I was born in Magdeburg in 1982 in what
used to be East Germany
seven years later journey me Germany was
reunified and I started as a small child
just to begin the small changes
happening around me I used to walk to
school along the and tosser and this is
a street which is covered with old
hundred years buildings very elegant you
need to know about East Germany’s street
escapes that old buildings have these
kind of grey brownish color one of these
grey buildings was covered was hidden
behind a scaffolding covered with a
canvas I didn’t know what was going on
behind it and it was kind of had never
had seen a building being renovated
before so after a few months the
scaffolding was one day gone revealing a
yellow bright building behind it in this
moment it was breathtaking for me it was
like somebody had placed the Sun in a
row of the houses one by one each of
every building in the street was
renovated and every time I went along
the street I was excited how might this
building and
after they revealed it from the
scaffolding this experience of my
surroundings changing so dramatically
for the better
hugely impressed me I often thought
about the workers and the architects and
the joy they brought not only to me but
to all the people passing by the
buildings and living in them so I
decided one day there’s my time and
there will be my time to be of value for
others as well I dreamed about being a
professional of a professional where I
inspire others to create something new
and although back then I could not have
imagined mattered that this would
literally come true today I’m an idea
coach after my graduation from the
University I founded my own company and
as and like many other founders did we
our company was based on a technology we
developed on our own there was some kind
of cool super cool methods where can
generate ideas and as many other
founders we were very proud we took very
we were very proud of our invention and
we thought that it made us unique a few
weeks after we conduct the workshop we
contact back our clients and ask them
how they are getting along with our
ideas with the ideas they generated with
our help
and we heard from our customers that
there was somewhere hidden in a drawer
just forgotten and I could we couldn’t
we couldn’t understand why we had made a
mistake that many founders do we just
fall in love with a thing we can build
for the longest time we were thinking we
were selling ideas and I only thought
slowly it dawned on us that this
perspective is very very limited for us
our product this was our product before
our customers it was only a means to an
end for companies ideas are something
they use to improve their products to
protect their jobs or to serve the
customers better ideas have the
potential to enable progress and change
and that’s what we should have been
thinking on and working on this insight
completely changed the view on our
company and what we should really been
doing and for the first time we have a
feeling that we will be able to make a
real difference in the world my debt my
work today brings me into contact with
startups who I helped to develop the
business idea and I quickly experienced
and recognized that the mistake I’m I
made 10 years ago
is one that many founders make so it Don
me and I thought thought so I had to
find a way to identify and fix that kind
of mistake startup founders almost
always technical people they’re computer
scientists engineers and the reason why
they found their own company is because
they they came up with a with an own
invention also of themselves
and thought it might be a good idea some
app or electronic device so in the
beginning they might have a vague idea
who might buy who might buy that product
but they have exactly in mind what that
product would look like in the end if
they go ahead and build that product
from their original concept they are
running a huge risk that it will fail
because of some unforeseen obstacle and
this obstacle is usually that the
customer won’t buy it for start-up
failure is building a product that
nobody wants the founders may then
conclude that this initial setback they
experience is a sign that their own idea
is bad and give up their project but if
their idea in fact is of genuine value
the world is missing out I believe that
founders have an idea
that gets them excited and motivated
this idea has a potential to be of value
for others as well so it would be good
for the world
to give the idea that opportunity to
grow to its fullest best potential to
succeed on the other hand founders are
hugely young and by that they have no
experience in business and no knowledge
about markets and their future customers
this means that they’re almost certainly
wrong in how they approach and implement
in the details of their idea and as of
you have already seen founders have the
tendency to fall in love with their the
details of their invention so if they go
a hat with a knife plan they are highly
likely to fail and miss an opportunity
to pursue something they believe in and
earn their living by it and even worse
the world is missing out because if they
if the world experience there the full
potential of the full value of idea they
might have had a huge amount of progress
let me give you an example a few years
ago I supported two very bright founders
in the early stages of the startup they
have idea wants to find a way to make it
to make it accessible for parents to
reuse children’s clothing that should
