Support your team - Empathy always wins. A talk about Entrepreneurship and how to improve yourself

I'm ready as, as a man can be.

Done. So, Luce, welcome, welcome to the show. I think this is episode number— oh, you know, I'm losing track of days, time, episodes.

I think this is episode number 6.

On my Zavaronis Show.

Okay.

Yeah, so you'll be a special guest edition.

I'm in the top 10 then, huh?

Definitely, definitely. And yeah, so the idea was to bring in as many people as I can from different cities and different places around the planet to come join me in my living room during these Corona days and kind of get a sense and a feeling how things are going on around the world. And the understanding that at the end of the day, it doesn't matter where you come, which country, city, language, religion, just doesn't matter, we're all the same. And I can't be happier or more proud to have you as a guest to prove that. And Lutze, welcome, how are you?

I'm fine, thank you, Nir. Great pleasure to be on your show. So it's the first one for me too, so I'm excited.

Amazing. So yeah, let's take it from there. So Most people don't know who you are, and I thought like in any other episode, I'll ask you to do a quick elevator pitch. And take it from here, 60 seconds, have fun, whatever you want, it's yours.

Well, you know, obviously it's always interesting to do an elevator pitch if I know who the audience is, which I don't. So I'll give you just the basic raw data. I'm 51 years old, married, 2 beautiful daughters. I'm an entrepreneur like yourself. I started a tech business in 2002 in Germany. I was very fortunate to sell it in 2016. They asked me to stay on board for another 3 years. After 1.5 years, they asked me to leave because they thought it might be better if I leave, which was fine too. And I settled down, started to think about, you know, what is it that I wanna do next? And after some thinking, I came up with a nice idea. As a not-for-profit, we want to kind of revolutionize the waste management globally. Now, it's a startup, so it's very small here in Germany. Yeah, I'm from Hamburg, Germany. And yeah, that's basically me. Don't know if that was 60 seconds or above, but—

It's whatever feels right is right, you know. But so what do you guys do at the moment? Like, in terms of—

You mean in general or with the company?

the company, the waste management, what is—

So it's a startup and it is, and that's very important to say. So we started in November last year and it's, you know, my first business was all digital. This is very analog. I mean, we're trying to obviously try to add digital components to it, but, you know, waste is very analog. So the idea is really, to create logistic chains in which people can give us certain types of waste which we ask for, and then we will recycle them. So the first benefit for the person is that they know we are really honest about transparency and about recycling. And the second thing is that as we are a not-for-profit, all revenues that we generate or processes we generate will go into ecological projects globally. So the first project we have is we're gonna have 1,000 trees planted from the first revenues. And we're gonna add like a ton of new projects soon. But at the same time, we need to build up this logistics chain. Right now we're in Hamburg. Berlin is next on our list. And then we want to go abroad, you know, all over Germany, obviously, but then very quickly abroad and other countries. in order to make this a global business.

It's interesting when I hear you talk about taking the business to the next step, and you guys are located in Hamburg, and we'll talk about that in a second. Your next step is Berlin. I come from Israel, and usually our next step from Israel is, I don't know, New York or Berlin. So when you look at these days where the borders are closed, people don't know exactly what's gonna happen next, In terms of the economy, Germany is still sustainable, right? Could keep going?

I think we're good. I mean, we have challenges here as well, and, but as you might be aware, I mean, case numbers have been not so high. We have an incredibly high rate of ICU beds, and that made us look very good in comparison to other countries. Now for the first wave, the question is, you know, now with first steps of loosening the lockdown, you know, is there going to be a second wave? I mean, many people say there will be, and that's, you know, I mean, that's the unknown. The whole thing has, you know, a massive unknown category to it, and that's, I think, what makes it difficult for everyone to—

Let's touch on the unknown. You start a company, you have this amazing idea, it's November, everything looks like This is going to be it, 2020 is supposed to be a good economical year. Things happen, lockdown goes in. What goes through your mind in terms of the business? What are your main concerns?

Well, the first thing is, is a massive important part here is of our logistic chain is that we're working with restaurants because the first sorts of waste that we're collecting are crown caps, plastic caps, which, you know, metal caps from bottles, which, you know, are obviously being, you know, you get a lot of them in restaurants. And we also have restaurants as partners so that if consumers join us and they have their collection box, they can return it to a restaurant and the restaurant gives them a coffee for free and gives them an empty box back.

Nice.

