What advice would you share with other founders?
Don't wait too long to go to market with your product or service. Develop your company in relation to the market and its needs. Be very customer-focused and learn to highlight the added value of your product or service for the customer. Your ideas, strategies, and technologies are only worth something once your first customer is ready to pay for them.
What surprised you the most when you started out?
You have to be incredibly hungry and impatient (in a positive sense), because there are a lot of things that don’t work right away. Issues always crop up - whether that’s technologically during product development, or during the customer acquisition stages. A good day is when your company takes two steps forwards and only one step back. On the other hand, I love how fun it is to realize ideas and see them take off in the market.
What do you want from politics and from Germany as a business location?
From a legal and administrative point of view, I would like to see more freedom for young companies. This would encourage founders and promote young companies in the fields of finance and funding, by expanding funds and simplifying the process of acquiring them. This would also ease administration, for example, by speeding up Visa and Bluecard processes, and improve infrastructure e.g. through subsidised office space. In addition, I hope that politicians, as clients, will help young people, companies, and startups by awarding them potential projects.
Why doesn’t Germany have a leading startup ecosystem?
In my opinion, Berlin has already created a lot here. There are lots of startups in the city, lots of networking events, and the city attracts young, talented people from Germany and abroad. The Digital Hub Initiative, with Hubs such as the Fintech Hub H:32 in Berlin, strengthen the city’s ecosystem and create space for networking, exchange, and a welcome working atmosphere.
