We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ilia Basilashvili a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ilia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

It was always my dream to have my own business. That was always one my goals that I wanted to achieve in my life. After completing my school in Georgia, where I come originally from, and Germany, where I initially came as an Au-pair, I started working in a small company, where I gathered lots of experience. At the same time, it turned to be clear to me that I want to become self-employed and to start my own business. In particular, I was very eager to do something that would be in connection with my homeland Georgia. The best way would be to offer something new to the clients from Georgia, that would impress them. So, my idea was to start with an online shop “Geoline Berlin – Discover Georgia”, where I sold imported Georgian wines and other products from Georgia. Having an online shop was a great opportunity for me to observe the market and develop my ideas at the same time without taking much risk. Though this strategy I could find out more about the demand and behavior of German consumers on Georgian products. I have to say, this was a great way to react on the attitudes of the consumers and develop my offer appropriately. Very soon it became obvious that the demand for Georgian products in Germany and particularly in Berlin has increased and I had to decide how to react. So, I decided to grow and finally, in 2018 I opened a kind of gallery where the customers could come across to taste and buy wines. There was a quite large location, and I could organize art exhibitions of Georgian artist regularly. The gallery was located in the City center, in a famous district of Berlin.

However, after a while, I realized that people like to have a place where they come not just for drinking a glass of wine on occasion but they more likely can plan to meet their friends, sit down, have a rest in a nice atmosphere and chat with each other. And that was a significant driver for me that motivated me to open an art café in Berlin-Schöneberg and to establish my concept. Since I wanted to concentrate on my new café, I decided to close down the gallery. From this perspective that was a very important and right decision, since otherwise I were not able to allocate all my capacities for two business-locations.

Ilia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I spent my childhood in Georgia in the 90-ies, where the political and economic situation at that time was very critical due to transition from the Soviet planned market into the free emerging market. Most than 90 percent of the population did not have a job and more about the half of them lived under the poverty line. Only way to survive was to become entrepreneurial and to start something by yourself. This mindset and efforts of my parents in this regard inspired me through my childhood, so it was not difficult to think about my own business after graduated the school. Perhaps that was also a motivation to come to Germany and to increase my self-confidence or just to do things independently, even though I knew that in this new culture it would not be easy. In addition, I had to learn German.

So that, in 2008 I came to Germany as an Au-pair and started my new chapter of my life. Despite a lot of difficulties as a foreigner in Germany, I didn’t stop to give up and continued to work hard to achieve my goals.

Today I have my online shop and a café that is called Café ILOstan (ILO is my short name, so translated from Georgian it means “Being with ILO” or “at ILO’s place”). In fact, I was able to establish a space where I can show my own roots, Georgian cuisine and culture, the place that is very colorful and welcomes everyone. It is my ambitions that this café is a favorite meeting place for people who simply want to spend quality time in a familiar, cozy place. The paintings by the artist Ali Görmez make the café particularly colorful and beautiful – just like my concept, because I am a cosmopolitan and want everyone, regardless of their background, to feel comfortable with me and at my place.

In the café we have integrated a small store of Georgian products. This gives our customers the opportunity to taste most products free and before buying them. We offer breakfast, lunch, dinner and some traditional Georgian dishes in our café. We organize regularly various events, such as Georgian wine evenings, cooking workshops, dancing parties, vegan cake weekends, etc. Our location can be also rented for birthday or weddings parties.

Now, when I see this from today’s perspective, I am really proud of that what I could achieve despite a lot of issues and difficulties I was faced with. Becoming successful requires hard working, dedication and perseverance. However, it is more difficult to stay successful in the long term once you’ve achieved your goal. I am still very motivated to work, interact with my customers directly, get their feedback, and integrate this in my marketing and sales strategies. This helps me of course to develop my products and advance the customer relationship. I love my job very much and believe that it definitely pays off.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The biggest challenge in my life was the moment where I had to decide to go home back or to stay in Germany. Because I had to work parallel to my studies to finance my living in Germany, once I got issues with the immigration authorities: I could not pass some exams at the university and therefore it was not possible to extend the study visa. That was the worst time in my life. I knew that I need to try everything to overcome this issue and find any solution to stay in Germany on a legal way. I got that opportunity and was able to complete my studies and also to get a work permission afterwards. Therefore, I think that sometimes you might need to fall down in order to get up and just go ahead.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The worst time for me as an entrepreneur was the beginning of the Corona pandemic, when all shops had to be closed. I suddenly realized that I had no money to survive, and to pay for the rent, utilities, suppliers and staff. The first two months were the worst months before the government in Germany offered financial aid to entrepreneurs.

I would say, I was more likely someone who spent the money straight away and didn’t save anything or made big investments. That’s why it was awful for me to see myself without any financial capital. And of course, since I feel responsible towards my staff, suppliers and business partners, the situation influenced me very much. Thanks to my family and customers I could overcome this dilemma. Once again, I realized how important real friends and good customers in such difficult situations are. I hope that we will not experience something similar, but I have learned a lot from my mistakes and changed my mindset to be better prepared for crises.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cafeilostan.de
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cafeilostan/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cafeilostan.osbili
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrB8l2-DOqY
• Other: www.geoline-berlin.de https://www.facebook.com/geolineberlin https://www.instagram.com/geolineberlin/ https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung-ss&sca_esv=2fefcfd3a8435a75&hl=de-DE&cs=0&sxsrf=ACQVn09eAiFswX0hHqEVGuXh1wUe0icgvQ:1709117165593&q=Caf%C3%A9+ILOstan&ludocid=15958405649808623516&lsig=AB86z5V6Noi6Tef1yU5x0pBWr3tj&kgs=14246dfa2779a3ae&shndl=-1&shem=lcsnie,lsp&source=sh/x/loc/act/m1/4

Image Credits
By Salome Margvelashvili