And with the restaurants closing down, we've basically been ripped out of our logistics chain. So that was really, really bad. And well, yeah, and that didn't feel good at the moment in the beginning. And obviously that was really just the smallest part because the bigger part was the team, the people. I'm a lucky guy, right? I mean, I live in a nice house. I sold my company, so I made some money from that. And yeah, I'm gonna lose some money, yes. But Hopefully, and it looks like it, that some left. But not everyone is in this fortunate position. Not everyone is healthy as we are. Stuff like that. So I think the most important part was really to be the support for my team, for the employees who were facing very personal issues. Single home, single child mom, suddenly dealing with her kid being around 24/7 and stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And giving them, first of all, a shoulder to talk to and to put virtually their head on. And the second is obviously to work with them and say like, look, this is how we're gonna move forward. No worries on the business side. Yeah, a problem with the restaurants, but well, don't worry, we'll get that covered. And that was, I think, very important to them. And from that, everyone has risen really, I must say. So we were pivoting.

If I may ask you a question that popped to mind, I'm not sure if it's a smart question, but I'll ask it anyway. I'm thinking about the percentage between becoming the management, the managerial side, the empathy, trying to figure out what's gonna be next, kind of trying to understand how you can support your employees, but on the other side, when you close that phone, You go back into entrepreneur mode. We need to fix this. How much money do we have? How are we gonna— how do you look at it in terms of like percentage? Are you more the manager? Are you more the entrepreneur of like, we're gonna get through this no matter what?

I wouldn't really differentiate between those two sides as you just did, because for me, an entrepreneur is both. You know, it's, I think, I mean, we're crazy, first of all, we have to be, otherwise we wouldn't be entrepreneurs. We wouldn't do these things. And we're the lucky ones that we can, we sometimes get rewards for it. But dealing with people, I think, is one of the— is a super important thing because people are, they're trusting their lives to us and they want us to lead. And as a result, as they want us to lead, we should lead them. At the same time, we're here with them, together with them, to create something, a new entity, something new.

Bigger than just us.

Exactly. And so it's both, it's really both. And for me, one is the presupposition of the next. So to be, hopefully not to be misunderstood, I believe it's a cascade. Yeah. So first of all, I have to take care of myself. If I'm not healthy, if I'm not strong, if I'm not, you know, fearless, You know, I can't give strength to others, so I have to look out for myself first. So then I can, you know, be the beacon of hope. I can be the support for my family and obviously also for my team. And the next thing is I have to take care of them so that they are safe. And from that safety, then, you know, we have the fundament to build something new, something big. And I think it's this cascade. So, you know, it's just a thing I'll go through. The first is like, am I feeling okay? Am I sleeping enough? Is my physical, you know, I'm physically fine? Then, you know, take care of my family, take care of my team. Are they good? And once they are good, they, you know, they can start thinking again and then we're moving forward. And then we are in company mode going like, where's the opportunity? Where are the threats? And so forth.

So we find a lot of what some people say is free time, some people say they don't have time. While we spend these past couple of weeks at home, do you find when we stop the routine, is that a good time to be with ourselves, to be with our families? Do you find anything that you said, you know what, I should have done this for a long time and I'm happy now I have the time to do it? Or are you usually productive?

Definitely. I mean, this is, this is a massive shift. I mean, I used to be Right now I would be in South Africa, right? I mean, with you, by the way.

Yeah, we should have been there at the big, big 2,000-people conference.

Exactly.

Drinking and having fun.

I would probably have been in the recent weeks in Munich and Berlin, you know, to look over operations starting there. And now I'm home. So that really at the beginning was some adjustment for myself. being around and, you know, saying like this room here is my workspace and I need to work on some of the things. I had actually some issues with procrastination at the beginning. And that was about 7, 8 days where I was like, oh, what am I going to do? You know, where's my focus? Never mind. And after 7, 8 days that shifted. Just, I didn't do anything. I just made sure I was doing sports, my routine, I was sleeping well. And, you know, it's again, it's also a cascade pyramid. I mean, it's like I started with my own physical side. And then the energy came back, the focus came back, and now I've settled in and that's good. And the second thing is obviously, you know, and now my family's back together. My kids normally go to school in England and now they've been here now for weeks. And in the past when we had conflicts, you know, everyone knew like, yeah, yeah, hold on, you know, I'll be gone anyway, or I'd be traveling or they'd be back in school. And And so we didn't really go to the bottom of things so much because everyone knew like there was escape possibility coming up in the coming days. And that obviously is gone. And now we actually did finish some of those things, some of those conflicts, we looked into them.

So you're gonna keep them? You're gonna keep your daughters?

Yes.

Okay. Yes.

Yeah, most likely. Yeah.

That's a positive thing for a positive outcome for the situation if you're gonna keep them.

Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I know, and then they would love to go back.

You know, you and I, so we've known each other for, I think, 2 years now, something like that.

Only that? Not longer? Anyways, a couple of years.

