Interview with Collective Magazine

Hi Everyone!

Guess what? I've finally revealed my interview with Collective Magazine! I am so happy to be collaborating with them, and featuring the founder herself in my new blog post! After reading this post, be sure to check out their website for my personal, yet fun 'sneak peak' interview, revealing all my future plans!

This interview has been such a fun experience for me, and I can't wait to do it again!

I love sharing with you some personal aspects of my life, and of course all my thoughts and views, whether fashion related or other! Click this link to check it out, see you there!

Interview with Collective Magazine founder Ms. Mouangue:

Q1- Hi, how are you “Jessye”? Thanks for joining.

Hi Jumana, thanks for the opportunity and collaboration given, to be featured on Jumana's blog.

Q2- Can you introduce yourself briefly to our readers?

I am Jessye Mouangue founder and EIC of Collective Magazine.

Q3-  Can you give me a bit of a background of yourself?

I am a college student and soon to be graduate. I jumped into entrepreneurship and I couldn’t graduate on time.. I was longing to start a company in my youth years. To make things happen I enrolled in masters in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Luxembourg to get the theoretical knowledge about running a business. Starting a business is to me like the attraction to fashion. You can't resist the call for the experience, the novelty. But of course there's much more about starting up.

Q4- So what is your startup about?

Collective Magazine ( http://eucollective.com) is a digital magazine for the driven, passionate and stylish young founders or budding founders.

My team and I are delighted to work and provide a new hint of content experience and entertainment that matches our audience needs and business mindset.

Q5- How did it all begin? What was the inspiration?

Well, as I said earlier I've always wanted to start a business. The process itself is challenging. I began looking at my skill set and experience in the media industry 2 years ago and I noticed that I could bring my contribution and create something different, that can firstly meet my expectations and could be fitting to others as well.

I decided to give it a try and started Collective Magazine, to share to our generation about founder stories.

Cause I felt like the covers were all granted and given to renown entrepreneurs but the others would have liked to be talked about. This could give another picture to part of our audience the budding entrepreneurs. While keeping us inspired.

Q6- Are you working full-time on this business? Do you have any others on the side?

Well, running a business is a 24/7 adventure. I work in the company even on Sundays. But I enjoy doing it. That's the most important thing to me.

No, I try not to work full-time in my company, so I can rest my brain and do other activities while enjoying getting back to business. But most of the things I do, and the choices I make are related to how I can be better running my small company of a team of 2.

No if I have any other activities on the side, it's just serve the purpose of my company. Like bootstrapping to sustain the company growth.

Q7- What was the initial take up like?

Initially, I figured out the gap, the idea, the industry and the perspective of generating revenue in that industry. Then I've researched a lot about the industry so could master almost every aspects of the company. From Web development to hosting a domain name, to hiring some key collaborators (i.e: staff) and mainly there should have been passionate about entrepreneurship and enjoy their art as writers and young dudes. Running an interview, approaching potential young founders willing to be interviewed.

Then I wrote a business plan as a sketch, not as something I have to stick to. Cause once in the business (the running aspect) everything changes. You have to keep moving forward and reinventing the wheel to make it works, make decisions quickly or not, make the good choices and manage the initial investment to be able to generate revenue at the earliest dates.

Q8- What makes you different from your competition? if you have any?

We do have a lot of competition, established magazines as well as new ones. But the difference is in how we approach our readers and build a relationship with them. We thrive to tell a different story, to talk about their generation of founders that are taking risks. While listening their voices. Cause among them may be the next big entrepreneur. Whenever then want to tell their business story we are happy to hear from them.

We consider to be a constructive relationship with our audience.

Q9- What has been the biggest challenges since your started?

Well, I might say that entrepreneurship is filled with uncertainties. But fortunately we haven't met any big challenges yet. May be because it resonates among young founders or the mission worth it.

Besides I'm lucky to have got a team of passionate and driven people willing to make it happen with me.

But it was really exhausting to deal with the web development team. Fortunately, I managed to make it happen. Which I'm glad about now.

Q10- How did you overcome these challenges?

Harder work. I work harder every day to make things happen and it payed out.

I can also count on a strong team. They make things easy to deal with as well.

Q11- How did you fund the business initially?

Until know I've self-funded the business. I put in an initial capital and still is.

I talk with my team and see how we can get to make revenue and to autofinance the company. Which implies to be very flexible. But they are willing to. I also figure out how to make revenue and still manage the company. But yes, that's the most interesting part about entrepreneurship it drives you to see opportunities everywhere, be flexible and communicate with your team.

Q12- What motivational quotes and advices would you give to any budding ceos reading you on Collective Magazine?

First observe, learn from your environment. You don't have to have thousands to start a business (especially in the internet days). Just observe and research, get a deep understanding of the opportunities. Be prepared to work hard. Enjoy the journey, its unique.

Q13- What's your vision for now and for the next 5 years?

Well we are ready to be in the media industry and get well-positioned and established as a trusted media and interviewing more young founders.

And be a reference to a wider and global audience within 5 years.

Q14- Where can we find you on and offline when not running your business?

I enjoy spending time with my family in France. Most of the time I am behind the computer at my office.

You can find us at http://eucollective.com

Twitter: @euCollective

Or email us at: hello@eucollective.com if you want to share your founder story or just say hi.

Q15- Your latest thoughts?

I wish you to be successful, we all deserve to be.

Q16- Thank you and we wish you to be successful running your startup.

Thank you, and it was my pleasure to collaborate with you Jumana on this interview.

I wish you to be successful running Jumana's Blog, and look forward to set this up again.

Thank you Collective Magazine for this wonderful interview, and the opportunity to feature Jumana's Blog in your digital magazine. We wish you all the success in the world, and hope to do this again in the near future. Be sure to check out Collective Magazine and feel free to share your opinions in the comments below!


For collaborations, email me only at jumanasblog@gmail.com
Of course you can just say hi too!

Thank you all for your support,
and see you soon!
Link to my interview; here
Love,
Jumana x