What do you wish you had known 10 years ago?
To see the projects as what they are: projects, not a part of my identity. To manage my energy better and not follow the hustle harder myth for too long. Building a company from scratch is a marathon, not a sprint. To listen and to trust my gut feeling/intuition more.
What should leaders understand about their own role and responsibility?
You gotta love what you do. You have to be the biggest fan of your solution and the vision behind it in order to ignite the desire in others to follow you or to buy your product/service. At some point you, as a leader, also have to stop working at your company (micro management) and rather work on your company`s future (macro perspective).
What personal habit or behavior helped you accelerate your personal growth?
Regular exchanges with other entrepreneurs in different formats (1:1, groups), taking enough time for my personal growth / healing / inner work, learn from and mingle with the best.
What do you do to maintain balance in your life?
I switched into remote-first collaboration model, reduced travel time significantly, made exercise a fixed appointment in my weekly schedule, try to drink de-caffeinated coffee – if possible.
When times are tough, who or what is an anchor for you?
Increase me-time and rituals that allow me to stay connected to my true self not to be carried away from the current noise/chaos.
What can we do to create a great workplace for our colleagues?
Be really interested in the person you're dealing with, try to understand the person in depth, take time to be informed about what is going on in their lives – even outside work.
What’s your favorite ritual or meeting in your team?
It's a combination of regular meetings that allow everyone to focus on their daily work without unnecessary interruptions (weeklys, monthlys) and regular in-person activities, e.g. lunches, dinners, workation.
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Here’s More, From Other Founders Around the World
What's a mistake that you're happy you've made?
When I was 16 (way before the internet) I founded a travel-partner agency to connect people from different backgrounds seeking travel companions. After a year, I had to close the agency due to a lack of customers and the confusion some callers had regarding the nature of the “service.” Despite this setback, I gained invaluable insights into sales, communication and people’s needs, solidifying my desire to run a business that helps people.
What motivated you to become an entrepreneur?
After graduating, I worked for an extremely well-paying automotive company. But I always had the feeling that there was more out there. So I quit and went into research with the aim of becoming a founder.
What should leaders understand about their own role and responsibility?
There are no overnight miracles, it's very hard work: both physically and emotionally. Requires resilience, grit, strategic approach and grind.
What’s an important guiding principle that informs the way you build and run your business?
One of our core values is experimentation. Rather than get stuck in arguing about what solution may best solve a problem or play to our ego, we focus on the smallest step we could possibly take to learn whether that’s true. It moves our minds away from thinking too big without sweating the small stuff and from getting stuck in discussions rather than actually doing something to understand the possible solutions better.