Brave decision in harsh business climate – How do young female entrepreneurs start business in Serbia?

An average Serbian entrepreneur is almost 42 years old, has high school education and the set-up of her own company was the only way for her and her family to survive because she lost her job. However, despite the fact that the number of those starting their own business because they have to is significant across the entire region, there are many young women in Serbia who were brave enough to step into the world of entrepreneurship because they wanted to.

One of them is Katarina Popovic, who, after a decade of work in advertising, when she turned 31, started the first studio -Digibauk.com which deals with digital communications and then the DataMaid start-up. DataMaid enables creation and storage of multimedia data in cloud, their simple organization as well as publishing on blog or social networks.

- The idea originated at one of the creative festivals. Many things originate at the moment of inspiration – when the moment passes, all these photos, notes and videos are recorded at various places and they have lost the connection with an event. Then comes the time when you make a presentation out of it, a text or you share a summary of it with friends and you realize you need a few hours more to find everything, sort it and shape it and you do not feel like doing it really. We asked ourselves why we wouldn’t make software which helps you by doing for you all the boring job of folding and organization.

According to our collocutor, DataMaid does not allow the content to disperse on social networks or to dwell in the phone gallery. Everything you make with respect to one event stays on one timeline. Thus, the inspiration stays alive and you can share the entire experience with one link. It is incredible savings and people find multimedia format more interesting than a pure text and an image.

DataMaid was set up at the Start up Academy (and selected for the best participant at the Startup Standup event in April 2013) and it received its first seed investment from Bulgarian accelerator, Eleven, in exchange for a company stake.

- We met Eleven investors at the Startup Academy. StartupStandup was a great opportunity – presentations for couple of investors. Apart from Eleven, SeedCamp was there too. After the development of a prototype and the presentation (Igor – a designer, Goran - developer and I) in Sofia, we joined their fourth generation of start-ups. We were in Sophia for three months where we were developing product and meeting some great people. It seems we are good at start up events because we were awarded for the best pitch in How To Web as well in Bucharest in November 2013 – Popovic explains and ads they now have an office in Belgrade where they continue to work so that in April or May they could open a service for all users.

When asked whether it is easier for young women than men to indulge in entrepreneurship in Serbia, a collocutor of our portal answers:

- I have recently read a good comment – in this work, there are no men and women, but founders only. I think that initiating something on your own is a very brave decision and that it is more successful in environments nourishing entrepreneurial spirit. Our social situation is not a great environment for entrepreneurs because one often encounters comments such as: Look at the situation, it is better for you to sit and do your job and similar. My experience was that I had a feeling as if the moment came when I should have made something on my own after advertising and agency work.

- The thing that should be changed is the fact that support for entrepreneurs should be set at the level of the country, especially for IT entrepreneurs, to simplify paperwork and set competitive terms. Thus, an entrepreneur will find it interesting to stay and continue career in Serbia.

Women should learn from men

In the first year of the Wannabe Magazine, together with Nadja Jokanovic, Nina Milovic was very enthusiastic and euphoric and, as she says, was not thinking a lot about the position she has as a female entrepreneur.

- Over the time, as the project was developing, I started encountering numerous situations which raised the question of my gender as well as the fact that I am young for an entrepreneur and a director. I have to admit I have never been afraid of underestimating attitude and others’ prejudices because all that is a kind of a challenge which can motivate – Milovic points out.

(Nina Milovic)

She worked during her pregnancy and she started again soon after her delivery because as an entrepreneur, she does not have the luxury to completely switch off or not work.

Milovic thinks women are not conscious enough when it comes to entrepreneurship. According to her, the top of the idea of any kind of an entrepreneurial work is for many of them an opening of a hairdresser’s offering services or of a retail outlet and the question is why they step into these kinds of projects.

Family support is the most important

In August 2011, Svetlana Mojic, a director at Novi Sad-based Salt&Water, set up the company for yachts arranging. Some 95% of work is directed to foreign market to Italy, Spain, Montenegro, Norway, USA, France, England, Canada, Malaysia, Germany and the most attractive project which the company did in our region was the floating hotel project at Zvornicko Lake.

(future look of the floating hotel)

Since she comes from a family of entrepreneurs, her parents‘ support was precious though due to specific things about the company, the collocutor of eKapija points out she had to learn a lot by herself.

- Apart from that, last year I got an exceptional support from the Association of business women in Serbia which enables me participation at a couple of seminars for development. Also, Biljana Jovanovic, owner of the Luna fashion company helped me a lot many times.

As Mojic says, all young entrepreneurs encounter the same difficulties.

As we were told at the National employment bureau, during 2013, after the National employment bureau released a public invitation to the unemployed for a subsidy for self-employment, 1.681 entities got subsidy, 746 of them women which is 44,38%.

- We would like to mention that the participation of women when it comes to usage of the mentioned subsidy is equal, both in the period as of 2008 until today, it has always been above 40% - the National employment bureau says.

Experiences of young entrepreneurs are different but collocutors of our portal agree that entrepreneurship in Serbia is a brave decision.

Irina Milosevic