From E-commerce Founder to Finance Minister: Nina Angelovska on Building a Career She Never Planned

I spoke to Nina about building an e-commerce business before the market was ready for it, what entrepreneurship taught her, what success looks like from the inside, and why some of the biggest turns in a career can come without a plan.

You say you never planned to write a book. What made you decide to tell your story now?

Yes, I never planned to write a book. In fact, I never thought I would write one. But I also never thought I would become an entrepreneur, and yet I started a company straight after graduating. I never thought about an exit while we were building the business, and yet, years later, we had a successful one. I never aspired to enter politics, and yet I became Minister of Finance.

When I first told some friends that I was writing a book, one of the reactions I heard was, “Aren’t you too young to write a memoir?” Being “too young” is something I have heard many times in my life. But age is not necessarily a measure of experience, and by that point I felt I had lived through several very different chapters.

I initially started writing for myself as a way to reflect, revisit the people, moments, and decisions that had shaped me, and connect dots I had never stopped long enough to see. While writing, I came to one of the most personal realizations in the book: just how fast I had been living. For years, there were always deadlines, projects, flights, meetings, the next challenge, the next goal. I was constantly in output mode, moving from one thing to another without really giving myself time to absorb my own life. Writing gave me permission to stop and look back.

The feedback from readers also made me realize that although the circumstances of my story may be specific, the questions underneath them are universal: How do we prepare for opportunities we cannot predict? How do we make decisions when we don’t feel ready? How do we deal with uncertainty, pressure, failure and change? And how does our definition of success evolve as our life evolves?

That is what made the English edition feel like a natural next step. The circumstances may be local, but the lessons are not.

READ NOTHING BY CHANCE

You started Grouper at 22, when online shopping was still unfamiliar to many people in North Macedonia. What do you remember as the hardest part of those early days – something people starting an e-commerce business today might struggle to imagine?

The hardest part was that we were not just building a company; we were building a market from scratch. And building a market is a completely different challenge from building a business.

When we launched Grouper, the first group-buying deal platform in Macedonia in 2011, e-commerce was still unfamiliar territory for customers, businesses, and even regulators. We had to explain the concept to almost everyone. In practice, to grow the business, we first had to help grow the market.

I remember customers physically coming to our office because they wanted to buy something on Grouper but didn’t know how. Our team helped them create an email address, open an account, and learn how to make the purchase. Some even got their first payment card specifically so they could buy from us. Almost every customer interaction was also an education session. On the merchant side, imagine being 22, walking unannounced into a restaurant or spa with a laptop, showing them an animated video for a website that didn’t even exist yet, and asking them to offer more than a 50% discount, with our commission on top of that. Somehow, many said yes.

At the same time, we were navigating regulations that had never really been tested against these new business models. There simply wasn’t a playbook.

There is a line in the book that sums up those years well: “When you are the first to do something, you don’t get applause. You get resistance, doubt and extra work. But you also gain an advantage no one can take away from you.”

Was there one moment when you realised Grouper had become more than a start-up and was actually changing the way people in North Macedonia shopped? What happened?

There wasn’t one dramatic moment, but there was a clear turning point when businesses started approaching us instead of us constantly chasing them.

In the beginning, we knocked on every door and had to explain what Grouper was, why discounts could actually bring new customers, and why online sales mattered. A few years later, companies wanted to be on the platform because they had seen that it worked. That change in behaviour was very powerful.

The numbers confirmed it too. In 2013, Grouper accounted for around 40% of all online transactions in North Macedonia. At that point, it became clear that we were no longer just growing a company — we were helping change how people shopped and how businesses thought about e-commerce.

That impact started being recognised beyond North Macedonia as well. Our story was featured in international reports, including by the World Bank, and later came the Forbes 30 Under 30 recognition. Interestingly, that external validation also changed perceptions at home. Businesses that had previously not considered Grouper relevant for them suddenly looked at us differently and became much more eager to collaborate.

If you had to start an e-commerce company again tomorrow – with no investors, no established name and the same resources you had at 22 – what would you do differently? And what would you refuse to change?

