The Entrepreneurship Youth Magazine #2

THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP YOUTH MAGAZINE NUMBER 2

Entrepreneurial Education for Youth Project FUNDED BY THE EUROPEAN UNION THROUGH ERASMUS+ PROGRAMME Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

The content of this magazine does not reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

Responsibility for the information and views expressed in the magazine lies entirely with the author(s).

Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association Romania – Project Coordinator and Applicant Sorina Carmen Vacariu – Project manager Gabriela Rimbu – Intellectual output expert sprijinsidezvoltare@yahoo.com https://sprijinsidezvoltare.wordpress.com/ https://www.facebook.com/SprijinSiDezvoltare/

Inercia Digital – Project Partner

CEFE Macedonia – Project Partner

Project period February 2017 – January 2019

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Dear readers,

This is the second issues of the magazine! The magazine will help you to identify your own business idea. Reading the magazine, you can learn and understand more about entrepreneurship and startup. We had also the pleasure to interview entrepreneurs and discusses more about this subject. They had shared their experience and give valuable advices for you to follow.

The articles from this number will contain: ✓ Example of businesses from Romania, Macedonia, Spain and all over Europe ✓ Entrepreneurship in real life ✓ Interviews with entrepreneurs ✓ Start-ups and techniques on how you get your first clients ✓ Types of businesses you can open with little capital ✓ Key qualities and leadership styles associated with successful entrepreneurs ✓ Measures taken in order to help entrepreneurship in Spain The articles will also explain the social, political and economic context from Romania, Spain, Macedonia and Europe and how the context can influence a business.

This magazine can be used for personal reading and self-education or as an educational instrument and material in non-governmental organisations, schools, universities, vocational education and training organisations or any other organisation and freelancer.

Enjoy, Sorina Carmen Vacariu - Project manager

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Dragi cititori,

Acesta este al doilea număr al revistei! Citind revista puteți învăța mai multe despre antreprenoriat și startup. În acest număr am avut plăcerea de a lua interviu unor antreprenori. Aceștia au împărtășit din experiența lor și au furnizat sfaturi valoroase pentru voi. Revista vă va ajuta să identificați o idee de afacere.

Articolele din acest număr conțin: ✓ Exemple de afaceri din România, Macedonia, Spania și din întreaga Europa ✓ Cum este antreprenoriatul în viața reală ✓ Interviuri cu antreprenori ✓ Startup-uri și tehnici de obținere a primilor clienți ✓ Tipuri de afaceri pe care le puteți deschide cu puțin capital ✓ Calități cheie și stiluri de leadership asociate cu antreprenori de succes ✓ Măsurile luate pentru a ajuta antreprenoriatul în Spania De asemenea, articolele vor explica contextul social, politic și economic din România, Spania, Macedonia și Europa dar și modul în care acest context poate influența o afacere.

Această revistă poate fi utilizată pentru lectură personală sau ca instrument educațional în organizații non-guvernamentale, școli, universități, furnizori de formare profesională sau de către oricare altă organizație pentru formare dar și de către liberi profesioniști.

Lectură plăcută, Sorina Carmen Văcariu – Manager proiect

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Estimados lectores,

¡Ya estamos en la segunda entrega de nuestra revista! En esta edición te ayudaremos a identificar tu propia idea de negocio. Al leer la revista, aprenderás más acerca del emprendimiento y los startups. También hemos tenido el placer de entrevistar a varios emprendedores en esta edición.

Ellos nos comparten sus experiencias y dan consejos valiosos que puedes seguir.

Los artículos de este número contienen: ✓ Ejemplos de negocios de Rumanía, Macedonia, España y toda Europa ✓ El emprendimiento en la vida real ✓ Entrevistas con emprendedores ✓ Los startups y técnicas para obtener tus primeros clientes ✓ Tipos de negocios que puedes abrir con poco capital ✓ Cualidades clave y estilos de liderazgo asociados con emprendedores exitosos ✓ Medidas tomadas para apoyar el emprendimiento en España

Los artículos también explicarán el contexto social, político y económico de Rumanía, España, Macedonia y Europa, y como el contexto puede influenciar a un negocio.

Esta revista puede ser usada como lectura personal y autoeducación o como instrumento educacional y material didáctico para para organizaciones no-gubernamentales, escuelas, universidades, organizaciones de educación y formación profesional, así como para cualquier otra organización y para profesionales independientes.

¡Esperamos que os guste!

Sorina Carmen Văcariu – Gerente de proyecto

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Драги читатели,

Ова е второто издание на списанието! Списанието ќе ви помогне да ја идентификувате вашата бизнис идеја. Читајќи, можете да научите и да разберете повеќе за претприемништвото и стартапите. Исто така, имавме задоволство да разговараме со претприемачите во ова издание. Тие го споделија своето искуство и даваат совети вредни за следење. Статиите од овој број содржат: ✓ Примери за бизниси од Романија, Македонија, Шпанија и цела Европа ✓ Претприемништво во реалниот живот ✓ Интервјуа со претприемачи ✓ Стартапи и техники за тоа како да ги добиете вашите први клиенти ✓ Видови на бизниси што можете да ги отворите со малку капитал ✓ Клучни квалитети и лидерски стилови поврзани со успешни претприемачи ✓ Мерки преземени со цел да им се помогне на претприемништвото во Шпанија Во прилозите ќе се објасни и социјалниот, политичкиот и економскиот контекст од Романија, Шпанија, Македонија и Европа и како контекстот може да влијае на бизнисот.

Ова списание може да се користи за лично читање и самообразование или како едукативен инструмент и материјал во невладини организации, училишта, универзитети, организации за стручно образование и обука или било која друга организација и слободна пракса.

Уживајте, Сорина Кармен Вакариу - проект менаџер

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Contents Opening a business ......................................................................................................................... 8 Themeisle ...................................................................................................................................... 10 Creative Tim ................................................................................................................................. 12 Sleek Bill – Billing Made Easier .................................................................................................. 13 Zonga ............................................................................................................................................ 14 Visual Hackers .............................................................................................................................. 15 HoteloPro ...................................................................................................................................... 17 Smart Bill ...................................................................................................................................... 19 Mondly .......................................................................................................................................... 21 Stravagante Coffee Shop............................................................................................................... 22 Musette.......................................................................................................................................... 23 Uniplaces....................................................................................................................................... 24 Osper ............................................................................................................................................. 25 Future Play .................................................................................................................................... 26 Impraise......................................................................................................................................... 28 What is entrepreneurship in real life ............................................................................................. 29 Startup Macedonia ........................................................................................................................ 30 Foundation Stambolievi ................................................................................................................ 32 Hrana za site .................................................................................................................................. 35 When in X ..................................................................................................................................... 38 Gordian Sistem.............................................................................................................................. 40 E^2 ................................................................................................................................................ 43 Letz.do .......................................................................................................................................... 44 What kinds of businesses can be started with very little capital and what types of low-budget resources are available to those who are interested in pursuing a new line of work .................... 47 “What is entrepreneurship in real life?”........................................................................................ 48 Key qualities and leadership styles associated with successful entrepreneurs ............................. 51 Amancio Ortega – Inditex and Zara...................................................................................... 53 Juan Roig and Hortensia Herrero – Mercadona .................................................................... 53 Pedro Espinosa – Llaollao .................................................................................................... 54 Start-up and techniques on how you get your first clients ............................................................ 54 Low Budget, huge success ............................................................................................................ 57 6|Page

Measures taken in order to help entrepreneurship in Spain. ......................................................... 61

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Opening a business Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

To open a business it is easy, to make a profitable business is challenging, or how some people say, it is hard. Many people want to start a business because they don’t want to be employee anymore, we often hear the expression “I want to be my own boss!”. Which can be a good start, but this cannot be the only reason why you should open a business. You should open a business because you are passionate about it, you like the field, you are good at it, it can be a hobby that you try to monetize it. To be passionate and good to do something it doesn’t give you a guaranteed success.

For a startup it is always easier to provide services than products, because it requires less money.

Open a business if there is a need on the market. Open a business because you try to solve a problem that the people are facing. Don’t open common business as restaurants, bakery, print shop or any other business that you can find on each corner on the street, unless if you are really good at it and if you can succeed with the current competitors and maybe eliminate some of them from the market.

There are a lot of innovative and successful business that responded to the people needs. Try to find a new and innovative idea based on your experience and expertise, try to find a new problem to solve, people are changing, and society is changing, find something new. You can also create a new need on the market, a product or a service that people are not aware that they need it, but as soon as they have it, they cannot have it anymore. This is the situation when you bring new products and services on the market. Always develop a market research, don’t assume that it will work, you need to know for sure (almost for sure) that it will work. Only through market research you can identify if there is a need on the market for your business or not.

Always open a profitable business and make previsions using financial indicators. The intuition can help you to build a successful business, but sometimes the intuition can mislead you, so always use financial indicators over feelings and intuition.

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You should always find a stronger motivation to open a business, not the desire to be an owner, especially because when you will be a boss you will realise that being a manager is not so simple or not so funny. Being an entrepreneur, it means that you will work a lot of hour a day, maybe more hours that at a regular job. It also means that you will be always connected with your business, and this is good, in this way you will find the success. Nobody innovated from 8AM to 5PM. Can you imagine Bill Gates going home at 5PM? I think that he couldn’t create his businesses stand at work within this timeframe, only 8 hours a day. There will be a time when you will leave at 5PM at home, but for sure not at the beginning of the business. You will need to stay at work for many hours and this is why is so important to be passionate about your business. It will be very difficult for you to work and invest time, money and effort if you are not passionate about it.

To be a manager means to have management competences. If you don’t know nothing about management, you need to learn so you can administrate your business properly. It is hard to find a good management strategy but is not impossible. You should always be willing to learn, to improve, to change and to receive feedback. In a company you will need to manage: the operations and entire process, the human resources and the finances.

Know very well the production process and improve it, listen to your employees, they can help you to improve the process more that you think. Ensure a quality standard for your product and services and be sure that you always offer the same quality.

Always motivate your employees and set up individual measurable goals for them to reach. Track, measure and evaluate their performances and make sure that they get rewarded for their accomplishments. The young entrepreneurs tend to hire friends and family to work on their business. I am not saying to not hire friend and family on your business! I am saying to think twice when you make this decision. You hire them because they are good? Or you are hiring them just because it is your friend or a family member? Can you hire another expert instead? Friends and family are hard to manage, and you can face different uncomfortable situation. It is better to keep your private life separate than your professional life, unless you want to build a business family

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where each of your family member will use their skills in the business. But if you are going to pay an employee to make a certain job, make sure that you have the best employee that you can afford.

