Crain′s Detroit Business – March 29-April 4, 1999
Tim Moran
American Dreamers
They left old worlds behind to create new business success in Detroit.
Aleksandra Efimova, Partner – Russian Pointe
Ann Arbor; Country of origin: Russia
In April 1998, Aleksandra Efimova′s job evaporated as her three bosses, owners of an import-export company, quarreled their way out of a business.
The three had been fighting about each other′s roles and about where to focus spending. Their trade with Russia included agricultural machinery, auto parts, and dance shoes.
Efimova, hired in 1997 at age 19, was running the dance-shoe side of the business.
Her training was brief: One company owner shoed her the line of accounting software, and gave her a book titled The Pointe Shoe describing brands of dance shoes on the market. Then he left on a one month business trip to Russia.
"I was a dancer myself when I was a kid. I knew about the shoes from a dancers perspective but not very much from a seller′s perspective," says Efimova, now 21.
Where others might see a nightmare, she saw opportunity. It wasn′t her first time facing big challenges alone. At age 15, after her mother married an American, she moved from St. Petersburg to the United States and was thrust into the hallways of an American high school.
"I did not speak a word of English," Efimova said. "I could say, ′My name is Aleksandra,′ and that was it. They made fun of me. They were not very friendly. The high school experience was one of the worst experiences in the United States."
Within two years, however, Efimova won a district competition for business students. She moved on to business classes at Eastern Michigan University. She landed the shoe job when the father of one of her mother′s art students needed secretarial help.
Efimova quickly built up her sales knowledge by talking with dancers, customers, suppliers and competitors. She saw the shoe side of the business as her baby. Then came the company spat, which ended the fledging venture.
"I felt like, if there′s somebody who can continue it right now, it is me," Efimova said. "I was the one who knew the industry well, knew the products well, had a great relationship with the supplier, a good relationship with the clients. And I always wanted to have my own business. There would be no ′later′ in this business for me, and I knew I had almost guaranteed monthly sales from my customers."
Today, Russian Pointe sells to 36 dance-wear outlets, supplies shoes to 10 regional ballet companies and is looking to broaden its Russian-made offerings with dance wear and jazz shoes.
"I would like to have my company be like a machine that brings quality dance products to the United States and Canada through a variety of distribution channels," Efimova said.
In Moscow, her partner manages the factory, staffed with cobblers who produce shoes for the Bolshoi and Kirov ballet companies. Efimova travels there several times a year to maintain business communications and to catch a moment of the Russian culture she misses in the United States. She thinks of herself as an international person with international friends but appreciates the special abilities of American business.
"I think the United States is unique," Efimova said. "In Russia, there is still a lot of discrimination around women business owners. And if you′re young, as I am, it′s difficult to get taken seriously at all."
