While there are many bleak stories about business failures and endless reams of red tape put in place by mindless state officials, there are multiple success stories when it comes to doing business in Croatia. While many are naturally put off by the amount of barriers and time things take to get moving here, there are those who persevere and go on to succeed, Croatia's beloved entrepreneur Mate Rimac is the shining star among them.

Rimac, born in Livno, in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1988, the family eventually moved to Frankfurt, Germany, and then to Samobor, Croatia. Rimac founded a construction company and his very first invention was the iGlove. As time went on, his business mind grew in its curiosity and he eventually founded Rimac Automobili, which brought him success we're sure he could never have previously dreamed of.

Recently, we reported on British YouTuber Shmee150 having taken a tour of Rimac Automobili which was guided by no less than the CEO and founder himself. The processes that go into the creation of Rimac's incredible supercars were revealed, and the YouTuber was left visibly astounted by Rimac's wealth of knowledge about every single part of the process.

But that isn't all. As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 29th of May, 2019, it seems that Croatia's most famous entrepreneur has got a taste for it, and is about to take you further behind the scenes than most journalists have ever ventured. 

"We'll show as much as possible as part of our open (business) culture. For now, our facilities, and soon, much more. Episode 1 of 4 of our factory tour,'' stated Mate Rimac on Facebook.

His company is growing extremely rapidly, and the Rimac team is almost doubled every single year. It currently employs more than 550 people, including experts from around the world.

In the first episode of this four-part branded series, Mate Rimac takes you as the viewer through the tools department and explains the complex process of modern production that is hard to believe happens right here in Croatia, the country which has complaining as its national sport (after football, of course).

He explains how he has transformed his dream into reality, transforming the potential of an electric drive into the most powerful electric hyper-car in the entire world.

Watch the video here:

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As Novac/Mario Pusic writes on the 26th of May, 2019, the story of two Croatian brothers Domagoj (34) and Hrvoje (33) Boljar from Duga Resa is an excellent one for many reasons, and one of them is that they don't need a laptop, a tablet, or a mobile phone for the presentation of their products. They wear them - on their feet.

Through their company Miret, they developed an eco-tennis brand that is almost completely biodegradable and was started with the EIT Climate-KIC accelerator, the largest European launcher acceleration program that develops solutions which have a positive impact on the climate. These new Croatian tennis shoes are one of the six innovative Croatian projects which will be developed under the leadership of the Zagreb Innovation Center (ZICER) in this program.

The Boljar brothers can thus expect symbolic financial support of 15,000 euros, mentoring and educational support from recognised Croatian and foreign experts, as well as a good opportunity for international networking.

It's no exaggeration when Domagoj and Hrvoje say that they're creating the most fashionable shoes on the planet. They are made of hemp, cotton and various other healthy materials.

Everyone who knew their late father, Josip Joža Boljar, knows of the source from which these two innovative Croatian brothers draw their passion, and the stubbornness of their father is not lacking, either, they say themselves.

In the second half of the nineties, when the textile, leather and footwear industry came together seamlessly, Joža decided to produce shoes. This decision was the right one and worked out fine, and ten years later, under his brand Mr. Joseph, he had a plant with 100 employees who produced 100,000 pairs of shoes per year, sold them in 22 stores all over Croatia and exported them all the way to Scandinavia. As excellent as this story is, sometimes things are happen in life that nobody can influence; the market was flooded with cheap Chinese products, there was a crisis, and long-established entrepreneur Josip Boljar entured a hard time and eventually died in 2015. These two brothers grew up with their father's factory, so there was no way they were going to leave it even during the worst of times.

"There was no family pressure for us to take over one day. And before we graduated from university, with me doing economy of entrepreneurship, and Hrvoje doing industrial design, I knew I would one day run the company and my brother would create new products. We inherited that from our parents, so there's this need to create something new, something useful and tangible.

My father was an electrical engineer who went into making shoes after having made machines. Working in his company wasn't something that was ''pre-programmed'' for us, but we both ended up there. However, the company's stability was sluggish, we were trying to save it by turning to the production of luxury tennis shoes, which was, back then, not something on the Croatian market or abroad.

We've created our own brand, Jots, we developed products for top European brands for buyers Croatia, Italy, Holland and France, all with the knowledge and the machines we had and the great people who kept following us. But then it just happened to take off,'' the Croatian brothers state.

