Student friendship becomes business partnership

1. Briefly describe the course of your career during and after your studies.

Ivan: Instead, I would rather give you some important details that were key to my current profession, or the job I do. Since I didn't know what I really wanted and what I wanted to do at the end of high school, I left things to the "higher power" and ended up at VERN. To be honest, it was a coincidence, and now I can say that I'm happy about it. I would be lying if I said that I was extremely interested in the economics of entrepreneurship, in fact I wasn't, because at the time I didn't even know what it meant. What attracted me was the difference from other educational institutions and the innovation, and I was curious. I gave myself over to discovering myself and the things I wanted. Even though we were the first generation of VERN to complete a three-year study, we somehow became close in a completely friendly sense. There was fun, seriousness, travel and mutual arguments, discussions, but all of that was part of our maturation. The business I do today is a matter of pure coincidence and was the result of a simple comment or question from my friend Silvija from the group, and it went something like this: "Why wouldn't you do that?" My answer was: "There's no bread there!" That was the moment I got to thinking. From then on, everything started moving in the direction of the business I do today. I took into account three things - knowledge, ability and will. I didn't have money, in fact, I borrowed from friends and parents. I suddenly realized that there was no point in other people doing something that I could do myself, and better than them. So I gritted my teeth, took out a piece of paper and started thinking about how best to start. Since I didn't have money but a good idea, which was to develop business websites for the purpose of utilizing their potential for the benefit of the company that owns them, I approached the bank with a business plan, but the gentlemen in question at the bank just laughed at me and told me that they don't give loans under 10,000 euros, and that I should rather borrow the money from my parents. Since something like that was out of the question, I turned to my good friend Kristijan, who studied with me, for help, and that's where today's story about Inspiracija.com - an online business development company - actually begins.

2. Briefly introduce the company to us (activity, number of employees, when it was founded, references...).

Ivan: The company was founded in early 2004. The company's main activity is the development of business websites in order to utilize their potential for the benefit of the company that owns them, and the secondary activity is the development of visual identities in the B2B segment. The company has 3 employees. We cooperate with PBZ nekretnine, Microsoft Croatia, MojPosao.net, Berlitz, Elgrad, Palmira, ZU Ljekarne Jadran, Centro za reciklažu, Bicikl Express, Ictinus Grupa, etc. We are currently in negotiations with one global company, but I cannot say which one. We will be proud if we succeed!

3. What is your function in the company?

Ivan: Actually, I don't have any specific functions. I perform several functions: finding, negotiating and contracting jobs for the company, project management, developing website visuals and visual identities, financial operations and taking care of the company's liquidity. In short, these are the functions that I perform independently.

4. What is your job description and what are your responsibilities? What does your workday look like?

Ivan: Any day. I wake up around 7:00. I don't have a morning coffee ritual, I just wash my face and turn on my laptop. I'm not a workaholic, I just love doing what I do. I'm in the office between 8:00 and 9:00, and I get to work. I have that old organization technique, I look at my to-do list, choose priorities and do them in order. Sometimes it's meetings, sometimes it's sitting at the computer all day, sometimes we play games to relax. We also allow our employees to work from home, but sometimes that's not feasible. We are mostly completely flexible when it comes to certain things, but of course work comes first.

An example of a typical atypical workday would look something like this:
07:00 getting up and preparing for the work day
08:00 trip to the office
09:00 – 11:00 meeting in Rijeka
12:00 – 14:00 meeting in Zagreb
4:00 PM I work in the office, preparing offers and checking what has been achieved.
18:00 work on a specific visual
I work from home from 8:00 PM onwards, until around midnight when I go to bed. Sometimes you are on the move 12 to 16 hours a day, sometimes you work half a day, it all depends on the work tasks and organization. All in all, I think that if you work 12 hours a day, there is something seriously wrong with your time management.

5. How did you decide to start your own entrepreneurial project? Did you have any problems? Briefly describe what it all looked like.

Ivan: For several reasons. The first is that I love doing this job. The second is that I had a friend who helped me immensely both financially and in an advisory sense (he is also a partner in Inspiracija.com). Although work and friendship really don't go together, we try to direct emotions in a more intelligent way, so we wrap the ego in facts and arguments, and on that basis we make a joint decision for mutual benefit! There were problems in the beginning, but there are still some now! In the beginning, of course, it was finances, a great misunderstanding of financial institutions, purchasing equipment, and now maintaining a regular cash flow, creating a certain critical mass for purchasing material assets, etc. Mostly the same things. ? You also create problems yourself, because you are afraid to take certain steps. It's all stressful, but so far it's also a lot of fun at the same time.

6. How has your education (knowledge and skills acquired during your studies) helped you in your job?

Ivan: I have to say that certain subjects were really useful, and even today I sometimes remember topics and discussions from business negotiations, IT, marketing, and English, where I learned a lot of good and useful things. I don't want to say which subjects are good and which are bad, because I believe that every product finds its buyer.

7. What are your plans for the future? What motivates you?

Ivan: My plans for the future are to rent a more representative office space, purchase an extremely useful, interesting and expensive technology, personal education and gain more and more knowledge. I see every day as an opportunity to overcome some of my fears and that is how I find motivation.

8. Do you have a recipe for success and/or advice for colleagues who are currently studying at VERN?

Ivan: Honestly, reading books and listening to others talk about it, I still haven't developed a clear picture of what the recipe for success actually is and how to achieve it. I'll put it in simple words - plan what you want to cook, gather as much information as possible about the ingredients. And how to cook it, I recommend that you discover for yourself, because if I had known what awaited me in my effort to cook what I had planned, I probably would never have started cooking. I would tell everyone, not just students, to face their demands and desires on a daily basis. Sometimes a person falls, gets off track, but you need to get up and get back on track. Work on yourself and your attitude towards life, solve problems immediately, dream about things you want to achieve, and above all, face the real and banal fears that have been instilled in us by our upbringing and understanding of the world we live in, and fight! By doing the above things, we can rise to the next step on the path that leads to our set goal, that is, the path to success. We are all on that path, it's just that some entered earlier, and some later! I wish everyone a lot of success and a lot of patience and self-confidence in the realization of ideas, whether business or private, because if someone is already doing it, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't too. Hot water may have been discovered... and the rest is a matter of imagination!