12/20/07

Two young jewerly entrepreneurs

Here we go with the first two entrepreneurs to profile, two young ladies, friends of mine!
Specially for this Xmas season, who knows if some of you might be interested in purchasinfg their products!


1. Vera de Galdos - http://www.veradegaldos.com/

Entrepreneur: Vero Luna (Peru, UK)
Vera de Galdos is the brand new peruvian silver jewerly project of Veronica Luna. I shared with Vero, a crazy and very professional woman, two years of work back in AIESEC. Vero has worked for TCS in London and currently for UBS, in the same city. So together with his father and another partner, Vero has lauched Vera de Galdos.
The site, being still a young company, looks great and allows you to do online shopping.
One particular reason why I want to share Vero´s case (besides being a friend!) is that her story is a proof that you can perfectly be highly engaged with your work as employee (let´s call it your non-entrepreneurial life) and yet find the right partners, product and market to start making money.


2. Gris Joyería
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grisjoyeria (catalog), http://www.bogotamiciudad.com/Directorio/Detalles.aspx?BMC=127861

Entrepreneur: Catalina Spinel (Colombia)

This is a very similar story to Veronica´s, but the business is however is bit smaller. Catalina is a work college (that also is a full time employee!) and nowdays with a partner designs and sells jewerly. They started first just trading jewerly and even had a shop together with more people in the north of Bogota, but after the shop closed for some reasons, they started designing the own pieces and trading them in key spaces as handcrafts fairs. They even won a price recently of Artesanías de Colombia, not designing jewerly, but some amazing bag, gloves and kind of bells done with the same material of the colombian San Jacinto Hammocks.
The jewerly market, at least in Colombia, is very competitive and diverse. Colombians can buy jewerly for 1 USD on the streets but also in prestigious boutiques that designers put together at expensive malls. There is market for everyone ... but no matter the choice that one makes, it´s a beautiful business where it´s very brave to see people, as my two friends, entering and discovering what it means to be an entrepreneurs. I wish them lost of sucess and lots of sales!