How to Hochschule VOICES - Adriana Boldisova & Anna Lea Wolf of StartGlocal

How to Hochschule VOICES - Adriana Boldisova and Anna Lea Wolf of StartGlocal

00:00:00: Stephan Hanf: ​

00:00:05: Stephan Hanf: Welcome to How to Hochschule Voices. This monthly bonus feature to the main podcast features full length interviews, personal stories and a collection of conversations with people from Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, Kleve, Kamp-Lintfort and the entire Lower Rhine region. In this episode, we delve into an insightful, full length conversation with Adriana Boldisova and Anna Lea Wolf.

00:00:37: Stephan Hanf: They share with us their expertise about startups, impart lessons that entrepreneurship can offer, and provide a glimpse into the history of StartGlocal.

00:00:53: Adriana Boldisova: I'm Adriana. I'm working at our university as a project coordinator in a StartGlocal project. And I studied here at our university, the master program, sustainable development management. And while studying here, I found a job as a student assistant, uh, here at the Center for Research, Innovation, and Transfer.

00:01:14: Adriana Boldisova: And somehow I stayed here. I have to say now I have a full time job, uh, in a StartGlocal project. And, uh, we are trying to support students and also employees and alumni of the Rhine-Waal university in their startup and entrepreneurship activities. I'm Anna.

00:01:30: Anna Lea Wolf: I studied international business and management.

00:01:33: Anna Lea Wolf: I just finished roughly a week ago and currently I'm a student assistant for StartGlocal in the area of event management and marketing, but I'm just doing whatever comes. I will, I'm just trying to assist Adriana in her daily business and I really enjoy it so far.

00:01:50: Stephan Hanf: How did you find the Hochschule

00:01:52: Adriana Boldisova: Rhein Waal?

00:01:52: Adriana Boldisova: I grew up actually in Slovakia. Maybe you can hear it as well. And I came to Germany like eight years ago. The Rhine-Waal University was for me like the

00:02:03: Adriana Boldisova: place to get to know friends. I didn't talk German properly and I was thinking, okay, let's come to Germany and let's start a university to find some new friends, maybe to learn something new. And therefore I choose to study here and I did actually one semester in economics and finance and then I realized that, okay, this

00:02:24: Adriana Boldisova: I have studied already in Slovakia because I studied economics and, uh, so this was not the right choice because it was very similar to my Slovak master's studies. And then after one semester I switched to sustainable development management and this was a lot of fun this course. I finished it in 2020, so it took me pretty long.

00:02:44: Adriana Boldisova: to finish my studies, but I found a side job at the Center for Research Innovation Transfer, and I stayed here till now. So this is basically my story. And yeah, and now also my life somehow. Were you

00:02:58: Stephan Hanf: able to complete your Degree journey in

00:03:02: Adriana Boldisova: Slovakia. Uh, yes, I, I actually finished master in economics in Slovakia.

00:03:07: Adriana Boldisova: So it was five year studies. So I have bachelor and master. And I also worked, I used to work in corporates for, I think it was around seven years. So I'm also a little bit older, but I can recommend it also like to start studying in like in your thirties, so to say. So it's not a problem at all at our university.

00:03:28: Adriana Boldisova: So everybody was very open and I enjoyed it very much because I had already experienced like from the corporate, from real working life. And I would say I could manage the information during the studies much better. Then if you have no working experience, because I was able to connect it with the practice.

00:03:48: Adriana Boldisova: I was having many moments during my studies where I could connect A to B and these things. So therefore it was very valuable. And yeah, now I'm here working at StartGlocal.

00:04:01: Stephan Hanf: Anna, how did you come across your study course at? this university. Is this region of Germany familiar

00:04:08: Anna Lea Wolf: to you? I'm from Dusseldorf, so it is close by.

00:04:10: Anna Lea Wolf: My family is from Xanten and Kevelaer, which is also really close. Uh, so I'm like familiar with the lower Rhine region. Yeah. And I used to live in Dusseldorf, so the quite big city for 18 years. And then after finishing school, I thought about what to do next. And I thought. like international business or in general business studies, this might be a good basic program to start into your careers.

00:04:35: Anna Lea Wolf: And then I found, I think I was also accepted in Cologne, but since I already lived in a big city, I wanted to try something new. And I came here with my mom to Kleve at a really sunny day with blue sky and very nice. And then I was like, okay, I think I will just start here. And it was actually, I never regretted this decision because it is so easy to get to know so many people because everyone kind of moves here.

00:04:58: Anna Lea Wolf: I think in Dusseldorf or Cologne, many people also come from this area or, yeah, come there every day, um, to university. So that's something I really appreciate in Kleve, also the international background of many students. It's good to just, yeah, broaden your horizons.

00:05:13: Stephan Hanf: Was the English medium curriculum a

00:05:15: Stephan Hanf: decisive factor for you when you selecting

00:05:19: Anna Lea Wolf: your course. Actually, yes, because in Cologne, the studies would have been in German. And I think that studying in English is definitely an added value maybe to your future employer or in general to increase my English knowledge and improve my skills. When I was finishing school, my English was okay, I think, but I definitely noticed that it improved a lot over the years.

00:05:41: Anna Lea Wolf: Also during my semester abroad in Ireland, yeah, I managed to improve it. When

00:05:46: Anna Lea Wolf: did you

00:05:46: Stephan Hanf: first learn about it as a

00:05:47: Anna Lea Wolf: student? I think the first time I heard about them was during their emails that they've sent. Maybe two years ago, we received emails on a very regular basis. To be honest, I was annoyed by their emails.

