New Entrepreneur (NE)
Name & surname: Nina Savič
Country: Slovenia
Age: 30
Sector of activity: Architecture
Have you already started your business? Yes.
Name of business: NINA SAVIČ – SAMOZAPOSLENA V KULTURI, ARHITEKTKA
What is your business? Architecture office places will be involved in architectural design. The competitive advantage of my business will be the focus on the digital nomad interest group in relation to local freelancers. I believe architecture should enable people to meet and connect. That’s why my business plan develops places where digital nomads connect with local communities – through architecture.
Host Entrepreneur (HE)
Name & surname: Anna Maske
Country: Germany
Sector of activity: Architecture
Experience in running a business: 21 years
Name of business/website: Maske + Suhren Architekten und Designer Architekten GmbH / http://www.maskesuhren.de
What is your business? From the creation of the office on, we have developed a large variety of projects in different scales and contexts, both in Europe and overseas, focusing on planning, conservation, exhibition conceptions and interior design, with high-specialized knowledge on premium movie theaters and related projects.
Period of Relationship: 17/02/2020 – 17/05/2020
Duration of Relationship: 3 months
How did Anna Maske comply with her role as a mentor for young architect Nina Savič from Slovenia despite the challenges they faced due to COVID-19?
Anna Maske is the co-founder of the Berlin-based architecture and design studio Maske + Suhren. The office has developed a large variety of projects in Germany and abroad, focusing on planning, conservation, exhibition conceptions and interior design. Anna got in contact with New Entrepreneur Nina Savič through the contact of a friend and was immediately enthused to take part in the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme, as she wanted to take this opportunity to enlarge her team and to share her knowledge with a motivated young entrepreneur.
Thanks to the programme Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs, Anna Maske started an international business relationship with New Entrepreneur Nina Savič in February 2020.
During the 3 month-long business relationship, Anna was eager to provide Nina with thorough insights into the complex formation of one’s own company and to sharpen her perception of specific and diverse entrepreneurial aspects of her job. Nina’s main activity during the exchange was the development of an operational concept for an architectural studio through the observation of the host company’s office structure. In her concept, Nina elaborated on aspects such as general organisation, employee structure, communication, content strategies and structure and many more. Anna intended to provide Nina with a basis for reflection of these aspects in order to become familiar with the challenges of having an architecture company. Nina learned how difficult it can be to balance the creative ideas of a young entrepreneur with the requirements of a commercial architecture company.
Nina was very motivated and interested in her tasks, did a great job and developed significantly during her stay abroad, despite the challenges that the outbreak of COVID-19 posed on the business relationship of the two entrepreneurs. All their work had to be shifted to remote work and so Anna’s guidance and mentoring also had to be done through online meetings or phone calls. Nevertheless, the communication between the two entrepreneurs continued smoothly through the usage of online platforms like Zoom thanks to the experience Anna had already accumulated through the communication with her external employees abroad and the adaption of the two entrepreneurs to this new situation.
Anna Maske perceived the business relationship of three months as too short for the achievement of a big impact on her business. Nevertheless, she values the work Nina did for her company and is grateful for the new ideas that Nina developed thanks to her outside perspective on the business. Anna thinks it is extremely important to support young entrepreneurs and perceives this exchange as an investment into the future, not only for Nina, but also for her own business. The two entrepreneurs intend to stay in close contact in order to conduct small projects together.
All in all, Anna sees the EYE programme as a crash course for young entrepreneurs that will show its real impact only after a few years, when the New Entrepreneur Nina Savič has opened up her own business and incorporates the lesson from the business relationship. Then, the two companies can get in contact again and significantly enrich each other’s work.
