My focus this month was to create and present a strategy and evaluation of the current state of marketing operations. Despite the task at hand, this month held the additional challenge of out of site commitments and holidays of different team members.
By now I’ve become used to the daily operations and I learned to effortlessly switch between hosting and marketing tasks. Thanks to the support of my peers during the last months I was able to lead together with another colleague all the events that normally would have been led by other team members.

At this point I feel confident creating, organizing and leading different events in the coliving
world, while running regular operations in parallel. Those events have again pushed me
more to rethink my original business idea and start working on another project. Even though this project is not as closely related to the co-living world per se, it would allow me to implement my marketing and creativity skills, as well as the knowledge and competencies that I’ve picked up during my time here.

As for the marketing presentation the biggest challenge was not only to bring together, select and summarize all the data, but to translate the conclusions into a digestible form and link it to practical actions.

Since we are working in a small team and responsibilities sometimes can spill over from one person to the other, a big part of the presentation was taking part before it officially
happened. I had to communicate with and feel out the needs of the business owner, to not
present a result that is disconnected from the usefulness for the business. In a second step
we used a few of the weekly team meetings to check how aligned the team is in terms of
vision, mission and goals of the business. We used those meetings to also share implicit
knowledge or data points that might go unseen. As we were approaching the presentation
day I made sure to check in with the manager, with the team members separate and in team meetings about the message of the strategy, potentially critical points and also a few of the conclusions. The goal from my side was to avoid controversies and intransparency. The presentation contained criticism, that as long as it is seen in a business context can be
helpful. On the other hand it might be interpreted as criticism of the team or a particular
person not doing their job sufficiently right. Both of those aspects needed to be avoid, to
present a holistic and realistic evaluation of the current state of marketing.
The presentation itself went well. It contained many critical but productive debates, allowing team members, management and the owner to exchange views openly and explain their perspective and intentions. The results of this presentation and meeting will be used to develop a marketing manual and a content creation cheat sheet. The presentation also revealed the value of multiple data points, that up until now have partly gone unseen.

The last weeks have proven that one more person in the team really makes everyone’s jobs
easier. Because of the fast-paced working style and small team, the time windows to work
on promising ideas or detailed business development usually have been very short or
needed to be postponed. With one more person in the team now, every person has a bit
more time on their hands.

The new intern has taken over many of my hands-on marketing tasks, and we share hosting responsibilities. By now, I can trust my work colleague blindly. The same goes for all my other peers. At the beginning of my exchange, there was a lot happening, but now that the business is running smoothly and more time frees up, team-building events are becoming more regular, and I am discovering the value of spending time with the team outside a strict business context.

Marketing-wise, I was entrusted with developing a broader marketing strategy and manual
for the company. For this purpose, I took a deep dive into the analytics of the business. It is
very interesting for me to be positioned with an in-group perspective within a decently
running company.

Normally, my experience mostly extended to serving clients or businesses that had either
dug themselves into a hole or where I needed to prove my relevance as a marketing expert.
In the position I am currently in, I get the chance to analyze, strategize, and conclude in a
more grounded way, without needing to oversell or overemphasize any measure. I am keen
on the feedback I will receive, but since the marketing strategy and manual are still works in
progress, that will need to wait a little longer.
In the past month, I have also taken on more tasks and responsibilities as a host and event
leader. I started leading meditations, masterminds, and sharing circles – all regular events
the coliving space offers, which require mostly social skills but also flexibility, planning and
leadership.

I enjoy this role very much, and it makes me question a little bit how much I want to and
should push my professional life and business into a fully remote position. Since the
company I am working for constantly interacts with groups of remote workers from all over
the world, the situation is sometimes somewhat analogous to leading and interacting with a team. On a similar note, I see the benefits of regularly meeting with my team here in Spain physically.

This revelation remains the most valuable experience of my exchange so far. If not for the
chance to actually work with people and take on the role of a facilitator, I might never have
considered changing my professional life in this direction.

By this time, I feel like I’ve fully arrived in my role here at Sun & Co and in Javea. Hosting
has become second nature at this point, and I have moved on to incorporate my strategic
skills in the marketing area.
In the first weeks, I struggled a bit with organizing my day, but also with communicating and collaborating with the team. The working environment is quite fast-paced and dynamic since the situation can change very quickly, on an organizational level in terms of bookings, cancellations, resources, and responsibilities, or on a personal level depending on the influence of guests and changes in the community.
If this experience has revealed one thing to me so far, it is the fact that I really enjoy working with people. I never had the opportunity, and really the privilege, to work closely with people.
Since I am not in a role that demands me to lead or direct anybody, but in most cases rather listen, respond, and facilitate, I’m learning and practicing a whole new way of
communicating. Those communication skills seem to not only benefit the way I interact with guests but also with my peers and superiors.
In the past, I sometimes struggled to convince people of my ideas or communicate strategies effectively. I think that might have been due to the fact that I concentrated too much on my perspective, instead of genuinely listening and understanding the other point of view.
This change has, among other things, led me to analyze the current situation around an
event Sun & Co is organizing in April and to develop a marketing strategy in response.
Instead of going through a detailed and long-lived process, I was able to incorporate the
working pace, practicality, and adaptability I got familiar with in the last weeks and present a simple and effective strategy plan within a matter of days.
The presentation has won me the trust of all team members, and we are slowly shifting to
get me more involved in the overall marketing strategy and process. Since the company is
working mostly with flat hierarchies, I’m learning to communicate my needs, time, and
responsibility effectively. Working in a small team, I also realize more and more the
importance of being effective and practical, but also the trust and reliability necessary
amongst team members.
During the last weeks of this month, another team member joined who will be helping out in the marketing area. It is a very interesting experience to help with the onboarding that I just recently went through myself. I keep noticing that beyond the act of onboarding itself, making sure a new person feels welcome, integrated, and empowered is not something that can be reduced to a task on a to-do list.
Onboarding in this sense is an open-ended effort that requires openness and responsiveness from all parties involved. No matter the professional skills, sometimes the
better team member might be a sociable and flexible person, instead of the highly qualified professional.