00:06:00: Anna Lea Wolf: I was me and my, me and my friends were always a bit like, Oh, another email of StartGlocal. I'm not interested. And a very good friend of mine, she works for StartGlocal. Her name is Miri. She's doing the marketing at StartGlocal for, I think already more than one and a half years or two years. So I knew, okay, StartGlocal are the ones with the annoying emails and Miri is working there.

00:06:22: Anna Lea Wolf: But then my second aspect of coming in touch with them is that one of my professors, Mr. Tutson, he was looking for someone together with Christina. She's a startup scout at StartGlocal for someone to write a bachelor thesis about StartGlocal and. Yeah. To help them improve their participation. And I was like, I was still in my semester abroad at that time.

00:06:44: Anna Lea Wolf: And I knew that finding a topic that I want to write about will be the most difficult part, most likely of my thesis. Because I think at one point when you know, okay, this is my research question and I know what I'm writing about and researching, I think then it's just a one step at a time thing. But in the beginning to first do the first step is the most difficult part.

00:07:02: Anna Lea Wolf: My friends are writing their theses at the moment, and this is definitely the most difficult part for them. So I was like, okay, I will just apply for this. And then I had a conversation with Mr. Hudson and Christina and yeah, they told me what their expectations was. And so I was like, okay, I will just do it.

00:07:18: Anna Lea Wolf: I, it actually interested me and I just started off with that. And then after my thesis, yeah, Christina and Adriana told me that if I was interested, they could offer me a position. And at that time I was traveling in Southeast Asia and I didn't have. But when I came back, I was like, yeah, I think it's a good idea to spend my last summer in Kleve, work here 20 hours a week.

00:07:42: Anna Lea Wolf: And it's definitely also that it offers me the opportunity to. It's really nice to experience the university from a different angle because I'm now working at a university project and it's also something like giving something back to the students that are currently studying. So it's definitely, definitely nice.

00:07:58: Anna Lea Wolf: And I learned a lot about events and stuff.

00:08:02: Stephan Hanf: Adriana, how did you initially discover StartGlocal? Was it through email communications or another channel?

00:08:09: Adriana Boldisova: No, this was really strange. No, I was writing the emails. No, no, no, no. It was my marketing colleague. Actually, it was not me, but, but back then we had a marketing and event manager as well.

00:08:23: Adriana Boldisova: We were actually not thinking that the emails are annoying. We love them. Oh, we, we were so satisfied with them, but, but it was the thing in our first year. We enrolled like plenty of workshops. We, we just wanted to try what works, what doesn't work, and these things and plenty of workshops mean also plenty of emails.

00:08:43: Adriana Boldisova: When you are trying to do marketing, you are trying to roll out many things and we just tried it in the first year and therefore after also getting feedback from some students. Okay? We heard from nobody else at the university, only from StartGlocal, like each, each week. Then we reduce the amount of emails as well, and we just learned from the feedback, but my first time hearing from StartGlocal was actually, I was not hearing from StartGlocal because StartGlocal even didn't exist since then.

00:09:14: Adriana Boldisova: I used to work actually as a student, my student job. It was in the project, it was called Innovations und Grundungsoffensive Niederrhein. It was basically a project for English speaking people, just IGNI. I can't tell it in English, it didn't have actually a proper English name. And yeah. And also a project which used to support startup and entrepreneurship activities at our university.

00:09:41: Adriana Boldisova: But back then I was alone in the project and I did all those top workshops, even startup coaching only by myself, the project went to an end. So it was finished, stopped, and, uh, there was an opportunity to apply for a funding program and therefore. We wrote a paper, uh, so like grant application for StartGlocal, uh, back then with one, another colleague from the university who was later on working in the project as well.

00:10:15: Adriana Boldisova: And we got the grant, like the competition was really big. Almost all universities of Applied Sciences from all Germany and at the end also 142 universities got the grant, but we were one of few universities which got the grant alone. Other universities were applying like as a group. of universities, so they have to split the grant.

00:10:47: Adriana Boldisova: So we have also a privilege of pretty good budget, I would say, and we can make a lot with this. Therefore, we are organizing plenty of workshops, events, we are doing startup coachings. We have also good manpower in the project. We used to be at the beginning like eight people in the project, not everybody full time, but like eight people personal.

00:11:10: Adriana Boldisova: Now we are like five scientific. members or scientific staff members, so to say, and five student assistants. It's also still pretty good manpower. And with this, you can make almost anything happen, I would say. Yeah. So that's the story how I got into the contact with StartGlocal, not only by myself, but it was like a teamwork, I would say together with the colleagues from Center for Research, Innovation and Transfer.

00:11:38: Adriana Boldisova: But I was the one who fine tuned it with one of my colleagues, and then we just send it and. Was hoping for the best. We are also like iterating. So we are reflecting on ourselves. Like each time we have also two strategy meetings each year discussing in team how to develop farther, but StartGlocal's

00:11:59: Adriana Boldisova: vision is to establish a wider does startup community at Rhine-Waal University, we have three goals. First goal is to motivate our students and employees for startup and entrepreneurship activities. So we basically want to show them that there is also another option like next to corporate job or normal job in a company.

00:12:21: Adriana Boldisova: You can maybe also think about self employment or starting your own business. So this is our first goal. Our second goal is to support students, employees, and also alumni who already have ideas. So if you have a specific startup idea, business idea, you can come to us, to my teammates and we help you to develop it farther.

00:12:43: Adriana Boldisova: So we support you during the whole process, uh, from ideas through prototype until pitch funding programs and going to market. So basically on the whole entrepreneur journey, so to say. And the third thing is that we try to establish a network, which would support our startups at our university with the region.

