In this episode, I talk to Jochen Engert, Co-Founder and Supervisory Board Director of Flix

Jochen quit his promotion and stepped away from a secure career in consulting to found and scale Flix into a unicorn company and one of the largest long-distance mobility networks in the world. 

In our recording, we amongst other things, talk about:

• courage, the importance of timing, and testing value propositions - without huge capital expenditures
• how to successfully manage M&A transactions with other innovative companies
• leadership in times of uncertainty

Jochen Engert on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jochen-engert-61a4a31

👋 Get in touch with Kilian here: linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch

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Timeline

0:00 - Introduction

1:04 - Who is Jochen Engert

1:23 - What was covered in the podcast

1:54 - Why most founders are optimists

2:38 - Why Jochen decided to build Flix instead of finishing his Ph.D

4:06 - What's the real risk when deciding to build a company

5:26 - Hiring people with entrepreneurial experience

6:14 - Looking back would Jochen have skipped consulting and directly become a founder

7:18 - Where did the idea for Flix come from

9:06 - How was Jochen able to start building the right value proposition and product for Flix

11:57 - How did Flix manage to win against all the competition

14:43 - The core values and the important role of culture at Flix

16:10 - How did Flix, as the underdogs, convince investors

18:06 - How did Flix manage the merger with a competitor

21:42 - How Flix reorganized the teams after the merger

23:31 - How Jochen dealt with the pressure of the merger

25:42 - The biggest challenge Flix had to face as a company

29:15 - The biggest learnings Jochen made that helped him transform the business

31:51 - Does Jochen have any regrets?

32:36 - The one tip Jochen would give founders or corporate leaders who want to build industry-defining products, services, or organizations

33:59 - The biggest challenge companies in the mobility industry will have to face and how Flix will tackle it