You don't surrender in life when things get hard, but only when something makes no sense anymore. And these two brothers think that their eco-tennis shoes do make a lot of sense, and it's never really been easy for them anyway.

Behind the proverbial storm which pushed their core business ever forward, five years ago, they began to develop their eco-tennis shoes, and they knew they were doing the right thing.

The first 100 pairs were quickly grabbed by tourists in Split without any advertising as long as four years ago, and they continued to develop and offer their products through their webshop at Miret.co.

"I'm just persistent, Hrvoje is crazy and persistent. He had dreamed about this shoe before he even had the opportunity to get the materials he needed. They'd say we're producing garbage and that they don't want to participate in it. But we had to live on something. I stepped forward and fought with the problems and let him go and develop things in peace. He went to the extreme, wanted to make a shoe for which there's no mold.''

Nobody had ever done so, so this inventive Croatian duo couldn't even get their hands on any materials to make ecological footwear. Someone had to prepare it especially for them. They have a dozen major suppliers who helped them out, but not one of them is from Croatia.

''People were asking us whether or not the shoes will just fall to bits on their feet. Yes, the composition of the material is like that of a shepherd's pie, but no, they won't fall apart. We use certified suppliers, for example, a New Zealand wool processed in eco-colours with the most rigorous ecological certifications.''

Much later on, the EIT Climate-KIC competition was announced by their acquaintance Marko Capek, probably the most prominent and most controversial Croatian anti-plastic fighter, who worked in the UN after completing his energy studies during which he studied renewable energy sources.

"Our innovation is in the concept, ideas and materials and we no longer think about manufacturing, even though we've dreamed of that, but we'll use service production, what we used to do for others. We have great producers in Croatia and we hope that production will continue to take place in Croatia. What we need is stability,'' they state, adding that they do need a serious investor, and that they don't want for their project to simply remain a small and somewhat ''romantic'' one.

They will look for such an investor abroad, but they aren't even thinking of leaving Croatia, because, as they rightly say, no honey and milk is flowing through the rivers anywhere.

"A colleague told me after presenting the product to go to Sweden. If anyone knows how hard it is to work in Croatia, then I know, but I won't move because I like living here. Will we open an office in Berlin or America? I don't know, but we want to stay here. You're lying in bed tonight and you wonder how you'll pay for your electricity tomorrow and you think it would be best to move to New Zealand. You wake up in the morning and keep making shoes. Wherever you go, you are still here, wherever you go, nothing will change if you don't change it,'' concluded Domagoj Boljar.

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

Click here for the original/full article by Mario Pusic for Novac/Jutarnji

FSB's Zagreb student, Šime Grbić, has created an autonomous robotic car that uses compressed air and pneumatic ''muscles'' to drive, thrilling international innovators.

As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 26th of May, 2019, among the more than 600 innovations from 35 countries around the world at the tenth anniversary of EuroInvent, the largest European innovation exhibition recently held in Romania, excellent success has been achieved by Zagreb student Šime Grbić, a young innovator and student FSB Zagreb, otherwise from the Dalmatian city of Zadar, who won six medals for his project of a vehicle powered by pneumatic ''muscles''.

This year he enrolled at Zagreb's FSB to head in the direction of Mechatronic Engineering and Robotics, and the backbone of his final work on his undergraduate studies was the subject of the designing and driving of pressurised vehicles. His mentor prof.dr. Željko Šitum recognised the potential of the project and encouraged Šime to partake in EuroInvent, which turned out to be a significant and unprecedented success. In this paper, the innovator points out, the knowledge gained during his studies was well applied, and Grbić was particularly interested in the development of robotics and autonomous vehicles.

''Given the fact that I come from a working family, I'd always helped my dad out in the garage by repairing various machines, so I came into contact with practical design and learned a lot because there was no opportunity for practical work in school," this successful Zagreb student stated. This was his first appearance at an international show and as such, his first prize. "I was helped out by my mentor, the company Festo, which donated components for making it, FSB Zagreb's Mechatronic Association, and my parents and my girlfriend who boosted my morale and sometimes financial support," Šime said.

This innovative Zagreb student returned from EuroInvent with many medals, and the top of the top is the gold medal of EuroInvent. His vehicle powered by pneumatic muscles is the model of an autonomous vehicle or a mobile robot that uses compressed air for its start up and running. The air is controlled by its valves in its pneumatic muscles, which, by their contraction, rotate the crankshaft of the vehicle and thus drive the vehicle.

