German courage instead of German fear: “We should celebrate world market leaders like soccer world champions”

German courage instead of German fear
“We should celebrate world market leaders like soccer world champions”

February 13, 2024, 12:29 p.m

Germany can no longer be saved? Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that! “We need a counter-narrative to ‘Germany is abolishing itself’.” That says Verena Pausder, the new CEO of the startup association. She took over the office at a time that is anything but easy for the German startup scene. Investors have become more cautious, interest rates have risen and the geopolitical situation is doing the rest. Many startups go bankrupt. But just complaining doesn’t help, says Pausder. She insists on German courage instead of German fear and would like to see us in Germany celebrate world market leader companies in the same way that we celebrate winning the World Cup. She reveals in the ntv podcast “Startup – Honestly now” how this is supposed to work, whether she would like to go into politics at some point and how a parental allowance petition became her toughest professional test.

ntv.de: You started your new job as CEO of the startup association with the motto: “We need a counter-narrative to: ‘Germany is abolishing itself’.” Why is this so important to you?

Verena Pausder: Right now, Germany is not abolishing itself, but we are looking: How do we prevent this massive shift to the right? We could have asked ourselves this weeks ago, but it came up through Correctiv research. Many people are taking to the streets, taking a stand and saying that they are against it. That’s why we simply need as many people as possible this year to say what they stand for. They say what they plan to do, how they want to implement it, who take people with them, ideally, carry them along so that we don’t fall into such lethargy. Instead of saying: “We can’t do anything anyway, they’re just as strong as they are,” we have to have the courage to take a big hit this year. It is important in a democracy that those who are for things and not just against things also speak.

How attractive are we as a location in Germany? Especially for startups? In 2023, almost six billion euros in venture capital flowed to German founders. A decrease of almost 40 percent. Things are going down for the second year in a row.

The numbers we see now are an effect of previous years. We had a capital glut, which was fueled primarily by low interest rates and, of course, by the fact that digital business models worked particularly well in a lockdown. Whether that was homeschooling or bringing medication home. Now these two years have meant that not nine out of ten startups have gone bankrupt because everything continued to be financed and also some things that perhaps didn’t make sense. And we’ve now got a bit of a payback for that. But I think that was the bottom. Now it’s more about how we can ensure that the successful German startups remain German or European and not just receive money from outside Europe in order to be able to continue to grow.

How is Germany becoming braver again, Ms. Pausder?

We talk a lot about heirs who supposedly had it easy and people who didn’t make it. But those who simply had an idea, got it funded and made it big, we only like their stories up to a certain point. When they become too successful and too big and have too many millions, then we think again: That’s too much. But that’s not how entrepreneurship works. That’s why I hope that we tell these stories more and that we’re just proud of them. I would like to celebrate world market leaders in the same way as when we become football or basketball world champions. If we develop an innovation here that the whole world is talking about, then Germany will once again be the talk of town and then Made in Germany will not be a narrative of the past.

And how exactly do we achieve this?

Firstly, by turning “Made in Germany” into “Make it in Germany”. You can make it here, you can immigrate here and get a job quickly. You can start a business here and grow big. There is capital here, there are attractive framework conditions here. Here in Europe it is so worth living, with all its culture, its diversity, its history. And the second thing is to look at: What is stopping us from doing this at the moment? For example, the bureaucracy, which is getting bigger and bigger, how we can’t move in education, have been talking about the same topics for decades when it comes to digitalization. We are so slow and so backwards and I hope that we at the Startup Association can make our contribution. Because there is definitely something else going on.

Why don’t you go into politics?

Maybe someday. But that doesn’t make it any better, because it’s not a question of individual people, but of the system. For example, administration simply needs to become more digital. We really have to have the courage to say again: We really have a great country with a great economy and have created prosperity. And from now on, what is our springboard that we want to jump off of? How do we rebuild it and that might mean that we do things differently, that we rethink ministries, whether they have to be so big, whether they have to sit in such big buildings that are still getting bigger. Why isn’t remote work or hybrid working being introduced? And whether we don’t also have to work on reforming education and administration so that the whole thing can actually work.

With Verena Pausder said Janna Linke. The conversation has been shortened and smoothed for better clarity. You can read it completely in the ntv podcast “Startup – now to be honest” listen.