In a very long interview given to tportal, Leopold Botteri, aged 47, a former journalist from Split turned entrepreneur tells the tale of his several companies, businesses and finally how he became a partial owner of a high-end hotel in Istria, Hotel San Canzian.

He tells Luka Filipović how he started from nothing and now his businesses make over 10 million kunas per year. Up until 2006, he worked in Slobodna Dalmacija, a local daily newspaper. His first foray into the business world was getting the olive growers from the island of Brač to join the Brachia cooperative, which turned into a brand of the olive oil under the same name - and then he started the company called Uje to distribute those products. Today there are 19 Uje stores in Croatia, distributing various olive oils and other delicatessen brands from Croatia. There are several restaurants operating under the brand, they're working closely with Croatia Airlines. His recent investments are in the Aqua Maritime clothes company, and building of the luxury boutique five-star hotel near Buje, Hotel San Canzian.

He explains to the journalist that the hotel is his first business extravagance, as up until now he's invested in what he knows and is competent at. But he and his partner Siniša Šare were looking for a vacation house and got the opportunity to purchase an estate with a renovated house near Buje. The house was too big, so they decided to build a hotel, similar in concept to Meneghetti estate. There will be one base house with the restaurant, bar and the reception, and all of the 25 rooms will have individual entrances. They're aiming at the guests who know what Istra is, who do not need explanations of the best hotels and restaurants around - so the prices will be according to that, upwards of 280€. There is a special villa within Hotel San Canzian with its own separate swimming pool and that will be priced at around a thousand euro per night at high season.

He also commented on the purchase of the Aqua company and brand, saying that this is a deal that made much more sense than the hotel. Uje and Aqua are in the same business, specialising in premium tourist souvenir market, and that their stores are often located in the same destinations: the towns with four-star hotels and guests who arrive by airplane. They have big plans for the company, as they plan to expand and grow the market further.

He says that he would be open to selling his share in Uje, as his idea is to make it as independent as possible, and then his position is negotiable. He explains his entrepreneurial start, when he was an editor of the "Olive" section of the paper and started the whole brand on his own, a bit more ambitious then he planned. He says that he's not the complaining type, that it's very easy to complain about everything in Croatia, but that complaining doesn't solve any problems and that it's a waste of time. He just wants to adjust to problems. He refuses to justify and failure with the market in Croatia because a high-quality product will always find a buyer in Europe. To close the interview, he says that he has three sons, aged 20 and 16, but that he does not feel the pressure of ego for one of them to take over the family business.

Ever been browsing online mindlessly and come across a YouTube video showing how to create something and thought: Hang on, I could do that? One Croatian man from Kutina did exactly that and has thus decided to turn his hobby into a business, and if he had the time to pay attention solely to that, it would take off even faster than it has done already.

As Novac/Jasmina Trstenjak writes on the 28th of April, 2019, if we open our eyes a little bit, we'll see that there are ideas to start our own business all around us. Some of us stumble upon them, recognise them, and start from the idea itself, and some ideas literally come and find us and prevent us from bypassing them and remaining just as ideas.

Matija Kašner from the continental Croatian town of Kutina, who makes furniture from disposable pallets, says that in the case of his very own creation Sklepaj.me "everything began from itself, and quickly".

When my wife and I moved into this house, we didn't particularly like the furniture in the stores, and as I saw people doing innovative things from palets online, I decided to make a bed out of pallets and then a terrace. So then I decided to put what I'd made on Njuškalo (a Croatian buy and sell website) and try to sell it. One woman called me who wanted to equip her entire apartment house in Crikvenica with tables and chairs, and that was the first big job from which it all began,'' says Kašner.

He remembers thinking how big that job was and wondered whether or not he could manage to do it all in time. But, with the help of friends and even without the right tools - he succeeded. As his first client needed an invoice, he opened an obrt (small company) and officially turned his hobby into a job back at the end of 2013. Then, another project came for an IT company and that was great in the full sense of the word - he equipped the entire building.

The young IT team wanted something different, they ordered armchairs, beds because they had a "chill out" room, and the like. Sklepaj.me quickly started to grow bigger, and its initiator, an economist by profession, said the job would have grown at an even faster pace if he was only doing that.

Namely, Kašner comes from an entrepreneurial family, and given his business versatility, the entrepreneurial genes have obviously been passed down to him and, besides making furniture, he grows raspberries, rents out electric bikes and conducts tourist tours, is engaged in a family business, and addition to that, he's employed in a company in which he's the head of the branch.

''Sklepaj.me is just a hobby that in some way created itself and which I do after work. We don't live on that. We live from our wage,'' Kašner makes sure to confirm.

But, if he was engaged solely in this hobby, could he live from it? The idea with the pallets seems to be a great one. What's the real market potential? Where are the palets obtained? Is it an expensive hobby? How lucrative is it...? There are many questions.

''I'd expand the range and then yes, I then could live from it, but I'd have to exhibit at fairs, I'd have to be present in design spheres, etc. The order, or its quantity, depends on the revenue and sometimes that can be high only even with just one or two orders per year. Averages are difficult to come up with. There are no such rules. If I had to do three big orders per year for around 30,000 kuna, which is one nice cafe or hostel, I'd sign up tomorrow to do only that. That could provide for a decent life,'' Kašner says when discussing his innovative business that brought the strongest revenue in six years last year with only one project, which was his largest ever so far, for Zrće.

He also revealed that he's now negotiating orders that would be almost of the same size as that one. Namely, two shelves of furniture (60 armchairs, 30 tables, 60 bar tables...) were sent to Zrće, a project on which for two or three months, he worked intensively without any contact with the outside world for 10-12 hours per day.

When it comes to a series, everything depends on how many pieces someone orders, and so far he has already worked on tables, armchairs, deck chairs, bar stools and desks and even lamps. One armchair costs between 400 and 600 kuna, depending on whether they want a sponge putting on it or not, tables are about the same price, deck chairs are about 800-900 kuna, and the bar tables are of the same rank as deck chairs.

"I like to make sure the prices are acceptable, so when someone goes to the store and sees a rattan deck chair, he can see that for roughly the same money he can get something unique, and something that not many will have,''

He also mentions the seasonal rhythm of this job because someone who owns a tourist facility orders the furniture in the winter and then winter is spent working for the tourist season in summer. Then comes stagnation in June and July, and in August there are orders to arrange children's rooms, renovations for peoples houses and other similar things.

As Croatia's economic and demographic issues continue, there's a lot to be said for being creative and starting your own business to generate some income, even if it's just extra cash on the side, and this innovative and talented gentlemen from Kutina is the perfect example of exactly that mindset.

Make sure to follow our dedicated Made in Croatia and business pages for much more on Croatian companies, Croatian products and services and Croatian innovation.

Click here for the original article by Jasmina Trstenjak for Novac/Jutarnji