00:13:05: Adriana Boldisova: So together, for example, with local companies, uh, for example, with chamber of commerce and industry, regional, how it's called business support agency, or how to say in English, and like regional stakeholders. And also later on in the time, if there are already some successful startups at the university, To make like the transfer both ways, like not only winning the regional start stakeholders for our startups, but maybe our startups giving also something to the region.

00:13:41: Adriana Boldisova: So these are actually the three things. And back then I have now remembered back in our project application. We actually had a very big vision that StartGlocal wants to become. The project for international students or international founders in Germany. So we want to be best practice, uh, example with our university and start global for international student founders, because this is a big USP of our university, uh, we are one of the most international universities in Germany, so we formulate this as our unique selling point, uh, for the proposal.

00:14:25: Adriana Boldisova: Yeah.

00:14:26: Stephan Hanf: Anna, how does the StartGlocal Initiative line with the focus of your thesis?

00:14:32: Anna Lea Wolf: So the question that Adriana was asking is, why is student participation that low, even though we have so much to offer and we have so much, so many events that we plan and. So many nice things that students could be interested in, but somehow the number of participation is not as high as expected or as desired.

00:14:51: Anna Lea Wolf: So I was mainly looking at the marketing part of it, but also the events themselves. How could they maybe reformulate some events or which incentives could Start Local use to actually make students participate? Because I think on the one hand, many students are not aware of what Start Local is doing. It was the same for me because.

00:15:11: Anna Lea Wolf: Um, I was just getting their emails. I was never reading the emails and it was always like, I don't want to be an entrepreneur right now. I'm a student or whatever. So it's not interesting for me, but I think the problem, and this is also something that definitely showed up in my thesis is that many students get the impression that it's only for students who actually want to become entrepreneurs, but that's not only what StartGlocal is doing.

00:15:32: Anna Lea Wolf: So it's also just for students who want to inform about like nice startups and impact startups and whatever. Just maybe network with the region. So it's not only for people who want to become entrepreneurs or you can also add value for your future employer when participating in marketing or in other workshops where you can later on say, yeah, I studied engineering maybe, but I also have some tools here and there from marketing or.

00:15:59: Anna Lea Wolf: Maybe market research. Yeah. So that was definitely a main finding, but also that, for example, some incentives that start local uses, for example, yeah, you can increase your knowledge and you can earn some nice know how about startups and entrepreneurship is maybe not the incentives that are actually useful for students.

00:16:18: Anna Lea Wolf: I think students always want to know what is the benefit that I can get from taking my free time, investing my free time when coming to one of your events. What can I get? And I think sometimes it's just as easy as providing snacks and drinks. Um, for example, last week we had a coffee and chat event, which was also one of my ideas because I think it's good to, to offer something special to the students.

00:16:42: Anna Lea Wolf: And there's this nice cafe in Kleve called Coffee Company. It's like fancy. And I think we all know that students are, even though they do not have much money, they are willing to pay for something for a good coffee, for example. And it was a very nice atmosphere. So. I think more than 60 students showed up for this event just to talk to each other, just to get to know our team, because I think that's also many students think that, yeah, I have to know so much about entrepreneurship to get a coaching with them because otherwise they might think I'm too stupid or they, they don't take me seriously or whatever, but that's just not what it is.

00:17:16: Anna Lea Wolf: So they, they had the opportunity to get to know us, the team and that it's just, yeah, that it's only also just human. And we would like to. to share our ideas with them. So I think those are the events that are very important to have like a low barrier for students to take part. It's actually quite cool because when I was starting my thesis, I didn't know that it would end up like this in the end, but I had a list of recommendations.

00:17:40: Anna Lea Wolf: Also about the email frequency, for example, or the email design or the channels that they use. But right now I can actually implement them because I'm working a little bit in marketing where I can help here and there, but also event management where I can help with the incentives or in general, the ideas about some events.

00:17:56: Anna Lea Wolf: Yeah, it's really, it's a full circle

00:17:58: Adriana Boldisova: moment. Yeah. But I have to also say, uh, did I approached from the beginning, the whole project as a startup itself, basically we had some plan. What things, uh, we should do in the project. We knew, okay, we would like to do this and that, uh, workshop and event. We knew, uh, okay, we have startup scouts who are doing startup coachings in faculties and this stuff.

00:18:21: Adriana Boldisova: But each semester, like we reflected in a team, uh, in the startup world, it's called retrospective event where the whole team was sitting together. Like actually we did it at the beginning on a monthly basis when we reflected on all the stuff which we have done. So it was not the bachelor thesis was not the beginning, but it was a part of the process actually, because we had the opportunity to try.

00:18:47: Adriana Boldisova: Everything, basically what we want in the area of startups and entrepreneurship at our university, and it's a continuous learning process. So we did also events such as Make an Impact Day or many of you probably know also Best Idea Cup, which we are doing like since ages, also before StartGlocal was already.

00:19:07: Adriana Boldisova: And, uh, these events were, for example. Very successful. Uh, then we have also some workshops. We have like around 70 workshops. I'm doing the startup statistics. So I, so, so the project statistics, so it was really like very high number of workshops, but we realized, okay, this doesn't make sense to make such big amount on workshops, even if it were online because of Corona, but this is too much.

00:19:32: Adriana Boldisova: For students. So now we are like around six to seven workshops, uh, during the semester. And winter semester is a bit more because we have their entrepreneurship week, but this is the stuff which you are like doing or learning by doing. So to say really like a startup, you are live launching your product.

00:19:52: Adriana Boldisova: You are iterating a bit also asking students what they want. And we tried actually to implement, I would say 99%, uh, Of the feedback and we didn't stop to learn or haven't stopped to learn yet. So we have still some time to go. The project will be. Most probably active till March 2024 or maybe till end of the year.