"The rotation is solved by the help of a linear pneumatic stepper motor, which is a new type of pneumatic actuator proposed by a professor from the University of Twente in the Netherlands, which has enabled us to have a proper geometry of turning and rotating the vehicle's interior and exterior wheels,'' Šime states. As compressed pressure is used for the drive, the vehicle is also more environmentally friendly because it has no harmful emissions.

"The application can be part of a hybrid vehicle or as a mobile robot for inspection in explosive atmospheres where sparking can lead to ignition or explosion," says Grbić. Mobile pneumatic robots are relatively new in the world of robotics, but he believes that there is plenty of room for further development and progress.

"For the time being, these vehicles are mostly found as experimental setups and as a visualisation of engineering know-how and skills, just as there is in the field of mobile robotics and pneumatic robots as a whole, there is still room for improvement, but also for further application and for use,'' the talented Zagreb student states.

His car is now nearing completion, and further upgrade is said to be expected in the software industry where he would like to add some functions like a remote control, so it isn't only autonomous.

Make sure to follow our dedicated Made in Croatia page for much more. If it's just Zagreb you're interested in, give Total Zagreb a follow or check out Zagreb in a Page.

Click here for the original article by Lucija Spiljak for Poslovni Dnevnik

Croatian innovation seems to know no bounds (other than state bureaucracy that is), and is continuing to go from strength to strength with an impressive wave of technological inventions and solutions, winning acolades and recognition from around the world.

As Samo Pozitivno writes on the 22nd of May, 2019, Croatian-made flight control software, Vibe solution, has been declared the world's best technical solution by the expert IFATCA jury, an international flight control association. As far as the acknowledgment for this piece of innovation, the representatives of Vibe and Croatian air traffic control received an award during the first day of the IFATCA58 event, which took place from the 20th to the 24th of May in Costa Rica.

To win the title of being the absolute best of the best, this Croatian software was carefully chosen among technical solutions from more than 130 countries worldwide. The jury awarded their recognition to the Croatian multi-briefing system, which is one of the brighter examples of cooperation between the private and public sectors.

''The idea was to develop a system that will enable the easier and faster information flow between departments in air navigation control so that decisions can be made timely and precisely on the basis of "in-time" information, but also to maximise the performance of the department. Croatia's air traffic control has proven to be an excellent partner, as it recognised this idea five years ago and helped us to develop a system that has made the experts proclaim it the best in the world,'' said Marko Emer, the creator of Vibe Solution software upon receiving the award which was handed over by Philippe Domagal.

The value of this Croatian software was recognised by most of the 50,000 members of IFATCA from more than 130 countries around the world, consisting of aerospace and flight control professionals, making this success even more significant.

"It's always nice to get praised for some work, but when that praise comes from the experts, and when the choice is between the solution made by an IT company from Croatia and hundreds of other software developing companies from some of the richest countries in the world, then that feeling of satisfaction is far greater. This award for Vibe Solution once again proves that Croatia can truly prosper by investing in IT and providing opportunities for digital transformation through our innovations,'' emphasised Emer.

In the following four days of the IFATCA58 conference, numerous meetings took place between representatives of air navigation control from around the world, and there were certainly be opportunities for Croatian representatives to elaborate more closely on their experience with Vibe Solution software.

''Now the Croatian air traffic control officially uses system uses the best multi-briefing software in the world, which surely brings extra credibility among colleagues from around the world,'' added Emer, adding that he hopes that this Croatian software will soon be adopted by yet more countries across the world.

Make sure to stay up to date on more Croatian inventions, innovation, products and services and much more by following our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages.

Click here for the original article by Slobodna Dalmacija

As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 21st of May, 2019, the Zagreb software company Ingemark and the RoomOrders startup, launched by Croats despite having been registered in America, created the first application (app) for ordering food from hotels to hotel rooms and started to conquer the many challenges of the huge global market. They began with the development of this application at the end of 2017, and back then, as a pilot project, they first tested it out at the Hilton Hotel in Boston.

