On December 1, graduates, students and staff of FHWien der WKW gathered in the ZOOM meeting room for the last Alumni Talk of the year. Our guest was Timon B. Schaffer, Head of “StartingUp – Das Gründermagazin”, a subsidiary platform of the brutkasten media group.
The graduate of the International MBA in Management & Communication not only told about his own career, which led him from the corporation via MBA studies to Brutkasten, but above all gave insights into the world of startups.
Is a startup just a lifestyle? Do founders of startups just sit in a café all day and build the next big thing? Schaffer showed that there is much more to it than that. In the DACH region, there are several 100,000 company foundations every year, but not all of them count as startups. What distinguishes them from classic companies, what characteristics they have and what challenges they face – the expert illuminated all this and more in the talk.
So what can startups achieve and do they perhaps even pose a threat to the “old economy”? In any case, Schaffer made one thing clear: Startups are an economic factor that can no longer be overlooked, even here in Austria. It is important that the startup world becomes much more diverse, e.g. only a small part is led by female founders so far. They can also score in the “war for talents” and – our speaker emphasized this in particular – startups can change the world. And it doesn’t always have to be the big players, even the small ones can make a lasting contribution in their industry. One thing is certain: Startups already have great potential and we are only at the beginning!