Analise your business with the financial indicators, develop budgets and make investment and financial decisions based on the number, not on the supposition or feelings.

You cannot learn how to be an entrepreneur, only if you become one you will know how it is to be one. You only need courage, expertise, a profitable idea and‌ of course, money!

Themeisle Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Themeisle is a new business which is developing and selling WordPress website themes and designs. Themeisle is a Start-up from Bucharest Romania, but in reality, it doesn’t matter where this business is because it sells WordPress themes online worldwide. The business has a multicultural team that designs and develops these themes. Their goal is to develop easy-to-use website themes and designs that can be managed by everyone, eliminating the high maintenance costs and expensive trainings on how to use WordPress.

Their entire business is designed as a story. The company is selling the product through this story.

The story begins with an island of WordPress themes. The island inhabitants are the diamond finders, the diamond cutters, the pirate apprentice and the King’O Themes. On the island you can find diamonds, there are diamond finders and cutters, with pirates and a king. So, the island is the business, the diamonds are the WordPress themes and the inhabitants are the business employees.

The clients are the pirates, so each client (aka pirate) sales to the island and collect diamonds (WordPress themes) or take treasures (different product packages).

The diamonds finders are the theme designers, they are the finders because they design a theme until perfection. The analogy made through diamonds and themes design give the selling program

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an important value. There are not designing just themes they are designing valuable themes, just like the diamonds.

After they have found the diamond and the idea was created, they cute the diamonds so it could be used. The diamond cutters are the theme developers writing the code and making sure that the themes work without fail. After finishing cutting the diamond, they have the final product, a beautiful diamond that can be used as the client wish.

The pirate apprentice is the Q&A specialist makes sure that every theme behaves and that it fulfils the client’s needs. The King’O Themes are the king of theme make sure that the business reaches its goals and give support to the customers.

The start-up offers more than 30 premium themes and they sell it by categories, depending on the customer aim and needs: charity, medical, restaurant, blog, business, ecommerce, magazine, and photography. To help the costumers decide on what they want to purchase Themeisle made a category named Responsive were the costumers can buy the most responsive themes. The company offers also free themes.

Along with the themes, Themeisle offers also WordPress plugins as, RSS Aggregator – used to import automatically RSS content to websites, Chart plugin – used to transform data easily with graphs and tables, Author and User Review Plugin, and Author and User Review Plugin - turn posts into smart reviews with ratings.

The company offers different types of subscription for personal use and for companies. The customers can buy the services annually, but the company also offers the possibility to buy it for life.

Themeisle also give a lot of information for free to the costumers or to the readers in general. They have a blog, a treasure trove of WordPress tutorials and tips for Beginners and Experts, as the company name it. On the blog they are writing about themes and plugins, they offer guidance on how to make a website, blogging, website and hosting reviews. They also give a lot of support through the site regarding: themes and plugins, custom codes and WordPress.

Timeisle do not offer customisations services for their products, but they have partner with Codeable in this regard. In order to keep the business content fair and open the company doesn’t accept paid advertising or sponsored content on the Themeisle website or blog.

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So, if you are one of the pirates take your boat and sail to the island, maybe you will find a diamond or even a treasure!

Creative Tim Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Creative Tim is an enterprise form Bucharest Romania which offers full coded UI Tools to build web applications, Premium Bootstrap themes, templates, UI Kits and similar products. The enterprise is creating fully coded UI Tools to help the customers to create web apps. The UI Kits and Dashboards are built on top of Bootstrap, Vue.js, React and Angular. The UI Frameworks offers tolls from plugins and complex kits regarding frontend development for the customers to use in their projects. The enterprise share Freebies, the products that they used to create can be downloaded for free under MIT License. Creative Tim is using modern technologies and frameworks to build their products.

Creative Tim offers free and premium themes, as well as Angular themes, React themes and Vue themes. The React Themes are app templates.

The company is offering UI Kits and Page Examples and well as Pre-Made Sections and Elements.

Creative Tim is offering Bootstrap UI Kits and templates for web, such as: Premium and free Design System for Bootstrap 4 and Vue.js, Free and Premium React Native App template, Premium and Free VueJS UI Kit, Premium Bootstrap, Premium and free VueJS UI Kit, Premium Angular Bootstrap 4 UI Kit, Premium and free Material UI Kit and Premium and free Bootstrap 4 UI Kit. The company offers Admin Templates ease to use and Admin Dashboards, Bootstrap Dashboard Theme, such as: Premium and free Frontend Preset for Nodejs, Premium Bootstrap 4 Angular, Premium Frontend Preset for Laravel, Premium Reactstrap Admin template, Premium Bootstrap 4 Admin template, Premium Bootstrap 4 Vuejs Admin template.

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Creative Tim has many clients, and some of their frameworks have been used by large enterprise application, governmental projects or in prestigious universities, such as: Microsoft, Vodafone, AT&T, Amazon, CISCO, SalesForse, IMB, Samsung, Harvard University and Stanford University. The company integrated 3rd party tools in their products, so they can work with their products (Online Editors, WordPress themes, Collaboration Tools, Drag & Drop builders).

Through IRA Design, Creative time offers to costumers the possibility to create illustrations using gradients and hand draw sketch components.

Creative Tim sells their products under licenses, so if you want to buy a product you buy the right to use it. You can have a personal license or a developer license. They are offering different packages for the costumers depending on their needs.

Creative Tim have sponsored also many hackathons all over the world, providing them tools for web applications. The company sponsor schools and universities and participate in events to teach the people to become better designers, developers and entrepreneurs. The company had hosted the first 2 Dribbble Meetup in Romania and participated in Aiesec Youth Forum, Startup Weekend in Piatra Neamt 2017, Startup Weekend Zurich 2016, Startup Weekend Iasi 2018, Start-up Weekend Bucharest.

Sleek Bill – Billing Made Easier Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Sleek Bill is a company from Romania which provides cloud billing software for India. Sleek Bill is an example of a company which seeks opportunity beyond geographical boundaries. The company found a need to be addressed in India and they respond to it. Sleek Bill has 2 offices, one in Sibiu Romania, used for partners, press and international sales and one in Mumbai, Pune, India used for phone support and Sales. Sleek Bill have created an easy to use billing 13 | P a g e

software for business, regardless of their size, designed to solve the customer invoicing related needs. The software doesn’t require previous training. The programme doesn’t require to install anything on the computer, used online through an active internet. The company is also offering a Sleek Bill for Desktop, a program that can be used for the costumers which don’t have always internet connection.

The customer can access the software using multi user from different devices (PC or tablet). The information is stored on the cloud. Beside billing, the software also provides inventory features, such as PO’s, Bills, Expenses, Reports; update billing software, according with the actual regulations and laws; personalized invoice templates and inventory tracking.

The customers need to purchase licences to use the software. The software can be used also for free, but with limitations. The software is designed especially for India, and can be used by small businesses, freelancers and accountants.

Zonga Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Zonga is a digital legal music streaming service from Romania. The company established different partnerships with important music producers, in order to provide a lot of music choices, over 36 million of songs. The company have created partnerships with: Cat Music, Roton Music, Warner Music Group, Sony Music, Medianer, Universal Music Group and Media Pro Music.

Zonga is available on computer through web or desktop and on telephone or tablet. As a user you can listen to music online or offline, you can save musical charts and you can create playlists.

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Zonga provides streaming music, so a costumer can listen to music through any device and have the possibility to create playlists with their favourite music. The program provides quality music that a customer can listen online or can download the music and listen to it offline. The program or app is working in the background, so the user has the possibility to do other things in their devices while they are listening to music.

A customer can use Zonga through monthly regular (Plus) and Premium subscription or can use it for free. To use the program for free means that the user has certain limitations to listen the music.

Zonga receives money from the users, the customers, and from this money they pay the label record and the artists.

The business idea is innovative, since there was no other steaming program/ application in Romania. Of course, there are other streaming programs as Spotify or Apple Music, but Zonga make available old Romanian music which couldn’t be found on these international music players.

Visual Hackers Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Visual Hackers is company from Bacau Romania which offers professional services for presentations, infographics, business documents, pitch decks and eBooks.

The company is helping the customers to deliver amazing visuals. When you open a business, it doesn’t mean that you know everything. For example, you are a good marketing manager, but being a good marketing manager, it doesn’t mean that you have the necessary skills to create visual. You know how you want it to look but you can create it. Visual Hackers can help you, as a business man to create your own visuals, without being forced to spend a lot of money on expensive services. It depends very much 15 | P a g e

on how much money you want to spend. As a small business or as a start-up you should always think how to invest money and what costs you can reduce.

Visual Hackers offers Presentation design for pitch decks and company profile. They are also offering custom-made presentation and more in PowerPoint, Keynote or for Slide share, if the templates don’t fulfil the customer needs. Through Pitch Desk Design the company offers services in order to help a business stand out. Through Sales Presentation Design, Visual Hackers helps their customers to develop high quality financial presentations.

Through Infographic design services the client can create infographics for complex information.

The infographics can be used to present financial data or any other complex data.

The company is also offering Document Design services, offering high-quality document design.

It doesn’t matter what type of document it is, it can be eBook, case studies, brochures.

Visual Hackers is also offering customized template design to be used by the customer for their business needs. The client can create templates with their branding elements and use it in documents or other materials.

They are offering services to many types of enterprises from different industries, such as Finance and Investment, Logistics, Management and Consultancy, Healthcare, Retail, Real Estate, Technology and Internet Security, Education and Training, Media and Telecommunication.

One of the most important clients the enterprise had were: Ralph Lauren, Shadowfax, Arctic Wolf, Ted X Cluj, Signzy, Zippia, Pathway, Team Fluent, The Fit Clinic, InteleAgent, Revault, Restaurant Zone, Palliance, HR Manager Pro, Maternova, Marc Wayshark, Coco Quadrat, Polished Hygiene, Inssio, Integrated Payroll Services, Humada INC., Pacific Generation Partners, Rely Workforce Group, Hollo Aussie Student Services, ElevenWa11, Healthy Hemp Oil, Distinctive Finance, ColorChip, Xintec and Co Co 360 – Coaching and Consulting.

