Chapter One: The Story Of A Childhood Dream
Eight years ago, at the age of 26, I launched Lifestyle Montenegro.
Today, when I look at everything that has grown from that idea: a media platform, creative projects, partnerships, events, a team, and eventually a group of companies, people often ask me how it all started.
The truth is, it did not begin eight years ago.
It began much earlier.
I grew up in a family that was always creating. A family that knew how to turn very little into something meaningful, where creativity was never seen as a luxury but as a way of life. Looking back, I realize how much that environment shaped the way I think about business, ideas, and building things today.
Bojana Minic, Founder of Lifestyle Group
As a child, I was fascinated by details that others might not have noticed. The aesthetics of a beautiful space. The way a story could be told through a magazine. A campaign that sold not a product, but a feeling. I loved flipping through lifestyle publications and observing how photography, design, and words could come together to create an entire world.
At the time, I had no idea that one day this would become my life's work.
In fact, my path seemed to be heading in a completely different direction.
I studied law, lived abroad, and began building a career in the investment sector. It was a world of structure, analysis, and rational decision-making.
Yet alongside that world, another one was quietly growing.
A world of ideas.
A world of creative projects that I pursued simply because I felt compelled to create something of my own.
When Lifestyle Montenegro was born, there was no grand business plan. No investors. No team.
There was only an idea.
And a belief that Montenegro deserved a platform that would tell stories differently — stories about entrepreneurship, travel, architecture, design, inspiring people, and the beauty of living well.
At the time, I was working full-time while dedicating every spare moment to building the project. I funded it myself, setting aside part of my salary to support creative initiatives and ideas under the Lifestyle Montenegro brand, without knowing where that journey would eventually lead.
Many people saw it as an interesting side project.
Something that could remain a hobby.
Something that should complement a professional career rather than become one.
And to be fair, that seemed like reasonable advice.
I was a rethinking my legal consultancy career. I worked in a serious industry. A creative media platform was hardly the most obvious path forward.
But some ideas are not born from logic.
They are born from conviction.
One of the first people to recognize the potential of what we were building was Niko Laković, through a creative partnership with Nekretnina.me. Support like that mattered enormously in the early days, not only because it helped the project grow, but because it reinforced the belief that others could see the vision as clearly as I did.
Today, eight years later, what I consider the greatest achievement is not a particular partnership, project, or milestone.
It is persistence.
The persistence to remain faithful to the original vision.
The persistence to protect the aesthetic standards we believed in.
The persistence to grow steadily, one step at a time, without shortcuts.
Because when I look back now, I realize that Lifestyle Montenegro was never just a media platform.
It was the continuation of a childhood dream.
A dream of creating beautiful things.
And creating them to last.
Bojana Minic
Founder & CEO
Lifestyle Group