work because children outgrow their
clothes as fast and long before they are
worn out so it makes just sense to you
to make more use of these clothings now
there are two
different ways we could have viewed the
startup idea the normal approach was to
say okay we are gonna be an online
secondhand shop where parents save money
by acquiring children’s clothing or we
could think of this startup idea as why
in protecting our planet by reducing the
water that is used for growing cotton
and reducing the use of fertilizer in
the first case we would have just been
considering a business solution in the
latter case we would have a much bigger
vision that was meaningful to the entire
world after a few months the two
founders discovered that the online
secondhand shop wasn’t economical
feasibly because the logistics of
acquiring the closest of the used
already used closest washing them
photographing them and handling them is
just too complicated now if the two
founders had been fixated to their
original solution as many founders do
their entrepreneurial journey probably
would have had an that right there but
in our case luckily it didn’t we sat
down together and we thought of other
ways in achieving our goal and the
solution is simple to rent out closest
instead of buying and selling them this
is much more and starting and without
renting the closest and starting was a
set of
closes that the founders bought directly
from the manufacturers that is a much
more much more efficient way of doing
things because the clothings
are are clean they’re already pre-packed
and the manufacturers provided the
founders with photographs of their
products for free now three years later
the founders created jobs for 20 people
in Magdeburg and they have thousands of
customers and by that they were saving a
huge amount of fertilizer pesticides
cotton and about 3 million liters of
water so what I have learned from this
experience was my own company and from
helping startups assists founders
overestimates applicability of the
initial idea and underestimate the long
term perspective long term perspective
so if you have an idea that you’re
excited about keep in mind two things
don’t commit yourself to whatever it is
that you could that you thought of first
but be flexible in trying to find ways
in achieving that and secondly take the
time to answer this question why might
our idea has a potential to change the
world and I’m sure and I believe if you
follow these two advices that you gain
three profits three brand benefits from
it you will maximize the chance to be
successful you will enjoy a much deeper
motivation of your work and most of all
the world will obtain the full potential
of your idea and your efforts
thank you very much
you
used to be East Germany
seven years later journey me Germany was
reunified and I started as a small child
just to begin the small changes
happening around me I used to walk to
school along the and tosser and this is
a street which is covered with old
hundred years buildings very elegant you
need to know about East Germany’s street
escapes that old buildings have these
kind of grey brownish color one of these
grey buildings was covered was hidden
behind a scaffolding covered with a
canvas I didn’t know what was going on
behind it and it was kind of had never
had seen a building being renovated
before so after a few months the
scaffolding was one day gone revealing a
yellow bright building behind it in this
moment it was breathtaking for me it was
like somebody had placed the Sun in a
row of the houses one by one each of
every building in the street was
renovated and every time I went along
the street I was excited how might this
building and
after they revealed it from the
scaffolding this experience of my
surroundings changing so dramatically
for the better
hugely impressed me I often thought
about the workers and the architects and
the joy they brought not only to me but
to all the people passing by the
buildings and living in them so I
decided one day there’s my time and
there will be my time to be of value for
others as well I dreamed about being a
professional of a professional where I
inspire others to create something new
and although back then I could not have
imagined mattered that this would
literally come true today I’m an idea
coach after my graduation from the
University I founded my own company and
as and like many other founders did we
our company was based on a technology we
developed on our own there was some kind
of cool super cool methods where can
generate ideas and as many other
founders we were very proud we took very
we were very proud of our invention and
we thought that it made us unique a few
weeks after we conduct the workshop we
contact back our clients and ask them
how they are getting along with our
ideas with the ideas they generated with
our help
and we heard from our customers that
there was somewhere hidden in a drawer
just forgotten and I could we couldn’t
we couldn’t understand why we had made a
mistake that many founders do we just
fall in love with a thing we can build
for the longest time we were thinking we
were selling ideas and I only thought
slowly it dawned on us that this
perspective is very very limited for us
our product this was our product before
our customers it was only a means to an
end for companies ideas are something
they use to improve their products to
protect their jobs or to serve the
customers better ideas have the