According to them, they will launch RoomOrders at the Hilton Sydney hotel, and then in Belgrade's Hilton in Serbia by the end of the month. The application's software, in which 2 million euro has so far been invested was started by the Zagreb-based company Ingemark, which has been in existence since as far back as 1990, and as of 2006, it has specialised in software development by order.

Funds for the application's development have also been withdrawn from EU funds. In the list of references are big clients such as Agrokor, Adris, HT... One of the most significant cooperations was, as they say, one in the Middle East where clients developed a platform that distributed multimedia content, and soon their latest project, ZorroTines, a regional music platform, will see the light of day right here on the Croatian market. Right now, it seems that this Zagreb company's RoomOrders app is going to go very far indeed.

As Eugene Brčić Jones, the marketing and sales manager at RoomOrders revealed, last week at the International Hotel Technology Forum in Zagreb, the company negotiated with numerous hotel industry leaders about integrating their products.

"We've intrigued the leading world chains and deepened the existing relationships, about which we're certain will bring us to the position of ''disrupter'' of the in-room dining segment within the hotel industry," Brčić Jones said, adding that he believes that in several years, it will be present in a number of world hotels which boast 4 and 5 stars.

"With the help of the RoomOrders application, guests in hotels can order food to their rooms in a few clicks and not in the ''old fashioned'' way. In addition to it having a faster mode, hotels can embark on this project without any large investments," explained Ingemark's director Jurica Mikulić, adding that the application has managed to receive some excellent initial customer reviews and financial results for the hotel. Hilton in Boston has increased its average order value by as much as thirty percent.

''We offer a simple solution that not only increases revenue, but promotes hotels through user-generated content and facilitates analytics. The greatest benefit is that this solution can be implemented without disturbances to the processes involved, and it provides almost instantaneous results,'' Brčić Jones added.

The author of the application, Haris Dizdarević, explained that the creation of RoomOrders was triggered by the current rather obsolete ways of ordering and the obvious need for faster selection and the changing of the menu that guests want in the room.

"We realised we should digitise the offer and thus expand it. The simple idea has become a complex but a successful project," said Dizdarević, explaining that the positive signal was the fact that hotel guests continue to use the application after the first time of using it, and for several days in a row. Although they acknowledge that the Croatian market is not really a priority, they're still negotiating with several Croatian hotels in Dubrovnik and with Maistra, Blue Lagoon (Plava Laguna) and Liburna, and that soon, the application will be launched in Sheraton, part of the huge global Marriott hotel chain.

Otherwise, RoomOrders was introduced DoubleTree by Hilton in Zagreb a few months ago, but then it was a modified version of the app.

"With the new application or system, the guest can, as soon as he is given the room after booking, in advance, even when travelling, immediately choose a range of dishes and orders so that it's ready and waiting in the room upon their arrival. The guest doesn't need to order it from the hotel room, they can do it in advance and choose from a simple and flexible application where all the photos, descriptions and the prices of the food and drinks in the hotel's offer are,'' they explain from hotel Sheraton where this new type of offer and service will be on offer by the end of May, which will, as they say, bring about improvements.

"The application also enables sharing of guest experience on the platform, real-time appraisal of food and services so that the hotel can almost react at the same time to all guests' comments and adapt to the current wishes and preferences of the guest," they added from Sheraton.

"We're sure that at some point there will be some competitors in this segment on the market, but we believe that we're strong and already ahead of them all. We're focusing on the development of this product which we want to make perfect. Along with marketing, the analytic component is the most important, to be more concrete, the analysis of the reactions, comments and the number of orders, so, the entire internal process. We hope to conclude this year with good results and continue to expand successfully,'' Brčić Jones concluded.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more.

Click here for the original article by Lucija Spiljak for Poslovni Dnevnik

This Croatian startup currently employs 45 people. Its income in 2013 was thirteen million kuna, last year it reached 35 million, and in 2019, 50 million kuna is expected.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Bernard Ivezic writes on the 20th of May 2019, the Croatian startup Zipato develops and manufactures smart home systems, which results in a Croatian solution that can compete globally with the likes of Apple, Google and Samsung. Just recently, 10,000 central ''Zipabox'' smart home computers have been delivered to the USA from right here in Croatia.

With that contract, the Croatian company concluded its single biggest job so far. Sebastian Popović, the co-founder of the former Vodatel, who is today the co-founder and director of Zipato, didn't want to delve too deep into the details of this contract, but he emphasised the fact that it was so significant that the production of Zipabox systems has moved to Zagreb.

