Gründer-Gespräche

The Mannheimer Gründer-Gespräche (Entrepreneurial Founders get-together) is run as part of the Institut for Mittelstandforschung (Institute for research into small to medium size companies) under Prof Woywode, our Strategic Management Professor.

Enrique and I attended the evening near Mannheim to get a feel of the entrepreneur community in the area. These events are relatively new but provide a great opportunity for students, founders and business people to get together and hear each others stories. Also in attendance were a few VC's, Professors and researchers.

The speakers were Oliver Lesche from Movilitas AG (a company that develops mobile enterprise software) and Florian Schreckenbach from Talential (an online recruiting platform for qualified and experienced applicants). Both spoke about the growth phases of their companies, how they developed company culture, how they communicate (via web2.0) and traps to watch out for when starting a company.

Both companies were self financed. This reflected that both Oliver and Florian were well qualified and successful in their previous jobs (SAP and Capgemini from memory) and were able to generate cashflow early in the development of the company. By having an established network they were also able to leverage clients and contacts, gaining traction in the market early. For the foreigners, such as Enrique and I this is a clear point that should we wish to start our own companies, being well established (in the circle) is a key aspect in doing business in Germany.

After the speakers had finished we met many people over a Riesling and a Breztel! There was a mix of students and local founders mingling and swapping business cards. The evening was held at the Heinrich-Vetter-Villa in Ilvesheim, a house donated by a wealthy Mannheim businessman Heinrich Vetter. Thanks to his philanthropy, the Uni Mannheim and local community has benefited greatly. There seemed to be a contradiction being broken during the evening in the sense that everything was so very formal and yet the companies we were listening to were in fact very leading edge both in their product and also their work culture. Being a new event series, this to me represents a shift in how Germany accepts start up companies. In fact I remember Florian showing one slide describing that he got no respect for starting his company, something in great contrast to starting a company in San Francisco for example. If it is part of the German business culture then hopefully it is shifting.

It would be great to experience more of these events as part of the program at Mannheim Business School. This together with other networking events give us a real insight into doing business in Germany.