After half a year since our meeting, I made a proposal. And three months later we got married. I got a new role: I became a husband. We found some new activities to do together, some mutual rights and duties. Our leisure time became totally different.

Once I was travelling by bus, when my phone rang. Marina told me we were going to have a baby. My first child! It’s really difficult to describe my feelings at that time: joy, surprise, perplexity, responsibility, tenderness… Something new was about to come into my life.

By the way, that was the moment when I decided to quit smoking. And I’ve never smoked since then. Because I was going to have a baby. What would she think of her father? What example would I be giving her?

As soon as Marina appeared in my life, we built a family and gave birth to our baby, a new period in my life had started. A new kind of energy came into it. Many things changed in my mind as well: I started living not only concerned with myself, but others as well. I became responsible for my family. Gradually, my interests changed too.

Many things were changing. But not my habit of having a free, independent life style, or taste for bachelor parties with friends and entertainment. I couldn’t leave that behind, neither did I want to do so.

That way a year passed and another one did… I was an adult married man. I worked on my family and my business, which was growing rapidly and required a lot of my attention. I thought of my business as my child, which I fed and helped grow for many years. And everything that happened to it affected me a lot.

More frequently the same dreadful thoughts came to my mind. “I devoted myself to my business till the very end. I established lots of successful projects. And where is my joy, calmness, satisfaction for everything I’ve done? When will this rat race finish? Why don’t I control my business, instead of it controlling me?”

There were no answers so far. I still didn’t understand, who I was and what I was here for. I felt as if I was driving staring at the gauges, without seeing the road, moving almost as a blind man.

Meanwhile the number of restaurants increased. One moment, I felt bored with replicating my restaurants, and working in public catering business altogether. And the competition became too tough, because I prefer working on the underserved markets, creating my own new niches.

That way, step by step, I was coming closer to the next important twist in my life. I was done working in the business I had built up from nothing. The business I put so much effort, attention, and energy into.

Together with my partner, we reached an agreement about the conditions for me leaving the company pretty fast. I thanked him for the cooperation and, as soon as we accomplished our mutual commitments, we parted.

As an entrepreneur, I find some pleasure in imagining and creating something that has never been thought of before. After finishing one project, I started thinking about a new one immediately. I started trying to find a fresh idea, a new sphere where I can establish something original.

In those days there was nothing like a shopping mall, gathering many manufacturers and sellers of a narrow niche together in Novosibirsk, – and in Siberia at all. For example, if you decided to do some home repairs, you would have to wander around the city. You’d buy some wallpaper in one place, electrics – in another one, furniture and interior decor – in the third, and plumbing – somewhere else… That was extremely inconvenient for both: buyers and manufacturers. I understood: there it was – a wonderful brand-new field for business!