Get unstuck and become a Master of your time
The success story of a lawyer who turned entrepreneur
By Evana Simo
Lawyers are not stuck in their careers, in fact many often find great success as entrepreneurs using their skills and talents to develop their own companies. Angela Ventsel is a passionate business promoter, changing the business landscape digitally on a global level, as a promoter of borderless business. She is the co-founder at Success Hub Estonia. In addition to entrepreneurship, Angela has led various international entrepreneurial projects and made significant contributions to society as a member of the Estonian Association of Entrepreneurial Women and of the Estonian Lawyers Association. She has in-depth knowledge of the legal field, process management and the development of innovative business concepts. Angela is a passionate and active speaker on e-residency, women in business and inspiration for young people.
Justice has played a great role in your life. How has justice helped you in entering the world of entrepreneurship?
The business environment depends in a large part on law and there are inevitably different legal aspects, including familiarity with the law and contractual relationships, that lay the basis of corporate governance. In practice however, it is too often that companies find themselves in all sorts of troubles already during the phase of building a company, precisely due to the wrong legal decisions made by the owners or managers. In relation to the entrepreneurial perspective, my legal knowledge has provided me and our company with competences that allowed us to enter the market more painlessly before starting a business and also in the start-up phase. As well as the ability to analyze situations better and decide when and how to involve foreign specialists, prevent violations of the law and solve simple problem situations.
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What is one of the reasons that made you move from justice to entrepreneurship?
From time to time, I believe it is important to stop for a moment in life to try to assess whether the direction you are taking today is still the right one for you and to make adjustments in life if necessary. Starting a business can be an important life change for a person, which can take some time to reach. Becoming an entrepreneur relies on the will power of the individual as well as a suitable business environment that creates opportunities for entrepreneurship. The reason I became an entrepreneur was because I wanted to be the master of my time – to decide and to take responsibility for myself and do what I am passionate about.
So, I felt that this was a good place and an opportunity to utilize my professional skills and put them into use in the field of entrepreneurship, plus the opportunities offered by Estonia as a digital state strongly supported starting a business. As an entrepreneur, I find it important that people who are starting a business, would have the passion and courage to take risks and welcome different experiences.
Entrepreneurial, solution-oriented and innovative thinking is also absolutely essential. Above all, one must have the confidence and determination to believe in setting goals and achieving them.
What are some of the challenges you have had to overcome when becoming an entrepreneur?
In business, I have overcome how to negotiate effectively in difficult situations, to face my fears, and thus I have come to the realization that difficulty does not mean that it is necessarily impossible. I believe that entrepreneurship is meant to be full of challenges, because they show how much passion we have in our field, how much willpower we have, and whether we can overcome these seemingly difficult challenges in the first place. Challenges are certainly key factors that foster growth for entrepreneurs, which also hide opportunities. I believe that if entrepreneurship was simple and without challenges, then anyone could do it and the concept of success would become irrelevant. Today, I can say with respect to the challenges I have experienced that:
The entrepreneurial journey is worth the efforts and challenges! It is worth making life bold and different.
What is Success Hub Estonia?
SUCCESS HUB ESTONIA (www.successhub.eu) is a global innovative business development partner for e-residents, whose mission is to provide e-residents with the opportunity to be one step ahead of other entrepreneurs in the world and to do business where they are mostly at home and comfortable. As the creator of the future, Success Hub Estonia helps the companies of e-residents to grow, succeed globally and expand their businesses digital-wise. Our services include company foundation in Estonia, taking care of taxes, reporting, compliance and additional services that might be of assistance to you when you are starting your business in the EU. One of our key strengths is the diversity of our team. There’s a mix of genders, ages, races, cultural perspectives, expertise and ethnic backgrounds. We highly value collaboration, and in order to optimize our solutions, we involve top experts and e-residents as our team members and partners. Our clients are from all over the world, from very different countries, and I have established this company together with my business partner.
You mentioned e – Residency, what is it?
E-Residency is a digital identity card that allows foreign digital entrepreneurs to easily set up and run an EU-based business online. E-residency allows a foreigner to do things in Estonia regardless of his or her physical location and do this digitally. Estonia is the first country to offer e-residency, a government-issued digital ID that is accessible to anyone in the world. Today, there are 66,700+ e-residents and 10,000+ companies created through e-residency in Estonia. Today there are 180+ e-residents from different countries. For foreigners and foreign companies operating in Estonia and related to Estonia, digital ID makes administration as easy and secure as it is for Estonian citizens and foreigners permanently residing in Estonia. Among other things, you can digitally sign documents with your ID card anywhere in the world, set up an online company in Estonia in one day, make bank transfers in seconds, actively participate in running a company registered in Estonia and declare payments in Estonia with a few clicks. And all regardless of location. This makes starting a business easier and less bureaucratic. E-signing alone has saved businesses valuable time. An Estonian e-resident does not have to enter into agreements on paper or, for example, stand in the queue of an authority to make a first payment to a company. For the first time, e-residency also gives many citizens of the world the opportunity to sell their books on Amazon, the online store, receive payment through PayPal or sell a homemade phone game to an Appleuser. In today’s situation, with COVID-19, e-residency is what gives entrepreneurs the best opportunity to work and grow their businesses wherever they are, and our company is here to help and support them. Todayour clients, including many women, in many different countries are very pleased with the opportunity to work with our professional team. Our e-residents are also cooperating with each other, which is a very good solution in today’s economic situation. Here is an example. Our e-resident Lara Stancich is a successful entrepreneur and the owner of Rocket&Coco (trading as Rocket&Pip) has said: “I knew about Estonia’s innovative approach to being a digital nation and discovered the e-Residency scheme. For me, this was perfect, as the scheme ensures I can have my business in the EU, and the whole process, from applying for residency, through to tax rules, it is very transparent and easy to understand”.
