"We remember the first years at university well. We spent the afternoons at the beach and talked about various business opportunities. We had quite a number of ideas, but we thought that to begin with, the idea of creating a blog would be the most realistic one - a website where we strive to present the readers with our ideas, to show our work, and in this way open up the opportunities for business cooperation of various kinds and get to know new people," describe the two students and childhood friends how their blogging story came to be. "We started writing the blog a little over a year and a half ago and we’re still developing it. New projects have been opening up for us, new opportunities for cooperation, and we’ve meet a lot of wonderful people. We could never have achieved this without the blog."
An architect and an economist
One of them studies architecture, the other one economics. So is this the ideal combination for success? "You could say so," smirk the students. "Precisely because we cover different areas, we complement each other. Each looks at the matter from her own perspective, since we have different ideas, way of thinking and knowledge, which we combine into a more integral whole."
In the ‘About the blog’ section, the bloggers mention that all criticism is welcome, be it positive or negative. But still - how do they tackle potential hostile comments that have recently gained momentum on the internet? "We have only received a few hostile ones so far, luckily positive comments still prevail. Of course every review touches you, but we try to make the best out of negative comments, take them into account and learn from them."
Dreams: Lavivavera Studio
They’re already cooperating with a young Slovenian brand called Equa - they’ve designed three bottles for them, inspired by traditional Slovenian patterns but with a modern touch. Recently they’ve started working with the Lili in Roza shop … Can they already make a living from their blog? "Not quite, but many new opportunities for cooperation have emerged and we’re starting to consider using it for this purpose, too. We keep our fingers crossed, we try hard and put a lot of time into work. It’s never hard, since we’re not doing this out of necessity, we enjoy doing this. We take this as a chance to express our creativity, and this fulfils us. Hopefully, we’ll have the next interview in our own Lavivavera Studio (laughter)."
The blog is in English. How many of their readers come from Slovenia and how many from abroad? "It was hard to decide which language to use. We’ve opted for English at the very beginning, since we would have automatically narrowed our target group if we had chosen Slovenian. Readers from Slovenia are still in the majority, but we’re getting more and more foreign readers, which pleases us greatly."
Cooperation between bloggers
Živa and Vera have invited their bloggers to a social gathering, which is due to take place in Ljubljana in a few days. The concept is well-known abroad but still fairly new in Slovenia. As it seems, there’s healthy competition between Slovenian bloggers … "We love to follow foreign blogs and events. We admire their connectedness, friendship, the way they support one another in their work, help one another and create excellent and successful stories together. We’d like to see this manner of functioning, socializing and encouraging one another become a habit here, too. We believe that if we share our knowledge and ideas, this can only bring positive effects, both for us and for others," explain Živa and Vera. "We’ve decided to organize this event to meet other bloggers and to offer a chance to some of them to present themselves here. Also, our idea is to enable the readers to meet the creators of blogs they follow daily."