The company have amazing success, having 99% of the customers satisfied, more than 300 projects and 100% success rate by delivering the projects on time.

The tailored services begin with the customer needs and preferences. On the company website there is a presentation on the Visual Hacker process, which in presented in the following picture.

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Figure 1. Visual Hackers process (Source: https://visualhackers.com/about-us/)

HoteloPro Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

HoteloPro is a company which provides management system for small hotels, inns, gusts house, Bed and Breakfast, the saw called B&Bs, apartments. The company identify the needs of small accommodation to have a management system which they can afford. The system is easy to use, and it doesn’t require training, as they said, it takes only 10 minutes to set up the system. In additional to that the HoteloPro team offers free support for customers.

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HoteloPro help small accommodation units to manage their reservations and clients in one place.

The system helps the customers to connect all the reservations from the major online travel sites through an online booking widget and a channel management. In this way it helps the customer to keep their reservations in one place and to avoid mistakes. Through the program the customers ca also manage their sales and rates and they can issue bills and invoices.

Based on the data that HoteloPro collects about your business it can provide business analysis on booking, finances, housekeeping or any other subject relevant to the business. The app will develop useful reports and statistics to facilitate the customer business decisions, price and investments.

The reservation management help the customer the keep all the reservation, regardless of the channel through which the reservation was made, via phone, online, or directly at the accommodation unit. The accommodation rooms are introduced one by one in the system and each reservation is registered by rooms. The reservation dashboard contains essential information as gusts name, check-in and check-out date, number of nights, payments made and total price, through which channel the client made the reservation. The program let the users write notes for each reservation if they need it, to make the check-in or check-out, and to make group reservation.

HoteloPro offers also an online booking engine where the future guests can book a room through the customer website or even through Facebook. The booking engine is automatically synchronising with the app.

The rates management helps the users to establish each room rates, to apply discounts or overrides, to set up special and different prices for each day of the week, to set up seasonable prices and to apply different taxes (such as city tax or other).

A user can manage all guests through the system. The system provides and store information on the accommodation unit clients, their bookings and the issued invoices on the clients’ name. the 18 | P a g e

system also sends automatic e-mail to the clients for booking confirmation, booking modification, booking cancelation, guests welcoming and check-out.

The program also provides the possibility to add extra services to the clients’ bill for each room for extra charges (mini bar, spa, massage, city tours, cars or any other products or services relevant for the facility) and in the same time to keep track of payment.

Through HoteloPro the customer can release customised invoices, in multiple languages and currency, that can be printed, send it by e-mail or exported as pdf in the computer.

The program can be used by the general manager, as admin, or any other employees, as users with the right to do all the operations and see all the information, or as viewer, a person who can see the information but can’t do any operation in the system.

The management system is used in over 15 countries. A customer can use the management system by paying a monthly subscription.

Smart Bill Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Smart Bill is the most used billing and administration software from Romania developed especially for Romanian users. The company has experience in the field more than 8 years and 50,000 happy clients. The users are making 1,000,000 invoices/ month and more that 2,000,000,000 Euro billed annually through the software program.

Smart Bill is offering Invoice Program and Invoice and Administration Program. The 2 programs can be used thorough a monthly subscription. The programs are available also online through Smart Bill REST API, easy to use and understand.

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The Invoice Program is available also through an app available for IOS and Android and can be downloaded from App Store or Google Play. Through Invoice Program the user can issue bills, receipts, notices and proforma invoices. It also uses foreign currency, retrieve the clients' data from the internet and the exchange rates. The users can create customised invoices, they can add their logos or any other visual. The Invoice program is also doing all the calculations, so the user can avoid the miscalculations.

The Invoice and Administration Program offers the customer the possibility to issue bills, receipts, notices and proforma invoices and in the same time can issue other documents related with the business administrations: stocks, stockpile, transfer receipt, consumption bill, daily management report, stock analytical balance, and other relevant documents (stock adjustment, supplier return, or transfer report). The program offers data infographics and business reports (such as the Profit-by-product Ratio) and the data can be access through the online app and the user can see in real time his company expenditures. The user can make changes easily and the data will be automatically updated. Any sales made on the mobile phone via the application will be found in stock transactions.

Smart Bill has created also The Invoice Manual and Administration Manual to be used by the customers. The Manuals are offering step by step details on how the users should use the programs offering tips and tricks and teaching them all its functionality.

The company has also a blog where they are offering free information for entrepreneurs regarding the business sector.

Why the company is offering 2 types of program, the Invoice Program and Invoice Program and Administration Program? Because not all the businesses produce and have stocks. The Invoice program is more suitable for business which provides services and the Invoice and Administration Program is more suitable for production companies or other companies that sells products.

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Mondly Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Mondly is a company that produces educational software for language learning. Mondly was founded in 2013 by Alexandru Iliescu and Tudor Iliescu in Brasov, Romania. The company developed a website and an app that provides language learning lessons. The app is available on App Store and Google Play for free and for purchase. A user can access several lessons for free.

By purchasing the app, the customer can have access to all courses and features.

The company motto is ` Play your way to a new language`. From the motto we can understand that their approach to learning languages is not academic, they are using fun methods to engage people in learning new languages. The courses take minutes and are focused on phrases not on individual words, helping the user to memorize easier. The innovative part of Mondly is that it works with professional native speaker with natural accents and flawless pronunciations, and in the same time they use intervals for courses repetition for effective learning.

The user can learn 33 languages through the app: Spanish, American English, British English, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Arabic, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Greek, Romanian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Hindi, Hebrew, Polish, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Czech, Croatian, Finnish, Persian (Farsi), Thai, Afrikaans and Turkish.

The courses are focusing on phrases and sentences, vocabulary, grammar (verb conjugations) and pronunciation by reading, listening, writing and speaking and useful conversations.

Mondly has a huge international success and has 40 million users worldwide.

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Stravagante Coffee Shop Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Stravagante Sibiu is a coffee shop from Sibiu, Romania, where you can buy and drink coffee. What makes this coffee shop special? Well… the COFFEE and the owner’s passion for coffee, Mișu Rus! Stravagente Caffé is an example of a business created by passion and perseveration. Misu Rus started by selling coffee and now he is having a beautiful coffee shop in Sibiu where he serves, roast and sell the roasted coffee.

Stravagante is a coffee shop, where you can go to drink coffee, tea or any other drink. You can try various freshly roasted coffee types. The owner is almost always there and beside making good coffee he is always teaching his costumers how to drink a proper coffee and give them technical information about the coffee type they had choose.

Stravagante is a coffee roaster. The coffee shop roast coffee daily. The roasted coffee is used also in the coffee shop. Weekly the café is offering different types of freshly roasted coffee.

Stravagante is also selling coffee, to other coffee shops and final consumers. The customers can buy the coffee directly from the coffee shop or they can order it. The company is offering more than 40 types of coffee, from the most common coffee to the rare coffee, Kopi Luwak (production of only a few tones of year) or old coffee Sumatra Mandheling. From the freshly types of coffee we can include: Nepal – Himalaya Supreme, Yemen - Mocha Mattari, Ecuador – Las Tolas, Ethiopia – Meteku Shentu, Ethiopia – Wild, India, Zimbabwe - Pezuru, Zambia – Balmoral, Cuba – Siera Maestra, Honduras – Marcala, Congo, Kenya Mugaya, Costa Rica – Tirra Honey, Rwanda – Gicongoro, Peru – Geisha Mamani and Brazilia – Araponga. They sell coffee beans but also ground coffee. The company grind coffee according to how the customer will prepare his coffee, espresso, filter or other.

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The company have created an entire ecosystem, a complete business, they buy green coffee beans, they are roasting it, they prepare it and they sell it.

Musette Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Musette is a Romanian company founded by Cristina Batlan in 1992 which deals with the production and retail of footwear and handbags. In 1995 the owners open their first factory.

The company is designing and producing their own footwear and handbags. In 2002 the company opened a handbag factory in Bucharest. After 2 years Cristina Batlan opened a footwear company in the same city and moved to Husi, Romania in 2007. In 2013 the company had 10.7 million Euro in revenue.

Musette offers shoes (heels, moccasins, boots, sandals), bags (mini bags, handbag, shoulder bag, large bags), accessories (belts, wallets, bracelets, shoes accessorize) for woman; shoes and boots, bags (voyage, office, casual, small bags) and accessories (wallets, belts) for man; shoes and boots for children. In additional to the standardised products, Musette is also producing accessories painted by hand.

Musette had an incredible success not only in Romania, but also worldwide. The company owns 26 stores, of which 18 on the local market, in Romania. Musette opened stores also outside the country, 3 stores in Israel, 2 stores in Bulgaria, 2 stores in Hungary and 1 store in Austria.

The products can be also purchased online through the company official website. They ship in product in most of the European countries. They don’t ship the products worldwide.

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The company is the result of the owner passion and dream, starting young immediately after the fall of the communist regime, building a beautiful business.

Uniplaces Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Uniplace is a company from Portugal that offers student accommodation easy to find and to book.

The company is an online marketplace for booking with more than 35,000 verified properties. The company gives a refresh to the old-fashioned market and help students to find accommodation easier. Uniplace toked the principles of any other short-term booking platforms and created an innovative platform where you can book long term accommodations for students. The company ensure the communication between the landlords and the tenants from over 165 countries.

A student can see and book the room/ place where he wants to stay during their studies directly from the Uniplace website. This platform helps especially foreign students, because it can be hard for a student to find a home before arrival, they need to discuss with a real estate agency, to see the house and to pay the rent and the real estate commission. Through this website the student can see exactly what he will rent by viewing the photos and read the accommodation description and they can rent a place in months in advance, the payment is secured. Uniplace transfers that money to the landlords after the student moves in. In the unlikely case that the accommodation doesn’t match with the website listing the student can report it in 24 hours and Uniplace freeze the payment and offers support to the student. The student can search homes by University, city or by neighbourhood, selecting the move-in and move-out dates.

