picture: John Matychuk on Unsplash
New Entrepreneur (NE):
Name & surname: Maksims Fedosejevs
Country: Latvia
Age: 23
Sector of activity: Mobility / Social Economy
Did you already start your business? No
Name of business/website: Space4Parking
What is your future business? Space4Parking is Airbnb analog but for parking spaces. The app helps drivers rent parking spaces.
Host Entrepreneur (HE):
Name & surname: Alessia Sebillo
Country: Belgium
Sector of activity: Social economy
Experience in running a business (in years): 9
Name of business/website: Diesis Network
What is your business? Diesis Network is now one of the widest networks specialized in supporting the development of the social economy, social entrepreneurship and social innovation.
Period of exchange: 27/10/2023 – 29/04/2024
Duration of exchange: 6 months
How Maksims’ perseverence payed off:
I started working on the project while I was still studying at university. With this idea, I participated in the Latvia-Cambrige venture camp and received an award for “best innovation potential”. Later I managed to involve my university colleagues in the work. Thus, the team participated in the business incubator “IdeaLab” and successfully completed it. Then we participated in an investment session and gained invaluable experience. But unfortunately in the end the team broke up and there were attempts to gather another one, but unfortunately we did not succeed.
After graduation, I was thinking about how I could get a team together and continue working on the project. I accidentally saw an advert for Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs and decided to try to apply. I was accepted and started looking for a mentor who could help me to improve my leadership skills, project management skills and teach me more about the social economy. After researching a huge list of mentors, I found Alessia who is the director of a huge network that develops social economy around the world. I looked at her CV and was impressed. I managed to get in touch with her quite quickly and we quickly agreed on everything. I thought it would be a great experience and an opportunity to learn different aspects of project management and the social economy.
Perhaps the most challenging part of moving to Belgium was finding a place to live. When I arrived in Belgium I lived in a hostel and every day I went on visits to get a room. But in the end I found accommodation close to work. It was a good experience as I learnt how to get people to like me in just a few minutes. It helped me to get along easily with different people in the future.
The beginning of the work was very difficult, there was a huge amount of information and new things. But I managed to cope with a lot of things and started to fulfil my tasks quickly and efficiently. After successfully integrating into the new work environment, work began on my personal project. Unfortunately, I can’t say that everything was smooth. There were many difficulties due to my lack of knowledge of French and my mentor was not very familiar with the mobility sector. The first thing I tried to do was to contact local companies that provide parking services in Brussels. Unfortunately no one replied to my messages and I decided to go directly to the office of the biggest parking company in Brussels. I was refused to speak to the CEO of the company and was told that there are 10 people like me every day. I also tried to write to the CEO directly on the social network Linkedin, but he didn’t reply either. I continued to explore the infrastructure of Brussels and learn from my mentor how to run a large organisation. I really wanted to find like-minded people in Brussels, so I started looking for student networking events, but found nothing and decided to try to organise my own personal event. I contacted various universities that could connect me with students, but again no university responded to me. Eventually I managed to contact the Erasmus Student Network and they were interested in the idea of organising an event. After a lot of preparatory work, I held the event successfully. I was able not only to present my idea, but also to hear the ideas of other talented participants. I was able to meet a programmer who was interested in my idea. At the moment we have started working on the development of the application. I hope that this cooperation will bear results and Space4Parking will finally achieve its goals.
Concluding Remarks
Maksims Fedosejevs (NE): “Participation in the Erasmus for young entrepreneurs is an invaluable experience that not only helps to develop entrepreneurial skills, but also contributes to personal development. Participating in this programme is definitely one of the best decisions of my life.”
Alessia Sebillo (HE): “I have participated to few exchange now, and every time I learn something more about myself and my organisation. Hosting NE is an amazing opportunity to look at our work with new and fresher eyes. The enthusiasm each NE has put in it is very inspiring!“