Startup Week in Germany
Three questions on the subject of starting your own business for the ardent entrepreneur, designer, media researcher and author Catharina Bruns.
Ms. Bruns, after graduating from university you began a successful career working for a global corporation in Dublin. At the age of nearly 30, however, you decided to set up your own business and launched workisnotajob, a project that promotes a new attitude to work. What motivated you to do that?
As an employee I learned very fast that the way I would like to live and work is not compatible with a traditional career. Being my own boss, on the other hand, offers me the invaluable opportunity to organize my life and work according to my own wishes and to realize my own ideas. Today I am an entrepreneur and realize many different projects. In addition to workisnotajob, I have founded the supercraft and Lemon Books companies with my startup partner Sophie Pester. We have just come back from Hamburg, where we organize hello handmade, an annual design market. We are also launching an interview series in 2013 called superwork. Being an entrepreneur also offers the great opportunity to contribute to shaping a new work culture.
How important is international networking?
I have lived abroad for a long time and the spirit of entrepreneurship I got to know there would also be desirable in Germany. My project workisnotajob has been especially well received in English-speaking countries. In the USA I did not have to spend very long explaining to people what I aimed to achieve. International networking has helped me a great deal. The normality of the Internet makes it possible to communicate and learn from one another worldwide. The world is truly open to us as it has never been before – I advise everyone not to let the resulting opportunities slip by unexploited.
How do you view campaigns like Startup Week?
In my opinion, self-employment should be promoted more strongly as a career opportunity. I don’t think Germany lacks ideas. What’s missing is inspiration. At school we are prepared to become good employees – you have to teach yourself how to become an entrepreneur. And that’s why campaigns like Startup Week are enormously important.
Startup Week Germany from 18 to 24 November 2013
