A sad southern breeze blew through our hearts the night we locked up our guestrooms for winter. It was the end of the first year of the Live-Bio family.
At the beginning of 2015 it was only a dream. We had filled up our suitcases with ideas, plans and passion. Our aim was to develop a lifestyle concept that would appeal to our guests as much as to ourselves. But we had no idea whether that would work or how.
As 2016 opens up its sails we have a growing startup, a promising model for authentic travel in Greece and even more dreams for the future.
Challenges in bringing together the Live-Bio experience
Our everyday reality was a lot harder than we had bargained for, even though this does not come across in the happy blog posts. During the set up, the quest for perfection meant that we got involved in everything, from the construction to the painting to the cleaning process.
Our everyday life was also often difficult, challenging us as to whether this was a venture we enjoyed executing. The washing of linens, the collection of trash, the looking after of the garden, and the attention to every maintenance task that surfaced often distracted us from our creative aspirations.
As if running a startup is not enough, the first year of our venture was accompanied by the pursuit of knowledge. Magdalena signed up to an advanced diploma in Digital Marketing, which added to the stress of everyday life. At the same time, however, you can see the more positive side effects in her artful social media management! And I entered the first year of Live-Bio as a full time (albeit remote study) doctoral student in financial regulation. Coursework, assignments and research went hand in hand with picking up guests from the harbour of Poros, attending to everyday issues, and managing a startup that from the very beginning wanted to be different at every level.
Live-Bio family: the highlight of our venture
The only thing that never tired us was interacting with our guests. There was always pleasure in showing each and every one of them around, telling them about our passionately premium olive oil production process, taking them sailing around Poros Island and sharing moments on the balcony, always captivated by the endless blue of the Aegean Sea.
We could not have been more fortunate. Our venture allowed us to engage with people from South Africa to Russia and from Canada to New Zealand. We met yoga instructors, internet programmers, teachers, chefs, tour guides, PhD and medical students, journalists, book authors and so many other diverse backgrounds. Most importantly, people we consider our friends, for whom we make an effort to meet up in their countries, and who we like to call the Live-Bio family.
Thank you all for the time you spent with us in 2015, for sharing your being and not only your holidays with us, and for making the Live-Bio family something worth getting out of bed for. See you in 2016 🙂