid every month and everything will be fine. So when I began to expand my business by buying new machinery and materials, they told me every time: "But you should not spend that much, you should save, stop spending." They could not understand my inner need to have something that is mine. Now, of course, they are proud of me, but in the beginning it was difficult to convince them that everything was going to be fine. In the first months when I started my business I had some savings put aside that was my initial capital. I found an office, invested in machinery and miscellaneous materials and the money significantly reduced. I had a plan, but at one point a thought crossed my mind that things may not go as expected. It was few days before Easter in 2007. I asked my mother for a small loan in the event that something went wrong. By summer, everything flowed like water and I never had to use the money of my parents. After three months I paid the money back and work was coming by itself. Every new purchase was an investment in my future undertaking. Nevertheless I know that if I needed help they would have supported me. 

The team 

The team is made out of three people, who are permanent staff. I deal with customers, design and preparation of offers, but I also participate in the implementation. I have a loyal friend Manolis - he is my partner, who deals with the technical issues and one more laborer. Depending on the workload and size of the site, I have several working groups that I hire on a daily wage. The strongest seasons for us are spring and summer, during winter workload falls. 

The image 

After having gathered a little momentum as a company, we decided to improve the external image of the company as well. We created a better website, where people, who are interested can see our work, we repaired our office and gave it a more luxurious look. We put nice ads on the company cars, and workers started going to the sites with company uniforms. All this changed the way our customers see us. Image in Greece is very important. If we need to compare this with how they work abroad, it bears no weight there. If you do your job well - you'll have clients. If you do not do it well or you do not have the proper equipment, no matter how "shiny" you are, you still do not stand a chance. Actually we did not change anything else in the way we work. Equipment is the most important part of this job and this is why from the very beginning I bought all the necessary machinery. When we improved our external image, all our suppliers gave us an additional discount of approximately 10%. Unbelievable but true! This probably distinguished us from other young entrepreneurs who buy a luxurious car the second they get some money and not reinvest in improving the business. 

What do we do with the crisis 

Crisis exists, but our target group are wealthier people. Having a nice garden is not essential. Our clients are wealthier people and the crisis certainly does not affect them that much. We lost clients from the middle class – we do not have as many balcony garden orders as before for example, but we gained the majority of people with nice houses and yards. With the VAT increase for example, we did not raise the prices of services or materials. Rather, we had to even reduce prices on some projects. Simply, in the new economic conditions, old prices seem unreal and we must take into consideration the particularities of the market. 

There is always a solution! 

There is a big difference between what is presented by the media and everyday life in the real business. This is why I do not watch TV as well. Everything is presented as the end of the world - a complete disaster. This does not mean that there is no crisis - on the contrary there is, but there are always solutions as well! I give my best and for now work is doing fine. Of course nobody can give me a guarantee that things will not change. I like my work and life, but I do not know how things will change in 10 years. This does not mean we should stop trying to do things we have been done so far or to stop seeking for new ways of realization. I have two fiends – man and a woman. Both of them work for the police—in other words they are public employees. With the new emergency economic measures they cut both of their salaries by 10%. I on the other hand needed someone with a motorcycle, who can distribute my brochures. And so in their free days they found additional work, which brings them more than the 10% they have lost and this is how they found a solution to the problem. I believe that every situation has an exit, as long as you are ready to find it.