After years of downward trend, more people are starting up businesses again, including larger companies. For many of them, crises are exactly the right time to be courageous.
© Sofia Brandes and Max Slobodda for ZEIT for entrepreneurs
Afshin Doostdar is now back on time for his meetings. “But at first I underestimated the paths here,” says the 31-year-old. The site that his company Voltfang moved into at the beginning of the year in Aachen’s Rothe Erde industrial park extends over 6,000 square meters. Faded signposts, empty parking attendant’s houses and an abandoned analog clock on the brick building exude more of an old industrial scent than a start-up flair. Philips once produced millions of televisions here, and most recently the halls belonged to the insolvent electric car manufacturer e.Go. Now Doostdar and his two co-founders David Oudsandji and Roman Alberti are building the future here.
