Iurii Zhukov is a company owner in Ukraine which is called Copper Pro. He and his team develop unique designs of distillers for essential oil and hydrosols.
We contacted Iurii about our intention to interview him, and he gladly agreed to tell us about himself and his business
So Iurii please, tell me something about yourself for our readers.
I am a human being.
I often answer when I am asked: “who are you?”, when calling some company to get their product or services. I am a person who likes to get new experiences and broaden my perspective. I was born in Ukraine, but I am not Ukrainian in my spirit. I belong to the Earth and strive to live a balanced life here.
When did you start your first business?
My first business I started with my parents, when selling potatoes on the market we have grown in our garden. Laughing. Of course, it was not a business. I started the business in 2009 when I launched a website developed by myself. I was selling Portuguese alembics for alcohol and essential oils.
What inspired you to develop your idea?
I was inspired by the idea of having free time to do what I like instead of staying in the office doing the job I will be just paid for but the job I will not like. But to start a business, a mere idea is not enough. One needs support and readiness to risk. I had the support of a friend who was even pushing me to start my own business and make small investments I needed to make first orders of the equipment. I was ready to risk, so I started
What services or products do you offer?
As I said above, in the beginning, it was just copper alembics. Later on, I added different accessories to make beverages at home. Sometime later, I developed one more site for cosmetics and started selling cosmetic products from India.
What made you choose to start a company in this industry?
I was not myself choosing this industry of business. It happened by chance. I got an offer to represent a German company in Ukraine, which was producing sizeable commercial distilling units for alcohol. Though I had a lot of requests, I could not make any sales, so there was no income for me too.
By chance, I have got a request for a small tabletop alembic. I’ve done some research on the internet and have found one company selling those small distillers. I’ve contacted them and offered cooperation. So I started this business because there was a request for this.
What was your mission at the start of your company?
There was no mission when I started my business. I just wanted to have some extra money. My salary was quite small then, and I continued working as an employee. Only in 2012 I start to live only on my income.
Today we are a real company with a mission, many colleagues who like doing what they do, our product, and appreciation of our distillers by many clients worldwide.
Our mission today is following:
We create practical aesthetic equipment which helps our clients to produce their own high-quality products
How many employees does your company have?
Currently, we are a team of 29 people, including those who are doing a regular part-time job for us and 25 great guys who work full-time!
What are your company’s goals?
We will soon start producing a variety of copper design objects like lamps and other items for interior copper dishware. For us, a stable quantity of orders is a great priority in today’s unstable world. So we work to broaden our assortment so our colleges will have work and feed their families.
Who is your customer?
Our main customers are mostly womans who has own garden where they grow different spicy plants. Many are interested in herbalism and nature’s power to restore and maintain their health. Others are making craft soaps for sale. Because essential oil is used by humankind for millenniums, and its range of application of it is huge. So our clients are those who use essential oil for personal issues or their business.
How does your business compare to competitors in the market?
Our main competitors are producers of classical alembics. As I know, all alambics sold in the whole world are made in Portugal. They are doing great stills to make alcohol and essential oil. The Portuguese have been doing this business for at least a few centuries and are really good at it. They can decrease their labor cost due to high efficiency, which comes from great experience doing the same for long, long years.
Our main advantage is practicality. Because I am a big fan of the principal getting the best result with the minim resource required, we have developed our unique design of our distillers for essential oil and hydrosols. We find the design both lovely and practical. Moreover, we continue to work on improving our design, and we have great results, too. We are very proud of our latest model of essential oil separators, allowing us to make the process of essential oil extraction even easier and more secure.
What makes your business unique?
I find our company very strong in terms of the team. We do enjoy a great deal of mutual trust among ourselves. We do build the same type of relations with our clients, too.
What challenges did you have to overcome at the beginning of your journey?
When I was starting production of my own essential oil distillers in Ukraine, my biggest challenge was building this kind of trustful relationship with my partner. Which I actually failed. After two years of working together, I found him selling our equipment aside, deceiving me.
After this, I found my own production of distilling sets for essential oils, and we are building a kind of family relationship within the company.
It was a big stress for me when the city of Chernigiv, where the whole production team is based, was partly surrounded by russian troops invaded Ukraine on the 24th of Feb 2022. When it happened, there was still a road connection to Kyiv, and I could send them food items and other stuff because the living conditions in the city constantly bombarded by Russians were terrible. But at the end of March Russians bombarded the bridge connecting those two cities, where I was and where colleagues were staying.
It was a really hard time. Finally, Russian troops could not conquer Chernigiv and were forced to withdraw. City started recovering from this madness of the war, and we could restart our production of beautiful copper distillers for an essential oil to deliver it to the clients worldwide and bring them a lot of joy, helping them to make their own essential oil of the highest quality.
How do you improve your products?
I do use our products for trials and to make hydrosols for sale. So every time I use our distillers, I look for the possibility to improve this. This way, I got an idea of how to improve our tabletop standing essential oil separator.
How do you stay motivated?
I am always trying to broaden my perspective, as I mentioned above. If I perceive the world around me with open eyes and heart, I am able to notice something new and bigger them my and my previous understanding of the world. So I set up new goals which are beyond our material world, which is quite limited. To stay motivated, try to be open and ask yourself dip questions!
What direction do you see your business taking in five years?
As I mentioned above, we would like to enlarge our assortment of products to stand hard times of changes. Our direction is stability!
