Tamara Matić is a young woman born in Sokobanja, where she also finished high school in tourism. After the marriage, she moved to Aleksinac, where she still lives with her family. Having achieved as a wife and mother, Tamara is firmly determined to have a successful career. She actively participated in the all activities of the YourJob project, attended Bootcamp for future young entrepreneurs and applied for a grant to start her own business. Although she is aware that the economic risk of starting a business during the pandemic of COVID-19 is significantly higher than usual, she does not intend to give up on fulfilling her dreams. We talked to Tamara and here is what she told us.
Which business would you like to start and why?
I would like to do some creative work, and I saw myself making various objects using CNC machines. My husband and I bought a CNC laser in 2017, and in the beginning we made various items as gifts for our friends. They had only words of praise for our work, so they recommended us to their friends. Our hobby gradually began to grow into something more. So far, we have made hundreds of different items – gift – lamps, pendants, wall clocks, earrings … Most for sale. My goal is to turn my current hobby into a business and start a CNC workshop for making various items from all materials suitable for CNC cutting and engraving. I have three key reasons to start this business:
- The work is interesting and creative. I can turn literally any of my own, or the customer’s idea, into an interesting product.
- I believe that the job is financially profitable. People are always ready to pay for quality and personalized things made according to their idea and desire.
- I could hire people from all walks of life. Operational work in production could be performed by someone without any experience. For some jobs, according to their capabilities, people with mental disorders or people with disabilities could be employed – e.g. for placing materials in machines, extracting and packing finished products, storing transport packages and the like.
Do you think YourJob Bootcamp helped you achieve your goal?
I think that at Bootcamp we have all learned something new, especially how to treat and look at work, how to best profile the idea and how to achieve the best results in work through good marketing and a good choice of the target group of customers. Great people and experts revealed their business skills to us and partly showed me the right path to success. I started to apply some of those skills and tips and the progress is obvious.
How will you remember YourJob Bootcamp?
By very well organized workshops, by great people who were there to answer all our questions in the simplest possible way, so that we could more easily understand the essence. The cooperation and relationship with everyone was great. Most of the participants followed my Instagram and Facebook page – GravirCo, follow me :), and I also supported their ideas. I hope that in the future I will stay in touch with all of them, so that we can exchange further experiences and together look for solutions to the problems that arise.
What else would you like to learn?
I’ve always been curious and learning new things whenever I had time for it, but right now I want to focus all my energy on one goal, and that’s exactly the workshop I want to start. It is nice to work on other things as well, but over time, one should understand that one has to surrender to one branch for the most part in order for it to grow and develop.
How do you like the ideas of your colleagues from Bootcamp?
Honestly, some ideas are innovative and I like them, some have already been developed by other companies, but I think that everyone’s idea can be fruitful if that person takes good care of it. Healthy competition is always welcome, because that way we can learn from the better of us and, with the implementation of our knowledge complete with what the competition does, reach the top.
Do you think that more such programs should be organized?
It would be nice to encourage as many young people as possible to participate in such programs and increase their awareness that work is valued and that there are always people who will help them overcome everything they cannot do on their own.
What do you have to say to your peers in Serbia?
You should always work on yourself and learn new things, even if you think that you will not get any benefit from it. When some time passes and you encounter some obstacles in completely different things, you will most likely use your skills from the past and you will easily overcome any problem, and then you will realize that everything you did has a purpose.
Just work and don’t give up, there will be a lot of ups and downs, but if you are constant in your intention to succeed, in the end you will surely come out as winners.
We are sure Tamara will gain all her goals, and wish her best of luck in future career.