Any landlord can list their accommodation place in the Uniplace platform. After a booking was made the landlord has no more than 48 hours to accept the booking inquiry. To list a house the owner will provide essential information, such as: what type of bedroom is, what type of bathroom,

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how many bedrooms has the entire apartment, the hose rules (for example no pets, doesn’t allow with overnight guest, no smoking or other), other bedroom details (what amenities and furniture the bedroom has: type of bed, if the bedroom has or not wardrobe, desk, chair, sofa, sofa bed, window, towels, bed linen, balcony, TV, and lock), bathroom details (if the bathroom has or not a window, toilet, sink, bathtub, shower). The landlord also give information about the entire apartment (accessibility, wi-fi, TV cable, central heating, air conditioning, outdoors area, towels and bed linen, elevator), living room (sofa, sofa bed, coffee table), kitchen (chairs, table, window, fridge, freezer, stove, oven, microwave, washing machine, dishes and cutlery, pots and pans), dining room. The landlord is also providing rental conditions regarding the contract, bils, cancelation policy, security deposit, cleaning and minimum stay.

The homeowner and the students receive reviews and the platform provides basic information about them.

Uniplaces is an innovative approach on how you can rent an accommodation with more than 250,000 students. The platform is available in 9 languages: German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Chinees.

Osper Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Osper is a company from London UK which provide prepaid debit card for children and young people.

The debit card is a MasterCard, which can be used easily in almost every store. The children and young people can also withdraw money from any ATM if necessary.

Osper is designed to respond to the parents and the children/ young people needs in the same time.

The mobile app that helps parents to give money to their children, to oversee the children spending and to decide what they are allowed or not to buy online. The parents can send money in just a few 25 | P a g e

seconds to their children. They can also block the card in case of loss or theft, but they can also unlock it if is necessary. The parents load the prepaid debit card through their bank account. The parents can teach their children/ young people how they can spend their money and how they can make saving from their allowances.

Osper help and teach the children and young people to manage their personal finances, their pocket money. The parents are encouraged to send the children pocket money as a regular income, a monthly allowance.

Through this app the children/ young people can manage their own money as they wish, but still to spend it as the parents want. The app will inform the children/ young people how much money they receive monthly and when is the loading day. Through the app the children can also save money for a specific purpose of for rainy days. The app is automatically creating reports on the children spending that can be seen by them or by their parents. Through these reports and stats, the children can monitor their spending and they can identify how they can make more savings eliminating the unnecessary expenditure.

The mobile app can be downloaded from App Store and Google Play. To use the Osper app the user needs to pay a monthly subscription for each card. The most common transactions are for free (loading spending money in online shops, withdrawing, lock and unlock cards), the customer will pay different fees for instant loads, for other loads from friends and family, for using the card abroad or for not paying the subscription.

Future Play Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Future play is a mobile gaming company from Helsinki Finland, build on their view-to-play mobile entertainment model, it means that for monetization use rewarded video ads. The user is watching

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different video ads in order to obtain bonuses and speedups. The company is using primarily GameRefinery for feature prioritisation of game updates.

Until now the company have developed 4 games, the Idle Empires, appeared on the market one by one.

The Idle Tuber Empire allow the players to become celebrities and develop their own lifestyle.

During all the game the player needs to do different activities in order to increase their income and likes in order to customise the wardrobe and become more popular on Fametube. The game is inspired by the reality and the latest trends in social media and internet.

The Idle Crafting Empire is a mining and crafting game. As a player you will need to mine blocks and craft potions, furnaces, books or even furnaces in order to use it in the game.

The Idle City Empire is a game where a player will build its own city from scratch, creating the buildings and update it, developing and investing in different type of businesses in order to make money to develop the city even more.

The Idle Farming Empire is a game where the player will develop its own fam by creating crops and raise animals. The aim is to create a profitable farming business.

All the games have incredible graphics and designed to involve the player in all level by making their own decision and strategy.

The games are available for free on App Store or Google Play. However, the user can also buy different features that can be used during the game to speed the process or to improve their user experience.

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Impraise Gabriela Rimbu, Sprijin si Dezvoltare Association

Impraise is a company based in Amsterdam, Nederland who offers performance management solutions. The company offers a software that use the culture of feedback and involving actively the managers and employees by helping the customers set clear goals and directions, reach the employees full potential at work and create a strong connection between the organisational culture and the employees.

The platform will facilitate the performances improvements. A manager can establish specific goals and directions for the employees to follow. The manager can follow in which way the employees is reaching their goals, can ask for feedback from them, can track the measurable goals and can evaluate the entire process. An employee is evaluated by the manager, but he is also doing its self-evaluation. The manager always gives feedbacks on how they should improve their performances or on what they have did great.

The platform supports also receiving feedback from all the team members, reviewing the performance form other team members.

Impraise also help managers to improve their performance by getting feedbacks from all the employees regarding management and leadership or any other relevant aspect.

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What is entrepreneurship in real life Igor Izotov – CEFE Macedonia

All great countries, including the United States, were started on the backbone of entrepreneurs who had the vision and the drive to shape the countries’ futures as they saw fit. Any big corporations from Coca Cola all the way to Boeing, Apple or Microsoft were started as a startup.

In a sense startups and entrepreneurs are the ultimate job creators who start with ingenious ideas, take risks and create value for a consumer worldwide. but what is entrepreneurship in real life?

Most simply defined, an entrepreneur is a person who identifies a problem in the system, takes the risk and starts a business to solve that problem.

Entrepreneurship and the startup era can bring new technology into life in many economic fields in our country such as education, productivity, health, finance so on and so forth. Startups via making products that make those economic fields become more users friendly and easily approachable by wider range of customers can open new jobs. Entrepreneurs can create companies where young minds can develop and get a job, ultimately making young people stay in Macedonia. This is an era in which even global giants can adopt and adapt many of the tools developed in the entrepreneurial world to strengthen their own ability to grow as companies.

Nevertheless, this basic interpretation shades little light into the specific characteristics and attributes that make a person entrepreneur in real life.

But before we dig deep down trying to answer this question, and before deciding to quit your day job it is necessary to consider what it takes to be an entrepreneur. In the in the following pages we will interview some entrepreneurs and try to understand from their perspective what entrepreneurship is all about and what they think makes a truly successful entrepreneur.

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Startup Macedonia Igor Izotov – CEFE Macedonia

We start the interviews with the interview of Startup Macedonia. Startup Macedonia is a collective of startup founders, experts, and organisations, with a mission to inspire the collaboration and networking between startups and all the local stakeholders in order to build a better startup community in Macedonia. The umbrella organisation was founded in August 2016, one of the cofounders being the writer of this newspaper, with a mission is to inspire innovation, development, and networking between startups and all the local stakeholders which part of the eco-system in order are to build a better startup community.

I set down with the president and representative of Startup Macedonia1 Dejan Aleksov to talk about the help that this association gives to the local Macedonian startup ecosystem, including social entrepreneurs.

1. Startup Macedonia is umbrella organisation that overlooks all startups in the Macedonian eco-system. Can you tell us more why the need for such organisation?

Dejan Aleksov: Startup Macedonia is an organisation that provides a supporting role to the whole startup ecosystem, with a goal to try and connect the relevant startups and organisations.

Our

organisation

was

formed

after

the

stakeholders discovered a gap in the ecosystem which diminished the networking effect. Thus, Startup Macedonia was born to close that gap and improve the networking, and provide support to the organisations In the brief existence Startup Macedonia was pretty active with creating the right entrepreneurial eco-system in Macedonia. What projects and activities are happening in this period?

1

http://startupmacedonia.mk

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At the moment we are working on a research of the startup ecosystem of Macedonia. The research will contain statistical data from over 70 stakeholders in the community (startups and organisations). The end result should be able to help the organisations improve their services and provide relevant support to increase the volume of startups created and help the already establish grow faster and be more competitive.

2. How many startups does Macedonia have?

Dejan Aleksov: As you know the startup market is quite volatile. Currently, there is no concrete data about the number of startups, which has become a priority for STartup Macedonia to work on a research and mapping and create a platform that will provide such a number. Roughly we know of between 100 and 200 teams and/or entities that are either working on projects, on startups or are participating in startup programs.

3. In your opinion how does the average startup look in Macedonia?

Dejan Aleksov: Currently, if we look at the overall picture the Macedonian startup ecosystem is between ideation and first prototypes, as most startups drop at the latter stage. There is of course number of startups that are showing growth, but they are no supported enough to expand on new markets.

The average startup therefore is a team that is trying to build the best product they can build, but they lack the idea how to validate that product, get first users, or scale it 4. Finally, is the future bright for Macedonian startups?

Dejan Aleksov: There is a will from all the stakeholders to improve the ecosystem, we all try to align and work better. We certainly hope that future will be bright for Macedonian startups, but we are also aware that nothing can happen overnight.

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Foundation Stambolievi Igor Izotov – CEFE Macedonia

In the previous couple of years, more and more organisations are helping and offering support to startups, innovators and bright students. One such organisation is the Foundation prof. d-r Dimitar Stamboliev. I had the pleasure to sit down and talk to Mr. Aleksandar Stamboliev, Director of the Foundation prof. d-r Dimitar Stamboliev, foundation that is providing scholarships to the brightest students from the Mechanical faculty and other faculties from Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia 1.

Mr Stamboliev, your father was one of the first professors at the Technical Faculty in 1959 out of which Faculty for Mechanical Engineering was established as an independent member of University Ss Cyril and Methodius in Skopje in 1977. He was professor emeritus and unique person that created a foundation that was mostly funded by the income generated by the income generated from publishing his academic books, to support talented students. Can you tell us something more about the founder and the foundation?

Aleksander: Prof. Stamboliev was having an unique opportunity to be involved in major industrialisation of Macedonian and Yugoslav mostly agriculture economy, in both capacities, as an constructor involved in the industry creation, and in parallel developing secondary and mostly higher education in Mechanical engineering (focusing on construction and mechanical elements) to provide necessary set of skills and knowledge to lead societal change just after the Second World War. In order to align domestic industry development with global trends, he was a scholar of mayor German and Swiss Universities and companies. This international recognition enables him to be elected as one of the three representatives from the Balkans (including one Slovenian and one Bulgarian University Professors) to take part in international working committee of ISO standards, with focus on establishment of necessary standards for Mechanical Engineering.

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Bearing in mind the necessity of recognizing talented students, prof. Stamboliev established Foundation prof. d-r Dimitar Stamboliev in early ’90, in a period of transition from former Yugoslavia and to market economy, in a period when the whole industry collapsed. Prof.

Stamboliev envisaged the momentum that brave people which would like to build upon their passion and hunger for excellency in knowledge, with an instrument which did not exist back then.