I often get asked whether, if I could go back, would I do anything differently, and my simple answer is ‘no regrets’. I would choose the same struggles because they made me stronger, smarter, and wiser and ultimately shaped the person I became. Of course, with everything I know today, I could point to many things I might have done better, smarter, with less naivety or more patience. But I think we can always look back and find a better way to do things.

Probably I would delegate earlier and be more disciplined about where I spent my time. For years, my partners and I were deeply involved in day-to-day operations. Partly because resources were limited, but also because of perfectionism and the feeling that doing something ourselves was faster than explaining it to someone else. Eventually, that becomes the bottleneck. I write quite openly in the book about how much of a micromanager I was and about my need for control. Today, I would build the team and processes earlier and create more space to step back and think strategically.

What I would refuse to change is the hands-on approach at the beginning. I would still talk to customers, sell myself, move fast, and do things that look completely unscalable if they help me understand the business better. And I would definitely keep the slightly unreasonable optimism I had in my twenties. When we launched Grouper, almost every indicator suggested the timing was wrong. If I had known then everything I know today, I might have found ten very rational reasons not to start.

Experience makes you better at calculating risk. But you have to be careful that it doesn’t also make you too good at finding reasons not to try.

We hear constantly about growth, technology, funding, data and now AI. After actually building and scaling a company, what do you think e-commerce founders tend to overcomplicate – and what simple things still matter far more than people admit?

Technology matters. Data matters. AI is changing how we live, work, and operate businesses. But what matters just as much, and often more, is the speed of implementation. Speed has always been one of the strongest competitive advantages, especially for startups. In e-commerce, ideas themselves are rarely the advantage—how quickly you can execute, learn, and adapt often is.

At the same time, founders can become so consumed with implementing the latest technology that they lose sight of the fundamentals. At the end of the day, you still need a great product that reaches the right customer and genuinely creates value. The customer has to remain at the centre of everything you do.

And ultimately, companies are built by people. Technology, products, and even business models can be copied. The energy, trust and heart of a team are much harder to replicate. That was something very strong at Grouper, and I believe founders play a major role in creating that environment.

Your memoir is called Nothing by Chance, yet some of the biggest moments in your career – including the call asking you to become Minister of Finance – were things you could hardly have planned. What does “nothing by chance” mean to you now?

We often say that everything happens for a reason, even though very often we cannot see that reason in the moment. The people we meet, the decisions we make, the challenges we accept, and the experiences we go through are often more connected than we realize. Things that later look like coincidence usually have something behind them.

There is a well-known saying, often attributed to Seneca: luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Looking back, I realized that I never had a by-the-book vision for my life. But I was consistently preparing myself — often without even knowing what I was preparing for.

I did not plan to become an entrepreneur. I never had political ambitions. I certainly did not have “become Minister of Finance at 31” somewhere on a vision board. But by the time that phone call came, there were years of building a company, making difficult decisions, speaking publicly, working on e-commerce development and policy, building credibility, earning recognition, and constantly stepping into things I had never done before. None of that was done because I thought it was preparing me to become a minister. But together, they had prepared me.

That is really what Nothing by Chance means to me: we are often preparing for opportunities without knowing exactly what we are preparing for. My path has unfolded quite organically, but behind many of the moments that looked like coincidence from the outside were years of work, choices, relationships and experiences that made those moments possible.

You cannot control which opportunity will appear or when. But you can keep learning, working, building relationships and taking on challenges that stretch you so that when an opportunity does come, you are prepared enough to recognize it and courageous enough to take it.

The book also talks about the side of success people rarely see: anxiety, sleepless nights, sacrifice and uncertainty behind a confident exterior. Was there a part of the book that made you stop and wonder whether you really wanted to share it publicly?

Yes. The parts about anxiety were probably some of the hardest to write because revisiting those moments brought back a lot of discomfort.

For most of my professional life, people have seen me as energetic, confident, always optimistic and very much in control. And that is genuinely part of who I am. But confidence does not mean the absence of fear, pressure or vulnerability.

