New start during the crisis

You don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. Taking over from a predecessor is also a good opportunity to found something new. That’s what professional businessman Tim-Alexander Karusseit thought, too. He had been an entrepreneur since he finished his studies and started to look for a company that he could develop. He concentrated his search on trade fair construction. “It’s varied work in an environment that isn’t vulnerable to crises, with plenty of core customers and repeat sales. And I’ve always been really into craftsmanship, that’s my passion,” he says.

The search for the right company

He devoted all his energies to this search for nearly three years, living off savings. He wanted to give up on several occasions. Then, through the nexxt-change exchange, he met Andree Hoffman, second-generation managing director of Hoffmann Dienstleistungen für die werbende Wirtschaft GmbH. The two men were a similar age and hit it off right away. The company, with an affiliated carpentry business and a 35-person team, was well structured and the order books were full. “In spite of this, the negotiations weren’t easy. At the end of the day, there are many different interests and, for a profitable company, it’s also about getting the right price,” explains Karusseit. The financing was spread across multiple institutions. Alongside promotional funds from KfW were promotional funds from the state of Lower Saxony and a loan from his bank.

In late 2019, Karusseit took over the company. Working closely with the departing managing director, he got to know the business and prepared his inaugural address with the help of a communication coach. Very few people had been made aware that major changes were afoot.

In January 2020, the traditional New Year’s breakfast was held with the whole team. “That’s where we dropped the bombshell. At first, people were lost for words and their appetite disappeared. The company was completely geared towards its charismatic managing director. Many of the employees had a really close relationship with him. I promised everyone that nothing about the business model would change and that I would primarily look to expand the trade fair business and digitalise the company.”

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New ideas needed

In April, the surge hospital was ready. “Then I was watching the news and saw that a company in Holland had set up collapsible containers to enable visits to retirement homes. I said to myself, ‘that’s something that we could do, maybe even better!’” Karusseit remembers. He wrote to care homes across Germany, offering them portable room systems. When the first orders came in, some employees worked through the weekends.

Despite these efforts, summer 2020 was the worst period in the company’s history. A KfW Entrepreneur Loan helped to mitigate the difficult situation somewhat, but to succeed in the long term, Karusseit needed to have a rethink.

He started a survey: what professions were represented within the team? He was surprised to find that many employees were qualified roofers or shopfitters. This gave him the ability to execute orders that required these skills. He offered renovation, wall dehumidification and interior design services to private customers, training employees or redeploying them to other posts. And he truly believed that the business would succeed.

“Obviously, that also caused some anxiety. The employees have a passion for trade fair construction, there’s a particular atmosphere that goes with that. You go into the massive hall with the sprinter, get the music blasting and start building. Direct customer contact is through the project management team. It’s completely different work to standing with a private customer in their kitchen.”