House of Business December 2000
Kathy Krolicki
Important business keeps entrepreneur on her toes
Placing orders to Russia in the middle of the night is simply a part of Aleksandra Efimova′s workday the 21-year-old Russian immigrant imports and sells ballet slippers, pointe shoes, and CD′s from her home office.
"My oversees suppliers have an eight hour time difference and my West Coast clients have a three hour one, so always being in my office helps me be more productive and efficient," she says.
Efimova was a full time student when she started Russian Pointe two years ago out of a corner in the bedroom of her Ann Arbor, Mich., apartment.
She had been working for a Russian import-export business, handling ballet products, contacting retailers, sending out orders, and dealing with the manufacturers in Russian. When the company decided to discontinue that part of the business, Efimova was out of a job.
But not for long. There were no other U.S. distributors of the high-quality, hand-made ballet shoes the company imported, so Efimova took the $1,500 she′d saved for tuition and partnered up with Roman Kukushkin, owner of the plant in Moscow. In May of 1998, Russian Pointe was born.
"At the time I shared a small, two bedroom apartment with a roommate," she says. "The only place I could afford for an office was a small corner of my bedroom. I had my credit card terminal set up on the dining room table. I joked with friends that they could pay for their dinner right there. I still remember waking up from the sound of faxes coming in from Europe at 2, 3, and 4 a.m.," she recalls.
Once her business began to pay off, Efimova decided to get a larger apartment - without a roommate, but with a separate room for a small office. In fact, her new space is large enough to accommodate her two part-time assistants.
Efimova was juggling a full class schedule at Eastern Michigan University while running her business, so having everything under the same roof simplified things and eliminated commute time, she explains.
Another factor in staying home based: She′s the second generation in a work-from-home family. "My mother in an art teacher with a studio in her home, and my stepfather is a businessman with a home office also. I saw how well it worked for them, and I decided to do it also."
Having completed her degree in International Business and Marketing while significantly growing her business, the young entrepreneur predicts her sales this year will increase by 50 to 60 percent over last year′s total of $110,000.
Russian Pointe shoes are now carried in 65 retail locations throughout the U.S. Efimova also supplies shoes to an impressive roster of dance organizations, including the Boston, Cincinnati, Tulsa, Colorado, and Alabama ballet companies. And she also sells her products through a catalogue and a website, www.russianpointe.com.
Are people in the ballet business more receptive to a girl with a soft Russian accent? Efimova thinks so. "They hear my voice and figure I must know what I′m talking about," she jokes.
