“Every year during the big holidays, we thought of making gifts for our friends. Our friends and relatives especially liked the machine-cut souvenirs, so now we can say that our business started in 2015 with a carved symbol – a wooden goat,” says G. Bartkienė, founder of “Medal Holder”. The businesswoman admitted that at first she and her husband had ideas to help carpenters produce massive furniture, stairs, and other wooden products, but when orders decreased, they realized that the machines were not used enough and the money they generated did not repay the investment. This encouraged entrepreneurs to remember the symbolic wooden goat and to turn their business in this direction.
Customers keep coming back
“Now we are happy with an ever-increasing group of customers, who order for the first time and recommend “Medal holder” to their friends.”
G. Bartkienė
The interviewer says that after intensively creating and promoting her new wooden products in the spring of 2015, she received a lot of interest. “Now we are happy with an increasing number of customers, who are not ordering for the first time and recommend “Medal holder” to their friends,” says G. Bartkienė. The interviewer admitted that during the creation of “Medal Holder” there were skeptics who said that it would not be possible to create a business with such details. “Since we have other businesses, many are already used to our constant ideas and their implementation,” says the entrepreneur.
Personalized orders are the most popular
According to Gintarė, the establishment of a “Medal holder” was the best and most successful decision, when they found themselves in a financially difficult situation when entrepreneurs were strangled by the rent of premises, wage taxes, and a loan taken out for the purchase of machines. The interviewer claims that they do not feel competition because they are constantly creating and trying to offer new products. “Personalization of products is especially important to us, in other words, personalization of souvenirs, toys, and interior details. We communicate with each customer individually, we try to implement the ideas they propose, we present our own suggestions”, says the founder of “Medal holder”.
Permanent investments
The founder of “Medal holder” openly admitted that the loan for the purchase of the machine amounted to 15 thousand euros, and the entrepreneurs have recently re-invested in new machines. According to the interviewee, the investments in their business will never end, but they expect to start receiving rewards and profits at the beginning of next year. For other startups, entrepreneurs advise to take and implement their ideas, instead of thinking that they might fail due to excessive risk or other unfavorable factors. “If you don’t succeed, you will feel your soles burning, and when your soles are burning, the motivation to change something and get out of your position only increases!” – says G. Bartkienė.