For nine years now, 30,000 pieces of the same product but in its smaller series were sold across the Atlantic in America. Since then, far bigger orders have been dealt with by developers and OEM partners who have been equipping a larger number of apartments and various business premises with Zipabox's system.

"I expect there will be more similar contracts," stated Popović.

Sebastian Popović, along with Damir Sabol, is the only Croatian entrepreneur who has managed to build a profitable startup on the Croatian telecom market and then sell it successfully. Sabol sold Iskon to Croatian Telecom for 100 million kuna back in 2006, and Popović sold Vodatel to the former Metronet (currently integrated into A1 Croatia) for 80 million kuna just one year later. While he was in Vodatel, he developed the "eTV media centre", a computer that is the counterpart of today's well known IPTV set-top box.

Moreover, his former Vodatel was the first in Croatia to launch IPTV as a commercial service back in 2005. It had almost all of the functionality of today's IPTV, including video on demand. After the sale, Vodatel briefly moved to the building industry, but the global financial crisis, which hit Croatia in 2008, pushed that Croatian company back towards technology.

"We started nine years ago when we imagined ourselves quickly developing hardware and offering a smart home service in Croatia. However, we needed three years just to be able to show the first version of Zipabox," Popović noted.

He added that despite this, the hard work and effort definitely paid off. Although there were already many devices on the market and various smart home sensors around, either they weren't properly compatible with each other, or their installation and connection required large and burdensome investments.

"From the outset, we attracted the interest of customers from different parts of the world, mostly from some of the most developed countries, and they started contacting us and distributing and promoting Zipato in their countries," Popović said.

Today, the Croatian Zipato is present in an impressive 89 countries and across five continents. On its platform, more than 300,000 IoT devices are currently connected to 50,000 households and other spaces. The big business opened up its doors when this Croatian startup started to work directly with integrators and developers in the construction industry, instead of just with individual customers and distributors, who were so well equipped with new builds.

Popović emphasised the fact that they have had contacts with such companies in that industry since as far back as the year 2000.

As stated at the beginning, this impressive Croatian startup employs 45 people, it saw income of thirteen million kuna back in 2013 and as much as fifty million kuna is expected this year. In the last four years, they have also begun to contract OEM deals for telehandlers, power companies and other utility companies.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more.

Click here for the original article by Bernard Ivezic for Poslovni Dnevnik

As Novac/Drazen Grubisic writes on the 18th of May, 2019, Split's Brodosplit shipyard will build another new ship for its end buyer, Oceanwide Expeditions. The vessel will be designed specifically for polar areas with a delivery obligation set at October 2021. This information was recently confirmed to the Cruise Industry News portal in a short conversation with Wijnand van Gessel, the owner of the aforementioned Dutch company.

"We've had a good experience with the shipyard in Split, working with them as a partner," stressed Van Gessel for Slobodna Dalmacija.

The new ship will be Hondius's sister, which will be taken over next week by the company, and it will have the name Janssonius, named after a famous Dutch cartographer from the seventeeth century, Johannes Janssonius.

"Hondius is of a very good quality and was built at a decent price. The shipyard stuck to its delivery times, which is the most important thing in this industry," Van Gessel stated, announcing that Hondius will leave Split next week and go to the Netherlands until the cruise begins in June.

Hondius has a maximum capacity of 196 guests, or 174 in a double room, which is considered by the Dutch to be an optimal number. Among the special features are larger cabins, some with balconies, and a large observation lounge with large windows.

In Brodosplit, the vessel was known as Newbuild (Novogradnja) 484 and was presented as a symbol of Brodosplit's restructuring and a step up in both organisational and technological aspects. It was built with new software, tools and technology, especially so in regard to part of the equipment, as almost 80-85 percent of the ship had already been equipped during its construction, resulting in better quality, shorter deadlines and lower construction costs.

The ship was built according to a new financing model, for its own fleet and for long-term lease.

This new polar cruise ship is the first ship in the world to be built in the LR PC6 class, which will meet the latest Lloyd Registry requirements for Polar Class 6 vessels. It is 107.6 metres long, 17.6 metres wide and its main engine boasts a total output of 4260 kW. It will be able to accommodate nearly 200 passengers accommodated in 85 cabins, which will be taken care of by 70 crew members.

