Gevorg Sargsyan: biography, business, fortune

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Gevorg Sargsyan, a young millionaire and founder of the Kidzania park, stands out for qualities that are very important for a successful entrepreneur - calmness and balance. It is always interesting to learn about someone's success, especially if a person openly shares information about it, which allows you to learn something new for yourself. Let's find out how he managed to get on the pages of Forbes, what inspired him. And let's start first of all with the characteristics and biography of the hero of our time.

Personality Traits

Gevorg Sargsyan is characterized as a passionate person, but at the same time he always remains collected and confident in his own success. The interests and hobbies of the young millionaire are philosophy, astronomy, history. This cheerful person also has active activities - these are travel and water sports. He perceives even his competitors as assistants in the development of his own business. Perhaps, it was precisely because of his nature that the young entrepreneur, who managed to work in the civil service, managed to develop such a strong business with a very high margin and some specialatmosphere in the team.

Biography

Gevorg was born on August 7, 1982 in the city of Yerevan. In 2002 he graduated from the Russian Academy of Economics. Plekhanov (Department of World Economy). After graduating from university, the young man entered the civil service. He worked at the Ministry of Taxes and Duties of the Russian Federation from 2002 to 2006. Well, after the reform of the public administration system, Gevork went to work in the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. In 2006, Gevork became one of the founders of Innova LLC.

The company is engaged in the creation, development and adaptive localization in the network of multiplayer foreign online games. During the time when Gevork Sargsyan was at the head of the management, Innova managed to launch more than 10 world-class projects on the Russian market, such well-known brands as Lineage, Aion, and RF Online. In addition, the company is involved in the creation of a number of technological products, and it is she who owns the opening of the Aiyo online cinema. Today Gevork continues to live and work in Moscow.

Company Development

2013 was marked by the fact that Gevork Sargsyan took eighth place in the ranking of young millionaires, Forbes at that time announced Innova's revenue, which reached the threshold of $ 50 million. And what about today? What is the current success of the company? According to Gevork, at present, her profit has already crossed the line of several billion rubles a year. And this is not even counting the KidZania project, which will be discussedbelow.

Moscow KidZania

At the end of January 2016, the largest park of the KidZania international chain opened in Moscow. This place is intended for children. Here, a small population can try themselves in various professions. This is the largest and most technologically advanced network park in all of Europe. Its founder is a young millionaire Gevorg Sargsyan. "Kidzania" in Moscow opened in the shopping center "Aviapark". At first, everything was not so simple. Gevork had to fight for the idea of creating such a park in Russia for more than five years.

What became the prototype

The very first KidZania project was founded in 1999 by Mexican Javier López Ancona. And then, later, similar parks with this name began to open around the world. The project has been implemented in 18 countries, from Japan to the UK itself. The Russian Kidzania, which opened in Moscow, became the 21st in a row. And she has something to be proud of - this is the largest park in Europe, in terms of its area it occupies two whole levels of 10 thousand square meters. m.

He did the almost impossible

Negotiations with the Mexicans were led by Gevork, it lasted quite a long time. As he himself says, success was achieved by the fact that after the next meeting in Los Angeles, Innova LLC shot a short film within a few days. It was something like an overview story about the philosophy that I would like to lay in KidZania. How it is seen in dreams and what benefits it will bring to children. And it made a proper impression on the Mexican team.

Competitorthe Moscow representative office was the Saudi Alshaya Retail. This large company, which is something of a family business, was founded in 1890 and at that time managed 70 global brands, even including the already implemented KidZania projects in Turkey, North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. This time they wanted to open the park together with Aras Agalarov's Crocus group F 51.

Mexican decision

There were others, but at the end of 2013 the decision was made. The Mexicans gave a franchise to the Kidzania park to a Russian company. And construction began, which lasted about three and a half years. Today the result is evident. Children love KidZania, and there are even wishes for fewer lines. So the flow goes on, and every day there are more visitors. Gevork Sargsyan, whose biography was replenished with another major success, said that after the announcement of the opening, a man came out to him through Carlos Slim, who had previously lobbied for a contract for the Russian KidZania for himself. But he began by expressing his admiration that Sargsyan's company succeeded in what he failed to achieve, and this meeting peacefully turned into friendship.