Full trust from the first moment. Those words probably describe best how my arrival and
work during the first weeks at Sun & Co in Javea felt. I was welcomed for an onboarding
week in the coliving space and introduced to the idea, concept, and reality of co-living on the west coast of Spain.
Co-living, unlike coworking, is a concept that extends its services and responsibilities beyond the professional realm. Coworking spaces are for people who do not need or do not want to rent or buy a personal office. Co-livings are spaces for people who do not need or do not want to live in one particular place throughout the year – namely: digital nomads and remote workers.
My responsibilities and tasks at Sun & Co are split into two areas: Hosting & Marketing. In
general, the company facilitates and hosts a space for guests to live and work in. Hosting
includes regular organizational tasks like organizing the spaces, checking in new guests, or
receiving feedback. However, a significant part of Sun & Co’s approach is the reliability and
personal connection to the co-living community. There is no explicit necessity or hierarchical demand to be personable, but as a host, I spend a lot of time with the guests, and handling the organization as well as relationships during their stay really makes a difference in their perception of the co-living experience.
The marketing role revolves more around the promotion of the co-living and Javea, the town it is embedded in. In this area, I was given a lot of autonomy, along with the permission to incorporate my personal talents. I’ve proceeded to use my photography and videography skills to create high-quality content for the social channels. I also used my time to get a better understanding of how the marketing is organized and what key factors are relevant for the success of the marketing measures.
Generally, I am granted a lot of freedom in terms of how I structure my work, and I am
allowed to fully incorporate my creativity as well as soft skills and people skills. I feel very
trusted and am excited to explore a new way of working

This was a great month. Galicia feels like something very homey already. The people I met, the nature around me, the project here, it all feels familiar already and like it’s coming together nicely. We did a bioconstruction workshop at the place where my project will be evolving and my project and its vision to renovate a stone house into a learning center became more graspable and concrete as I learned that it is actually possible to do. Building with wood, stone, clay and calk is so beautiful. The photo below was from the workshop with the bioconstruction teachers.

Dennis has helped me immensely to learn so many things about the region, the construction industry and possibilities, has connected me to his network and so on. We have done a small workshop together around permaculture and food forests and will be doing another one in January. The Foundry also hosted a little Christmas market with an exhibition of art from children that are part of a school project at the Foundry.

There will also be the annual association assembly in January that I will be participating in. To do that I have decided to become an associate in the Foundry, which I am very happy about, as I will stay in Galicia. That also allows me to co-create with the Foundry and be more involved in it in the future, partner up with our project, do cool things together and so on. 😊 I am looking forward to spending the holidays here with everyone and celebrate the many things happening in the past months in my project and in the process of this Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs stay. Merry Christmas!

I have now, more or less, arrived at the half of my stay in Galicia.

It really feels like a very productive time here, as I am not only learning so much from Dennis and the Foundry, but also progressing a lot in my project. The highlight is that we (meaning I and my sister, who is doing the project with me) took the decision to officially found the legal entity of our project here in Galicia, a non-profit organisation (in Spanish: organización sin fines de lucro). We called it “Pouqiño a pouqiño”, in English “step by step” inspired by the Galician mentality to not rush it but rather go with the flow and take small continuous steps towards the vision. This feels like the official start of a big commitment, but amazing as it is exactly what we have always wanted. Now things are getting more concrete. Of course, this was a lot of bureaucratic work and still is. However, I find the Spanish bureaucracy more straight forward than the German one, so that’s a plus :-D.

On top of that, we are working a lot on our financial strategy, our business model right now, where I receive lots of ideas from Dennis as well, which is great.

In the Foundry always happen so many things, that it is impossible to write about everything. The latest highlight was the creation of a geoglyph out of turnip greens, that also attracted the local press. You can read about the project here (but it’s in Spanish) https://www.elprogreso.es/articulo/a-marina/geoglifo-grelos-marina/202311141333161708133.html. The Foundry continues to be a thriving place with many cultural and educational events happening and I continue to be deeply inspired by it as well as its visionary: Dennis 😊. This Sunday is a public exhibition of the geoglyph and art from school students that use the Foundry as their creative classroom, which I am looking forward to. Grateful for this Erasmus opportunity.