My first financing was from a commercial bank in 1994: my first million was a loan, right?”, said Jean Valvis, founder of Aqua Carpatica and general manager of Valvis Holding, during an event organized by RBL.

He recounted how the former president of the BCR made him wait for two hours in the hallway at the headquarters in Bucharest’s University Square.

“He said to me: – Mr. Walvis, do you know why I am giving you a million?

– Why?

“Because you came to the place where we put a peg on the map of Romania, to the springs, to sell us raw water,” he says.

His conclusion: plain water was plain water, it had no value.

Very briefly:

• The lack of nitrates has repeatedly led Valvis to CNA

• “Nitrates are fertilizers, right? nitrogenize. They are useful for agriculture, but not for us, because we are not flowers, we are not plants.”

• “I want to make this dream come true, so that in 3-4-5 years Aqua Carpatica will surpass the number 1 in the world: Evian, which has 4 mg of nitrates”

• If we want to go international, we have to say: on this field of springs, I will break you. We are the best, we are the Rolls Royce of mineral waters.

• Carpathian forest: 90 thousand square meters. They have no sprinklers, no fertilizers, no heavy industry, no transport axles. Man does not pollute the Carpathians. This is a guarantee of purity.

• “I don’t think an individual can be a brand”

Branding and business are different things. A person cannot be a brand

“Running a business is a little different from building a brand. That is, in the sense that I build permanent value that wins the trust of consumers: permanent value. Therefore, I don’t think that an individual can be a brand,” Walvis said.

According to him, an individual has the freedom to change his values.

• See how Chirico (Giorgio De Chirico nr) painted when he was young and how he painted when he was old.

An individual has the opportunity and the fundamental freedom of democracy to change his values.

“This is his choice: I changed my mind, gained experience. The brand is not allowed to change its values,” he says.

• Business represents money on the spot, I did something: I invested in the stock market, I made an exit. Entrepreneurship is different from building a brand.

Building a brand is something extraordinary, majestic.

“Creating a brand that consumers trust is an extraordinary act. The consumer thinks: *I know he did it, I know it’s serious, I’m consuming it. I take out my penny from my pocket and give for it*. That’s why I separate branding from business,” Walvis says.

In order for nitrate-free water to disappear, a meteorite must fall on the Carpathians

According to him, a good brand survives its founder.

According to him, a meteorite must fall on the Carpathians so that the springs there disappear.

“Nitrates are useful for plants. When I put it as a slogan in 2010, I don’t know how many times I visited CNA because the whole industry does not want to admit that there is a diamond in the country,” he said. added

• Nitrates are fertilizers, right? nitrogenize. They are useful for agriculture, but not for us, because we are not flowers, we are not plants.

Why is the water in the Carpathians nitrate-free?

“The homeland of mineral waters is Romania. When you say whiskey, you think of the ultimate, scotch. When you think of red wine, you think of Bordeaux, France. If you’re thinking about a watch, if it’s Swiss, it’s good. It is a vector, a privileged aspect of the country, like yogurt and feta to the Greeks,” said the founder of Aqua Carpatica.

• If we want to go international, we have to say: on this field of springs, I will break you. We are the best, we are the Rolls Royce of mineral waters.

“These springs in the Carpathians are naturally protected from pollution here. Carpathian forest: 90 thousand square meters. They have no sprinklers, no fertilizers, no heavy industry, no transport axles. Man does not pollute the Carpathians. This is a guarantee of purity. This makes this project sustainable, long-term,” Walvis explains.

Evian water contains nitrates. In 5 years, he wants Aqua Carpatica to be #1 in the world

He also said:

“I want to make this dream come true, that in 3-4-5 years Aqua Carpatica will surpass the number 1 in the world: Evian.

Why can I beat Evian? This is my goal as an entrepreneur.

1. I have more than Evian.

2. Evian contains 4 mg of nitrates

3. Aqua Carpatica tastes way better than that sweet fig water called Evian

Evian has 60 years of marketing investment that I don’t have. They amount to about 100 million (euro) per year.

My managers told me they want to call the Book of Records because I’m the only person who has signed contracts with Coca-Cola and Pepsi.”

• With Coca-Cola I found out: I was number 2 in market share in Greece with Dorna and when they promised me a bonus for expanding everywhere, after 3 months they reneged on their word. They also removed Dorna from Greece.

• Life is full of mistakes. It’s a good thing they reneged on their word, because if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have explored other sources and Aqua Carpatica wouldn’t have been found. That’s why I thank them. They pushed me to do even better.

Foreigners say: Romania? What is Romania?

“In many moments I feel like an economic ambassador of the country. I go to a meeting in Nevada, I say that the mineral water is from Romania, and the interlocutors say: Romania? What is Romania?” he said.

• I have to talk about Romania, about the beauty of the Carpathians: the last wild forest in Europe. 10,000 bears. This was the slogan of the Greeks: take water from a clean, natural region where 10,000 bears live.

• The bear king agrees to give water to the inhabitants of Aqua Carpatica.

According to him, clean waters will become the diamond of the next century. Water is getting low.

Why does he have a square bottle?

Valvis was asked why Aqua Carpatica has a square bottle. His answer was:

“It’s like in life. You look at a model passing by and you say: Ah!

So? The first aspect is the surface.

Then there is beauty, it attracts. But you have to say something to the model before and after you’ve done it.

That is, you need value behind it, to have a nice taste that reinforces the first reaction to pick up a bottle and say you’ve tried it. It’s about taste pleasure.”

Message for entrepreneurs

He addressed entrepreneurs: you will have problems, a thousand obstacles, red tape. There will be moments when you say: I can’t do it anymore, it’s not worth it anymore, it doesn’t make sense anymore.

These points are relevant for entrepreneurs. If you do not feel, do not have perseverance, resilience and patience, this honest perseverance cannot be achieved (project no.

To get funding, you will find solutions, face corruption, bureaucracy, legal contradictions that exist in the country. Resist and move forward.

Entrepreneurship adds value to the economy

“When I came to Romania in 1992, I read the statistics. I was an entrepreneur, right? I read a survey that 80% of the country’s population preferred to work for the state because they felt safe,” Walvis said.

• Then the word businessman had the connotation of a strange businessman. My presence, arriving from Geneva in 1992, was in a context completely unsuitable for entrepreneurship and private creativity.

He believes that entrepreneurship is the healthiest basis for creating added value for the nation.

“The country’s entrepreneurship is the only thing that creates added value in the national economy. We don’t realize how important it is for society to move forward, relying on the health, creativity and work of an entrepreneur who takes a calculated risk,” he added.

• In 1992, we found a security framework: Italy from the 80s. Why not earlier? It had no stable government, no political system, no coherent political strategy. However, Italian entrepreneurs have become detached from international markets.

“I said, wait, Romania is a Latin American country, eventually we will find these private sector efficiencies,” he added.