Tatyana Bakalchuk, founder of Russian e-commerce retailer Wildberries, has become Russia's richest self-made businesswoman. According to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, she has an estimated net worth of $7.4 billion i.e. over Rs 61000 crores (approximately). Wildberries is called the 'Amazon' of Russia.
Recently, President Putin gave Tatyana the responsibility of creating a system to compete with the international payment network SWIFT.
Wildberries has items of more than 60000 brands, including clothes, electronics, and household items. Tatyana Bakalchuk, who was once an English teacher, started an e-commerce business by investing Rs 32000 to run the household expenses during maternity leave.
Today, 48000 employees are associated with her company. She has a 99% stake in Wildberries, and her husband has a 1% stake. In the year 2023, Wildberries got a revenue of Rs 50000 crores. Apart from Russia, this company is doing business in half a dozen countries, including Germany, Italy, and France.
Tatyana Bakalchuk started her business journey in 2004. She took maternity leave for the birth of her 7th child. It was becoming difficult to raise 6 children with the income of her IT professional husband. So, Tatyana invested Rs 32,000 and laid the foundation of an online shopping platform from her flat with the help of her husband Vladislav Bakalchuk and his friend.
Initially, she sold clothes for the German retail company Otto. She used to take pictures of the clothes and upload them on her website. She did everything herself, from buying the goods to delivering them. Tatyana delivered the orders by bus and metro. Despite being the richest self-made woman in Russia, Tatyana keeps a low profile. She does not even have her own house and lives in a rented house.
The secret of Tatyana's success is her habit of taking risks. She took big risks many times to grow her business. In 2008, due to the recession, Adidas' clothes and footwear worth Rs 9 lakhs remained unsold. Tatyana bought them on credit and sold them for the next two years. In 2020, during the pandemic, she hired 12000 new employees so that she could deliver goods immediately to people at their homes and grow her business.
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