00:20:17: Adriana Boldisova: And then we have still some time to go and improve ourselves or fine tune what is already good.

00:20:24: Stephan Hanf: Given the challenges you've observed, what mindset is essential for students looking to innovate or establish their own

00:20:32: Adriana Boldisova: ventures? Yeah, actually, I would say entrepreneurial mindset, I, I actually think, uh, that innovative mindset and entrepreneurial mindset are very important for all people, not only for people who would like to start up, uh, their company.

00:20:48: Adriana Boldisova: As Anna already said, uh, we have sometimes people who are afraid to come to startup coaching because they think their ideas are not good enough, but if you have only an idea, then just come to us, talk with us. Even if you don't have idea, even if you just want to talk, then come to us and we will see what will happen.

00:21:09: Adriana Boldisova: Sometimes ideas are coming like when talking, but I think the best mindset or very good mindset is if you are somehow creative or try to explore ideas. Uh, if you are like, Problem solving person, uh, that you, uh, try to look around yourself and for example, okay, this is not working. Uh, we have a lot of students who, for example, see, uh, many things not working in Cleaves.

00:21:37: Adriana Boldisova: And we have many ideas, uh, when somebody is coming to us, okay, this is not working, let's make it better. And there is, uh, a startup idea out of it. So also a little bit like, I would say thinking out of the box. So don't like just think narrow, don't judge yourself, be creative and also somehow flexible.

00:21:59: Adriana Boldisova: Okay. Uh, the things are not only dark in your life, be somehow optimistic, trust yourself. So I think this is the right attitude and not only for entrepreneurs, but also for all students who would like also to work in corporates on all kinds of companies is actually. What also Anna said, we are doing workshops, for example, on project management, on agile project management.

00:22:23: Adriana Boldisova: This is like a skill of the future, or I don't know, creativity methods, innovation. This is not only stuff for entrepreneurs. These are actually future skills, which everybody needs. So even if you are incorporate, uh, for example, I used to work incorporate, I was actually working in insurance sector. Back to Slovakia as a product manager.

00:22:47: Adriana Boldisova: And I was having a project, it was called something not imaginable for insurance company, client friendly policy term and conditions. So you can imagine, insurances are each time sending you these piles of documents with very, very small texts, which are called your policy conditions. Nobody's reading them, never.

00:23:12: Adriana Boldisova: Uh, you are just signing the paper as the client never reading the conditions. And my, actually, my task was to flip this unfriendly policy term and conditions into some nice form, which would the customers. So actually what I wanted to say, you can be also innovator within a company. So even it was not a technology task, it was not connected to any technology, but it was innovative.

00:23:43: Adriana Boldisova: And I did it for Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Hungary, actually also, uh, policy terms and conditions in English. And then they. Released it in all other countries. So it was like, you know, you can be also innovator by yourself, even without any ambition. You just need the right mindset and that's it. So you don't even want to establish a startup.

00:24:07: Adriana Boldisova: Yeah. Beyond

00:24:08: Stephan Hanf: a solid idea, what practical elements are crucial for the success? and longevity of

00:24:15: Adriana Boldisova: a startup. There are many challenges actually, but for that you have to be also persistent. If you want to achieve something, then just have it on your mind and do it. With international students, there are many challenges.

00:24:31: Adriana Boldisova: For example, one very relevant challenge is language. Without German language in Germany, it's really challenging whatever you are doing, even finding a job can be challenging. So this is one thing then, uh, for international funders, uh, visa situation, uh, you have normally visa only for studies in Germany, as soon as you would like to become self employed or start your own business, you need a special visa extension.

00:24:59: Adriana Boldisova: So this can be a pretty long lasting process, so to say, uh, but we are here, of course, from the StartGlocal site, uh, to support you in the process. Then I think very important thing, what we shouldn't underestimate, uh, is like teammates. It's pretty simple, but also many students are telling, ah, let me do it alone, that everything is mine and I will earn the money and I want, I don't want to share with anybody, but.

00:25:31: Adriana Boldisova: Actually, it's not a very right attitude, I would say, uh, let's imagine, or let's say, say it like this. The university is actually, I think, one time per life opportunity to try something new. It's really. Good innovation system, so to say. You have here labs, opportunities to prototype, to ideate, to meet new friends, and also maybe potential co founders of your startup.

00:26:00: Adriana Boldisova: And what's the best? Our university is really interdisciplinary. So we have here four faculties. We have Everything basically, many disciplines, if it goes about sustainability, life sciences, engineering, we have graphic design, mobility and logistic communication and environment, all the faculty in Kamp Lintfort, and this is basically the best combination

00:26:27: Adriana Boldisova: to grow your own startup. So I would also tell students, okay, network with other students from other faculties, join like also extracurricular like workshops, events, whatever you can, because you will find not only friends, but only also maybe friends for business. So this is a very big point actually, like.

00:26:50: Adriana Boldisova: Teammates, collaboration, interdisciplinary projects, uh, we are actually also with StartGlocal. Our startup scouts are in each faculty and they are going also to modules and presenting the StartGlocal project. Also they are inviting, for example, startups. So if professors or students have interest into getting to know some startup, then just let us know.

00:27:17: Adriana Boldisova: We can make it happen. We can bring startup like a practical experience into your lectures as well. So all these things come together, but the big thing is actually the entrepreneurial or innovative mindset, I would say.

00:27:33: Anna Lea Wolf: I think it's also maybe the financial risk that some students are facing. I think many students, maybe especially international students, they just don't have the financial, like, security or situation to say, okay, I'm just going all in now because in the end it is a high risk.

