Entrepreneurship is hard, so let's fix that and dive into our heroes' journeys. This is Taking Flight, an entrepreneur's journey, and I'm Sarah Tville. Join me as we delve deep into the passions, expertise, and experiences of those already in flight. This show is sponsored by EO Atlanta. Hello and welcome to EO Atlanta Taking Flight podcast. I have been very much anticipating this podcast today. I met this gentleman about six weeks ago now, and I had the great experience of not introducing, but talking to him on stage at Nerve this year. If you didn't get to Nerve, what an incredible event. I learned so much and I'm already counting down the days for the next Nerve. But I had the chance to interview this individual, so I had to have him on the show today. So who we are talking to is somebody who's extremely passionate about mobility and technology. He is an associate lecturer at the School of Business for Economics and Law and Chair of Industrial Management at Nuremberg. I'm hoping I pronounced that right. That's in Germany. Founder and Chief Organizational Plumber, Daniel Krauss. Welcome, Daniel.
Hey Sarah, nice to see you again, this time virtually. Thanks so much for having me on the podcast.
You are welcome. I'm so glad you said you would join me. I didn't want the conversation just to end at Nerve. It had to carry on, especially for those people who weren't able to join us. So let's get right into it, Daniel. As you know, this is all about the entrepreneurial journey, and you have had an incredible one and continue to be on that journey. But I would love you to share with us: what did you get right when you took your first entrepreneurial flight?
I think what was important to board that airplane is that... in the beginning I was a bit concerned, thinking back and forth and stuff, but ultimately, when the doors were shut, I was all in. I really had any skin in the game I possibly could have. And that's something which for me is ultimately important. It's an all-or-nothing game. If you bought that flight, you may not leave anything behind. Obviously, you eventually have a long haul, which is great. Sometimes it's more of a shorter thing, and then you may have to pick another flight. But you always have to board fully, mentally, emotionally, with all the skills and anything you've got. And that's something which we did. I have to admit that I wasn't 100% there yet, but then one of my co-founders, he just literally pulled me in, and it was too quick to think. And that made me go from whatever, 75 or 80%, to 100%, because it was like doors closed. And I was lucky enough to really have grabbed anything, so full skin in the game. That's something which I still believe is super important for anyone who is considering taking on an entrepreneurial flight.
That's actually I've not heard someone say that before, and I love the fact you played on the doors of the airplane. Thank you for that. It builds on our theme of course. But you're right, I mean if you're not all in, what do you think starts to happen?
First of all, you start to question yourself. You start to question your business in moments where it might not be super great, and there are always some at any time. They appear, and usually we can solve most of them, but sometimes not. And if you have a plan B, our brain tends to figure out whether that's the more easy path. And becoming and remaining an entrepreneur is not an easy path, so you really have to close all those plan Bs, Cs, and Ds to really keep fully focused on that path, even though it's ups and downs and sometimes it's exhausting. But there is so much payback which I would not have missed. I love what I'm doing, but as I said, I also trick my brain because there is no alternative. I just not let that happen.
That's great advice. Thank you for sharing that. So on your journey, there have obviously been some important people by your side, your co-pilots. Can you talk to me a little bit about who those co-pilots are and why they are your co-pilots?
In the beginning, obviously there is Jahan and Andre, my two co-founders, which I consider my co-pilots. And they're still my co-pilots, and I'm really hoping that they remain. Obviously, there's two pilots in charge and there is one sometimes resting, so we have a very good grouping and mixing and matching to focus on our individual strengths. And it turned out that we're super complementary, which is great. In the beginning, though, there were discussions. The one is better on the throttle, the other more on the steering wheel. It depends a bit. It takes time to figure it out. And I always tell people, take that time, figure it out, because in the beginning it's fair. Later on, you have to blindly trust each other and each other's skills, which are different. And for us, I think it was a great benefit that we're that complementary. In addition, over time we also had to find a good cabin crew, and there is an awesome leadership team which I'm very proud about. But it's also about filling up the plane, making sure there's an offering we all together provided to our customers to fill these seats and ensure the ride was ultimately important. And exactly therefore, that shout out to the cabin crew is of utmost importance, because if nobody serves the folks back there, you can be great pilots in front but it doesn't really matter because then it's a boring flight.
