In 2013 I sold my stake in an e-commerce company and put the money into a business I had never operated before. The bet eventually became Mr.Pit: a healthy fast-food chain that grew to seven locations and about 1,500 customers a day.
I was 26. On paper, my position looked comfortable: I had the London Night Club, was a co-owner of the Ferma Dance bar and held a minority stake in a large CIS e-commerce company. The reality was less reassuring. We were still repaying the loan behind London. Two crises had already hit the business. Artists, sound systems and new equipment demanded fresh investment again and again.
Ferma was successful and was even named a leading bar by Time Out, but a conflict developed among the shareholders. I left the project by the end of the year. Looking back, I think I should have defended my position more firmly. At the time, however, the practical question was simpler: where could I find capital for a new launch?
The decision to reinvest everything
The only fast source of capital was my e-commerce stake. I sold it and reinvested the proceeds. There was no spare cash left. This was not a diversified portfolio decision; it was a concentrated entrepreneurial bet.
I believed healthy fast food could become a large market. People already understood pita, falafel, shawarma and grilled chicken. The opportunity was not to invent a new eating habit, but to redesign a familiar product: better ingredients, a cleaner process, transparent preparation and a modern brand.
We decided to improve shawarma rather than teach the market to eat something completely unfamiliar.
Why we went to France
I studied international formats and found Pita Pit: grilled chicken without oil, vegetables, yoghurt-based sauces and vegetarian options served quickly in pita bread. My partner and I travelled to Nantes to understand the system from the inside. We looked at the technology, operations, people and the product itself.
We originally considered buying a franchise. In the end, we built the concept ourselves. The trip still gave us something more valuable than a licence: a working reference for product architecture and operations. We could see which elements were essential and which had to be adapted to the Russian market.
What turned an idea into a chain
The concept became Mr.Pit, the first healthy fast-food chain of its kind in Russia and Eastern Europe. The business reached positive EBITDA in its fourth month, served more than 40,000 customers in the first six months and later expanded to seven locations.
Those results did not come from copying a foreign menu. They came from turning an observation into a repeatable system:
- Choose a behaviour customers already understand.
- Improve the product in a way people can taste and explain.
- Study a proven model, but localise the economics and operations.
- Design the production process before scaling the brand.
- Make the founder close to the product during the first months.
The lesson I kept
Entrepreneurship is often described as finding a brilliant original idea. My experience was different. The opportunity appeared at the intersection of a familiar mass-market product, a visible change in customer preferences and an operational model that could be standardised.