Pavlo Tokarev, 36 years

I’ve been in sales since I was 16. Even during summer vacations, I went from office to office selling toothpaste and creams. That experience became my foundation; later came formal employment: I worked as a manager, supervisor, and head of sales. I sold everything from optical products to gasoline- and electric-powered tools. At some point, I realized I needed to look for something new and find my own niche. Then, quite literally, the idea of perfumes came to me in a flash.

How did you come up with the business idea?

I worked in sales for 16 years, from selling toothpaste office to office to heading the sales department for power tools. I wanted to find a new niche. One day, the idea came to me: perfumes. I saw a «island kiosk» in a shopping mall selling replicas (refillable perfumes). It was a high-margin business: a plastic bottle cost 100 UAH, and we sold its contents for 8 UAH per milliliter, making X8 on the money invested. Later, though, I saw a guy selling original perfumes and realized I wanted to work with a quality product. I left the replica partnership and started building a Viber group for authentic perfumes alongside my main job.

I decided to leave my job after my first TikTok livestream, which immediately brought in several thousand hryvnias in sales.

What key skills helped you launch your business?

My «superpower» is making decisions quickly. I’m not greedy for money; I’m driven by the challenge: how can I do it faster, easier, and at a larger scale? It was also important that I wasn’t afraid of being on camera and understood the customer. I don’t sell «heart notes» or «the flower of the Alpine mandarin», because I don’t know what it smells like myself. I sell the emotion and feeling a person will get from a fragrance. I’m not afraid of competition; I’m expanding the market. In 2025, 100 people took my course. Of those, 60 started businesses. One student made a net profit of 1 million 130 thousand UAH in December. I provide the complete toolkit: suppliers, markups, how to calculate traffic, and how to shoot videos. I have a strict but fair rule: we work full-time only. My employees can’t run other projects. In return, I give them the opportunity to earn above the market rate and grow.

 If an employee wants to earn more, they suggest ideas for growing the company. My goal for this year — is to provide jobs for 50 Ukrainian families. I want people who come to me «as beginners» to be able to communicate confidently, earn a living, and support themselves a year later.

What were the 3 most difficult challenges you solved in the early years?

The biggest challenge was trying to do everything myself. I did 3 livestreams a day, took the orders myself, decanted the perfumes myself, handled the bookkeeping myself, and carried the parcels to the post office myself. I hit a ceiling of 800-1000 shipments a month and was physically exhausted. Delegation was the solution. After a business-club review, I hired my first two people within two days. That helped us grow 4 times over in a year and a half.

A blocked account with 16 thousand followers taught me to diversify

What crises has your business faced, and how did you overcome them?

The war: Sales stopped during the first few months, but we adapted. We’re now fully energy-independent (generators, Starlink), and the team works remotely or in safe conditions. Instagram account blocked: My first account, which I had grown haphazardly for 4.5 years (16 thousand followers), was permanently blocked. It taught me not to put all my eggs in one basket. Now we’re growing on TikTok (148 thousand), a new Instagram account (85 thousand), Telegram, YouTube, Pinterest, and Facebook.

I hire «beginners» and build content farms: X2 profit in a month

What decisions proved most effective in growing the company?

Hiring policy «No experience required»: I deliberately hire people with no work experience. I teach them my system: fast, clear, and straight to the point. My operations director came from a job as a gym administrator, and now she manages all our processes. Changing our content strategy: we moved away from exhausting livestreams in favor of high-quality short videos (Reels/TikTok).

I started recording 5-7 videos a day. That brought exactly X2 in profit in a single month. Building «content farms»: We hired actors and set up a location. They come in twice a week and record scripted videos. This lets us scale our social media presence without my direct involvement.

The cost of spreading myself too thin: why I should have found my focus sooner

What mistake do you now consider your most valuable experience?

Spreading my attention too thin at the beginning. If I had focused on one niche earlier and started building a team right away, the results would have come much faster. Depending on a single source of traffic (Instagram) was also a mistake, and it led to losing that asset when the account was blocked.