Ivana's story

I joined the Student Entrepreneurship Incubator at the Faculty of Economics in Split, where it all began. I was just looking for new experiences and wanted to seize every opportunity my studies offered, and in the end I came out a student entrepreneur.

I set out to launch my own production facility for innovative products. From scratch I built a small family facility with over 50,000 euros invested. I recovered the investment in less than 4 years.

That experience is also what prompted me, 10 years later, to write and publish the Handbook.

I graduated from the Faculty of Economics in Split with excellent results and spontaneously published my first scientific paper.

An interesting detail is that alongside preparing for my final exams, writing my thesis and building my own business, I was also working in the field at Porsche Leasing.

During the pandemic I became part of the Startaj Hrvatska project, through which the product found its way onto the shelves of a retail chain across Croatia.

They ordered 3,000 cakes, and in the end we delivered as many as 5,000

That was the hardest year of my life, both professionally and privately.

Right then I also received an offer to work for a company preparing and implementing EU projects, which I accepted. By 7:30 I would already be at the office. Around 4 pm I would come home, have lunch, and then be at the facility until midnight, and so on for about 6 months.

It taught me something I now tell every client: You must not sacrifice your private life for the business. Money comes back. Time does not.

Just when I thought I had everything in place and had decided that the production business was the direction I wanted to go, life decided to play with me. The production facility was closing! It was a decision I could not influence, because I was not the only one making decisions. It took me a long time to come to terms with that decision and accept it.

And then the question every entrepreneur knows: Now what?

Right at that time, I received an offer from abroad in an industry I had no experience in, one I would probably have declined under other circumstances, but at that moment I told myself: What do you have to lose? And how much more could you gain? It is time to take a risk!

My adventure began at Silicon Castles, an Austrian company that builds technology startups and invests in them.

In that period I also worked a lot on my personal development. I learned new skills, built relationships, expanded my network. I also fought my fears, I have a huge fear of flying, and back then, because of work, I took around 10 flights in less than a year.

It was in that period that I became aware of how far I can go, of all the possibilities I have, and that the sky is the limit.

And one day, while I was on a business trip in another country, I made the decision to start my own business.

I launched RESOLVE, I did not have a perfectly worked-out plan for the next five years. I only had a strong feeling that I wanted more.

More freedom. More creativity. More room to grow.

I wanted to decide for myself who I would work with, which projects I would take on and in which direction I wanted to grow my business. I wanted to create without limits, test my ideas, step out of my comfort zone and build something that would fully reflect my values and way of working.

And yes, entrepreneurship brought exactly what I was hoping for, flexibility, the freedom to organise my time and the ability to align my private and professional life in a way that suits me.

Given my previous work experience, I was also familiar with the less glamorous side of entrepreneurship. The one with no security of a fixed salary. Where you find your own clients, run projects, negotiate, solve problems, cover the costs and worry whether next month will be as good as the last.

There are days when everything comes easily and you feel invincible. But there are the other ones too, when you doubt, question your decisions and ask yourself whether life would be simpler if you had stayed on the safer path.

Still, every time I look back, I know I made the right decision.

Because RESOLVE was not born only out of a wish for my own business. It was born out of a wish to create, learn, grow and build a career on my own terms. A career that goes along with my private life.

And it is precisely all the challenges, uncertainties and small victories that make this journey so special.

That same year I also became a mentor within the mentoring network of the BOND2 project (HAMAG BICRO).

I published the first and most detailed handbook for flat rate sole traders, used by over 3,000 business owners, and it has had 3 editions so far.

That same year I also got married, and I would not mention it here if it were not important for the business. My husband and I met because we worked together as EU project consultants, and our professional collaboration continued afterwards. So he is an important part of the RESOLVE story, because he is the one behind the technical side of the flat rate business platform project.

I became a mother to the most wonderful creature and at that moment everything changed.

Less than 10 days before giving birth I held a webinar on the changes brought by the new fiscalisation law and released a fiscalisation guide for flat rate sole traders.

I did not neglect the business after giving birth either. My son became a great motivation to be even better and to build an even bigger brand.

Today I know I was right. You do not look for work. You create it.

I am building my biggest project so far. The thing I would have wished to have myself when I was starting out, the first platform for flat rate sole traders on the market.