The ship's guests will soon be offered a high hotel standard, as well as various cabin categories, from two-room to four-bedroom, as well as spacious suites, where they will be provided with multiple secured systems to provide a safe and comfortable stay.

The design and all technical solutions are all the work of Brodosplit's talented designers.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more.

Click here for the original article by Drazen Grubisic for Novac/Jutarnji

The highly successful Croatian company ''Include'' recently celebrated its fifth birthday, and today this remarkable company has had its worth valued by an independent auditing house, and that worth has been estimated at more than 110 million kuna.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 15th of May, 2019, Solin's Include, a Croatian company which produces smart benches headed by young entrepreneur Ivan Mrvoš, is continuing to go from strength to strength. Mrvoš recently confirmed the first direct investor in a new investment round. That investor is no less than Stjepan Talan, the director of the Varaždin-based company Solvis. Solvis currently employs 180 people, and back in 2017, this company recorded more than 600 million kuna in revenue. In addition, the company has been listed on the London Stock Exchange for the past two years among the 1000 companies that inspire Europe.

"For the last ten years, my company, Solvis, has been successfully doing business and selling its solar panels on global markets. I'm looking at the company Include with perspective, and, considering the fact that it works in the same industrial sector, I think this investment can contribute to the betterment of overall business, primarily synergy between Solvis and Include,'' stated Solvis' Stjepan Talan.

Cooperation between Include and Solvis started back in 2015, and otherwise, Include launched a new investment round twenty days ago, via the Funderbeam platform, and up until now, an impressive eleven million kuna has been raised by 450 investors from Croatia and across the world. In addition to the money raised by Include through the platform, negotiations with several private investors such as Stjepan Talan and the total investment amount (private investors and the Funderbeam platform) that sum could reach up to thirty million kuna.

Include exports eleven products to 43 global markets, and are present in 260 cities around the world. The company's worth was estimated at 110 million kuna this year by an independent auditing firm. Owing to its innovative, smart urban furnishings, the Croatian company has already won several much deserved awards and recognitions, such as Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 and Forbes' 30 under 30 award for its founder, Ivan Mrvoš.

"We're exceptionally pleased that this cooperation with Solvis has given us a new dimension,'' said Include's Ivan Mrvoš.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more.

Croatia's ''Include'' continues to go from strength to strength in the face of an unforgiving system and even less forgiving employees of the state bodies, proving that where there is a will, there's a way, even if you happen to be in Croatia.

We often hear all about how Croatian companies are failing due to either the lack of will or, more frequently, the truly insane amount of red tape and obstacles placed before anyone who wants to make something for themselves by the state and an old, outdates and senseless system of bureaucracy. 

As unoiled the cogs continue to turn in the Office(s) of the Uhljeb in state institutions of all kinds up and down the country, the unsackables continue to undermine and chip away at the determination of the doers and would-bes from behind their perspex windows.

Faced with an entire forest's worth of paperwork, more stamps than a border control officer and usually an unacceptably hostile attitude from the state employee (also known as the unsackable) dealing with them, many would-be entrepreneurs give up quickly and head elsewhere in search of their dreams. However, as big as Croatia's problem in this regard really is, not everything is so bleak.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 1st of May, 2019, just six days after the launch of another Funderbeam SEE group fundraising campaign, Ivan Mrvoš and his highly successful company ''Include'' raised a massive 1.22 million euros in equity, making Include's campaign the largest ever on Funderbeam globally.

The director of Funderbeam SEE, Damir Bićanić, commented that Mrvoš is pushing the records of the platform with Include yet again: "With their first campaign, they collected what was then the largest sum on the Funderbeam platform, and although sum has risen in the meantime, they collected more than any other campaign in just six days on the platform once again, globally.''

After Include's first successful campaign when they collected 465,000 euros on Funderbeam back in 2017, this time their first campaign goal of 1.2 million euros was met in a mere six days, and investors still have the opportunity to meet the target of two million euros.

"We're very pleased that after six days we've reached the minimum planned goal. I think that this, as well as 290 investors from 21 countries, are the indicators that we're doing a really good job. I believe that the amount of investment in the remaining days will grow steadily, although we're already the most successful Croatian crowdinvesting campaign on the platform ever,'' stated Include's founder Ivan Mrvoš.

Make sure to atay up to date by following our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more.

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.

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