Before entering government, I started experiencing anxiety in a way I never had before. Ironically, after I left government and life finally became calmer, it became more frequent. Writing about moments when I could be sitting at lunch with friends and suddenly feel that I couldn’t take a full breath felt exposing. There were also parts about how the pressure of public life affected my family that were difficult to revisit. But if I had removed those parts, I would have written exactly the kind of book I did not want to write – a polished sequence of achievements. The headlines already tell that story: founder, Forbes, minister, and exit. I wanted the book to tell what happens between those headlines.

Success can look very different from the outside than it feels while you are living it. I think showing that side makes the story more truthful, not less successful.

You have experienced leadership from two very different sides: building your own company and then entering government as North Macedonia’s first female Minister of Finance. What did one world teach you about leadership that the other never could?

Entrepreneurship taught me ownership. When you are building your own company, there is very little room for excuses. If something isn’t working, you have to find a solution. That creates speed, resourcefulness, and a strong sense of personal responsibility.

One of the main reasons I accepted the ministerial position was the opportunity to create change from the inside. I came from the private sector believing that if something made sense, you discussed it, made a decision, and implemented it. I thought that a position with so much formal authority would give me even greater ability to make things happen. What I learned was almost the opposite: formal authority does not automatically give you the power to create change.

In business, if the argument holds water, the decision is made. In politics, the argument is only the starting point. That lesson is perhaps even stronger when you enter the system as an outsider. You may see clearly what you want to change, but you still have to navigate institutions, procedures, interests, habits and people who have been part of that system long before you arrived. Leadership is not only about making the right decision. Sometimes it is about creating enough trust and alignment for change to become possible at all.

What remained the same in both worlds was my belief in leading by example. At Grouper, when things were difficult, I would sit with the team and do the operational work alongside them. In government, especially during the COVID crisis, I carried the same instinct: you cannot ask others to carry a burden you are unwilling to carry yourself.

And one thing turned out to be universal: people recognize authenticity. Whether you are leading a start-up team or a ministry, people can sense whether you genuinely believe in what you are doing. They respond to honesty, passion, and consistency. The environments were completely different, but the human part of leadership was not.

Looking back at the 22-year-old Nina with a university business plan and no idea where it would eventually take her: what would you tell her today – and, perhaps more importantly, what would you deliberately not tell her?

I would probably tell her to worry a little less about controlling everything and to stop occasionally long enough to enjoy what she had already achieved. But I would not tell her what was coming. I wouldn’t tell her about Forbes, becoming minister, the exit, or the difficult chapters in between. Because sometimes, not seeing the whole mountain is exactly what gives you the courage to start climbing. There was something powerful about the optimism, and perhaps a little naivety, I had at 22. I had the passion, enthusiasm and energy to feel that almost anything was possible. I approached problems with excitement, eager to figure out the solution, and I rarely took “no” as the final answer.

Looking back, I think that mindset had a lot to do with the journey that followed.

To finish, we would love to leave our readers with something personal from you. For someone reading this who is building a business, considering taking a risk or simply facing an opportunity they do not feel completely ready for: what would you want them to remember from your story?

I think different readers will find different parts of themselves in this book.

If you are an entrepreneur, you will recognize the reality behind building something: that the idea is often the cheapest part, that competition can be one of the best teachers of discipline, and that speed may give you an advantage, but systems and people are what sustain growth.

If you are a leader, you may recognize the tension between setting high standards and giving people room to breathe and how easily good intentions can turn into micromanagement.

If you are a woman trying to balance ambition with the different roles life asks you to play, you will find my very personal realization that yes, we can do a lot — but perhaps not everything at the same time. And that is okay. It is not a weakness; it is reality. Life is long enough for different things to matter in different chapters.

And if you simply don’t know exactly where you are going next, this book is probably for you too. My own path was never clear in advance.

Above all, I wanted to tell a real story – not only the wins, but also the uncertainty, mistakes, anxiety, sacrifices and difficult decisions behind them.

So if there is one thing I would want someone to take away from my story, it is this: you don’t need to have the whole path figured out, and you don’t need to feel completely ready. Keep learning, keep preparing and have the courage to take the next step when it appears. You may only understand much later what you were preparing for.

Nothing by Chance: A Memoir of Preparation, Opportunity, and Courage is available to buy on Amazon or Amazon.de.