Exactly, exactly. That's great. Thank you for sharing that. So we know as business owners, if there's not a challenge, we just know a challenge is about to happen, because I think that's part of what we actually enjoy is the challenge, even though sometimes it'd be nice to have a little bit of a break. But is there a challenge that you've been working on recently, Daniel, that you can talk to us about and how did you overcome it?
Flix over the last years has faced hyper growth, which is great. I love it. It's an opportunity not every company has that fate. But if you try to serve millions of people in more than 40 countries very quickly, there's debt. And obviously as the techie at Flix, I always knew the concept of tech debt. I believe in the meantime there is also organizational debt, and that leads to a lack of efficiency. This time, we had started the budget discussion for 2025 again, and we really figured that we want and have to become more efficient again. This is on the long term something very good, I believe. On the short term, you may have to tell people some of the great wishes they have had, we have to reprioritize, maybe not now, maybe we even have to decide to not do stuff, because really developing and working on a strategy means quite a lot to also identify things to not do. And if this happens, one of the learnings is be very clear, very transparent, and very fast. To just drag things around forever doesn't help the organization. It's not fair to the people, and it eventually reduces the potential of the outcome. So we were very clear, very fast, and very transparent. And even though it hurt a bit, then it's over. Then everybody can focus on what the great outcome can look like. It's not like just being somehow annoyed forever, not knowing. That's not good. Uncertainty and ambiguity is nothing which is good, so you'd rather have it straight, clear, and even though it's a bit painful, very transparent.
That's great, and actually that's a really good perspective because I think sometimes it's easy to imagine when a company is, and I know you've shared some of the amazing growth and results you've had over the last few years in particular, you kind of think well the world is your oyster, what can't you do? But the reality is you're still being very budget conscious, the strategic growth, you have investors, it's like you've still got to prioritize. And I think that mindset is just important to keep. And I really do agree with you, especially I imagine there's people in your company who feel like there are great ideas, fantastic ideas, and it's their passion to get it done. And to be able to say not now is hard, but you're right, get it out the way so they can move on.
And sometimes it's even because there's that much on the plate, you're not able to digest that. It's very simple. Similar to discussions I've been having with my kids. Obviously, sometimes they want to have more on their plate, more sweets, more dessert, more this and that. And sometimes I say no. That creates frustration, but at the end, it would be even more stupid to throw things away because they're done already, they've been not able to digest more. So sometimes also for us as leaders or business owners, it's important to have that meta view, because the folks in the situation like my kid, obviously they would like the sweets even though they might not be able to digest, and then it can become even unhealthy. So sometimes you take the discussion, say no, and yes, they won't be appreciative in that moment, but later on they might be.
That's great. But what about, I know in your role you are the HR person as well as the CTO. Just share with us, what is in your mind best practice when you're sharing not so good news with an individual who you don't want to lose? Maybe they are the ones with a vision of something they want to do in 2025, you don't want to lose that person, but at the end of the day you cannot do that thing they want to do. How do you have that conversation? Is it one to one? How do you do that?
On the details, particularly with the leaders, it's rather in smaller groups or one on ones. The general message to clean up their runway, so to say, has also to be distributed to each and everybody. But then how exactly we figure out the details is rather small groups or one on ones. And there I'm fully transparent. What's the root cause? What's the reasoning? Why do we think this is the right decision? And then I try to get them on board for the flight to the solution. So it's not just a negative no, but it's something like, hey, let's take the reduced capacity, the reduced plate which is much more clean and polished, and look how great outcomes or solutions we can work on together. To really bring them back on board, it's a little bit like switching the flights. And what you have to convey is that the new flight we all will be hopping on has an even better, more enabling destination. We're now going on a maybe it would be the Concorde of our days, which are no longer around.
