An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Do not waste time on people who don’t produce results. In the beginning we hired many firms or marketing companies and agencies, etc., that promised the world, but under delivered or didn’t deliver results at all. From now on, we always ask to show us instead of just telling us.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Inesa Ponomariovaite.

Inesa Ponomariovaite is a holistic health expert who after years of improving the lives of her clients through her alternative and holistic health consulting services, became frustrated with the inability to source pure CBD products that met the highest quality standard. She’s also a visionary on a mission to change the world by teaching people to harness the power of nature, like she did, to restore their health and well-being. She is the founder and CEO of Nesas Hemp, a dominant player in the CBDa hemp industry. Nesas is the world’s first-ever full full-spectrum and first certified by FDA registered laboratories with safety seal CBDa hemp extract It is created through a unique process to preserve all the healing compounds of the hemp plant, which bring optimal health and healing and restore the body to its natural state. Inesa’s ethos, “doing right” for humanity, continues to propel her to develop products and services that are good for the environment and good for the body, mind, and soul. Deep down in her heart, Inesa truly believes she can create a positive revolutionary change in the world.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

Growing up in Lithuania wasn’t easy, particularly during the 1980s-1990s. As a result, my mother had to work away from home, many times far away, so I had to take full responsibility to do the day-to-day chores and take care of my younger brother and sister as a child myself. If I wanted to have anything, I had to work hard and earn it myself, including tastier food, clothing, or anything else children would want to have. My childhood helped me to appreciate every single thing in my life.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“I’m going to make everything around me beautiful — that will be my life.”

Every time I end up in situations where people have taken advantage of me, or unfortunate situations where things went wrong, I learned a lot from them, and I used them to empower myself to turn every dark moment into love and turn negativity into positivity.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

My faith has always been a huge part of my life. I reference the Bible constantly and have to say this book has had the most profound impact on both my life and how I do business.

Judge not. Keep your word. Live a worry-free life. These are all lessons I took from the Bible, and have helped to guide me. Anything is possible as long as you have faith.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

I truly believe that the desire to make it happen is always going to push you forward. I think many people who do not have a deep desire to succeed are the ones who struggle the most in translating those ideas into an actual business.

A business idea and a burning desire to succeed are two different things. If you are truly passionate about your business idea and have a deep desire for it to succeed it will translate into action automatically. I truly believe that when you are passionate about something and willing to work hard, taking any action won’t seem to be a problem.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

I strongly suggest that people do their research and even if someone has already created your idea, consider whether your idea is better. Maybe the first person just introduced the idea to the world, but you will introduce a much better version of that same idea. Whatever the case, you can research what worked and what didn’t. In some ways even if someone has already created your idea it might be to your advantage because you can make it even better.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

I think the first thing you need to do is to really understand the industry you are trying to get into. The next step is to think about how your idea would be different from what already exists in the market because you need to differentiate yourself to be successful. Once you’ve done this, find a manufacturer that understands what you are trying to achieve and can help you to be unique in that area. The manufacturer should have the same values and should understand and be capable of fulfilling your needs. In terms of retailers, I think it’s best to focus on e-commerce and selling your product online, because the world is shifting to digital shopping, and we already see a lot of businesses struggling selling products through physical stores.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Do not waste time on people who don’t produce results. In the beginning we hired many firms or marketing companies and agencies, etc., that promised the world, but under delivered or didn’t deliver results at all. From now on, we always ask to show us instead of just telling us.
2. Always ask for references. We found out the hard way that some of the companies we wanted to collaborate with, were not even real companies, but had a successful business scam plan to take advantage of other businesses.
3. Do not get into your personal life or stories, do not overshare. In the beginning I shared too many personal things about myself and family just trying to be friendly and open, and that was a perfect way for others to use it and take advantage of me.
4. I wish someone told me this wouldn’t happen overnight. I think I was so excited and impatient in the beginning to make this happen that I worked myself into the ground. Now I know it takes time, patience, consistency, and persistence to create a successful business.
5. Find yourself a mentor who is already successful and has done something good for themselves, instead of listening to people who haven’t really achieved much success in their lives or their businesses. In the beginning of my career, I took advice from people who were pretending to be experts instead of seeking out real experts. Their advice led me to failures.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

If they can’t invent it themselves, find the most knowledgeable people on that specific topic and try to collaborate with them. Talk to them, get some advice and insights, so you can become as knowledgeable as possible about the product you want to invent. I would also recommend people find a credible expert attorney that wouldn’t scam you, and patent your idea if it’s unique. Write down your vision and goals and create a roadmap for execution and start taking the action.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I believe that it’s better to strike out on your own. There is so much information online, so it’s better to patent the idea, discuss it with an attorney, and save some money, rather than spending it on consultation fees.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

If you have an option to do it on your own, that would be a great start, and even a priority. If you take venture capital, you could end up facing a lot of pressure to meet certain deadlines, or your idea can even be stolen or be manipulated to make investors happy. That’s just my two cents on that.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Thank you so much for this question. This question puts a smile on my face because that’s the only reason why I am in this business in the first place. Helping the world and making this earth a better place is my number one desire. I want to see people healthy, happy, and loving one another. On a daily basis, I am helping a lot of people improve their health through natural, alternative solutions. Besides donating our product to families who cannot afford it and really need it, we serve hundreds of kids’ food, and help at homeless shelters in the Chicago area. I am also currently putting together a project on how to help children in the South Side of Chicago. I am also developing a new strategy to help victims of human trafficking. My goal is to end human trafficking and sex slavery.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

It’s too early to share, but I believe we already started the movement.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Tim Tebow. I believe him and his wife are fighting for a great cause, and I passionately believe in their intentions.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Inesa Ponomariovaite Of Nesas Hemp On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.