00:27:49: Anna Lea Wolf: You put in a lot of effort, you put in a lot of money and, um, if it doesn't work out in the end, which is possible, then you might lose a lot of money. And on the other hand, it's also a time management thing because you have your full time studies. Many students have, uh, student jobs, um, at the same time.

00:28:05: Anna Lea Wolf: And then having like the motivation every day to put in an additional effort into your own startup. Um, I think that's where also many, yeah, many startups, maybe there is the idea, but then in the end, it doesn't, it's not enough to actually become a startup because it is. Yeah. It needs a lot of

00:28:22: Adriana Boldisova: effort.

00:28:23: Adriana Boldisova: Yeah. Yeah. That's about, uh, what I talk about is persistency.

00:28:26: Anna Lea Wolf: Yeah. It's actually the thing. It's not, it's not a sprint. It's a marathon. Yeah. Yes,

00:28:30: Adriana Boldisova: actually. Yes. It's a, it's more kind of marathon, so to say, but about the financial constraints, for example, for international students. What we are also doing is support when applying for scholarships.

00:28:43: Adriana Boldisova: So it's actually a very good way of financing. There are, there are some startup scholarships around, which we are also helping and in the last years, uh, since StartGlocal is existing, we had 17, uh, scholarship holders and many of them also international students. So then the deal is somehow better. If you have such scholarship, uh, you can do like your studies, uh, somehow part time to concentrate on your startup and it goes then better because you have some kind of more financial stability, so to say.

00:29:18: Anna Lea Wolf: But I think also here that some students are not really aware of that we are offering that to them or that they have like self doubts or think my startup idea is not good enough or it's not far enough. To receive a scholarship, but that's also here. You just have to talk to us and then. Yeah. You can see in the end.

00:29:37: Adriana Boldisova: Yeah. So we can actually help you to develop your idea farther. So we are, uh, for example, uh, using this business model canvas or value proposition canvas testing cards. These are actually a very popular startup methods, uh, to develop your ideas actually farther or ideas of students or employees of Rhine-Waal university.

00:30:00: Adriana Boldisova: And so we can basically help you also. If your idea is at the very beginning to develop it like farther and maybe in a later stage also acquire some funding for the idea. Yeah.

00:30:13: Stephan Hanf: Can you describe some challenges StartGlocal has faced and the strategies employed to overcome

00:30:19: Anna Lea Wolf: them? I think for me, my perspective is also different than yours, but for me as a student assistant, it's more definitely more like a gift than it's more than challenges because not everything is

00:30:31: Anna Lea Wolf: like fully planned, but on the other end, I have a lot of, yeah, I can do a lot of things my own way and I can also bring in my ideas. And I think if I was working in a big company that would definitely be different. Also, I would have had to decide if I go to marketing direction or event management. And in this case I can just do both and I just can do everything.

00:30:51: Anna Lea Wolf: So if it was interesting to see more into this startup scout direction and. Yeah. How do you say what Hannes and Claudia are doing, what the prototyping things I could just do have a look into every layer of what we're doing, but also at the same time, of course, it varies a lot of the success of our events, for example, because we don't have, we have like our student body is smaller than in other universities.

00:31:19: Anna Lea Wolf: And then the share of students interested in entrepreneurship is even smaller. And then those actually showing up. Yeah, that's something that's definitely a challenge also mentally, because sometimes you are like, I can just say for me, but it was a bit disappointing when you put so much effort into it.

00:31:35: Anna Lea Wolf: And then not that many students are showing up, but Adriana is also always having a look at it somehow differently. She's always like, well, next time everyone who's coming is good for us.

00:31:45: Adriana Boldisova: But it's like that. It's actually like that because people remember the negative things. Actually, it was not

00:31:52: Adriana Boldisova: successful, the workshop, we had like 18 people that show up and actually everything worked smoothly, but we, in our minds were prepared like for 40 people. And then you set your own limits. Like we have it on our mind. Okay. We want 40 people to be there and there were only 18. Now we are like not satisfied, but actually is we had like from then.

00:32:15: Adriana Boldisova: Now we had only successful events. So everybody, everything went smoothly last, uh, week, really this coffee and chat with over 60 people participating. But do you remember because of our good brains, we remember usually more the negative things than the positive. I think we have actually done or achieved very much in the StartGlocal project, like I'm the one who is doing the project statistics and we have over 3000.

00:32:43: Adriana Boldisova: 300 people at our workshops, uh, since 2020, which is like the crazy number for a small university. So we reach almost a half people of the university have attend our StartGlocal workshop. So this is like perfect. So I think our task is to motivate students. Already half of campus or both campuses heard.

00:33:05: Adriana Boldisova: That we exist. So what could be better? So this is the thing. And about challenges, if I have to talk about a team, actually I'm the person who don't see challenge as a challenge. I'm really a problem solver. So if there is something, what is negative on the table and what is not as we would like to have.

00:33:27: Adriana Boldisova: We are sitting immediately together. I like to discuss it in the team and we are searching for solutions. So while, how we can improve it, what's the feedback, why it was happening. So let's do it next day in another way. So, and I think we have also pretty good. team culture, I would say. So we are really open.

00:33:46: Adriana Boldisova: We are pretty much good friends. I would say, uh, also in a team and we have actually no problem to communicate with each other. So I would say we don't have any major challenges, despite of some people not showing up at our workshops, but even there we are asking the people. Also, I ask. Though those people who came to the workshop, why you came, this is also interesting question.

00:34:14: Adriana Boldisova: Why you came? What do you think? Why others didn't came? And I, I wrote an email to those who didn't show up and you would wonder,

00:34:24: Anna Lea Wolf: everyone was mostly everyone was

00:34:27: Adriana Boldisova: replying, right? Yeah. And mostly everybody was sick on that day was such higher sickness, right? No, but they were, I, I was really laughing on some, some, on some replies, but this is the job.

