New Entrepreneur (NE)
Name & surname: Dorota Grajewska
Country: Poland
Age: 28 years
Sector of activity: Photography
Did you already start your business? No.
What is your future business? I want to focus on offering lifestyle photoshoots for future business professionals, aspiring models, bloggers, and influencers, but also for people that are just looking for improving their online brand and who want to post some flattering photos of their romantic holiday or adventurous trip.
Host Entrepreneur (HE)
Name & surname: Luis Moreno
Country: Spain
Sector of activity: Retail
Experience in running a business: 7 years
Name of business/website: HANDMADE ® BARCELONA / http://www.barcelonahm.com
What is your business? It’s a handmade footwear fashion brand with 7+ stores.
Period of exchange: 04/03/2020 – 06/04/2020
Duration of exchange: 1 month
To what extent did Dorota’s photography skills prove to be an asset to Luis’ business?
Our host, Luis Moreno, runs a company called “Handmade”, based in Barcelona but has also expanded elsewhere. He has been an entrepreneur for more than 7 years, and has built, together with his team, a 1 million € company from scratch. “We know how to scale ideas, organize people and create products and appealing marketing. Now we want to give back, show other young entrepreneurs how it is done, and also learn from them at the same time, as any new generation has knowledge that is key for every established brand”, as he said.
In addition, Luis Moreno is one of the most active hosts as he has hosted several entrepreneurs in his company during the last few years and he has always had great results with these exchanges. It is because of this that he is still interested in the programme and looking for more young entrepreneurs.
Regarding his exchange with Dorota Grajewska, he says that “The relation with Dorota started in a difficult time when the Covid pandemic was starting to take over Spain. We had to stop the collaboration after one month of starting, but still, during this short period of time, we had the chance to achieve great work together. Dorota was a semi-professional photographer and wanted to have more experience in the day-to-day management of a family-owned business, which matched perfectly with us and our need for content for our social networks. Thanks to the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program, Dorota was not only able to experience on a daily basis what it means to direct a small growing company but also created some great campaigns for the summer of 2020 with us.
Click on the following links if you want to see some of the results of our several sessions together:
Mother’s Day: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-ZrCT6B2Ll/
Sandals and Fruits: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_2kL92BUtg/
Customer’s love: https://www.instagram.com/p/B9uHOQ1IfPP/
Fancy Confinement: https://www.instagram.com/p/B_FpWQxhlw6/
Those are just some examples of more than 500 pictures that were taken in around 10 different sessions. On a daily basis, Dorota followed me, Luis Moreno, the founder of Handmade, in all decision making and control processes; from checking sales and suppliers to hiring and firing personnel, to planning for the future – as difficult as it started to look due to Covid. All in all, it was a great short collaboration that would have been one of the best so far if it wasn’t for the interruption. It was definitely worth it for both sides, and we will definitely not forget about it.”