Creative Business Cup 2013 National Winner in Greece
Greece: Beating the odds with entrepreneurship
Greek start-up, Geographical, shows thinking outside the box can overcome all adversity
By Francisco Ochoa-Vargas
The odds have always been against them.
A
massive national financial crisis combined with extremely low national
morale would discourage anyone in their right mind to start their own
business. But not Geographical.
It seems like last time anyone heard of the Greek economy, they were probably listening or watching this.
“Yes
the crisis has made things very difficult for Greek business. With the
government being bankrupt money available was scarce to say the least”,
commented Giannis Sotiriou, founder of Geographical.
Geographical is aiming to connect consumers to the source of great Greek food.
To
connect people to the forgotten sector of agriculture. Geographical
goal’s to expose people to the highest quality food in the
Mediterranean.
But how will it do this? The economic
climate, especially in Greece, would give any company almost no hope of
surviving a risky venture.
“Greece will recover from
this crisis from entrepreneurs”, asserted Sotiriou. “People have lost
faith in the government. Small business is the future of Greece.”
Geographical
is exploiting Greece’s greatest international asset: Its mystique
surrounding its culture, history, and food. Geographical is looking to
target Greece’s popularity among “ foodies” to bring sustainable
business to struggling local farmers.
Geographical
enjoys a unique selling point no other company in its industry currently
enjoys. To create a personal and unique first hand and contributing
experience. Literally from farm to table.
Part of its
business model is to set up a platform of crowd funding leading to
further consumer participation and a heavily involved consumer
experience. Geographical will use collaboration and actual prefunding to
make the sustainable craft food producers successful.
Sotiriou
affirmed that this is one of the strong points of Geographical, he
said: “We are creating an experience for our customers. By implementing
crowdfundng, we are not only involving consumers in every step of the
process but we are also decreasing the costs of our products in order to
make them more accessible to larger market.”
Geographical has enjoyed early success. This is evident by its recent introduction in two stores in the USA market.
And
they will continue to use its unique approach to market, and use
everything they have learned at the Creative Business Cup to fuel future
success.
“We are part of the experience economy”,
Sotiriou said. “Therefore, we are creating intangible products and
experiences. It is very hard to convince investors to fund an experience
rather than a product.”
“We will continue to search
for funds everywhere we believe they are available. The development of
this company is like a marathon, you can never stop moving”, he
concluded with optimism in his voice.
Geographical is Greece’s national champion of the 2013 Creative Business Cup.Creative
Business Cup is an international competition for entrepreneurs from the
creative industries. More than 40 countries have sent their national
winners to Copenhagen where the 2013 international finals is taking
place in the Global Entrepreneurship Week. The star-studded jury will
choose the winner based on three criteria: Originality, Creativity and
Market potential.
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