Everything is possible.

What you need to live is a good idea, a little bit of creativity together with an education, and a good helping of self-confidence. Take the same quantity of optimism, along with a sprinkling of realism. Don’t forget to shake well. Mix everything together well, examine it again in detail and critically, reflect on the whole thing and ask your friends for their advice and opinions. Then you’ll get quite a good product.

A bit of start-up capital is also necessary, of course. You can get that from www.ppl.com.pt or ask Mum and Dad, your best friends or, when there’s no other way, your local cooperative bank.

In 31-year-old Filipa Júlio’s case, it was shoes, or rather “sabrinas”. Think what you will about them, you may like them, but you don’t have to. What is a fact is that Filipa Júlio has now been successfully selling her “Made in Portugal” ladies’ shoes for a year. Through her website www.josefinas.pt she offers her products in all varieties and colours. The shoes cost €109, whether lacquered or not; blue, red, black or striped. She has defined her brand precisely, uses good local leather and learnt her craft from a professional, a master shoemaker in São João da Madeira, south of Porto. She gives her shoes names like Benguela, Luanda, Goa, Paris or Azul Açores and stocks sizes for her clients from 35 to 41, along with nice packaging.

“It’s all a lot of work and cannot be managed in a 40-hour week, but it’s fun and makes me happy,“ she confesses to ECO123. With these shoes, she will make her way in life.