I am loving these flight analogies that you keep throwing in, Daniel. I think, isn't it a flight podcast? It's like Taking Flight, right? But not everybody aligns it quite like you have, and you're just making my heart sing. So thank you for that, because this is season three of Taking Flight, we've rebranded, so you're just helping fuel the flight and the energy. Thank you. Okay, so because I'm in such a hyper gear right now, I'm going to ask you my next question which I love. I get a sense of what the answer might be, but I need you to share with everybody. So what excites you about your future flight? Where is Daniel heading, or where is Flix heading, or maybe that's the whole integration of itself?
I believe two things. I believe we have to take care about our planet on one hand in general, so there is something to live on and enjoy also in generations from us. On the other hand, today we have to really make sure it's integrated, it's inclusive, it's diverse. People really only learn and remain open-minded or become even more open-minded if they have opportunity to travel, to look around, to enjoy certain things, destinations, other people, friends. And I truly believe that collective transportation, whether it's trains or buses, is something which matters. It's a great alternative to move, in our case, hundreds of millions of people on a very carbon dioxide friendly, even the best carbon dioxide currently possible way. So a very sustainable, but on the other hand also a very affordable way of making people travel. So there is a good portion of the hundreds of millions we've been able to move around which didn't have the opportunity without us to do so. And that's great, because that integrates us as humanity. And why is it important? Because what I said, I believe it really makes the society more stable and integrated, and we don't shout at each other or shoot. And that is also important because we only together can really solve the actual real challenges of our time, which again comes back to our nature, the planet, carbon dioxide, to just make sure we protect what had been given to us. And that's something where I have the feeling what we do matters and sums up to a greater good, even though it's a super small part. There are so many other great companies, so many other great ideas, awesome people out there. But it seems that I'm like in Star Wars on the bright side of the force, and that's something which creates quite some energy for me to keep on doing what I do.
That's a very big, audacious thing to be part of, and you must be very proud that Flix is part of trying to solve that problem. Because you are trying to do things in a much more sustainable fashion. With the fact that people can travel long distance on buses and trains, take small cars away from the streets. Talk to me a little bit about that.
In general, we have about 50 or more people in a bus, depending whether it's a double or single decker. And in trains, it can be even add up to multiple hundreds, up to almost a thousand, depending on the train. Which means in Europe, usually a car is used by 1.8 folks. And if it's 50 or so, and we obviously have to look at the load factor, there is a very high load factor. This means we always have a bunch of people running with the individual routes. So that takes away, you just have to do the math, 20 or more cars per trip. And eventually, some of the super large cars we've been seeing, whether it's the SUVs or pickups, they have the same diesel or fuel consumption as those modern buses. So it is just really a very simple game of math.
Thank you to our strategic alliance partners for their support to our EO Atlanta community. Check these partners out as they can help you soar further into your entrepreneurial journey. Thank you to Chase, BTRAL, EOS, and Sparity, American Express, CEO Coaching International, Ashford Advisors, Clifton Larson Allen, and Homick Burke. Okay, and I know for people in the US, I didn't know this until I did my research, but you did a very acquisition a few years ago. Do you want to talk about that? Because that's a brand very, it's a legacy brand in the US, and I don't know if many people actually know that Flix is now they own that company. Why?
That's true. Greyhound meanwhile belongs to the Flix group. So Flix North America has some green buses, but eventually hundreds of blue super buses running. So we had the pleasure to take one of the most iconic long-distance bus brands almost back home. We were talking about that and had that as something which we used in the early days to explain people in Europe what we're doing. So that made us particularly proud that the ones who more or less invented that are now part of the group. And that was funny because I remember we closed that deal during COVID. So us as Europeans had to have special grants to fly into the US, whatever COVID stuff. And at the end, you needed to explain the reasoning. And that was funny because it's like, okay, what's your business purpose? I need to fly over to sign that stuff as we are buying Greyhound. And people are like, I beg your pardon? I'm like, no, no, you understood correctly. It's like, oh okay, you can buy that? I'm like, eventually you can buy everything. And yes, it used to be owned by a British corporate, and well, now I think it found a better home with us.
I mean that must have been a very proud moment. Very proud moment. It's a brand like you said, not just known in, I didn't know it as well in the UK. Were Greyhound ever in the UK? Were they just in no?
