What personal habit or behavior helped you accelerate your personal growth?
Being kind to everybody (even if there is no direct interest or need from that person). Sometimes you will meet people again in life and if you are kind, usually kindness comes back. Kindness and Empathy are the most important skills in my job perhaps.
What should leaders understand about their own role and responsibility?
You serve the team, not the other way round.
When times are tough, who or what is an anchor for you?
My family and especially my kids. In fact, sometimes I think I can learn more from my kids than they can learn from me. We sometimes make the world way more complicated than it would need to be.
What motivated you to become an entrepreneur?
I wanted to work in an environment well suited for technology-nerds and did not find one, so I decided to create it myself.
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What do you wish you had known 10 years ago?
I always thought that my life can be balanced between personal, business, health, family, finances and love. In that sense how much energy I put in and get back. But with the years, I learned that life is imbalanced by nature. It's still a goal for me and I believe if all parts are some kind of balanced, this speaks of a highly valuable life, but accepting that there will always be a certain imbalance, helped me a lot.
What's the biggest insight you learned in recent years?
It’s always a good idea to be connected to your product – even if you have to deal with high-level topics, always remember the things you offer.
What personal habit helped you accelerate your personal growth?
In one of the hardest times of my life so far, I started journaling for 1-2h on Sundays. Not digital, but with paper and pen. Always answering the same questions related to self, social life and work. This brutally honest and regular reflection once a week helped me identify problems early and iterate fast.
When times are tough, who or what is an anchor for you?
My co-founders are my anchor in work-related topics. Having an environment where failure is welcomed with a helping hand and where weakness is valued as openness, once you are down those people will drag you up.