At beginning, foundation established the first pillar of its activities - providing awards to most advanced students in Mechanical engineering studies which managed to graduate with higher scores in shortest period of study. A decade after, the second pillar was established, to provide monthly scholarships to same category of students. The focus was extended on students studying Electrical Engineering, as the “brain� providing motion to any mechanical equipment, followed

by Medical and Natural science students.

2.

Last year the foundation expanded its goal and will focus on entrepreneurial teams that will solve problems and real case studies for innovative companies in Macedonia. How do you envision the whole process?

Aleksander: Taking in consideration the global trends in innovation taking place in big industries and the pioneering spirit by the young innovative entrepreneurs, foundation established the third pillar: providing support to interdisciplinary teams which are providing various solutions on real case studies provided by local and global companies. Seems Although we are living in dominantly individual center based societies, the power of unity from various science disciplines is the only way to tackle global, dynamic and digital challenges.

3.

Why it is important to invest in university students from the technical sciences.

Aleksander: The only added value which can be brought in any science, is predominantly in the hands of talented engineers.

4.

In collaboration with the French ambassador the foundation implemented the night of ideas for the third time at the Mechanical faculty. One of the guest speakers was

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Mr. Olivie Crouzet from the world renewed Ecole 42 from Paris. What were the conclusions about entrepreneurial education and education in general?

Aleksander: Educational systems are facing two major challenges. Let’s distinguish them by origin and their advantages vs constraints: a)

Academic – providing set of skills for the past, bearing in mind the period needed to create curricula,

receive

necessary

accreditation,

implement and evaluate the impact of the planned indicators

with

students’

achievements

in

comparation to labour market. Over 5 years and creating mostly academics missing the momentum with the industry. Thus, this system creates set of skills and knowledge for the past, historical momentum which can’t cope with future needs. b)

Applied – in most European countries, applied universities are established by the industry itself, therefore creating set of skills and knowledge to solve the current problems.

c)

How to create labour force which will be equipped to face unpredicted future, which by its global and digital predominant impact, is having hourly changes? Ecole42 created educational system based on real case studies problems (individually and in a group), leaving all directions to solve the problem. With this approach, individual creativity and collaborative team work is giving maximum added value to solutions provided by young innovators. Therefore, Ecole42 can be proudly called the education which provides set of skills to cope with unpredicted future challenges.

5.

In your opinion what resources do Macedonian innovators, entrepreneurs and startups have at their disposal at the early stage of development?

Aleksander: Macedonian fragile economy is a huge potential for Macedonian students. Identifying the potential for transforming in alignment with industrial revolution 4.0 is a first step. To make this happen, a pragmatic approach run by University resources (students as a driving force, supported by professors and existing laboratories), should put all their effort in transforming existing economy and align it with global trends. Once this miracle happens, as it happened in last 34 | P a g e

century after Second World War, most innovative Macedonian entrepreneurs will be ready to compete on global scene.

6.

In one sentence what do you recommend to new entrepreneurs do right after they start their business?

Aleksander: Don’t limit your innovation to existing solutions. Grab evert momentum and explore your surroundings. There is constant need to advance the systems and you should start from your primary surrounding. By solving simple but relevant problems from daily, technical and business aspects, you will start think big. Don’t accept no as an answer, neither accept insufficient systems.

Perceive them as an opportunity for productivity or product or service or process improvement.

And yes, you are the one who should lead this change.

Hrana za site Igor Izotov – CEFE Macedonia

1. In the short time that this social enterprise exists, Hrana za site made huge disruption on how we see and distribute food. Can you tell us something more about the idea, the motivation and the team to start such a social project?

Jane: One-third of all food produced for human consumption worldwide is lost or wasted. Around 88 million tonnes of food are wasted annually in the EU, with associated costs estimated at 143

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billion euros. Wasting food is not only an ethical and economic issue but it also depletes the environment of limited natural resources and contributes to climate change.

The idea of "Hrana za site - Food for all" was born a year ago in one of the restaurant chains in USA, when I first saw the amount of unused surplus food to be thrown away. I thought it was a problem only there, but I researched and realized that this is a global problem, and surplus food is everywhere. The reason that led me to start “Food for all" was the low economic standard and the high rate of food waste in the landfills in Macedonia. As an economist I wanted to find a concept that will reduce the problem and yet be sustainable. The team now is composed of three members each with different educational profiles that help us to see the different perspectives of the problem. I am working in the field of finance and finishing my master degree in project management, Maja Kostovska is working as a Environmental Lawyer and Biljana Makrevska is Environmental engineer.

2. Can you explain us “hrana za site” in a paragraph?

"Hrana za site - Food for all" is innovative platform that will allow you to get information and purchase perfectly good food, that catering facilities could not sell during the day for a lower price. (up to 80% cheaper). Our mission is to motivate the catering facilities and the people to return the lost value back onto food as something that should be eaten and not thrown away.

"Hrana za site - Food for all" fights food waste by giving stores a platform to sell their surplus food for lower prices. Additionally, there is a part of the platform through which the catering facilities with the help of NGO's will donate the food where it is most needed. In the previous year or so, hranazasite.mk was recognised as one of the best social ventures in Macedonia, the fact is you won many awards including the prestigious Rockefeller brother award (philanthropy for green ideas) tell us more about this experience?

The previous year has been great success and the team of “Hrana za site’’ is truly thankful to every encouragement and recognition that we got on the way. It helped me and my team to work harder

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and raise funds to get closer to our goal. Our first recognition came from a business plan competition organised by CIPE and YEF that helped us to believe in this idea. It followed by philanthropy for green ideas which is an annual competition that seeks to support the development of local and sustainable small business ideas in the Western Balkans. Firstly, in the local competition we were recognised as national winners which enabled us to compete on regional level where we won the prestige award of PGI2017 supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. I must say it was quite a journey fulfilled with people which inspired me. This people are not afraid to take an action and they have the energy and the passion to overcome the tough times. Visionaries and sincere friends that going to shape our society. Thank you ARNO and Philanthropy for Green Ideas for making this possible. The last but not the least was Social Impact Award where we won the community award and we had the chance to be among the European winners on the European impact summit.

3. How are the customers and restaurants reacting to hranazasite?

Jane: Till now most of the reactions are supportive and positive, additionally people like to feedback the idea, which is really important for the continued progress. Each stakeholder on this platform must have interest from it, otherwise it would not be sustainable on long run. Restaurants see this platform as a chance of reducing cost, reach new customers and increase their sustainability branding. The customers from the other side see this as a chance to try different type of restaurant food and yet reduce their food budget. Combined with the NGO’s and the system of donations they are all making positive change for more efficient and productive system.

4. Do you expect any change in the mindset of people towards food waste and what are your expectations for the future? Where to next?

Jane: Food waste has serious environmental, social and economic implications, yet often is overlooked. I think slowly but surely, lot of new initiatives around the world shape and will be to get quality feedback from as many partners as possible. Implementing the feedback and building big community around the platform will enable sustainability and meaningful results change the 37 | P a g e

mindset towards it. The topic about food waste definitely drew more attention in the last couple of years, which is positive for increasing the awareness and taking steps towards solutions. Our goal is to create an economically viable and environmentally conscious community that will be the driving force of a sustainable and more productive food system. After months of hard work, we are launching our web platform in March and the first goal towards our mission.

When in X Igor Izotov – CEFE Macedonia

When in X is an online marketplace where visitors can explore and book outdoor activities, cultural experiences and events hosted by locals. Unlike traditional travel agencies that directly sell to customers, WhenInX are connecting travellers with local “experts” who become the service providers. To easier understand their business model think of WhenInX as AirBnB for the adventures. All said, it was time to talk bit more with Antonio Kuzmanovski, the founder of WhenInX and talk about his vision of the future of travelling?

1. How did you come to the idea to start the Balkan adventure platform? What does the tagline “Do the Balkans like a local” stand for?

Antonio: The name When in X comes from the old proverb “When in Rome do as the Romans do!” so we have the motto as well from the same saying. Anyway, with the latest version we are acquiring some tours outside the Balkans and the we are changing the tagline to “Do as the locals do”.

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2. Someone might call you a travel agency but you far from and tour operator, tell us more where does your competitive advantage stands?

Antonio: When in X is online marketplace for tours, events and experiences provided by locals.

We are the platform that will connect curious traveler who want to meet and explore the local environment he visits. We also encourage the local community to involve with the travel industry and stand together with its own culture and habits.

3. In the moment wheninX team is on a retreat in Madeia, Portugal. Tell us something

more

about

the

whole

international experience that the team has? How important is to be truly international?

Antonio: During our participation at WebSummit in Lisbon 2017 we had Alpha boot and there we met a lot of people from different interests and portfolios. One of them was Carlos, the organizer of Madeira Startup Retreat who invited us to apply in their program. After their selection we were informed that team When in X is selected among other 9 startups out from 61 applicants. The program is very nice it is for tourism startups only and we have unique chance to meet and work with very interesting startups from all around the World, we have specialized mentoring sessions dedicated on travel industry and the Island itself is magical place to be. We started working on expanding the market directly here and so far we have 20 tours that are available to book in Madeira, provided by locals, of course.

4. From the moment you lunch the platform has enormous traction, give us some insides behind the numbers. How many visits, how many bookings, how many offers are on the platform?

Antonio: The launching happened in September, probably not very good timing for tourism application with most of the tours in Macedonia, but we managed to have good coverage (there was a post for us in LonelyPlanet) and traction, around 20.000 visitors have checked the site, over 1000 users and 100 active tours. Most important for us is that we have validated the product on the market, and we have the major functionalities up and running from what we were planning to implement in the first version.

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5. Where do you think your growth will be next year and what does the future hold for wheninx.com?

Antonio: We have plan for growth and expansion in the region, we are also looking to increase our team with people who share our vision and passion. Like every other startup we are in search for an investor or a partner that will speed up the process to becoming well known European app for authentic tours and experiences.

Gordian Sistem Igor Izotov – CEFE Macedonia

Gordian Sistem is a Macedonian company that works with embedded technologies and hopes to make disruption in how we take care of old people. For the research and development of their product “Carrie” Gordian Systems got investment from the Macedonian fund for Innovation and technological development. I sat down with Toni Bachvarovski, the CEO and Founder of Gordian to discuss why Gordian are a bright example how one startup from the Balkans can make products for the American market.

