Turning tech that’s ahead of its time into a company with a long tail
Joining me is entrepreneur who started his company back in 1999. It was a period of raising money, changing the world, and being changed by the world. There was a lot of evolution and a lot of obstacles in Germany at the time. I want to understand how today’s guest built a company in that environment.
Eckhard Ortwein is the founder of several companies, but the company we’re focusing on today is a company called Paybox Solutions.
They set out to make money a mobile experience at the same time PayPal was launching. They decided people should be able to pass money to each other, to businesses using mobile phones. That world exists today but back then it was ahead of its time. They raised money and we’ll find out in this interview what happened.
Eckhard Ortwein
Paybox Solutions
Eckhard Ortwein was a co-Founder of Paybox Solutions which helps people send and receive payments via mobile.
Andrew: Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy where I interview entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses. And I have to admit that even for me there are times when I think, “Well, you launch a business and you can sell it at any time. And it’s so easy if it’s done right, you know.”
But the truth is that most businesses last, especially if you do it right, for years and years and years and the sell off, the pay off, the freedom that you hope for when you think, “I’m going to start a business so I can get financial freedom,” is so far in the future that it’s hard to count on. And that’s what today’s story shows.
Joining me is entrepreneur who started his company, get this, this is back in 1999, through that period of raising money, changing the world, being changed by the world. There was a lot of evolution, a lot of, frankly, I hope you...
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