I think so, and I also had the pleasure of having dinner in your lovely home, and we got to talk a lot about entrepreneurship, and we even had some conversation during this crazy time where I closed 2 businesses, my 3rd business was struggling, and we had a lot of discussions. And there's a lot of talks, I think it was mainly during March, April kind of going down a bit, but how do you make lemonade of those lemons? And I kept asking entrepreneurs, do you see any lemons around? And some said, yeah, there's loads. Some said, we'll figure them out later. If you met someone, I don't know, 20, 25, kind of figuring it out, any tips or ideas about how can you find lemonades during these days? Well, isn't it— Making lemonade, sorry.

Isn't it like every other day as well, just that the I think the velocity is much, and the impacts of the situations are very strong, but the whole concept hasn't changed. I mean, we're out there, we're trying to find needs of the market, and we're trying to serve those needs and then obviously make profit from that. So I wouldn't say it's any different from before corona, yet the impacts on people are much more intense. And I think, you know, marketing-wise, it's, you know, people are at home. Suddenly I hear that TV stations are being, you know, TV channels, old traditional TV channels are being watched again much more. A friend of mine has a website for business travel, and I said like, oh, you must be really, you know, unhappy. And he said, no, I mean, people are on our website a lot, even though they can't travel because they have the time. So there are a lot of things happening at the moment. And I think it's so important for everyone to go through the process that they used to go through. And the first thing is, what is that that I wanna do? Right. So do I— is it that I wanna go in for the money, which is totally fine. I mean, it's a huge incentive. It was my incentive. And, or is it a purpose? And then, you know, where do you see, what am I good at? Because I believe that if I want to succeed in a competitive landscape, it's super important that I do things that I'm good at and that I like. Because if I have to force myself, there will be others that, you know, don't have to force themselves and will be more successful.

Yeah.

And then we developed that from that point and then You start, you pivot, you know, you start again, you change, you look, what do they need, go back and those circles. And then you, at some point, I mean, this is how we work. Then you find something and then you work on that and then you select, okay, how can I scale this?

You know, it's interesting and I'm working on my third book, which will be the first time I do a book about marketing. And I decided to dedicate the book to the reader before they start and asking them to dedicate this and do me that one favor, which is to make a note when you fail, put it back, write it in the back of the book and keep going. It's just, it's not relevant. And when I look at what's interesting for me now in Lemons and Lemonade is suddenly routine was dead. I had all the time on the planet. I can do whatever I want. Technology allows us to do a lot of things within our house, but the thing is, I couldn't do my normal routine. I couldn't have 10 meetings a day. I couldn't do the same advertisement and everything. And I decided, even though we are struggling, not to go for the money. And I started to make an enormous amount of phone calls. helping people with marketing ideas, creative, pricing, whatever they want, I didn't care. I decided that if I always said I'm going to do a show about businesses, I'll do it. So I'm doing this in English and I'm doing another one in Hebrew. I'm filming, I'm learning how to edit. I don't know if it will make money. I know it makes me happy, so I believe in the long term. As long as the situation continues, I decided I can keep doing things I like, and in the last couple of days, I'm also starting to connect that to the business. So leads are coming in, different phone calls are coming in, and it's, hey, yeah, sure, I'll do another call or another lecture, and why not? So I think being in the moment is my lemonade.

I agree with you. I mean, these are great times to rethink businesses and And to connect with yourself and find out what, you know, think about your why, as some people say. But I believe in that. I truly believe in that. And I truly believe that for myself, I want to lead a happy life. And I have been working on this for the last 51 years. If so God will, you know, I have another 17,800 days left, which would then make me turn 100, hopefully a happy 100. And I want to look back and say like, yeah, I learned a lot.

You know, my grandmother, she just had service now. She passed away a couple of years ago. She was 106 and we couldn't go visit. Yeah, we couldn't go visit her in the grave last week. And She was lucid and telling jokes till the last days. Like, she remembered everything. She would tell stories. And I asked her, Grandma, is there a point to live, lead a life that is so long? She said, listen, most of my friends are gone. I speak 8 languages, and all the TV shows I watch are kind of the same. The names of the characters change, but the love stories are the same in all the languages. Everything is kind of the same. It's about waking up, saying thank you, doing something good for someone, having a good day, and doing another one. So I think trying to do good, in my opinion, was something I wanted to do as a mission statement, and if one person hears you doing waste management during these days and trying to make an impact, and he says, you know what, I'll do something like that.

Mm-hmm.

That's what it's all about, you know, spreading positivity and trying to do good things.

Yeah, and I tell you one thing, I am going to maintain that as much as I can, and I'm quite positive actually that at one point I will find, you know, the X factor which will allow us to make significant amount of money with this business, which we can then use to grow it and make it more sustainable. And so I don't see that making money and leading a purposeful life or a purposeful company, you know, these are not two opposites. They can fit together ideally if they can. And if you're in the lucky position as myself that I have the time to explore.

