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BIG BERRY PEOPLE

Meet our partner Maja Imširović, the innovator behind Vizir beers

Maja and her husband Denis run the “Pivovarna Vizir”, the largest microbrewery in Slovenia, located in the heart of Bela krajina. BIG BERRY conducted an interview, this time only with Maja, in order to discuss her skills, her personal achievements, as well as her business plan. BIG BERRY’s partner Vizir produces authentic handcrafted beer using only high-quality, rich in taste, natural ingredients.

First of all, Maja strongly believes that achieving goals requires passion. When you’re passionate about something, it’s amazing how much focus you channel towards it, as well as how much more rewarding the outcome is! For her, positive thinking is the key to success. What is more, Maja is always persistent when requesting something, and persistence plays an important role in her business and personal outlook.

She studied food technology as she was deeply interested in food and beverages. This is an exciting and dynamic area of study and work; with numerous possibilities just waiting around the corner!

Many decades ago, her father created the winery and later they opened the brewery. Maja has been working in Vizir from the very start, when her family expanded, in 2008, their business from wine to beer. Family traditions are of vital importance in Slovenia and should be cherished and encouraged for the generations to come.

Apart from bringing her incredible talent and knowledge to the brewery, she is also guiding tours of the brewery. Another talent Maja possesses is remembering long numbers and important dates like birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, “It is not such a superpower but really helpful for my relationships”, she admitted. Although, sometimes she considers that she should be thinking a bit more realistically.

 As a little girl, Maja was always full of joy and wonder. Her childhood was painted with only with happy and carefree memories. As she remembered: “We played a lot with other kids in nature. Unfortunately, this is something that the kids are missing out these days.” Bela krajina is rich in astonishing nature. Somewhere in this marvelous nature lies our BIG BERRY Kolpa River Resort.

Our partner Maja wanted to be a teacher, so she could pass her knowledge onto others. Today she uses her vast knowledge of wine and beer to educate the brewery’s visitors! BIG BERRY team had an amazing experience and met Maja in their brewery, went to “the school” of beer to learned about the process of beer-making.

Being a successful business woman, Maja doesn’t have a lot of free time; and in that little free time, she’s doing sports, listening to music and reading books or watching movies. She enjoys reading books with deep meaning or a good story. Losing herself in books is the ultimate relaxation.

If you are wondering what makes a business successful, Maja revealed some helpful tips to encourage young people to follow their dreams: “The secret of a successful business is just to be persistent, never listen to people who say that you won’t succeed and just believe in yourself and your idea.”

The most important thing for Maja and her husband Denis, is to make people happy with their products. They are driven by passion to always create something new, and that makes them different from the others.

Dealing with different situations every day, enriches your experiences and opens your eyes to new little discoveries, on how to manage your business better. Maja remembers every mistake they made and feels immense pride of all the mistakes and all the courage they had in the beginning. The challenges they faced in the beginning turned out to be solutions for future issues. Ultimately, this all resulted in their unique products, with which they are more than proud.

Actually, Maja usually prefers to work alone, but she claims that working with people gives an opportunity to learn and discover something new. “Sometimes is nice to work alone with your own thoughts, but usually we like to work together as team.”, she realized during our discussion. Regarding her business plans for the future, she would like to produce spirits, which shows her strong determination and consistency in creating something new.

At last, we had the chance to ask Maja to give her opinion about the concept of BIG BERRY. As she claimed, BIG BERRY for Maja is a very interesting project, it must be a successful story. “The idea of partnership of BIG BERRY is probably new to local people, but worldwide is something normal and we support the whole concept, it is an innovative story”, she said.

 Photo by: flickr