Austėja Liupševičiūtė arrived on Pico Island, in Portugal’s Azores archipelago, with a clear business plan: LUCID, a cacao-ceremony and wellness experience venture.

Five months later, that original plan barely exists. What replaced it is a repositioned, better-adapted business she launched under a new name just weeks after coming home — and the story of how she got there is a better argument for the EYE programme than a plan that survived unchanged ever could be.

The Idea Met the Island, and the Island Won

Austėja’s exchange ran from 23 November 2025 to 22 April 2026 — five months hosted by Steffi Denecker of Hominis Natura, an experience-based tourism business also on Pico Island. The objective on paper was standard EYE territory: business development, marketing, partnership building, co-creating new tourism experiences.

What actually happened was more useful. Pico’s tourism season is short, its winters are dead, and its visitors are a narrower slice of traveler than most new entrepreneurs assume when they design an offer from a distance. Austėja spent the winter — the island’s off-season — doing the work that doesn’t show up in a pitch deck: studying the previous season’s client data and feedback, mapping local hotels, artisans, and wellness providers, and sitting in on the honest, unfiltered version of how Hominis Natura actually operates day to day.

That’s where the original plan started to give way. The cacao-and-wellness concept she’d arrived with wasn’t wrong — it just wasn’t shaped for what this specific market actually wanted.

Rebuilding in Real Time, Not After the Fact

Rather than finishing the exchange and revising the plan afterward, Austėja adjusted as she went — testing pieces of her evolving business model directly with local partners and Steffi’s own network, watching what got traction and what didn’t. In parallel, she contributed real, specific value to Hominis Natura: content creation, photography, and work on both businesses’ websites, since visual storytelling was one of the areas where the host most wanted support.

By the time tourism season started, the exchange had shifted focus — Austėja moved into supporting Hominis Natura’s live season operations, including new joint offers that combine both entrepreneurs’ services, while continuing to refine her own venture in parallel.

The clearest marker of how much the plan had moved: a few weeks after returning, Austėja launched her business again — not a patch to LUCID, but a repositioned venture with its own identity, structure, and site: beespace.art.

What She Brought Home

In her own words:

“This exchange gave me the opportunity to learn through real experience, test ideas in practice, and reshape my business based on the reality of the local market rather than assumptions.”

Her host entrepreneur’s take on the collaboration:

“Austėja brought fresh perspectives, creativity, and practical support that contributed to our communication, partnerships, and the development of new experiences.”

The exchange didn’t just adapt Austėja’s business plan — it changed what she was building. She left with a marketing and branding framework built on real local demand instead of an outside assumption of what an Azorean tourism market wants, a stronger creative portfolio from real client-facing work, and a live professional network in a tourism ecosystem where, as she put it, everything runs on collaboration.

The Takeaway for the Next Applicant

Most people expect an exchange like this to sharpen the plan they already have. Austėja’s experience is the honest version: sometimes the market tells you your first idea needs to change, not just improve — and the value of the exchange is having five months, real local partners, and a host entrepreneur’s operating experience to make that change while the stakes are still low.

Interested in an EYE exchange like Austėja’s? Get in touch to find out how to apply.