About us
We’re developing and testing the next generation of societal support for founders.
Entrepreneurial capability isn’t a talent. It’s a societal skill. It doesn’t come from lectures or business plans, but from responsibility, trust and practice.
So we understand ourselves less as an organisation and more as an experiment. We’re finding out which funding logic works best. For that we are building an infrastructure in which different approaches can be tested, measured and steadily improved.
Who is behind this
Steven Strehl
Founder and Managing Director
Founding team
Katharina Schumacher
Strategy expert and senior executive
Sylvia Hustedt
Catalyst and connector
Christoph Backes
Catalyst and connector
Kristin Baumann
Data Visualization Developer
Founding boosters
u-institut, Berlin
For twenty years, u-institut has been bringing entrepreneurial thinking and doing into Germany’s creative industries. A way of looking at people that carries goodwill, trust and equal footing, together with a wide network of experts from those industries, gave us our initial energy.
DONKEY NEXT, Hamburg
DONKEY, an agency in Hamburg, sees itself as a creative hub for the lifestyle industry, with brand development among its specialities. In four weeks, their creatives sparred with us on finding the name and built the groundwork of the brand. That let us start out professional from day one, and approachable, inspiring and open to everyone we are here for from that same day.
Identitätsstiftung, Hannover
Identitätsstiftung is a consultancy for strategic and creative organisational development, based in Hanover. For more than ten years they have helped organisations understand who they are, and make that visible, tangible and effective. They bring strategy, communication and creative execution together into one approach.
Lutz Woellert sparred with us on how we position ourselves through language.
Vision
A world full of entrepreneurs, in which more people take responsibility and bring something new into the world. Being an entrepreneur is as ordinary there as being employed.
Mission
We change the rules: a different picture of entrepreneurship, and programmes that support people in trusting themselves to act on it and in turning ideas into something that holds.
Values
Community
Community is also security. It’s the fallback that holds when something doesn’t work out, and it depends on very different people being part of it.
Creativity and curiosity
Curiosity here also means experiment: wanting to find out what works. Failing is part of it.
Ambition
Ambition means wanting to achieve something, together.
Equal footing
We treat you from the start as the entrepreneur you want to become, whatever your background, gender, qualifications or network. We contribute rather than look after you.
Effectiveness
Effectiveness means impact: bringing something about.
Where we are, and where this is going
April 2026 (Reached)
First ideas, and looking around
June 2026 (Reached)
Taking shape
July 2026 (Reached)
Sounding out partnerships and funding
August 2026 (Reached)
Name, brand, and preparing the company
September 2026 (Reached)
The company founded, and the website launched
October 2026 (Reached)
First community sessions for exchange
What comes after that (7 more)
November 2026
A broader basis of data on what is needed, to shape the offer around it
December 2026
Part of what 2027 needs, funded
January 2027
Charitable status begins
Early 2027
The first workshops in our Academy
Mid-2027
The legal form settled: steward-ownership (Gesellschaft mit gebundenem Vermögen)
Late 2027
The first everypreneurs summit
During 2027
The first financial boosters paid out