The female digital revolution: a woman founder defying the odds of the startup world in the heart of the Balkans
This blog post is really an ode to my strong female role model who is the founder of a new booming startup in the heart of the Balkans. The startup is called Javen Advertising (‘Javen’ means ‘known, famous’ in Macedonian) and it offers digital outsourcing services such as website development or digital marketing, from the historic city of Bitola in North Macedonia. The founder of Javen is Ana Ristevska, a PhD-er in Marketing with specialization in Knowledge Discovery for Marketing purposes. Ana ventured into the start-up world boldly with no intention of backing up, even under the immense pressure of managing both the hectic new business and an even more demanding 3-year old toddler (her daughter).
Having worked with several big companies on their marketing strategy, Ana was well versed in digital marketing even before finishing her PhD. However, having researched the marketing strategies of small and medium business in North Macedonia for her PhD thesis, she noticed that small to medium businesses have almost non-existing online presence, except the occasional Facebook posts by the business owners. The discrepancy between the hundreds of thousands of euros that big companies spent on their marketing strategies and lead generation, versus the little to none online presence of small businesses meant to her that small businesses are going nowhere that way. She decided firmly to change that. And so, Javen Advertising was born.
Javen is a platform that offers small businesses the opportunity of extensive online presence by a very small price. Owners can create their own informative webpage on the Javen platform by simply registering on the platform and for an additional small amount they can buy a package of extensive social media and Google ads campaign. While this part of the startup seemed promising, with more than 100 small businesses across North Macedonia registering in the first few months, the revenue was barely enough for the salary of her two employees. But this didn’t stop Ana. Instead of playing the safe card and going back to a stable marketing manager job, she decided that in order for the business to survive, she would extend its scope.
Thus, she extended the mission of Javen to include software and web solutions, as well as digital marketing classes that she could teach. She offered these solutions by a below-market-average price and the business took off. Javen developed the websites of several small and medium size businesses, located near Bitola, and the good word was passed on. Teaching classes got her to generate revenue to cover some of the business operating costs, which of course, was on the cost of her time. But everyone in the startup world is overworked anyhow, right?
All this was approximately two years ago. Fast forward to today and Javen has several educational courses enlisted in the ‘Javen Digital Academy’ as well as several well-established outsourcing services: website development (including making e-commerce websites), software development (PHP, JAVA, Angular, Bootstrap), digital marketing, graphic design and 3D Modeling, and brand creation. Wanting to bring further social value, Ana established Javen Agro, which promotes organic agricultural products and helps farmers place their produce online.
If you’d like to outsource some of your business digital needs, such as website and software development or e-marketing, I cannot think of a better place to start than Javen Advertising. It is socially conscious tech oasis in the middle of the Balkans, with a strong woman CEO whose policies exemplify diversity in a tech company.
If you’d like to contact Javen and inquire about their services, or you’re interested to find more about Ana’s story, email contact@javen.mk or visit www.javen-advertising.com