00:34:41: Adriana Boldisova: Actually, we are here to motivate people and yeah, if some people are not taking it into account, that's their problem. They are missing a good opportunity. Also at the workshops, you meet new friends, you meet new students, and we see it also from the workshop to workshop, uh, there are people joining one.

00:35:02: Adriana Boldisova: One, two, three, four, six times. And then at the end, they are like, after one, two years, they are like, ah, we knew here also so many people already thank you, uh, through StartGlocal I was getting new friends in the university. I teamed up with somebody and such stories. And that's, I think, really nice to hear then.

00:35:23: Adriana Boldisova: Yeah. It's also nice for us.

00:35:27: Stephan Hanf: Delving into the cultural perspective on failure, do you believe there is a distinct German apprehension towards it? Especially in the entrepreneurial realm.

00:35:40: Anna Lea Wolf: Yeah. The number of participants that are international students is like significantly higher than German students. And also in my thesis, it showed that interest, um, into entrepreneurship and startups is significantly higher for international students.

00:35:55: Anna Lea Wolf: So yeah, that might be very true. I think they're also. They are willing to take a risk more than German students, but yeah, it could be seen that the participation is much higher and the interest is also higher. I think it's

00:36:06: Adriana Boldisova: maybe like you ask why it's maybe like cultural aspect of the things because many students are, uh, for example, telling me if I'm asking why you came here, why you are interested in startups, entrepreneurship, startup, your own business.

00:36:22: Adriana Boldisova: Yeah, because my mother and father do in my home country. For example, we have many students from Asia. Uh, there are the prerequisites to start your business are much lower than in Germany. So for people basically from Asian countries, Latin America, or even Africa, it's like a very natural thing. They saw their father, mother doing, and it was very easy to sell, for example, products in front of their house somewhere or in their hometown.

00:36:52: Adriana Boldisova: And they don't have this barrier in their heads. Like. That it should be somehow complicated in Germany. They are coming in a startup coaching session. We had many examples when a student came and they were thinking, okay, tomorrow I will open my GMBH and I will be successful entrepreneur in Germany. And then we have to reflect and tell, okay, you are in Germany.

00:37:14: Adriana Boldisova: So it doesn't work like that. Weeks or months. Uh, Here is, uh, yeah, first of all, your visa situation, some bureaucracy on top and these things, so starting a business in Germany is definitely not easy, but I have to say it's, yeah, somehow stable environment. Because you don't have any ups and downs here in Germany, like you have stable political and economic situation here.

00:37:41: Adriana Boldisova: Uh, so then once you have started, it's probably much easier to do a business in Germany than in some other country. But the start can be somehow challenging, yeah. But I like that international students... Don't have these, really these barriers in their head. They just want to start and because they don't know it otherwise, only other ways.

00:38:05: Anna Lea Wolf: And I think also some of the international students, they have their own businesses at home already and they come here and just try to expand on it or just to try something new because they know, yeah, my other business is running quite well. So they kind of have more drive towards entrepreneurship than

00:38:20: Adriana Boldisova: Germans.

00:38:21: Adriana Boldisova: If you are afraid of failure. Uh, this is somehow your, yeah, it's like block in your head, but maybe you can try to take small steps towards something. It doesn't have to be a startup business in the future, but maybe some nice project. Uh, for students, it's actually really nice that they can spend three to five years at our university, maybe, uh, even more if they take some more time.

00:38:46: Adriana Boldisova: And within this time, they have actually a lot of opportunities. As I said, already, you can, for example. write some applied research project, or some bachelor thesis, master thesis, involve in some group projects, or whatever. And during all this time you can try out whatever you want. Each idea, which comes to your head, and you can prove if the idea during this time, it's three to five years, it's a plenty of time, you can prove actually if it works somehow, you can iterate, you can make one first, second, third, fifth, tenth prototype, whatever you want.

00:39:30: Adriana Boldisova: Even if you're a bachelor or master thesis, uh, you can test it on potential target group or customers, uh, and then see what happens. Also, as a student, you have nothing to lose, basically. If it doesn't work, then it's not a failure. It's basically a learning. So it's just a learning process for you. Nobody.

00:39:53: Adriana Boldisova: If it doesn't work out, nobody noticed. If it works out, it's a huge success. So in your CV, it says, okay, I studied at Rhine-Waal University, mechanical engineering, this and that. Nobody has to know that you failed five things during your studies. Nobody knows. But if one thing from that is a success.

00:40:18: Adriana Boldisova: So basically, I would really, uh, tell, try to implement everything in small steps. You don't have to go all in and put like the whole risk on the idea. This is actually the thing, uh, which used to be done in the past. Very often also in project management. I used to be a product manager back to Slovakia that people were launching product.

00:40:40: Adriana Boldisova: I headed back to Slovakia, like two years of development, insurance product, then launching the product and nobody was buying it. Why? Because nobody asked the customer and we just believed in ourselves that we are the brains who are developing the best insurance product. And then afterwards you need to pump money into it and do, I don't know, Rabbat code, uh, people are buying that because nobody asked the customer.

00:41:09: Adriana Boldisova: And Within your studies, you can actually, you have five years to ask the customer. So it's basically easy. You have nothing to lose. Just do it as a side project and involve it to your studies. It even doesn't have to cost you like extra time. You can do applied project on it. Master thesis, internship. You can actually do also internship in a startup.

00:41:32: Adriana Boldisova: We have also students who are working in startups or who wrote their bachelor thesis in a startup. Now on our Instagram channel, we posted a post nice last week, actually about a student who wrote her bachelor thesis in a successful startup in Cologne. So such things. Can you share

00:41:50: Stephan Hanf: some success stories or noteworthy experiences of individuals who have benefited from this dark local program?

