"Patience is a virtue. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so don’t expect your business to be either," with Daniela Milosheska
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With a bachelor's degree in entrepreneurship at Gea College, Ljubljana, Slovenia, and a masters degree in fashion and luxury management from SKEMA university in France, Daniela has started her career as an intern for an event organizing company where she was working as a project manager for PR and marketing events. A few months later, she started working as a business focus researcher for the Ethical Fashion Forum in London. She founded Bastet Noir in 2013 with the idea to promote and sell Macedonian fashion designers outside of the borders of North Macedonia. Four years later in 2017, the company pivoted to offering custom-made, sustainable and socially responsible clothing pieces made by women single parents in North Macedonia. Today, despite Bastet Noir, she also runs a small coworking space in the capital of North Macedonia.
Can you tell our readers about your background?
So my background is in entrepreneurship, exactly what I’m working like today. I got my bachelor's degree in entrepreneurship in Ljubljana, Slovenia where I was living for 3 years, after which I continued my studies in France. After finishing my masters in fashion and luxury management, I briefly worked on a project for an event organizing agency where I got to experience collaborating with some of the world’s greatest PR managers like Colleen Harris and Patrick Jephson. When that project was finished, I moved to London to work as a business focus researcher for the Ethical Fashion Forum in London. It was there that I became aware of the horrifying impact fashion had on the planet, as well as the ethical and sustainability issues in this industry. After 2 years spent in that position, I decided to start something on my own and that’s how Bastet Noir was born back in 2013. Fast-tracked to today, I’m running 2 small, socially responsible, and waste-free companies. I’m also a consultant on WiseHer.
What inspired you to start your business?
It all started back when I finished my master’s degree. I always knew that one day I’d be running my own business, but always thought that I would work for someone else’s company for a longer period before starting something on my own. Well, that only lasted for 2 years before I realized that nobody was going to hand me the ideal job I wanted to have, so I thought why not build it on my own. Back at that time when I started, Macedonian fashion designers were extremely limited with the market they could sell on, so my inspiration behind it was to develop a platform that could potentially help them expand that market. The idea was to give these designers a platform to showcase and sell their work to markets outside of North Macedonia and create a sustainable, socially responsible, and waste-free marketplace. Of course like any other business that idea developed and changed, so today we’re working on launching our own label in collaboration with women single parents.
Where is your business based?
Currently, we’re based in North Macedonia.
How did you start your business? What were the first steps you took?
Honestly, it was a long time ago, so I’m not really sure what came first, but I think the first thing I did was schedule meetings with the designers I liked and interview web developers to build the marketplace for me. I remember at the time I was hesitating between launching a Shopify website and building a stand-alone website and I went with the latter, a decision that cost me a lot of money and consumed a lot of time going back and forth with developers, a decision I regret to this very day. But hey, how else will you learn, right?
What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?
Well for us I would say social media has had a tremendous impact on raising awareness for the brand, particularly Instagram which is a really powerful tool to use. Another thing that helped us a lot is the content marketing we’re doing. We have a blog where we spotlight the women whose careers we find fascinating and we also write articles on the development of each and every collection, the scenes process of making that collection, and more information about the materials used in every line. We want our label to be as transparent as possible and we want the pieces to reflect that. We also want to educate our customers and make them feel like they are a part of the process
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
I would say the biggest challenge I had to overcome was my imposter syndrome. I was always questioning myself and my skills and was always unsure of the decisions I’ve made. These doubts haunted me for such a long time. The way I overcame this was when people I didn’t know start contacting me asking for my advice. This is where I actually realized: Hey I must have done something right.
When I decided to pivot the business was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. On one side I had designers who were bringing in money to the company, but on the other side, I couldn’t quite develop the story around the brand the way I wanted to. Whenever you run a business, you know that cash flow is the king, so if I decided to take down those designers then that would have meant that for a while the company would not make that money. So I felt stuck for almost a year. By mid-2017 I decided that it was time to take that risk and so the first thing I did was taking down all the designers we carried and focus on developing our own line, invest in branding, and work more on writing the right copyright to be able to tell the brand’s story.
How do you stay focused?
This is something, I’m still figuring out. Lots of coffee I guess. Another thing that keeps me focused on is playing the right type of music for my mood, so I have created all these playlists on Spotify for different mood swings.
How do you differentiate your business from the competition?
