Interview with Marc Engelmann from the German Startup Association
Last week it was announced, that the German Startup Association will have a new regional spokesman for Hamburg: Marc Engelmann, CEO and co-founder of Boomerang. In this interview, he explains to us what his tasks are, what he appreciates about Hamburg as a startup location and where he sees room for improvement.
What are your tasks as regional spokesman?
I mainly want to strengthen the startup ecosystem by bringing the interests of startups to the attention of politicians and decision-makers and lobbying for the implementation of demands. This is mainly about political and social networking and also about showing presence. Startups are an important driver of innovation and therefore startups and their interests should play a present role. My job is to represent these interests, to give them a face and a voice. That's what I started out to do.
What will be your first actions and what are your plans for your term in office?
First, of course, I want to get an overview of what the biggest needs are in the startup community, and I want to understand even better where there is an urgent need for action. To do this, I must and will talk to many startup founders, network even further and also improve networking within the community. For december, for example, we are planning a great networking event called "fish & founders," which will then already be in its second round. Here, there will be the opportunity for all interested founders to talk directly and unfiltered with the startup association and me and to network.
Together with Lena Weihrauch from ai-omatic and Manuela Sayin from stackstream, there are three regional spokespersons - how are the tasks distributed?
We don't have a whole rigid distribution of roles, but of course I tend to represent the pre-seed and seed startups, also compared to Manuela and Lena. So, through my network, I will increasingly take care of the new startups and the very fresh founders or those who want to become one. My personal concern is also to motivate young people to found. I think there are very few arguments against founding a company and I would like to convey this motivation to interested people.
What do you consider to be particularly positive about Hamburg's startup ecosystem?
Hamburg already offers many opportunities for people interested in founding a company to get a first insight into the topic of entrepreneurship. Funding programs have also already been reformed and expanded to include other areas such as fintechs, greentechs or social entrepreneurship. The startup community is also a very pleasant and appreciative one. The cohesion and networking within the scene worked very well, so that founders often meet like-minded people early on and can exchange ideas. But there is still room for improvement.
Where do you see room for improvement and what is your vision for Hamburg as a startup location?
The startup association and PwC have published the Startup Monitor 2023 and not a single university in Hamburg appears in the TOP10 of the most relevant startup universities, although Hamburg is one of the largest startup cities in Germany with the third most startups. I personally find that a great pity. So there is still a lot of potential here to better communicate, improve and expand offers. In general, I have the impression, that startups don't have such a high priority in many areas of Hamburg, and I would like to change that, too. We have so much potential here in Hamburg and, for example, such great logistics expertise in the city, so there has to be more for everyone.
