At the beginning of 2022, I was riding high. I had three successful furniture brands — Nordiska Galleriet (NOGA), Länna Möbler and Dusty Deco – that were on track to make $180 million that year, having grown from $5 million in 2017.
I’d founded NGLM Group in 2016, acquired a small store in Stockholm called Nordiska Galleriet, that was later re-named to NOGA (no-ga.com) outside of Sweden, and launched an e-commerce platform for it. By 2021 we’d decided to make our largest investment yet, merging all our acquired companies into one single entity.
Then Putin invaded Ukraine.
I remember I was skiing in the Swiss Alps when I looked at my phone and saw a 30% drop in sales. At first I thought we had a data problem, but when I called the office they confirmed it. We had just doubled the size of our warehouse, invested in a massive IT platform that was being built and planned to expand in several markets.
Overnight NOGA went from making six million euros in profit – while maintaining almost 80% organic growth — to losing the same amount.
