Vous venez de créer et de lancer il y a peu votre propre société. Quel était votre parcours précédemment?
This would not be the first time I’ve ventured into entrepreneurship. Volio was established in Seattle, WA USA in the year 2011. During this time I distributed the same product to restaurants, businesses and attended fairs and markets. The business was profitable and I took great pleasure in the work. However due to personal circumstances at the time I had to refocus my energies on other business and paused the distribution side of this project.
My family owns a farm in Rimini, Italy (where I come from ) where we produce many different products from fruit and vegetables to juices, jams and Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Up until now the EVOO has been sold exclusively in the local farmers markets and my intent is to broaden the horizon and enter the EU market, specifically LUX, DE and UK.
The bigger plan is in fact to create a virtuous cycle to grow brand awareness and develop an opportunity at our orchard in Italy where we are planning on renovating an old farm house to eventually expand into the hospitality sector and host our customers from around the world.
Volio is an essential piece of this puzzle and Luxembourg represents a great market to open our business.
Qu’est-ce qui vous a poussé à vouloir vous lancer dans l’entrepreneuriat?
After living abroad for over 10 years I became more and more convinced of the importance to bring my focus back to the family business and help it grow by using skills and experience cumulated over the years I’ve lived in the USA, Canada, and EU. I am proven to be business savvy and a people person. I am a self-starter and driven by the idea of owning a self-sustaining family business. I am not scared of long working hours nor am I put off by taking risks. I am very structured and organized which allows me to efficiently prioritize tasks and think long term. Since 2011 I worked for a very big Multinational Company where I held various positions from Global Sales to HR where I refined skills such as dealing with ambiguity, managing multi-tasking without losing focus, implementing strategies for long term success, coping with very different needs and requests coming from different actors.
Being exposed to this diversified environment has given me the opportunity to learn to work with people coming from various backgrounds and how to successfully interact with them. It has also nurtured the capability of using data to drive business related decisions. Where possible I search for studies and research in relevant sectors which can help me expediting certain paths while putting others on hold.
This experience has taught me not to be scared of taking risks and to challenge myself with something bigger than the usual 9 to 5 job.
Depuis quand étiez-vous inscrit.e à l’ADEM et comment avez-vous été informé des aides par rapport à la création d’entreprise ?
I have been with ADEM since October 2019. From the moment I knew I wanted to launch my own business I had various meeting at the House of Entrepreneurship where I was made aware of the program that ADEM has in place for people like myself.
Quand vous-êtes-vous lancé?
I obtained my business license in February 2020 but completed RCS registration and received my TVA in April 2020.
Décrivez-nous votre nouvelle activité ?
Volio aspire to be the direct connection between the consumers and my family farm in Italy and the products that are produced there. As off now Volio offers Premium Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Flavored Oils that we make by infusing the EVOO with different spices and herbs. In the future however I will expand the range of products proposed to my customers by integrating jams, juices, tomatoes sauce into the catalogue. Volio is mainly an online based b2c business. Nevertheless with Volio I also attend gourmet fairs, markets and events as well as partnering with other businesses like small restaurants and epicerie. Volio is has its own website (www.volio.eu) but it is also present on the platform Letzshop and will attend the markets of Bonnevoie and Place de Paris organized by the City of Luxembourg once they will be ready to launch (fall 2020).
Quel objectif vous êtes-vous fixé?
Launching a business is not an easy task especially when it is done in a foreign country of which we need to learn rules, system and consumer behaviors. My main goal for the first year is to make Volio known in Luxembourg and start getting some brand recognition. This goes hand in hand with making sure that the business can self-sustain while slowly scaling up for the years to come. However as previously mention, Volio is only a piece of a bigger project which will eventually be the creation of an hospitality business at my farm in Rimini Italy. In other words I look at Volio as one of the main stream that we will leverage to grow a multi facet the family business in Italy.
Quel conseil donneriez-vous à des personnes en reconversion professionnelle ou à celles n’ayant pas encore osé franchir le pas de l’entrepreneuriat ?
Today more than ever we live in a global world where people/consumers are exposed to many (sometimes too many) options and finding a niche is very challenging. For this reason I think there are at least 3 factors that an entrepreneur needs to consider before launching:
· What do I offer that others don’t or can’t? What is my added value?
· Am I truly passionate about this project? Passion is very important especially for those moments where we feel defeated or when things are not going as we wish they were.
· Am I willing to invest time and energy in a project that might not be financially stable (at least in the beginning)?
I think we are quite fortunate to be in Luxembourg as it offers a support mechanism that helps new entrepreneurs adventuring into opening their own businesses. I am thinking for example at the support I received from Organizations like ADEM, HOE and Nyuko and some of the Programs that are designed with this goal in mind. One that I am leveraging now for example is the FIT4Digital Program.