“Over 90 percent of our clients are from Switzerland.” Valon Asani (27), founder and CEO of MIK Agency *, lives since a short time officially in Kosovo. Before that time, he traveled four years back and forth from Switzerland to Kosovo. “Two weeks here, two weeks there. But that is not necessary anymore. We have good Swiss partners that cooperate with us.”
Valon Asani, who leads the company with Eduard Luta, Astrit Malsija and Ilir Trstena, grew up in Switzerland, but has parents from Kosovo. Although his English skills are very good, he pronounces the word ‘outsourcing’ with a Swiss accent. And that’s not strange, if you imagine that he mainly helps German speaking clients with web development, search engine optimization, and web design. “MIK Agency started in 2012. At the moment, we have twenty full time employees and we work with dozens of freelancers around the world.”
From Switzerland to Kosovo
Why does a talented entrepreneur with Western education go to one of the poorest countries of Europe? Asani: “I knew that Kosovo had the best opportunities. But I also wanted to help the people here, because my parents are from Kosovo. I saw that you could do good business here: you do the work here and you sell your product/service in Switzerland. Win-Win. We might have been the first company that did the Search Engine Optimization from Kosovo for foreign outsourcing companies in Switzerland.”
MIK Agency: ‘We are hardcore entrepreneurs’
Just like with many other companies, success didn’t come in an easy way for MIK Agency. “We are hardcore entrepreneurs, sometimes it’s worth to fail ten times for one success.” In the beginning, Asani had to return to Switzerland to work thirteen months full time for another company: “With that money, I could pay the employees in Kosovo.” But that is something from the past. With clients like Zurich Municipal Electric Utility, Western Union, Cleantec, Imaging Solutions and big players like Samsung, MIK Agency (that stands for Made in Kosovo’) is a great example of a company that knows how to serve Western clients.
*now known as mikgroup.
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