Company: once again ceramics; Huttel, von Nell & Oelke GbR

Founders: Maria Huttel, Sophie von Nell, Sandra Oelke

Founding date: July 1, 2023 (business registration), October 15, 2023 (opening)

Industry and company: Ceramic painting studio

What drives you? What is your motto?

Creative hobbies make you happy, relax, slow you down and offer a valuable

valuable balance to a performance-oriented society. We make Wiesbaden colorful!

What is your start-up about and what is special about it?

We want to create a new, relaxed DIY creative space in Wiesbaden that is attractive for all ages. Our aim is to create a workplace for ourselves and for our

employees a workplace in which sustainability, inclusion, integration and family friendliness play central roles.

We have known each other since our school days in Wiesbaden and are connected both privately and professionally in Wiesbaden.

What are your initial successes?

We were fully booked in the second week after opening and had our hands full. We were pretty overwhelmed because we hadn't expected it to go so well!

The positive feedback from our guests made us realize that we had opened in the right place at the right time.

What is your professional background?

Maria Huttel:

Studied political science, American studies and Japanese studies, spent time abroad in the USA and Japan. Merchandiser in a fashion retail company. Second degree, yoga teacher.

Sophie von Nell:

Sign language interpreter, qualified teacher, family helper for families with deaf parents.

with deaf parents. Board member of the sponsoring association.

Sandra Oelke:

Speech therapist in her own speech therapy practice in Wiesbaden-Dotzheim. Course leader

for various training courses.

What prompted you to set up your own business?

We had been passionate about painting ceramics for years and traveled to other cities to do so - we were missing a ceramic painting studio in Wiesbaden.

Initially as a joke, we thought: then we'll open one ourselves! This idea led us to open our own store around 13 months later.

Who advised you, who are your helpers and mentors?

Several people at BerufsWege für Frauen e.V., from the first online seminar on starting a business in general to business plan advice and bookkeeping seminars.

D&S Malstudio-Consulting in Berlin (seminar on opening your own ceramic painting studio).

Naspa (Ms. Donhauser) - KfW loan and financing.

How did you experience the first few days as a founder?

It started much faster and more intensively than we had expected! We kept thinking how lucky we were that there were three of us, none of us could have done it alone!

What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?

At the beginning we had so many guests that we could hardly put the painted ceramics down and we were under time pressure to glaze and fire everything on time. This immediately made it clear which processes needed to be optimized and how much time the preparatory and finishing work took outside of opening hours.

How do you draw attention to your company? What is your best marketing idea?

We haven't used paid advertising yet. We have been lucky that newspapers, television, radio and others have drawn attention to us and we have been able to reach many customers as a result.

How did you finance your start-up?

Approx. 30% KfW loan, 40% private loans, 30% own funds.

What dream would you still like to realize?

To be grateful that we have already been able to fulfill a big dream!

A healthy work-life balance, being able to live well financially from the business while maintaining fun and passion.

Please complete the following sentence: If we had more time, we would...

... relax in a hammock - preferably in the Caribbean.

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

Don't just think, "What if there aren't enough customers?", but also, "What if things go much better than expected?" And also: founding a company as a team is not always difficult - for us, the three of us was and is the best constellation.