00:41:59: Adriana Boldisova: So we have 3000 people, I have to say we have seven startups. This doesn't sound as a big number. But first of all, I have to say, our target in the project or goal, we It's not basically our KPI, key performance indicator number one, it's not a number of established startups. It's basically number of people who we make aware of the opportunity of entrepreneurship and startups.

00:42:30: Adriana Boldisova: So more about our project is more about sensitising in the people for the topic, but anyhow, we had seven startups. These startups have been also partially established by international students. And one of our first startups was actually startup Art Glove. They were even before StartGlocal, uh, starting their entrepreneurial journey, so to say, and back then there was Daniela who was studying in Kamp-Lintfort for usability engineering and within her study course, she has to develop some product which would help people.

00:43:10: Adriana Boldisova: And she was thinking, Oh, why? Why I have to do this, how I can approach this and these things. And at the time her mother was having a problem with arthritis and she was thinking, okay, let's solve this for my mother. I want to help her somehow, and I will try to develop a product. And what she did in her course for usability engineering, she developed in a FabLab in Kamp-Lintfort, massaging glove, like self massaging, you just

00:43:38: Adriana Boldisova: put the glove on and it's massaging your hand. And then she applied for the best idea cup in the same year. She also won the best idea cup and back then she was alone in a team, but then she teamed up with another mate, her study mate, actually from the Course Usability Engineering, and then they won.

00:44:02: Adriana Boldisova: Grunders Stipendium NRW is a startup scholarship, so they applied successfully. They developed the idea further, and then both of them decided to write also their applied project, like interdisciplinary project in the faculty about the topic, and also their master thesis. And I was there as a second supervisor.

00:44:24: Adriana Boldisova: It was really an honor for me, like, somehow to support the startup project, because they are until now. Uh, developing it further now, they have done six iterations of the prototype because it's like a kind of complicated product because it's some kind of medicine product or medicine, medical appliance.

00:44:45: Adriana Boldisova: And for this, you need in Germany license and everything. So there are many regulations connected within this, but now in the last two years, they joined two successfully, two accelerators programs of the university in Munich. And they are still going farther with that idea. And they are shortly before the launch on the market.

00:45:08: Adriana Boldisova: And the team grew meanwhile to, I think, four or five members. And that's how you can develop your idea, actually, which you had only, so to say, module. into a startup. Maybe another story is a story also from two students, one student from sustainable agriculture and one student from sustainable development management study course.

00:45:35: Adriana Boldisova: Actually, I think it was startup week 2020. And one of those, uh, students pitched their idea in the frame of the Startup Week. Like, it was a lecture with Professor Merbecks, who is each time very well involved in the Startup and Entrepreneurship topics and supporting us. And she was organizing a lecture within the Startup Week at our university, and we were there from StartGlobal team.

00:46:06: Adriana Boldisova: And one of the students pitched their idea of a vermicomposter for kindergartens. So basically, what is a vermicomposter? It's a box where worms are, and these are basically producing compost. And they had an idea, okay, Let's make this vermicomposter sustainable. So make it from wood materials and recycled plastic.

00:46:31: Adriana Boldisova: Let's make a transparent front wall that people can see what actually worms are doing inside. Okay. So they have this crazy idea and I think Christina from our team was there at this pitch event and she was thinking, Oh, this sounds cool. Let's take a look at it and how we can develop it. And then they had.

00:46:51: Adriana Boldisova: I think 20, over 20 coaching sessions with us, we helped them to prototype all, whole vermicomposter. So we cut it, the wood, we disassembled it or assembled it, uh, together with them. And then they actually launched a product and they were very successful with it. Already they had a network of kindergartens who was purchasing the product because the kids.

00:47:19: Adriana Boldisova: Loved to see the worms, I don't want to say playing inside, but like the crawling in inside the cage actually, inside the box. And then these two students also develop like a work, workshops for kindergarten. So they went to kindergartens and they were explaining, okay, this is a worm named Philip and he is now eating his food.

00:47:43: Adriana Boldisova: And actually they were explaining whole ecological and biological processes was. are happening within this box and how the whole thing functions. And this was like, for the kindergarten, this was like, okay, this is cool. Uh, we want our children to see this because it's like learning, uh, from the young age and it was very interesting.

00:48:04: Adriana Boldisova: They also had a book. Published like a workshop book about this. I have it still in my shelf here in office. They also got a scholarship for that. So partially they were funded and we also planted a tree with them because it was like our initiative from Start Global that was each successful project, we planted a tree, actually, we planted it behind the faculty of society and economics and yeah, that's their story.

00:48:31: Adriana Boldisova: Actually, they were selling it and everything. Uh, actually now they. Stopped the idea, so to say, because both of them find a job in a corporate and they are doing also one of the master's studies and they just didn't have time to follow it, but maybe they will follow up somewhere in the future. Among

00:48:52: Stephan Hanf: the many ideas.

00:48:54: Stephan Hanf: You have encountered which one truly resonated with you for a sheer innovation.

00:49:00: Adriana Boldisova: I don't know. It's actually hard to pick one because there were many, many students like joining our startup coachings, uh, with, with many ideas, but I personally. Like the last best idea cup, it was, there were actually three really interesting ideas also somehow connected to sustainability, which is now a big topic like impact startups, social startups, sustainable startups.

00:49:28: Adriana Boldisova: And this is actually what's sticking in my mind, like all three pitches, uh, so all three idea presentations were so good, prepared. So, the first, like the winner of the best idea cup was the idea your outfit, and the student actually wants to program an app or develop an app. Which would tell you how sustainable is, for example, your T shirt or jeans.