Business investment

Any project, and especially such a large-scale one, requires raising funds. As Gevork Sargsyan himself said, more than $30 million has been invested in the project, 20% of which are contributions from partner companies, and the rest of the investments belong to the shareholders of Innova. Initially co-founders of this companyTogether with Sargsyan there were several entrepreneurs. After some time, two of them, O. Sambikin and V. Medvedev, sold their shares in 2009 and left Innova. As it became known from the SPARK database, since December 2012, 100% of the shares of Innova Systems have been owned by the Cypriot company Meliforte Limited, while the composition of the beneficiaries has not been disclosed.

Even taking into account the economic crisis, the payback period is estimated at about 5 years. This is quite feasible when visiting the park 1 million people a year. And who knows, maybe not only Moscow children, but also others living in distant regions will want to visit KidZania. As many people dream of visiting Disneyland, so this project will become desirable for those who still live in the happy country of childhood.

Additional tributaries

Besides the fact that the park is visited by children and their parents, the company plans to organize excursions. To do this, you will need to negotiate separately with each school. But this does not scare anyone, because the company's staff of 500 units can afford it. In addition, the company plans to work on KidZanias outside the Russian Federation, and the opening of the park in one European country is already being announced.

Even with all the variety of professional activities and jobs, Gevork believes that children need to stay in reality. Therefore, in KidZania there are no shops and industries with fictitious names. In general, very few people could be interested. After all, if the child chooses,for example, the profession of a confectioner, then he is given the opportunity to try himself in business, getting a job in a cafe, in the very one where he visited reality with his parents and was inspired to create delicious cakes. This is the concept behind KidZania, a miniature adult world for children. The only rule is that in the mini-city there should be nothing related to violence, religions, crimes, and unhe althy food like fast food.

More about Innova

Everyone knows that Innova Systems is a Russian publisher and localizer of online games. And therefore very often Gevork is asked why he went into business in online games. In five years of work, the staff of passionate people already has 12 major achievements. Take the game Lineage II alone, the number of registered users in which has exceeded three million people. When asked by the press, the young businessman always kindly explains his position.

Gevorg Sargsyan's concept

He believes that any business project should be based on interest. And when the Russian Internet market is a disparate community of pirate groups, then the thought naturally arises that something needs to be done about it. They were among the first to provide users with licensed content. On the Internet, games are considered the most preferred entertainment industry. On a global scale, this is billions of dollars of annual turnover. It becomes obvious that any pirateMarkets need to be made legal and made as transparent as possible. It was with this idea that they were ignited, which they brought to life, again, one can cite the example of the game Lineage II, which was especially popular at that time. Moreover, the company strives for constant growth in order to always be competitive representatives of products in comparison with the production of European publishers.

From government agencies to entrepreneurs

No less often, Gevorg Sargsyan hears from people interested in his position the question of how it happened that in his biography the public service intertwined with the Internet business. He could not prepare himself for such a transition in advance. To this, Gevork replies that neither in character nor in his philosophy of life did he ever feel like an official. But on the other hand, there was always an invisibly present feeling that he could very well be an entrepreneur, the basics of business are always clear to him and are not some kind of harsh wisdom.

And realizing that a servant of the state with a streak of entrepreneurship suggests using the rank for personal financial gain, Gevork explains: "This is not about me. I am from a we althy family and have never experienced" hunger for profit ". interest, goals and their implementation. And also the whole organization of the process, with finding the best ways to overcome obstacles and barriers. Therefore, these two activities have nothing in common for me."

Business

Game startup Innova now has more than twenty million dollars in turnover per year. This is very solid by the standards of the Russian Internet. How did a young guy manage to achieve such a breakthrough? And the thing is that for him the success of any company lies in people. In the selection of a reliable team that is nearby not because of financial gain, but out of interest. According to Gevork, such people will not be betrayed or left if the company suddenly falls into a crisis.

Gevorg himself personally searched all over the Internet for people for whom the task becomes a challenge to their skills. And the motivation at the same time should be just that, and not financial. Nevertheless, the young businessman tries to provide his employees very well. Any achievement is not marked by any prize. This is considered the norm, but the state salaries are high, and at the same time, each person can grow up the career ladder. That is why he is initially looking for people who think in the same plane with him. As a leader, he wants the company's employees to have a sense of taste, the ability to see a lot and the desire to try their hand at what at first seems intractable, and that the people of his team constantly develop emotional intelligence.