I think the thing that differentiates Bastet Noir from other similar businesses out there is that it’s a company that primarily takes care of the people that work closely with us. Our biggest goal is to make sure the women single parents we work with are fairly compensated for their work and their businesses are given a fair chance to grow. This is why every woman that works with us is paid per piece immediately after the piece is made and handed over for shipping. Another thing that makes us very different from the rest of the competition is our on-demand production and emphasis on personalization and customization. We found a way to scale this process, so now we’re able to produce a custom-made tailored item for a record period of 1-3 business days. So our customers don’t have to wait for weeks to get their item.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
Probably content marketing. The thing is that you don’t really see the effects immediately, but after a year of a well-executed content strategy, you start to realize that it was really worth it spending all those hours creating content that at first only 5 maybe read.
What's your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Patience is a virtue. Rome wasn’t built in a day, so don’t expect your business to be either. I remember when I was starting out, I had this grand idea of where my business needed to be by the time I was 28 or 30 or 33 and I found myself disappointed and discouraged each and every single time something went off course. I’m no longer doing this. It’s unrealistic and, to be honest, very unhealthy. Everything will happen when it needs to happen, you just need to give it a bit of time. And I know it’s hard to be patient, especially for ambitious people, but it’s the only thing that will get you through when those lows hit, and believe me you need to be prepared for those lows. As long as you’re willing to learn from the mistakes you’ll inevitably make and push forward, you’ll be just fine and you’ll build that empire brick by brick. It might not look like what you’ve pictured it would be, but that’s fine, as long as you keep on stacking those bricks, you’ll get there eventually.
What's your favorite app, blog, and book? Why?
Favorite app Spotify, because I love music and can’t imagine spending a morning or even a working day without it, and Think Dirty, which I found not so long ago. It’s an app that tells you which ingredients are harmful in the cosmetics you use. You just need to scan the barcode on a product and it explains all the ingredients and what they do. It’s amazing. It really helps me quite a bit to get the right information before making my purchase. I don’t read a lot of blogs, to be honest. I only read one that I found like a year ago. It’s called Mirra and it’s mostly about the ingredients used in cosmetics. I like it because it explains a lot about the damages a certain ingredient can cause to your skin and what to look out for when shopping for skincare products. 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green is probably one of the books I could read over and over again. The laws are quite simple backed with historical facts and still are very much applicable to this day. It helped me quite a bit with the development and growth of my business as well as in general communication with people.
What's your favorite business tool or resource? Why?
Trello, because before I start using it I was buying these notebooks and my schedule was all over the place and whenever a new intern came to work she had to roam through Drive files to learn the structure of the business and now we have everything neatly organized so when someone new comes it’s pretty easy to learn how the company operates. We have everything in one place and everything is more visually organized and easily accessible.
Who is your business role model? Why?
Probably Sophia Amoruso, because our entrepreneurial stories are very similar, and plus every time you read something written by her or hear something you always end up learning a ton of stuff. Her advice is extremely helpful especially if you’re a businesswoman. Although, recently I try not to compare myself with anyone. I used to do that a lot until I realized that we are all different people born under very much different circumstances which oftentimes, if not always, determines the level of your success and how fast you get there.
How do you balance work and life?
I don’t. If you have any helpful advice for me here, please tell me. It’s very hard for me to switch from my work mood. I pretty much work 24/7 during weekdays. I’m always available to reach everywhere and I know this is not ok, but I can’t help it. If I don’t work, I find myself feeling guilty about it. The only thing that I started doing recently is to not work during the weekends and try to get as much nature time as I can, because I mostly spend my days in front of the computer so during the weekends I’m trying to avoid screen time as much as I can. In the past year, I also found nature to be extremely soothing. It calms me down and keeps me centered.
What’s your favorite way to decompress?
I used to travel a lot, but now with this pandemic, since that’s no longer an option I try to at least go to my hometown Ohrid, as much as I can. We have a lake there and I’d like to go swim in the mornings if my schedule allows it. I practice yoga in the morning, which kind of sets the tone for the rest of the day and really calms and grounds me. Also during this pandemic, I found that planting stuff is something that relaxes me. So whenever I find myself stressed, I try to do this. I’ve turned into a complete plant lady, something that I didn’t quite understand before. But hey, don’t judge it till you try it. :)
What do you have planned for the next six months?
We have a new collection out, so we’re currently working on that. We’ll be busy promoting it. We’ve also established a special fund for our small community of women single parents, so we’ll be working on spreading awareness around it as well. Hopefully, in the next six months, we’ll be able to grow our team again. Currently, we’re working with 5 women-owned studios and are planning to expand this to 6 by the end of the year. So wish us luck.
How can our readers connect with you?
Instagram - http://instagram.com/bastetnoir/