Given that the founder himself comes from an entrepreneurial family, he shared with the students his experience of developing a family business with a personal touch, which was motivating for many of them.
As part of the fieldwork for the elective course Family Entrepreneurship, a group of first and third year students of VERN's undergraduate study program in Entrepreneurship Economics visited the Aura family distillery together with professor Iva Senegović, Ph.D.
During the visit, the students learned interesting information about the development of this family business from Buzet, which was created based on the idea of the founder and entrepreneur Mišel Sirotić , who turned his passion for the production of indigenous Istrian brandies and liqueurs into a successful brand, and expanded the initial range to include gins, jams and delicatessen products.
Interestingly, the idea for this field trip was inspired by the excellent seminar paper of Lena Stefanov , a student from VERN's undergraduate Public Relations program , who presented her experiences during the lecture after an interview with entrepreneur Sirotić. His entrepreneurial story motivated the students and her colleague Senegović to plan the trip, which is another indicator of the inter-student collaboration on common topics that we encourage at VERN' University.
The Aura Distillery has been operating since 2011, and currently offers 250 products and plans to further expand its range to include teas and spices. Although it was a small family business in the beginning, it now employs 140 people and operates 22 retail outlets, including a museum and a distillery.
Given that Mr. Sirotić himself comes from an entrepreneurial family, he shared with the students the experience of developing a family business with a personal touch, which was motivating for many of them because they themselves come from an entrepreneurial environment.
In closing, he told them: "You should never give up on what you want. Everything is achievable with a lot of effort and work. The point is that you want to work and you want to create, and if you want to, then you know what you can do in one day. Miracles. Just a lot of work and perseverance. Build good relationships, surround yourself with smart and inspiring people who will encourage you to grow."
