Supporting 1st time female founders: Womenpreneurs!
Something that started as an initiative to celebrate inspiring women in business and leadership positions, two years later grew into a structured 5 day bootcamp for 1st time female founders.
Womenpreneurs Stories is an initiative that aims to celebrate inspirational women in business, share their stories and inspire! Looking forward to the future we definitely need more women in leadership positions. Because women at all levels of the organization need peers to look up to and to seek out.
The contribution that women as innovators, entrepreneurs and engines of change can give to the economic growth is very important. Many are already involved directly and indirectly in supporting an environment in which women in Macedonia/ in their own country are recognized and fully enabled to contribute to the development of the emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem.
11.11 was the date when the 5 day bootcamp started for the selected seven. With the support of Startup Macedonia and the Swiss Entrepreneurship Program (SwissEP), the leaders of tomorrow got to learn from local and international experts. The modules covered insights and know-how in: — startup & innovation eco-system — all things legal — business model canvas — team formation — storytelling and pitching — digital marketing — investment readiness — go to market…
Here’s how I managed to create quality concept and successfully implement the 5 day Bootcamp, in less than 2 months, and what some of the participants said about it.
Aleksandra Bela Belcheva is a cofounder of Mitra.mk. She founded Mitra together with her friend who is also named Aleksandra back in March,2019. Mitra.mk is new online shop in North Macedonia, taking care for the people that want to change the way they shop and accept the new trend of shopping
online. Mitra is offering all kind of products selected in different categories.
“I applied for the bootcamp because I stared my business recently and first of all, I wanted to check up all the steps for starting a company, to make sure that we are on the right path. Also, I wanted to learn more for marketing activities and fundraising fundamentals and all the opportunities that we can find
useful for our start up. We had very good sessions with all the coaches and I had so much fun on all the sessions and I’m very proud of my very first pitch in front of Nina, Barbara and Igor.
I’m also happy for meeting all the wonderful ladies who took part of the bootcamp. For the following year we want to bring Mitra.mk closer to as many people as possible and people to recognize it as their day-to-day shopping option”. — said Aleksandra.
Maya Cubric is the founder of “TrekkMe” and works as a mountain guide together with Dushica Matova who is the co-founder of the company. For several years she had been hiking recreationally where actually the idea for this business came from. It involves organizing and leading group or individual trekking tours in the most picturesque villages in the Ohrid region. After years of experience in the field of insurance, banking and marketing, she decides to start this business which she runs with great love and passion.
“I applied to this 5-day bootcamp because I felt that the content that was provided and covered would be very useful for the further growth and development of our business….and of course, the expectations were fulfilled and exceeded. The experience was really priceless. Thanks to the top trainers (foreign and domestic experts) I expanded and gained new knowledge in: business model canvas, digital marketing, startup and innovation eco-system, storytelling, preparing pitch deck etc.
Last but not least, I met the other six incredible women- participants on the bootcamp, each with her own business journey, leaders in every sense of the word. 2020 is the year for new successes, satisfied and smiling tourists, many kilometers in nature and maybe some new business idea … why not ?!” — Maya says.
Olga Rajcic is a young enthusiast for change making, activist, entrepreneur and co-founder of Challenger. The story of Challenger started at StartupWeekend Skopje. Challenger is a mobile application that helps in lowering the airpollution within Skopje. To motivate people to bike/walk/run more, and for every green km they get Challenger points. With these points, users can ‘buy’ codes for discount on products/services in local businesses where Challenger is present. Challenger aims to create a community that brings changes in every community.
“The 5day bootcamp helped our team to successfully identify opportunities and tactics for future growth. Most importantly this bootcamp managed to gather a group of women who inspire, motivate and support each other, which is one of the most important takeaways from the programme. In 2020 I’m looking forward to officially launch Challenger (both ios and android version) on Macedonian market, and expand discount offers in other cities in North Macedonia, and find partners for regional expansion.” — said Olga.
And we will continue supporting all these ladies on their entreprenurial journey.
If we want to see changes in our society we have to actively take part. Here are some very simple steps
1) create opportunities,
2) share successful examples for inspiration/motivation and
3) collaborate.
It is up to us only. It’s individual. When we start to change the way we think, the environment in which we are surrounded, to explore, to self-educate, to be self-initiating, to attend more events that are of interest to the career we want to build, then we will also build self-confidence and that we can succeed in what we want to achieve.
Changes from education, to the environment and basic human rights (clean air as one of them) to competitive jobs is what our society needs to work on and on the other hand there is no better time to start a business than now! This is largely due to the technology and connectivity that the internet provides. Today, I know many young people who, with minimal costs, have built successful startups here, hire other young people with excellent working conditions and create opportunities… The global fight for equal pay continues, as well as the support of women in leadership positions in business, politics… We are the generation that proves that quality and smart work will prevail over what was once considered men’s or women’s work. And I am glad to be a witness and an active participant in the era of these changes.
Are you?