1. Hello Toni. I’m personally eager to know how a small embedded startup coming from Macedonia is planning to disrupt how we take care of our elders? Can you tell us more about the company and the solution you are working on?

Toni: Hi Igor, thank you for the invitation for the interview. Gordian Sistem exists for about 5 years, initially we only worked on outsource technical support and consultancies for companies from Silicon Valley with a goal to create profits and experience for making its own product. And luckily the plans worked, we put on the whiteboard all ideas we had and select the most promising one, “Carrie”. Carrie is a product that will change the way we think about long term care (LTC).

Our product helps the caregiver to monitor their beneficiaries without using much manpower.

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Carrie

follows

heartrate,

quality

the of

movement, sleep

etc

position, of

the

beneficiaries, and in one segment creates alarm when person falls, or heartrate is out of charts, and in another segment that is unique the smart server learns the patterns in peoples life and alerts when something is out of usual, like the length of sleep, time outdoors, number of rests, socialization etc. All this alert can tell to caregiver that something is off and to take some persuasions about this person, as this changes are result of physical or mental change. Carrie in the first stage is aiming the organizations provide long term care, as the facilities and Care at Home organizations, and in future we will have individual home version for family or unofficial caregivers.

2. At this moment you are in the testing stage, you have implemented the solution in 2 homes for elderly? How are people reacting to it?

Toni: Yes, we are testing in 2 locations in Macedonia, and 3rd one is individual user (my mom) and we have range of reactions. The beneficiaries, initially thought of it as a surveillance system, so the next day we find them whispering and quiet. Then we realize that we didn’t explain well that is not recording sound or video, we learn and improve the presentation greatly after this. The caregivers are happy, managers especially, this take away unnecessary check-ups and give them time to do other things and focus on real issues in the facility. Working in real environment gave us huge amount of new knowledge, after the first few weeks when the caregivers were happy with every single thing, then they learn about the potential and started giving us the real feedback, the needs and our work quadrupled, but we are happy with it, as only like that we will have great product.

3. Beside bootstrapping your business, you won the grant from the State fund for innovation from Macedonia. How has the opening of the state fund for innovation and technological development helped entrepreneurs like yourself strengthen their businesses?

Toni: Opening of the fund in Macedonia and winning the grant speedup the process and gave us the confidence. First the application process is complex, but needed, it is not just for the application 41 | P a g e

and the fond, the company have to created much needed business plan, and answer some question that we never think about. Then the development with extra money goes faster, throughout and after the project we received consultancy time payed by the fond, by some very experienced consultants, what prepare are for the next phase. The real entrepreneurs can definitely benefit from the FITR, and the others we have to realize that the fond is to help your business grow, not create your business, it is not a 1 or 2 year project that will end, it is part of the process that is difficult but fun and rewording.

4. Toni, you have spent part of your life in California, in your opinion what are the competitive advantages that countries from East Europe have compared to the Sillicon Valley/USA? Toni: Not many, just kidding. Eastern Europe should become the next California. If we look at the history of California is not that rich and fancy as California now. Early Californians were brave people that went to the end of USA to build their home, lack of people, lack of resources like food and water make them hard working and innovative, and from the desert they made the biggest producer of the food in the world. That striving for better, bigger faster without great resources made California great. This is the spirit that created the modern California. In eastern Europe, we have education, some infrastructure, and lack lot of things, but the necessity is the mother of all innovation. If we compare today, cost for development and support of new products are 4-8 times lower in Eastern Europe, so we have a head start in that. Unemployment helps companies to recruit local manpower fast and easy. The new free trade world is opening us the big markets, so we are not competing for our small market size, but shoulder to shoulder with US companies we can take part of their market. Just we need to learn to be competitive, what comes naturally to people in Silicon Valley, there is not time for stall, constant progress and innovation are the only way to compete.

5. What are the future plans of Gordian Systems?

Toni: Our next step is to find the second round of funding. We are applying for Horizon 2020 SME grant in March and searching for partners Europe and USA. The development is ongoing with our money, but a larger investment can bring us to the market faster. The Next Generation, our interns and young employees are trying to bring the smart technology in fight against pollution, even in farming. So, don’t be surprised when you see “Carrie for vegetables” or “Carrie for pollution” kind of projects. Our general plan is to never be bored, but excited about what we do now and tomorrow.

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E^2 Igor Izotov – CEFE Macedonia

1. You started your business quite young, straight out of University, how did the process go from idea stage in your University years to making a prototype.

Aleksandar: I have always been interested in science, technology and entrepreneurship. I remember when I was 1st grade, we used to receive magazines intended for 1st to 4th graders. On the first page of the magazine there was a science section and while all the other kids were interested to read horoscope and see which posters of celebrities they got; I was inpatient to read what was new in science that week. Enrolling in University I had one taught in mind, and that was to grasp as much technical knowledge as I can, because I taught that business knowledge can be taught easily. During the studies I had a chance to enrol in StartUp Academy which was 6months startup school where I had chance to develop any idea I had. I ended up changing my idea couple of times and at the end I pitched my idea in front of investors which were very interested and the story of E^2 was born. Later I won 3 competitions and secured small funding to make a prototype, found customers and investors and founded a company.

2. Is it easy to be called the Europe’s Elon Musk and sill be 25?

Aleksandar: Hahaha, it’s great! Also, it comes with great responsibility to deliver on 3. Is the future in green energy and will every home have a solar power plant?

Aleksandar: The idea is great except with current technology there is not enough silver on the planet to make it happen. I don’t think that we can power the world only with solar energy, but for sure solar energy can be one of the major sources. Following migration patterns in the past 200 years we can see that people want to go from rural areas to big urban cities. Currently we are witnesses of forming two megacities in China (Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei) and US (San Francisco and Los Angeles). In such densely populated areas with current technology, we can’t place enough solar modules or other technologies to power them, they will always be dependent on the grid and big power plants.

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4. What are the challenges that young innovators face in Macedonia and the region?

Aleksandar: The brain drain is very concerning, it’s very hard to find smart people who can see their future here and are motivated to stay. The Macedonian market is limited to 2 million people, and it’s very hard to secure funding to develop companies internationally. There are many other challenges in social, business and policy sectors but I still think it is worth to take a shot and try here.

5. What are the next plans?

Aleksandar: Currently we are preparing to build the first power plant based on CSP technology here in Macedonia so we are thinking about that all the time and we are not in position where we can make plans 2-3 years from now, but our vision and mission are strong and we stick them very hard.

6. What resources are available to young entrepreneurs like yourself to develop their ideas?

Aleksandar: I think that Skopje offers a lot for young entrepreneurs in the idea stage. There are lots of coworking spaces, pre-acceleration programs, startup academies, CEED club of business angels, SEAVUS Incubator, SWTA, Fund for Innovations and Technology Development, all kinds of startup schools, workshops and great community that can support your idea and take you to the next level which is very important for solo entrepreneur at his humble beginnings.

Letz.do Igor Izotov – CEFE Macedonia

There are not many success stories in the Macedonian startup ecosystem but one which we as Macedonians are thinking foundry about is Letz.do. It was not only the first Artificial Intelligence backed chatbot in Macedonia but also the first technology startup that was backed by Venture capital fund in Macedonia. letz.co is a startup in the true meaning of the word. They were the first Macedonian startup to get investment from Venture Capital firm in the amount of 100.000 , they lunch a product, they won 44 | P a g e

one of the most prestigious awards, Product Hunt’s bot of the year award, they were invited to participate at almost all important conferences in the world and then, they ran out of cash…

Excited to know what is Letz.do, right? - I sat down with Nino Karas the CEO and co-founder to talk about the startup, the future plans and the lessons learned.

1. First and foremost, what is letz.do?

Nino: Letz is a multi-platform productivity app that strived to make life easier to young professionals who couldn’t afford their personal assistant but want to be more productive. Lucy is one of the Letz characters who uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and keeps track of your daily activity. She keeps you productive and knows what exactly to send you and when.

2.Nino, Letz.do was the first startup from Macedonia to get Venture capital backing, how did it feel to have someone recognising the potential of the team and the idea?

Nino: Getting the financial support from a VC is one of the most important things that you can get for your startup. It feels like you don’t need to worry about money, which for a technological startup as ours, is from utmost importance in the beginning. We got the finances at the idea stage and it was the first time a VC gave 100.000e for startup in such an early stage in Macedonia. on the other hand, being the first startup to get VC funding in Macedonia felt like being national heroes at least for the people in the Macedonian startup eco-system. The investment itself meant we could focus more on product development and building the team.

3. In a sense, letz.do was a startup in the true meaning of the word. It got investment from VC, lunched a product, won many international awards, visited important conferences around the world but something went wrong. From this perspective what would you do different?

Nino: Well, if we are to do letz from the beginning for sure we will focus on second fundraising from an early stage. For a technological startup that spends a lot of time in development before it starts getting revenues a gap in financing can kill the company. Something that happened to us.

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In a sense the most important thing that a startup needs to do is to stay creative, to keep up with the vision and learn what the users and the customer want in order to bring the solution closer to them. But in order to do that you need financial support from the early beginnings till the very end. What I want to say is that when your startup runs into financial problems you get in the stage when you are not creative and start thinking about finances and funding more than you think about the product. And that atmosphere can crash the positive vibe that the startup had at the very beginning. My last advice is to all entrepreneurs and freelancers is to plan the financial part of at least a year upfront.

4. Serial entrepreneurs like you never give up! - what are you working on now and when can we expect the letz.do team in the spotlight again?

Nino: We are in a stage when we are recounting our losses, so we can be in the creative recognition phase once again. We want to plan out as much as much as we can, get to the new idea an lunch something were soon. i cannot tell you what we are working on right now, but for sure there will be something new by the end of 2018.

5.What Does Success Look Like for Nino?

Nino: Success looks like a smile on a user’s face. The moment when you realise that your product helped someone in the world do something better and safe somebody time.

Nothing makes my day as a positive review for a product that I have created.

6. What resources are there for young entrepreneurs in Macedonia?

There are various programs offered by the government, various NGO’s; as well as international mentorships programs. One such program that has helped me and my team is the Entrepreneurs in residence program offered by the SwissEP program. This program helped us get international mentors and consultants to work with us to overcome problems the we were facing.

7. Is there are a startup that you look up to?

We always get motivation from the guys who created basecamp tool - 37 signals. The way how they approach solving things by making them as simple as possible is mesmerising to us.

