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Training from UNDP and GIZ helps young entrepreneurs make a success of a new business
The favorite business of Kharkiv couple Pavlo and Anya is their own coffee shop.
Photo: Ksenia Nevenchenko / UNDP in Ukraine
Anya and Pavlo, a young couple from the city of Kharkiv in the east of Ukraine, never thought they’d end up opening a cosy little coffee shop on the other side of the country, in Ivano-Frankivsk.
But then war intervened, forcing them from their hometown to seek safety, and new ways to make a living elsewhere.
Later, with the help of training from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine and German international development society GIZ, the couple opened their own coffee shop, the Makerzh café, which has since become a favourite in their new hometown.
Starting with cookies
Pavlo proposed to Anya two days before the full-scale war started.
Photo: Ksenia Nevenchenko / UNDP in Ukraine
Two days before the full-scale war, Pavlo proposed to Anya. But the happy couple, already making plans for their married life, awoke early on 24 February 2022 to the sounds of missiles raining down on their hometown, and they immediately decided to leave with their friends.
"We packed in a hurry and just left," Anya says. "We stayed in Vinnytsia for a few days, and then Pavlo's relatives from Ivano-Frankivsk said that they were ready to help us with housing. That's how we ended up in this unfamiliar city."
The couple did not plan to stay in Ivano-Frankivsk, in the west of Ukraine, for very long, as they believed that they would soon be able to return home. But as the war dragged on and their savings began to run out, they started to think about their future life in this unfamiliar new reality.
"One day my wife was feeling down, so I decided to buy her fresh pastries at a coffee shop,” Pavlo recalls. “I was so impressed by the atmosphere there that when I returned home, I suggested to Anya that we make our own homemade cookies to sell."
The couple had no cooking experience at all, but the idea inspired them both. With their last savings, Pavlo bought an oven for baking homemade cookies – products with an unsurpassed taste for sale in beautiful packaging.
At first, they tried to sell their cookies in boxes via Instagram, but they made few sales. Then, in the summer of 2022, while walking around the city, they noticed that some coffee shops were selling homemade gingerbread. It was then that they came up with the idea of working with cafes to sell their cookies.
"I can't say that we succeeded in everything at once,” admits Pavlo. “There was a lot of trial and error, and bug fixes, but in the end we were able to make cookies at home that would last for a month. We started offering them to coffee shops. Some didn’t want them, but there were others who did, and the first batch sold out very quickly. We certainly didn't expect that the next day they’d call us up and say: ‘They all sold out, and people really liked them: Bring some more!’”
After that, the number of coffee shops wanting to work with the couple started to grow. Anya and her husband would stay up until late baking their products, and in the morning they would be delivered by public transport to coffee shops all around Ivano-Frankivsk. The couple’s assortment of homemade cookies was small, but they were now in great demand.
Successes and failures
Small waffle rolls with condensed milk are one of the most popular desserts.
Photo: Ksenia Nevenchenko / UNDP in Ukraine
"After such an unexpected success, we realized that we were helping 20 coffee shops earn money,” Anya says. “So we had our first and very cautious ideas about having our own shop. We decided to rent a small room, and worked for two weeks, but due to problems with power supply we had to stop working. And then we went back to our home kitchen."
Anya puts this first failure in her own business down to a lack of knowledge.
"We didn’t understand how everything works in entrepreneurial activity,” she says. “There was a huge need for a special centre where people could turn for professional advice. We searched for everything ourselves, asked friends, searched on the Internet, and the owners and employees of local coffee shops helped us a lot. It was thanks to them that we learned about training for entrepreneurs being conducted by UNDP in a coworking space.”
After the start of the full-scale war, a coworking space called "Workshop of Taste" was opened in Ivano-Frankivsk with the help of UNDP in Ukraine and GIZ. There, 200 restaurateurs from different cities of Ukraine underwent training in innovative restaurant technologies, which gave them the opportunity to open their own business, set up business processes, and start making money. Among them were Pavlo and Anya.
From theory to practice
The coffee shop has plenty of visitors.
Photo: Ksenia Nevenchenko / UNDP in Ukraine
"In August 2023, we rented a second premises for a coffee shop, which we called ‘Makerzh’ – in Pavlo's family, from his childhood, they had called his mother's cakes "makerzhyky," says Anya, explaining the origin of the café’s name.
“So we associate this name with home and family comfort,” she adds. “Our goal is to prepare desserts that would create new memories with their taste and awaken old ones associated with childhood."
In September 2024, the couple attended training sessions in the coworking space. Soon they were able to put their new knowledge into practice, setting up a new coffee shop.
“We got advice on everything: how to open a sole proprietorship, how to organize business processes, how to negotiate with partners, and how to position ourselves in the market so that we could compete,” says Pavlo.
“They also talked about various non-obvious things, pitfalls in business,” adds Anya. “We even got psychological support – because when you don’t have enough knowledge, you’re scared at the start. We talked things through, and got support and inspiration – especially at the stage of renovating the premises, because the investment was quite large; about eight thousand dollars.”
In addition, the couple received marketing advice, including tips on launching sales both offline and online. As a result, in addition to successfully launching their own business, Pavlo, Anya and the baker they employ today make more than ten types of cookies that are sold at 30 other coffee shops in Ivano-Frankivsk.
Now they’re enjoying the results of all their hard work – and that’s not just a matter of money: "We’re not chasing super profits,” the young entrepreneurs say.
“We just want our cosy little corner to become a good place for people, where they will be comfortable, and where they can relax and eat our tasty cookies!”
This material was created for the international cooperation project ReACT4UA ("Application and Implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement in the Field of Trade"), with funding from the German government. The project is implemented by the German federal international development company Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH, or GIZ, together with UNDP in Ukraine.
