Paris is the home to numerous small businesses, many of which are run by expats. Moving to a foreign country, learning a new language, and finding work is daunting enough, let alone starting your own business! With the COVID pandemic most of these businesses have suffered for the past year. As the French capital slowly returns to life, we spoke to some of these businesses about their personal and professional journey in the City of Light. Every week we will bring the story of three such businesses.
Yamomoto Shoten
Hiroko Yamamoto is from Japan and moved to Paris in 2019 with her partner. After spending few years in the corporate world, she chose to quit her job in the search for something more meaningful, more fulfilling, and where she could use her creative talent. This quest eventually led to Yamomoto Shoten, a casual and affordable jewellery business for the young and trendy. After attending a jewellery school in Paris, Hiroko launched herself into her creative and entrepreneurial venture. Hiroko says, “I wanted to focus my time and energy on my creative pursuits”. She knows that working as a full-time small business owner and a creative presents a lot of challenges and this last year has not been particularly good, but she believes that this experience has taught her a lot about herself and the world around her.
“I want to make beautiful things that make people feel joy, uplift their spirits, motivate them to get through the day, and help them express themselves”
Hiroko’s creative inspiration is her cat ‘Noemi’. Her Japanese heritage also comes to the surface in her playful but yet sophisticated and refined jewellery collection.
Mom’s Oven Bakery
Anshita is from India and moved to Paris in 2016. For Anshita baking has always helped her relax and unwind and has provided her with joy and creative freedom. It is this passion that led her to quit her technology career of 15 years and enrolled for a baking and French pastry course in Paris. Finally in 2019 Anshita decided to embark on this new path and started her own baking business called Mom’s Oven Bakery offering beautiful cakes and a variety of Indian desserts.
"Baking is something that gives me serenity and helps me bring out my inner creativity"
France is synonymous with pastries and desserts, but it mostly caters to the French style and finding international products is still quite difficult. So rather than challenging traditional French baking, Anshita is hoping to use her own background and introduce Indian delicacies into the French Market.
Dana Robins
Dana Robins is an American Artist currently based in Paris after having lived and worked in New York and Montreal. A self taught artist, Dana has a degree in Computer Animation which has been a source of inspiration for her, but her main strengths are her originality and curiosity. Like “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, Dana is “Curiouser and curiouser!” everyday. She says,"My curiosity provides me with the motivation to continue to want to learn and experiment”. This curiosity has led her to explore and work with a variety of different mediums and materials and build new skillsets.
“ It’s incredible to be able to work on art that can enrich people’s lives and transform concepts into a reality. Regardless of the medium, I live to create.”
Through her work, Dana wants to help people make connections with art that will make them feel less lonely. For her enjoying a painting is like having a conversation without words, is like romance at a different frequency. Dana feels, “The same art piece can resonate different feelings and emotion in different people, bring out the child in an elderly woman or develop inquisitiveness in a young girl”. Another important thing for Dana is her using recycled material, to see value in things that are forgotten.
Apart from painting, Dana is also working on creating accessible art for everyone, something beautiful that people can carry with them and enjoy whenever they want.
Join us at Créunion, a fellowship of small businesses and budding entrepreneurs, with a sole mission of empowering businesses and entrepreneurs in their quest to create game-changing, profitable and scalable companies through active collaboration and partnerships between its members. Check out our Facebook page Créunion — Entraide entre “petits entrepreneurs” and drop us a line.
Till then keep supporting your neighbourhood businesses…