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8. Finally, is the future bright for Macedonian startups?

We are in the startup scene for long time but in the last 2 years the things are moving in the right direction. There are financial bodies that support startups, pre-acceleration programs, Incubator, accelerators. However, there is solid business accelerator missing which will invest in early stage startups as well as couple of more VC funds that will support local startups. Nevertheless, I think that that soon we will big names coming from the region very soon.

What kinds of businesses can be started with very little capital and what types of low-budget resources are available to those who are interested in pursuing a new line of work Igor Izotov – CEFE Macedonia

In the previous newspaper we have listed all organisations and companies who can help entrepreneurs and now we asked entrepreneurs what business they think can be started in Macedonia with little capital and what types of low-budget resources are available to the who are 47 | P a g e

interested in this line of work. The answers were not connected with what kind of businesses as most of them agreed that everything can be opened in Macedonia but with the ecosystem connected. In summary most of them think that there is potential for Macedonian startups to disturb the generally traditional market and align it with the global trend aka globalisation 4.0. Although they say the startup ecosystem is not as developed as other countries especially Bulgaria and Slovenia as closes neighbours and countries, Skopje the capital offers a lot of co-working spaces, hubs and meetups where likeminded people can gather and share ideas. But more importantly most of these organisations offer programs for early stage startups and idea stage teams’ mentorships, programs and support to take the idea to the next level which is much needed for the entrepreneurship journey. Nevertheless, the lack of real venture capital firms in Macedonia and the Balkans is something that needs to improve in the years to come if we want to see more people opening their own companies. Bootstrapping or financing the startup company with profits is the only way for a company to grow in countries such as Macedonia.

“What is entrepreneurship in real life?”

Inercia Digital

Lots of people have an idea of this particular question. Whether they think is a hole full of fear and doubt, they think it is the best way of living with tons of billions in your pocket, or they think that it is a bold move that carries along a lot of work and sacrifice.

We all might have a point of view about that but, who’s best to talk about it that entrepreneurs.

In this section we are going to provide the points of view of some entrepreneurs when they were asked this question. So, you can some knowledge coming from real life experiences.

Well, I let me tell you what is for me the life of the entrepreneur. The reasons why I decided to start and become an entrepreneur because I ended up working as something, in my case, language teacher, that I never expected to work of. In fact, I started studying something that had nothing to do it, but I realized I didn't like it, so afterwards, I did a degree in Translation and Interpretation because I always knew languages was my thing, though I never considered the possibility of 48 | P a g e

working out of it. I started working in a company, a language academy and, basically, in the 3 years that I was working in this company I could see how bad are people at managing things, important things such as how they treat their workers, how poorly they tend to take into account their opinion and how little they take them into account for decision making, in short, how little they value them, and of course, what entails payments you could see payments in b, contract hours that do not match with the actual hours someone is working in real life, some chaos.

Manuel Mesa So, when I had the appropriate circumstances aligned, in my case finding a partner I consider that could, more or less, share my work philosophy and my way of seeing things because to undertake alone, it's very difficult and even more if, like myself, because we didn't want to depend on bank loans or anything. What we did was to get advice from different public institutions, private institutions, Chamber of Commerce, CECO, the Confederation of Entrepreneurs of Cordoba, Andalucia Orienta, in CADE, many places where they helped us. We did a feasibility study of the company in this case, an academy of languages, a sector that is very saturated especially at that time when we opened the Academy in 2016 it was particularly saturated. There were constantly new academies being opened but, not all of them were not doing all the step previous that we did because today there are already some of these academies that have closed as I said we did a 49 | P a g e

feasibility study a market study on the options that our business idea had to succeed. So we took our savings and started from scratch. I always believe that you have to go hard or go home, at least in the business world and, if you do things well, then you have, let's say, half of it done.

In the day to day, the life of the entrepreneur, to start with, I think, and I feel that, what it means to be an entrepreneur in short is very underrated and despised, because all people or most people associate the idea of entrepreneur to the exploiter and the person who gets rich at the expense of others. So, I feel in a sector with little support by the rest of the sectors, it is true that everyone defends retired officials, students, the health sector, everything, as it should be done, but I really feel that nobody supports the small entrepreneur that, in the end is the one that brings forward the country and the one that generates wealth.

Apart from all this, in the day to day, you can see when you work as owner of your own company how difficult everything is, especially if, as in my case, you do everything legal way, paying a decent salary, treating people in a correct way, with people working the hours they have to work, when people have the vacations they have to have.

There is where you realize that it is really difficult because, it is very difficult to make a business go well, not to become a millionaire but, so you don't lose money and have money to pay to pay the payroll and have your own payroll too. And you feel that, when the company can go well, it is not going as well as it could go because you have a lot of obstacles, you have to pay many things in day to day basis, self-employed and the world of the company is always going to squeeze a little more, we feel that many sectors of the population get certain facilities and such, but we feel that always or almost always is at the expense of the small entrepreneur who of course is in a position of clear disadvantage in contrast to the big entrepreneur who is the one who really should contribute.

The bright side of being an entrepreneur, of course, everything else, the possibility of working freely, the possibility of being able to take your work ethic to reality, the possibility of seeing how your ideas and your philosophy of work it's relatively successful, to see that your workers are happy, to see that your customers are happy, to see that your customers recommend you.

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The day to day of a businessman is a stressful life because, in the end, it is a thing that you can never disconnect from, because you always have it in mind, you always have the fear of what tomorrow might bring, but, without forgetting, as I told you before, the whole positive part, that it can be happy doing something you like and especially at the time when the business is going well, which in our case more or less the business I know is going that way and that's great.

Key qualities and leadership styles associated with successful entrepreneurs Inercia Digital

When we want to entrepreneur, we mostly focus on all the things we need in terms of business skills. We need a good idea, we need to get financed, we need to think about the changes our business will bring to the world among other things. Sadly, we usually left out one of the most important aspects if we want our star up to be successful and it is the leadership styles. Knowing what your strengths points are will help you lead your business to a total success, hire the best crew and maintain a good job environment.

Here we are going to provide a list of the leadership styles you might have or need to develop to take your business to the next level. Nonetheless, never forget to keep your personal opinion about it.

1.

Natural leadership: this is the style of people who are born as leaders. Even without

intention they become the leaders of the group they are working with. This is a highly appreciated style of leadership because is a type of leadership that for the rest of the members of the groups feels like they have chosen to follow the leader instructions willingly and having them choose to follow them.

2.

Autocratic leadership: this style of leadership belongs to people who have absolute power

in their work environment. It is not a democratic type of leadership. Here, they boss give an order 51 | P a g e

and the workers have to obey. They do not provide a working in group environment, on the other hand, they only give orders to be followed making their workers feel they have no freedom or that they do not have the opportunity to present suggestions or strategies on different approaches to realise a task.

3.

Charismatic leadership: this style of leadership is the type of bosses who create a positive

environment among their workers. They have strong communication skills and, thanks to it they can create illusion and enthusiasm in the company, so the work goes according to plan.

4.

Democratic leadership: this type of leadership comes in contrast to autocratic leadership.

In this style the boss is still the person who takes the final decision but, he or she provides and environment where the rest of the workers can communicate their ideas and they feel heard and valued.

Natural leadership

This type of leadership improves motivation and working

Autocratic leadership

results.

5.

“Laissez-faire” leadership: this type of leadership

Charismatic leadership

is common in bosses who give a lot of freedom to the

Democratic leadership

members of their team. Their workers have a lot of

“Laissez-faire” leadership

autonomy. The boss does not provide many instructions or directions to be followed on how to do the different tasks. In this type of leadership, the boss relay in the motivation and experience of the worker.

6.

Transformational

leadership:

this

type

Transformational leadership

of

leadership is common in bosses who have charisma and who provide a democratic working environment. The aim of this type of leadership is take the best out of every worker for every project. They know how to make people give their best and so the productivity levels and motivation are always high, and the workers feels validated and important in their job. Both the company and the worker benefit from this type of leadership.

Now we are going to present and analyse some successful entrepreneurs and their leadership methodology.

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Amancio Ortega – Inditex and Zara He is one of the most important entrepreneurs in Spain. He has one of the most profitable companies in Spain. His style of leadership is focussed on team work and delegate important functions and

tasks

to

perfectly experienced

professionals. Decision taking is made in teams paying especial attention to what the client might want or need. He encourages a free communication style where he listens and pays active attention to the different strategies and plans of action.

Juan Roig and Hortensia Herrero – Mercadona They have one of the most famous companies

in

Spain

and

now

spreading abroad. Roig is always creating an environment of proinnovation

in

their

company

collecting information of potential people’s need. He seeks suppliers who can provide quality means as fast as possible. He also seeks counselling

before

providing

products in its company, so first he collects different opinions about the news product that are going to be provided and once it has been proven good then they sell it.

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Pedro Espinosa – Llaollao

This is a new company in Spain with a lot of success. Espinosa rules are to always provide a healthy and delicious product with a price that can be afforded for everyone. This enterprise

is

spreading

internationally. According to him the key of success is to have a great strategy and a little bit of luck.

Start-up and techniques on how you get your first clients Inercia Digital

Now let’s get to some of the most important aspects of being an entrepreneur and to have an own business: clients!

In this section of our newsletter we are going to provide some tips to get your first clients, something at the beginning might seems tricky but, we hope with these tips you get to be an expert in promoting your business among people.

1.

Be clear with what you offer.

This one might seem really easy but, is it really? Lot of entrepreneurs get tong tied when they are asked what it is what they do. If you are looking for clients, you need to be completely aware of what is your idea and how to explain it correctly. You can start by asking you these questions: -

Who are you trying to help?

-

What are you trying to achieve?

-

What are you trying to avoid?

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-

What distinguish your enterprise from others?

2.

Tell everyone you know that you have a business.

Yes, still easy, sort of. Contacting people, we know might be even harder than contacting people we know nothing about.

You might not feel secure, or maybe you don’t want to bother your friends and acquaintances but, you can get anything with those insecurities. It is just letting them know, not harass them, so let all of them know what is you do, how can you help them and to spread the word. Even in big enterprises mouth to mouth is key to keep growing. So, it doesn’t matter if you are feeling shy, insecure or tongue tied, do it anyway to see your business flow.

3.

Go cold call.

