Hosting Arjeta Puca, succeeding in an industry dominated by men!

Under the vision of bringing entrepreneurs together to educate and inspire, on March 25th, the Albanian community of Startup Grind Tirana in collaboration with Oficina Innovation Hub hosted the TIMAK entrepreneur Arjeta Puca.

Leading the interview was Aneida Bajraktari, co-founder of Balkans Capital and director of Startup Grind Tirana Chapter. The event was made possible thanks to the hosting of Innospace Tirana and our media partner Business Magazine.

Arjeta Puca is the co-founder of TIMAK, an Albania based company that manufactures and sells construction machinery, parts accessories and specialized public service vehicles, and lately projects about developing mobile related products, with branches in Kosovo and Macedonia. Currently, one out every two ambulance vehicles in Albania holds the name of TIMAK. TIMAK has managed to export its “Made in Albania” products to different countries such as Macedonia, Kosovo, Libya and Chile. The vision of Arjeta is to build a strong Albanian business that will grow and become a dominant presence throughout Europe and later, even worldwide, thus affecting the reputation of the Albanian industry by increasing the prestige of Albanian goods in these markets.

The interview started by going way back into Arjeta’s childhood when she immigrated to Turkey with her family and how her father became a well-known plumber. She started helping her parents in their small business while studying Computer Engineering. She also worked in Germany and Japan. At 29 years old, she decided to return to Albania to run her own business. She mentioned having obstacles during the beginnings because of the language barriers, not having enough network in Albania, so she devoted herself to her vision and business to surpass the lost time.

She said that building a successful business comes in numerous steps, phases and layers but one of the most important among them is being well educated and having network.

During the interview she was asked how she managed to find specialists and professionals, considering that this field of industry is not very common in the Albanian market. Arjeta stated that she worked with specialists from their Turkish factory and she trains her staff continuously.

Arjeta Puca’s business falls under a category that is mostly dominated by men, thus being a woman in this type of industry comes in advantages and disadvantages. For her the obstacles are not gender related but they are mostly prejudicing that the society has for leading women in business related industries, which she found thrilling and gave her more courage to walk towards her goals while mentioning that she has met many Albanian women with strong professional and personal skills that can be successful just like her.

When asked if she had any mentor throughout her journey, she said while she admired inspiring names and visions such as Richard Branson, her source of support and the biggest influence comes from her social circle, working environment and her family.

During the interview, Arjeta was asked to talk about an emotional experience related to her business and she mentioned a situation related to a fire engine with accessible ladder, that “TIMAK” had given to the firefighter force of Elbasan and how after some months, this vehicle had managed to rescue from the fire, a grandmother and her niece that were locked in the 5th floor of a building.

Arjeta Puca’s vision comes with an ambitious goal, that of being able to make her company be well known worldwide and contribute to Albanian market by increasing the exporting as well as increasing the number of professional women in her company for the next five years.

When asked about challenging moments, she stated the first steps of building her business were very difficult, but also the pandemic had a negative impact in her business, but she managed to stay motivated, confident and overcame the obstacle. She said that it’s a matter of personal confidence and courage to believe that one can reach anything and that she was told she would meet failure, so she wanted prove these voices wrong.

Arjeta Puca said that if she would have a superpower it would be that of helping people unfold their courage as she sees a lot of potential in Albanian youth and advices them and everyone else to have courage to take initiatives because it changes one life, giving the example of her father, who from a music professor immigrated to Turkey and started his small business as a plumber and became well known for his service, when others would tell him that he would fail. She encourages to have the same courage and persistence as it will help you reach your goals.