New Entrepreneur (NE)
Name & surname: Maja Kaninska
Country: Serbia
Age: 55 years
Sector of activity: Communication
Have you already started your business? No.
Name of business: Kaninska
What is your future business? The „Kaninska Communications“ project will provide experience in the areas of corporate, financial, marketing, and management communication.
Host Entrepreneur (HE)
Name & surname: Milutin Jošić
Country: Slovenia
Sector of activity: Consulting, Communication, Advertising & Marketing
Experience in running a business (in years): 5
Name of business: Paracelsus, Milutin Jošić s.p.
What is your business? We are active in sales and marketing of pharma products, doing a lot of communication and business consultancy for our clients. We are preparing promotions, communication, and writing strategies for clients and products. We organise events, promotion and marketing, as well as online promotion campaigns.
Period of exchange: 03/02/2020 – 31/07/2020
Duration of exchange: 6 months
In which ways did experienced entrepreneur Milutin Jošić benefit from the fresh input from young entrepreneur Maja Kaninska in his business?
Sharing knowledge and developing business ideas together, along with the desire to learn from each other’s experience was at the basis of this interesting exchange between the Slovenian entrepreneur Milutin (HE), active in the field of consultancy of pharmaceutical products, and the young entrepreneur Maja (NE) who was in the past a writer, journalist, and professor of literature in Serbia. Their exchange focused on business marketing and consultancy activities and proved to be an ideal opportunity for the NE to learn from the HE how to run a small company with the aim to apply the knowledge obtained during this exchange programme to the fields of corporate communication, marketing, and management.
During the first two months, the Slovenian HE introduced the NE from Serbia to his “Paracelsus” company and to the team working in the above-mentioned company, which is active in the field of pharmaceutical consultancy. The NE got quickly acquainted with the working environment and then gradually acquired technical skills enabling her to identify the strategic planning of events and promotion of social media, define networks of customers and stakeholders, and select companies/customers to further expand the business.
During the third month of the exchange, the HE provided mentorship to the NE regarding the improvement of business plans and the achievement of a final selection of the entrepreneurs with whom to start a collaboration on common projects. Subsequently, during the fourth month of exchange, the HE and NE attended an international business workshop focusing on informal networking.
During the last couple of months of collaboration with the HE, the young entrepreneur from Serbia identified core business ideas and innovations to implement in the HE’s business model. Based on such a rewarding cooperation, the HE and NE were in the end able to develop some proposals for their future collaboration on a business level.
Both HE and NE shared a number of benefits originating from their successful collaboration. On the one hand, the NE was able to upgrade substantially her knowledge in the field of business marketing by learning about new business and marketing strategies, related approaches to gain new customers, and the activities of planning and coordination of business events.
On the other hand, the HE was able to benefit from the NE’s assistance on a variety of projects. He was therefore in the ideal position to learn from the new entrepreneur about new ideas and fruitfully apply them in the fields of the activities of his “Paracelsus” company. In this way, he improved the services for his target clients and further increased his self-esteem at work.
Concluding Remarks
Maja Kaninska (NE): “My host entrepreneur Milutin provided excellent mentorship on how to start developing my own business plan, thus enabling me to start thinking about my own company and its core activities. I enjoyed this experience and, looking back to the past six months, I find it unbelievable how many things I managed to learn in such a short period of time. I am now adequately equipped to go on the market with a sharp idea of what I want to do and how to design my successful entrepreneurial story. In fact, thanks to this rewarding experience I am planning to open my consultancy company.”
Milutin Jošič (HE): “At the very beginning, young entrepreneurs need to get confidence through knowledge and practical experience on the field. Maja is a hard-working person, very focused and goal-oriented, with excellent analytical and communication skills. It was a unique opportunity for me to mentor her. The best reward was when I noticed how she was gradually becoming more and more independent and self-confident while she was fastly learning both in our office and on the field. After six months of exchange, she is ready to run her own business, and it will be my pleasure to continue collaborating with her on a professional level in the coming months.”