"I never thought that I was going to be a baker. I didn't even know what a rolling pin was, nor how to knead bread or make a cake." Twenty-six year old Marjan Milosevski started working in the baking and confectioning sector eight years ago, when he found a job as carrier for bakeries in his town. Now he is the proud owner of his own bakery and cake shop "Pikasu EM".

After graduating from the School of Agriculture Agronomy, there was a mass closing of factories in Bitola. In order to finance his education, he started looking for a job. He ended up as a carrier for bakeries, and piece by piece became more involved in the bread and cake production. Working as a confectioner, he encountered his talent for the production of cakes and baked goods when the demand for his products increased. "I was making cakes all day and night long. That's how I started thinking of my own business", Marjan explains.

Marjan was starting to make preparations for a small family business in cakes and bakery goods when he found out about the Business Plan Competition of BSC Bitola. "In the BSC they helped me setting up a business plan. To my own surprise it was awarded with the first price. Wow..." Marjan got an office in the Business Incubator, an opportunity for a micro-credit of 10.000 Euros, free consultant trainings and a joint financing in the registration of his company. "With the trainings I got all the information necessary about the HASAP system which is essential for my business. Also, the training for communicative skills helped me a lot, as well as those for economic management. It's exactly this where the BSC helped me the most."

Marjan is slowly becoming a great competition in the bakery-confectioner business in Bitola, and is already entering markets in Ohrid, Prilep and Krusevo. The increase in demand made him enlarge his business, and replaced his small shop of 42 m2 with a new one of 160 m2. "Now I have ten employees. I established myself as a protective company and employed 4 disabled people for making the decorative details for the confectioner's products." He's especially happy with the fact that there are a lot of happy costumers.