The Founders' Story - Starting a Business with Friends

For almost 30 years, I have been working in the fields of the internet, digitalization, consulting, e-commerce, and retail.

In terms of age, I am what is known as a “digital immigrant,” meaning I did not grow up with computers and smartphones. I remember that when I bought my first computer in 1990—a “286”—we were still speculating whether there would ever be software that would require 2 megabytes of RAM. Our answer was a resounding “no,” and so I bought the computer with one megabyte of RAM. Unimaginable today, when every little photo from a cell phone requires more than 5 MB of storage space.

I have been self-employed throughout my entire professional life, taking control of my own destiny and shaping my own path. In 1994, while still a student, I founded my first company with two friends, one of the first internet agencies in Germany, InnoMate Online Marketing GmbH. Because we were successful quite quickly, I gave up my economics studies shortly before graduating – and have never regretted that decision.

After successfully selling InnoMate, we implemented many international projects in the early stages of the internet's development, such as all the websites for Toyota and Lexus across Europe and the corporate website for DaimlerChrysler on the day of the merger between Daimler Benz and Chrysler. It was a really exciting and thrilling time.

Starting a business with friends

In 1999, I switched sides and—again with two friends—founded Germany's first pure-play online retailer for consumer electronics, yagma.com. After selling yagma.com to Kingfisher in the UK, we became a subsidiary of ProMarkt (at that time a major competitor of Mediamarkt and Saturn) and built up ProMarkt's e-commerce activities as a fast-moving digital dinghy. During this time, I was very actively involved in online retail and therefore still have a very good understanding and appreciation of the issues and problems that concern our customers.

After various other entrepreneurial ventures (including founding a Tupperware concept for children's clothing), I decided in 2010 to pursue a supposedly quieter business and started implementing e-commerce projects at large companies as a freelancer.

One major client was the catalog retailer Neckermann, for whom I was tasked with introducing a new e-commerce platform. By chance, my good friend Jörg Brockhausen, whom I had gone to school with, was also working freelance on another project for Neckermann at the time. During this project, we combined business with pleasure and rented a nice apartment in Frankfurt together instead of living out of suitcases in a hotel.

During this period between 2011 and 2012, we had many intense discussions—often over cigars and a good glass of wine—about developments in online retail and digitalization, and debated what services retailers and brand companies would need in the future. We saw that increasing digitalization would present companies with enormous challenges and changes—it's not for nothing that people talk about the digital revolution. The changes that a company must face in order to remain competitive are enormous and relate to both the business model itself and the corporate culture and processes.

This is how the idea arose to transform our two freelance businesses into two companies, digital dna and Coaching Change.

I had always founded previous companies with good friends and had had the best experiences with this approach. The first start-up with my friends Thomas Schaeben and Kai Petersen was a real coincidence. We were in the right place at the right time and brainstormed ideas on how we could become self-employed. I then drew on this experience for my next start-ups and repeated the process. The important thing is that the founders who are friends complement each other well in terms of their skills, e.g., a visionary or technician together with someone who has organizational talent.

Today, I believe that mutual trust and reliability are extremely important building blocks for a successful young company. You always go through many ups and downs, and it is during the difficult times that you decide whether you will successfully get back on your feet. The feeling of having support and sticking together is irreplaceable.