I grew up in a village north-east of Graz, Austria. Fascinated by the stories of my grand uncle and grandfather, who had traveled the world, I was determined to follow in their footsteps.

A passion for traveling and my professional career took me to more than sixty countries, and provided me with the opportunity to live in six of them for longer periods of time.

During my travels I learned that friendship and trust are things that money cannot buy and are worth so much more than any fortune.

When traveling, you have the opportunity to meet people and share in their culture and worldview, enriching your own thought processes, understanding and creativity in the process. I learned what is required to be successful internationally, and that strong relationships matter for succeeding in new business ventures.

The key to success, and the most challenging part, however, is to identify paradigm-changing ideas, and the right people who are willing to go the extra mile to see these ideas through to the end.

To complete the picture, we also have to find people who believe in the ideas and are willing to invest in them.

Having a good idea is the first step – starting the process of evaluating this idea, and then developing it into a sound business plan, however, is essential to attract investors.

Most ideas don’t make it any further than the discussion phase – because as soon people realize the risks and the effort involved in taking the idea from the idea stage to the funding stage and beyond, they lose their courage.

Even if you do not succeed in your first entrepreneurial endeavor – the experiences you gain will benefit you throughout your life and one day you will stumble on another idea that will be successful because you will avoid the mistakes made previously.

A successful business needs a team that has the skills to build a company around the vision, and which understands the risks involved in executing the business plan and knows how to minimize them.

It also needs investors that believe in the business plan, but even more importantly trust the team executing it. Good investors understand themselves as mentors to the business’ executive team and support them.

Success sometimes requires un-popular decisions which are necessary to keep the team on track, as well as the ability to know when to change direction and when to stay on the charted path. It is the responsibility of the team to address them, creating awareness where needed and building the foundation for a successful business.

If you believe that my experiences and perspectives could benefit you, and my expertise and determination to help you succeed that I can offer are what you are looking for, do get in touch with me for an initial conversation.

Ickehorn Asset Management offers:

• Coaching – prioritizing „first things first“
• Interims Management - Supporting Organizations to reach the next level
• Mentoring – guiding what lies ahead
• Business plan challenge – creating a sound business plan
• Market “out of the box” views – paradigm shift
• Merger&Acquisitions – due diligence

Not every idea will be successful, but it would be a shame if the idea you discard would have succeeded.