00:49:54: Adriana Boldisova: And, uh, this app is telling you, okay, let's buy this or not according to sustainability criteria. Then the second was kelp carpet. This was actually a really innovative idea of one of the scientific assistants from our university. He was, uh, developing artificial kelp carpet. Uh, which is actually protecting the shores and somehow nevulating sea level such that the waves are not damaging the, uh, shore.

00:50:25: Adriana Boldisova: Uh, for example, this was actually very innovative. And last one, also Bluetech Horizon, this is actually a project from our Enactus club at the university. And uh, he is developing. Vertical wind turbines for households, for example, which you can put on your house. Uh, so this is also very innovative idea. So, so within the time we have many such ideas.

00:50:50: Adriana Boldisova: Uh, some students are still, uh, developing them further. Some, some not because like situation are changing. Uh, this, I have to say also like international students, uh, sometimes they are staying in the region sometimes after their studies, they're leaving. To the home countries. So that's what we have to live with somehow.

00:51:12: Adriana Boldisova: Yeah. There's

00:51:12: Stephan Hanf: a notion that every year should produce a successful startup, right? How do you manage such expectations and align them with

00:51:21: Adriana Boldisova: reality? Maybe I can give you a comparison. So even the university here in Essen doesn't have 10 startups per year. So I think it's only like imagination because we watch a lot of American movies.

00:51:35: Adriana Boldisova: And yes, we are like, Brainwashed somehow with the Silicon Valley stories. If you start startup initiatives, you will have like, uh, 100 startups in a year. Everybody's successful and this thing. So it's, we have somehow this American idol in our heads, so to say, but it doesn't work like this. All innovations take their time.

00:51:57: Adriana Boldisova: So, so it's not like this is a big, actually myth. About innovation that innovation is something what happens like a big crash and that's it. It's a one big moment. Many people think this. It's not like that. It's not one big moment. It's actually a continuous process. You develop something, you ask people how they like it, you got feedback, you implement it, then you ask Another time and all this implementation actually takes a lot of time if it's an innovative really scientific based idea, it takes a lot of time also, uh, for example, startup scholarships.

00:52:37: Adriana Boldisova: We have also startup scholarship for scientific members of universities and the scholarships are for two or three years because you can't innovate in one month. It's not possible. You need team, you need expertise, you need resources, you need finance. You, you need like all the stuff, what we already talk about, just a bit, big misconception.

00:53:00: Adriana Boldisova: Also, everybody is asking us like, Oh, seven startups. Oh, what is seven startups? Like, I know it's not 100, but also the seven are with international students. And if you imagine. International students, some of you already struggle like with studies or it's a big challenge already to adapt to new culture, to new study life and next to studies to start a startup seven times at our university.

00:53:32: Adriana Boldisova: It's a big deal, really. This is a really big deal. So you have to see it from this perspective, actually. All

00:53:40: Stephan Hanf: right. To wrap things up, what's like a significant hands on lesson both of you have acquired during your tenure here?

00:53:48: Adriana Boldisova: Okay. So I just learned that I love my job. I can say it basically like that because what I like is to do different tasks.

00:53:59: Adriana Boldisova: Each day. So basically the project coordinator job and also start blog, like in connection with startups and entrepreneurship is basically what makes me fun. So it's basically, I don't see my job as a job. It's basically something what I like to do a passion because you have each day. Another task on the table and also what I like is that, that we have really the freedom to work with students and at the university.

00:54:30: Adriana Boldisova: So I pretty much love the interaction with people. So to help people, to see how to help them, like with development of your. Of their ideas. And if there is success at the end, it's like a very good feeling. And one big learning for me is also from the team coordination perspective, it's very important to communicate like in a transparent way and each time to ask for feedback.

00:55:00: Adriana Boldisova: Even if you don't, uh, think it's important. Do it like each time ask for feedback and you cannot lose so that's basically yeah, what I have to say I think for

00:55:14: Anna Lea Wolf: me it's something similar. It's definitely also the freedom of doing so many different things That's what I also told you before And that every day when I come to the office, I don't really know what's coming because there's always new things opening up.

00:55:29: Anna Lea Wolf: And here there's a new workshop where I can also participate. And that's something I also really appreciate. And I also, yeah, found that I'm not as big as a control freak as I thought, because Ariana is even worse, much worse. No, but that definitely in such a small and. Yeah, in such a small project, it takes a lot of structure and organization so that everyone is also knows what is their area of like responsibility.

00:55:58: Anna Lea Wolf: I think that's very important, like that everything is structured and that you also have some proactive spirit because otherwise. Adriana cannot micromanage with me. She cannot tell me all the time what to do. So it's important to also be proactive and just do something, even though she doesn't know of it.

00:56:13: Anna Lea Wolf: So in the end it's, it will be fine. Yeah.

00:56:16: Adriana Boldisova: Actually, you can't prepare, like if you start a business, you can't prepare for everything. Each day is different. One day you are up. Another day you are down, and you have to be like also mentally prepared for this, like not everybody can handle, but for me personally, it's the best way to do things because I enjoy the freedom, basically, that you can decide by yourself what is important on the day, what is less important, and you can basically steer your future.

00:56:47: Adriana Boldisova: And you have to live with this, but it pays off because you have freedom.

00:56:58: Adriana Boldisova: Thank

00:57:04: Stephan Hanf: you very much for listening. We appreciate any feedback and are always open to suggestions for improvement. You can reach us directly at podcast@hsrw.eu. In the show notes, you will find links and more information about today's topics and guests. My name is Stephan Hanf, thanks for listening, see you next time, tschüss.