Łukasz Mróz, a graduate of the Faculty Physical Education of the University of Szczecin claims he owes the birth of his company Makeshape only to chance and a chat with a befriended foreign businessman.

 

He asked me if I could find out for him what the manufacturing cost of marketing materials was in Poland. I thought I could make them myself, reminisces Łukasz Mróz.

 

The young man from Szczecin started his own business in August 2014 using his own meagre financial resources. When he received his first customer order he did not even have his own workshop. The first proceeds went into business development. It took six months for the business to start improving. At the beginning I would gauge the cost of material and labour and I used subcontractors to carry out my first orders. The first orders were small – say 50 stands for shop window displays, says Łukasz Mróz. The earnings were spent on new machines. The first two which made the start-up of his own manufacturing possible, were a welder and a bending machine for pipes worth PLN 8,000.

 

Today his workshop address is ul. Heyki, Szczecin. He and his two employees manufacture fit-out elements for shops – stainless steel hangers for handbags and belts, tables with steel bases, wooden stands for shop displays, Plexiglas boxes and concrete bases for marketing materials.

 

Makeshape carries out five or six small orders a month (up to PLN 15 k). They also have a few bigger orders during the year. A bigger order means about 1,200 units and takes six or seven weeks to complete, explains Łukasz Mróz.

 

The owner of Makeshape has a regular industry partner in Denmark. It is a small firm like us. We are in the same line of business. I do a lot of work for them as a subcontractor, for example fit-out elements for the Ecco and Only chains, he says. My target are large corporations. I have a list of new ones, but at the moment I have enough work to keep my business going at full capacity. My firm is still too small to be able to handle more orders, points out Makeshape’s owner, even though he takes credit for delivering his products to leading global chains. It is amazing to be able to see my product being part of shop displays abroad, says Łukasz Mróz.

 

In the future the owner of Makeshape would like to see an increase in the number of big orders. If I could get one big order a month, I’d be quite satisfied profit-wise. I could rent a bigger shop, buy new machines and employ more people.

 

The young entrepreneur’s plans include developing a product for lorry drivers. Currently he is working on the general concept of the product.

 

ak