Do you think the world is gonna go back like in 6 months, everything will go back to the same, people will spend the same amounts of money, people will forget, they'll become annoyed? traffic, going back to the offices, or do we have an opportunity to do things a bit different?

Well, first of all, I think this corona situation, if you listen to the scientists, it appears that this will impact us much longer than just 6 months. So I think we're in the middle of the start phase of this thing, and I think we're gonna adapt to it and, you know, go through various waves. And waves will be probably the new normal until there is a vaccine that we all profit from. But if your question is like, once we have the vaccine, once this is really over and this corona thing becomes something like a flu sort of thing, you know, where you have vaccines and sometimes people die from it, but it's not a death life or death thing anymore. I think things will change. Yes, definitely. I think we— people will have learned at that point that you don't need to travel every time. You can do things like we do right now via video call. At the same time, I think we get more happy about, you know, how great it is to hug someone. I'm a physical person. When I meet someone, I wanna hug them, right? And right now I can't. So that's difficult for me. And I look forward to the time when I can do that again. But I probably will be more humble in those days than that I can do that again. Do I believe that generally people will become better, less selfish and this kind of thing? No, I don't think so. I think we'll, we'll see, you know, the same sort of selfishness again that we've seen before. But I believe that the people that have thought about things differently will feel stronger in maintaining their routines that are not so selfish and so forth. And then we have another catastrophe already, you know, breaking us all in, which is the climate. change catastrophe, and it's not as present as this one, but it's there. It's, you know, we have to deal with that as well. So hopefully we take, and our politicians together with us, take some of the momentum.

But hopefully also, if you look at the climate change crisis, I think scientists are now able to prove that if you stop everything, the situation is changing, right? Like now we have proof that if you stop doing these things, we might have a chance to reverse it.

Oh yeah.

And we didn't have that.

And right now we are, I mean, Germany is very fortunate because we, our, you know, our chancellor, she's a scientist and she's a badass scientist, you know, and when you hear her talk, she is a true leader. So right now we're learning to trust science, and hopefully with this trust, we will then go and trust scientists when we talk about climate change. And, you know, all this BS about this being a hoax is hopefully gonna be not as strong after this thing, when this is over, than before. And we've used the momentum and think about if we change some things in order to— for the better, that We then try to become carbon negative. I think that's what we need to achieve very quickly.

Are you looking forward to going back to working from the office?

I do, yeah, because, you know, when office— I mean, as much as I enjoy being at home and having this genuine family situation, I would also, you know, miss being in the office, focused, working with the team, having those interactions that to a certain extent, I would say 80, 90%, you can cover with video conferences and stuff. But, you know, the last 10 things, this little wrinkle here or this little tweak here, and then you see something like, hey, Nir, I saw you did this.

Are you good?

What are you thinking? Right?

Yeah. Where the magic happens. The 10% where the magic— I do creative, so we can go into a room for 2 hours, nothing happens, and we can go to a room in 10 minutes, it's like, I have an idea and it's, yeah, let's do it and whatever. And so it's, it's, it's kind of like we missed that. And I'm a social person, as you know. I need to meet new people. So I haven't met many people over the last 2 months. And you were talking about a hug, and we're allowed to go 100 meters from our house, and we're sitting here downstairs, and I saw a girl I know, and she said, hey, how's it going? She was so excited to see me. And she says, listen, I'm young, you're old, I'm gonna hug you, and if you die, just so you know, I really like you. And she gave me this huge hug, and I'm single, I live alone, and suddenly the 30-second hug was something that I cannot describe from someone you know and you appreciate and you like. Insane, you know, in that sense. And I think that's interesting. Lutz, I want to say a huge thank you. I know you're busy over the weekend, got a lot of stuff to do, so thank you for spending some time with me. I appreciate it. And hopefully— what is the weather over in Hamburg at the moment?

It's lovely. It's great from a pure living perspective. There's a lot of sun that we usually don't have in April, and there's Almost no rain, and talking about climate.

Climate. So we've had rain in the last 2 days, which we never have here during this time. It feels more like Hamburg now outside, actually. By the way, if I may say, for years I've traveled quite often. I've been to Berlin every single year and everything. The last couple of years I had the pleasure of visiting Hamburg twice a year over a year. And I was astonished and I was amazed and the vibe and it was so chill, it was so nice. So thank you for hosting me when I was there and hopefully I can come visit again very, very soon.

I hope so too and I look forward to our next conversation because I enjoy those a lot myself.

Thank you. So thank you everyone for watching. And I hope you liked this episode of Zavaroness. Feel free to subscribe, like, comment, and keep safe and keep being an entrepreneur from home. And we'll see you all in the next episode. Bye, Lutz. Thank you.

Thank you. Bye-bye.