potential to enable progress and change
and that’s what we should have been
thinking on and working on this insight
completely changed the view on our
company and what we should really been
doing and for the first time we have a
feeling that we will be able to make a
real difference in the world my debt my
work today brings me into contact with
startups who I helped to develop the
business idea and I quickly experienced
and recognized that the mistake I’m I
made 10 years ago
is one that many founders make so it Don
me and I thought thought so I had to
find a way to identify and fix that kind
of mistake startup founders almost
always technical people they’re computer
scientists engineers and the reason why
they found their own company is because
they they came up with a with an own
invention also of themselves
and thought it might be a good idea some
app or electronic device so in the
beginning they might have a vague idea
who might buy who might buy that product
but they have exactly in mind what that
product would look like in the end if
they go ahead and build that product
from their original concept they are
running a huge risk that it will fail
because of some unforeseen obstacle and
this obstacle is usually that the
customer won’t buy it for start-up
failure is building a product that
nobody wants the founders may then
conclude that this initial setback they
experience is a sign that their own idea
is bad and give up their project but if
their idea in fact is of genuine value
the world is missing out I believe that
founders have an idea
that gets them excited and motivated
this idea has a potential to be of value
for others as well so it would be good
for the world
to give the idea that opportunity to
grow to its fullest best potential to
succeed on the other hand founders are
hugely young and by that they have no
experience in business and no knowledge
about markets and their future customers
this means that they’re almost certainly
wrong in how they approach and implement
in the details of their idea and as of
you have already seen founders have the
tendency to fall in love with their the
details of their invention so if they go
a hat with a knife plan they are highly
likely to fail and miss an opportunity
to pursue something they believe in and
earn their living by it and even worse
the world is missing out because if they
if the world experience there the full
potential of the full value of idea they
might have had a huge amount of progress
let me give you an example a few years
ago I supported two very bright founders
in the early stages of the startup they
have idea wants to find a way to make it
to make it accessible for parents to
reuse children’s clothing that should
work because children outgrow their
clothes as fast and long before they are
worn out so it makes just sense to you
to make more use of these clothings now
there are two
different ways we could have viewed the
startup idea the normal approach was to
say okay we are gonna be an online
secondhand shop where parents save money
by acquiring children’s clothing or we
could think of this startup idea as why
in protecting our planet by reducing the
water that is used for growing cotton
and reducing the use of fertilizer in
the first case we would have just been
considering a business solution in the
latter case we would have a much bigger
vision that was meaningful to the entire
world after a few months the two
founders discovered that the online
secondhand shop wasn’t economical
feasibly because the logistics of
acquiring the closest of the used
already used closest washing them
photographing them and handling them is
just too complicated now if the two
founders had been fixated to their
original solution as many founders do
their entrepreneurial journey probably
would have had an that right there but
in our case luckily it didn’t we sat
down together and we thought of other
ways in achieving our goal and the
solution is simple to rent out closest
instead of buying and selling them this
is much more and starting and without
renting the closest and starting was a
set of
closes that the founders bought directly
from the manufacturers that is a much
more much more efficient way of doing
things because the clothings
are are clean they’re already pre-packed
and the manufacturers provided the
founders with photographs of their
products for free now three years later
the founders created jobs for 20 people
in Magdeburg and they have thousands of
customers and by that they were saving a
huge amount of fertilizer pesticides
cotton and about 3 million liters of
water so what I have learned from this
experience was my own company and from
helping startups assists founders
overestimates applicability of the
initial idea and underestimate the long
term perspective long term perspective
so if you have an idea that you’re
excited about keep in mind two things
don’t commit yourself to whatever it is
that you could that you thought of first
but be flexible in trying to find ways
in achieving that and secondly take the
time to answer this question why might
our idea has a potential to change the
world and I’m sure and I believe if you
follow these two advices that you gain
three profits three brand benefits from
it you will maximize the chance to be
successful you will enjoy a much deeper
motivation of your work and most of all
the world will obtain the full potential
of your idea and your efforts
thank you very much
you
Please follow and like us: