“Recessions are the best times to found a business” – Axel Schmiegelow @ SIME08

Axel Schmiegelow, a German serial entrepreneur (denkwerk, sevenload), believes that the hardest sword is forged in the hottest fire, so he is looking quite optimistically to next years recessions effects on startups and he is not the only one out there with that opinion. Besides that Axel is an investor himself, he will continue investing and is always looking for great opportunities, which should be out of seed stage. Looking on the Swedish way of starting up, Axel Schmiegelow especially likes the entrepreneurial stories of IKEA and Tetra Pak, both Swedish companies with huge global success. The last one is a great example for how important it is to strongly believe in your idea to finally succeed. It took founder Ruben Rausing almost 10 years from the first invention of the Tetra Pak in 1944 until a way for mass production was found and the necessary machines set up and financed. Ruben Rausing points it himself in a great quote: Doing something that nobody else has done before is actually quite hard.