Company: Kreastra
Thorsten Witkowski, Marketing & Communication, Freelance sole trader

Founder: Thorsten Witkowski

Date of foundation: January 15, 2024

Industry and company: Marketing and communication

What drives you? What is your motto?
The two guiding principles "He who walks in the footsteps of others leaves no trace of his own" (Wilhelm Busch) and "Good marketers recognize that marketing is not a cost factor, but an investment" (Seth Godin) describe what I believe in pretty well:

I am convinced that you have to break new ground and try things out in order to stand out from the crowd and thus be remembered by (potential) customers. This also includes the willingness to make mistakes, to learn and to develop further as a result. Above all, marketing measures should be seen as an investment in your own brand/product. It takes a vision, a strategy and building blocks that build on each other, as well as perseverance, to be successful in the long term.

What is your start-up about and what is special about it?
My aim is to support small and medium-sized companies in the Rhine-Main region and beyond with my expertise as a service provider. For larger companies and corporations, I offer my services as an interim manager. I offer consulting and implementation from a single source in almost all marketing and communication disciplines. My focus is on the development of environmentally conscious and sustainable marketing approaches that make both ecological and economic sense and the use of state-of-the-art AI technologies and digital tools for more efficient marketing processes and precise data-driven decisions.

What are your first successes?
The biggest success so far has been the "official" start of your self-employment and the associated launch of the website www.kreastra.de. After a long and intensive start-up preparation phase, many events attended, webinars, research and organizational tasks, it's a great feeling to finally get started. The great positive response, the many congratulations and the motivating messages from friends, acquaintances, former colleagues and network partners have also provided an additional motivational boost.

What is your professional background?
After completing my vocational training as an IT specialist (application development), I started out as a career changer in marketing around 20 years ago. Since then, I have learned all facets of marketing and corporate communications from the ground up and completed a part-time degree at the IMK as a state-certified communications specialist. During these two decades in the service industry, I was able to develop in various positions from clerk to senior manager and thus also gain a lot of project management and management experience.

What prompted you to set up your own company?
I had the idea of becoming self-employed a few years ago while I was still employed. The trigger was the desire to live out my passion for marketing, communication and creative and innovative strategies not just for one brand or one product, but for many brands and many products. When the opportunity presented itself last year, I decided to embark on this journey and began the preparations.

Who advised you, who are your helpers and mentors?
I was lucky and was able to take advantage of many (mostly free) advisory services. These included, for example, the "GRÜNDERwissen kompakt" series of events organized by the state capital of Wiesbaden. Numerous tools and webinars on the gruenderplattform.de website, an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection and KfW.Webinars on the websites fuer-gruender.de, omt.de, omr.com and the Verband der Gründer und Selbstständigen Deutschland e. V. (vgsd.de). I also had lots of conversations with friends and relatives to close knowledge gaps and get feedback on ideas and concepts.

How did you experience the first few days as a founder?
You work towards it for a long time and then it arrives: the big day, the "official" launch. The password protection is removed from the website and ... nothing really happens at first. But since I was prepared for this, I didn't expect anything else. After all, I'm not ceremoniously opening a store and I'm not selling a product for which I've acquired several pre-orders and then take boxes to the shipping service provider.

It was clear to me that it would be a while before I could fulfill my first orders. That's why I focused on two things:

1. Informing my network and being happy about the great response I mentioned above.
2. Making sure that my website is listed quickly and well in the search engines, which was previously not possible due to the password protection on the site.

What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
As a freelance sole trader, I operate under my own name. Unlike a GmbH, for example, which can be made up of a fantasy name and the addition of the legal form (in this case "GmbH"). Nevertheless, it was important to me to create a brand and build it up in the long term so that I would be recognized by the public. A tricky task and a big challenge, as it turned out. After all, the name should be memorable, embody what I stand for, not yet be protected elsewhere and "work" well in different media and representations. It took some time, several ideas, numerous discussions with artificial intelligence (AIs) and a lot of research, including at the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA), before I found exactly what I was looking for in "Kreastra" (creativity meets strategy).

How do you draw attention to your company? What is your best marketing idea?
My website is the central component of my public image. I also distribute my blog articles and other interesting content via my Facebook page and my profiles on LinkedIn and Xing. I also increase my reach with the help of online ads in search results and social networks, plan various ways of approaching potential customers directly and rely on positive word-of-mouth advertising.

How did you finance your start-up?
As a freelancer, I work from my home office or a co-working space with the technology I already have. Fortunately, there were no other major start-up investments, so I can manage without bank loans or similar.

What dream would you still like to realize?
I want to grow in and with my company and never stop learning new things. At the same time, I'd like to appear as a speaker and initiator at events to pass on my expertise. In the long term, I want to achieve healthy entrepreneurial growth, set up a limited company and employ people who share my vision and values.

Please complete the following sentence: If I had more time, I would ...
... volunteer even more and read more.

What is your special tip: What would you recommend to founders?

I would recommend three things to anyone thinking about starting a business:

1. Acquire knowledge
   There are so many good and mostly free sources of information on the internet that are really helpful. Whether it's templates (e.g. for a business plan), webinars (e.g. on tax topics) or tips & tricks (e.g. white papers).
2. Conversations
   Talk about your idea(s). In conversations with others about your plans, the business idea, the brand name, etc., experience has shown that you will receive valuable feedback. In particular, you should take critical feedback seriously but not personally. Take it positively, it will definitely help you move forward.
3. Brand check & internet research
   If you have decided on a company, brand or product name, be sure to check whether the term is already protected elsewhere before you start creating a logo, registering a domain or similar. This may save you double work. Because it is important to know whether you could have the term protected yourself or whether it is protected elsewhere so that it is better not to use it. Internet research is just as important: What do you find under the planned name? Is the term perhaps associated with other things with negative connotations? Perhaps it also has a meaning in another language. It's better to get an overview beforehand.

I could list many more things. But that would go beyond the scope of this article. So feel free to write to me via my website or connect with me on social media. I'm happy to provide information and help where I can.