It is old, difficult and time consuming, and yet, a great way to get people to know your business.

Experts do not recommend this procedure unless you go to some business area. You might or might not get clients but, for sure you go out of there with potential knowledge to attract clients.

4.

Mails

Yes, a great way to get to people is through mail. Of course, you need to be focus on how your business sector is working and how the demands on that sector are working. Look for specialised press, go to business fairs and congresses.

5.

Creating expectations

Send flyers, mails, blog post about an incoming thing that it is going to happen in your business on a specific date. On that date you give one more piece of information. Whit this you are creating expectation and attracting people’s attention.

6.

Make a personalized offer

This might take some time, but it is completely worth it. At any age we take into better consideration something that is directed to us personally. If you add the name of a potential costumer to the offer you are trying to make it is most likely that your costumer is going to pay more attention and, therefore, that person is more likely to invest in your business.

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7.

Create a web page.

Nowadays almost everything is controlled by internet. There is where we can access to all types of information, buy things we need or just relax.

Creating a web page open your business to the world. Everyone can check your products, get a better view of your business and your beliefs and methods. A web page is an easy access for everyone and so an easy way to get clients.

8.

Use social networks

Advertising has change. Nowadays to can access more people at the same time. Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are a great source to advertise your business and get people to know it. You have to keep them updated and have contact with your clients, so you can take as much as possible from these great sources.

9.

Business meetings

Take profit of networking events, fairs and business events to promote your business. Networking is a great allied to find new clients and associates. Inform everyone about your business, give them your card and leave a mark so everyone remembers you.

10.

Create a blog and have it updated

Keeping a blog with different news about your business and post that might interest people is also a great way to catch costumers. Even though it can be seen as time consuming because you have to keep it updated it is very rewarding and it can get to a great number of possible costumers.

11.

Offer things for free

Everyone likes free stuff. Offering your services for free it is a great to get clients and let them have the chance to experience your products and know your business. You also get people commenting about your business and spreading the word about it which is a direct way into having more costumers.

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12.

Have discounts

Every business offer discount in their products. Making discounts attracts clients and it is a great opportunity to make advertisement of your business. Great publicity along with discounts is a perfect way to kick off your business and get to a lot of clients.

13.

Open doors

Let your clients see your business inside. How you do things, how is all the process. This will make your client rely more on you and therefore the number of clients will easily increase.

Low Budget, huge success Inercia Digital

If you are willing to become an entrepreneur but barely have any money this are some ideas that may come in handy

for

you,

future

businessman

(or

businesswoman): 1. Sale of specialized art and crafts An artist can take a raw material and turn it into art, whether it focuses on a classic aspect of art, such as making paintings of outdoor settings, a modern art, creating, for example, art from garbage, abstract art. It is important that just as you use your artistic side, consider the analytical side: how am I going to sell my art? It is advisable to think about the final customer, to find distribution channels for your product.

2. Homemade food A new business is the sale of homemade food, for example, selling unique, exclusive food, or a different concept. It is true that starting a restaurant can be expensive, so to lower the investment, it is advisable to create a food-truck, which can reduce your fixed costs.

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3. Sell your experience and knowledge An easy business idea is to apply your experience and knowledge in a specific field and offer your services to people or companies. For example, let's say that you are qualified to offer specialized courses of the SAP program, necessary for medium and large companies to control their operations. In this case, it could offer SAP courses, by various means, for example by Internet, face-to-face courses, advisory services and consultation.

4. Business of your hobbies Another practical business idea is to use the knowledge you have of a hobby that you are passionate about, and to sell products or offer a service. However, you should pay attention if the hobby has enough audience or interest. A very common problem in the hobby business, for example the sale of cars with remote control of gasoline, is that there are very few people involved in the hobby, therefore it is a business with little sales capacity.

5. Sports business If you have a special sports skill, then you can create training services. For example, a profitable business idea is Zumba gyms, in which people exercise by dancing. This is a low-cost business idea, because you can offer your service in a public park, at home, in a rented space, without the need to resort to expensive devices.

6. Cart or kiosk The profitable business unit is to put a cart or a kiosk for the sale of demand products. The most practical advice to start a business of this kind, is first find the unmet needs of the market. For example, let's say that we rent a kiosk in a shopping center at an attractive price. Before starting the first business idea that comes to mind, we must study the behaviour of people who visit the mall, and analyse what they are looking for, what they buy or what is missing in the square.

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7. Sell on the Internet Businesses on the Internet have become an economic model of starting a new business. For example, you can sell products in eBay, sell through Facebook, create your e-commerce site, use Google Maps to position your business on the Internet, etc.

8. Translation service In a more interconnected world in relation to business, nowadays any company can expand into international markets or take advantage of international business opportunities. For people trained in a language such as English, French and Mandarin, there are many possibilities to offer translation services for specific drafts, such as the medical industry and legal aspects (for example, documents translated for the embassy).

9. Virtual assistant This business idea with small investment refers to offering secretarial services remotely. Much of the work that companies do is intangible, for example Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, or financial analysis in Excel. A virtual assistant can help with these tasks, without having to be present in an office.

10. Child care Babysitting is always necessary for busy parents. This results in a low investment business opportunity, for those people who can offer trust for parents, and an attractive price either per hour or per day.

11. Elderly Care The worldwide generation of Baby Boomers (those born after World War II) requires specialized services for the elderly. An innovative business idea will be to develop services not only for care, but also for entertainment, education and health focused exclusively on the elderly.

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12. Personal buyer Generally, wealthy people do not have enough time to do their shopping. This idea refers to offering an assistance service for purchases, where you charge a commission or a monthly fee for making the purchases that the person requires. This is a business idea of zero investment, which requires contact with high-income people more than anything.

13. Walking Dogs Do you love pets and exercise? Walking dogs is a very simple business idea that you can start after school or work with the dogs of your family and friends.

14. Write There is a lot of information that needs to be transcribed, from audio and video interviews to speeches. If you are a good typist with some extra hours and a computer, you can undertake a service of this type.

15. Social media manager Many small companies and other entrepreneurs cannot afford a full-time Community Manager to carry their social networks. Starting a company where you can support these businesses for a while can be a very good business.

16. Private classes of school support Another business idea that does not require much capital, we think that the ideal would be to have a space at home to offer private classes of school support and it is true, but you can still offer classes at home, the minimum capital required would only be to pay the transportation.

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Measures taken in order to help entrepreneurship in Spain.

So, you have tips and techniques on how to become a successful entrepreneur. Still, in Spain people is reluctant to entrepreneur and start a business. In order to help this situation, there are some programs in Spain created to help entrepreneurs face the difficulties they might be facing, more at the beginning of the adventure when everything is a little bit more difficult.

In this section we are

presenting some of those plans and measurements.

-

Tarifa plan de 60 euros para autรณnomos (60 euros rate plan for self-employed)

This measure started off in 2013, being 50 euros until 1st of January 2019 when it was upgraded to 60 euros. It was created in order to foment entrepreneurship and self-employment. At its beginning it focused on self-employers under the age of 30 but, due to its success the Government decided to eliminate that restriction and provide this help to every new entrepreneur.

This plan consists on providing a monthly flat rate of 60 euros to Social Security as a fee.

Even though it started as 6 months measurement, in January 2018 the Government made a new law so self-employed could benefit themselves from this plan 12 months. Though entrepreneurs can benefit up to 24 months from fee reductions in places with under 5.000 inhabitants.

In order to benefit from it you only need to be a new self-employed and ask for it at Social Security.

Even though this program can last up to 24 months the amount you have to pay changes. o 60 euros during the first 12th months o 141,65 euros from the 12th month to the 18th month o 198,31 euros from the 18th month to the 24th month

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For self-employed who are under the age of 30 for male and 35 for female, they have an extra 12 months there they have to pay a fee of 198,31 euros.

With these measurements the Government ensure help to every self-employed regardless their age.

- La Segunda Oportunidad del emprendedor (Entrepreneurs Second Chance) This measure is provided when an entrepreneur fails. If that happens that person not only have to put an end to his or her project but, it is very likely to have to face debts with different entities, something that makes difficult to start a new business.

In the face of that, the Government implemented a law that helps entrepreneurs to start a new business without having to face those debts when the first business fails.

To ask for this program, the entrepreneur needs to meet some criteria: o Prove that the causes of the failure can be justified economically and there have been no frauds committed. o This plan aims to help especially those self-employed that feel overwelled with debts once their business has ended so they have up to two years of standby on those debts and they are supported to start a new business. o Only a maximum of 707,6 euros can be seized from them - Incentivos fiscales para empresas de nueva creaciรณn (Fiscals incentives for newly created business) These measures were taken for new entrepreneurs, so they could reduce the amount of money to invest in the first months of work of their business. o Fiscal incentives over the company fee All companies with economical activities can pay taxes with a 15% or 20% for the company fee during the first two years of being created.

If the company has an income between 0 and 300.000 Euro, they will have to pay 15% taxes.

If the company has an income greater than 300.000 Euro, they will have to pay 20% taxes.

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o Fiscal incentives on the fee over natural person rent.

This present a reduction of the 20% of the net means obtained. Nonetheless, this reduction has some limits. It can only be implemented with a maximum of 100.00 euros per year and it cannot be applied to companies whose benefits comes from a single person or entity if the worker has previously obtained benefits from them o Other types of incentives to newly created companies Among the incentives previously said, new companies with a net under 10 million euros can take profit from tax incentives to companies with small dimensions. â–Ş

Freedom of amortization Freedom to pay off the investment on new elements for the company with a maximum of 120.000 euros per increase of the staff.

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Fast amortization for investors.

They could take profit form a fast amortization when the invest in real-state.

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Loss due to credit deterioration.

This could be deduced as an expense of the company up to a 1% over the debtor once the impeditive period is over.

- Emprendedor de Responsabilidad Limitada (Entrepreneur with limited responsibility) With this measure the entrepreneur is excluded of responsibility of debts as a result of debts out of the economic activity. In order to benefit from this measure, the entrepreneur must have some requirements: 1. The entrepreneur has to declare his or her will to acquire the condition of entrepreneur with limited responsibility.

2. Register the house of the entrepreneur 3. Sing up in Registro de la Propiedad. This can be done it in the Public Registry of Commerce.

Once enrolled the entrepreneur has to provide all document with the information that he or she is entrepreneur with limited responsibility.

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