Marko Haschej and Kaya Olsen’s success story
Marko Haschej is the owner of kopfkino productions. His team is made up of nine different nationalities and he enjoys working in an international environment. He was therefore looking for a motivated young entrepreneur. Kaya Olsen from Denmark and Marko Haschej started their exchange in January 2020.
Kaya, with her raft of ideals and visions, went to Vienna to learn how to become an entrepreneur. As with every hero’s journey, the hero meets some helpers along the way who offer support and guidance. “In my case, Marko and his team were these helpers. By constantly challenging me, assigning me new tasks, offering feedback and giving me responsibilities, I grew and grew,” said Kaya.
“She was highly motivated and was soon managing her own project,” Marko commented. Kaya led the development of a detailed global roll out strategy for one of Marko’s programs. During her stay, Kaya’s responsibilities were to prepare a concept for reaching out and on-boarding global organizers for a program. She developed manuals, marketing materials as well as an on-boarding process for future organizers of the boot camps. Marko announced the global program that was developed & directed by Kaya during her stay and the company already has the first confirmed signups for it. There's a long waiting list of global organizers. “With her experience, Kaya was able to use many proven techniques and approaches to improve our concept,” Marko added.
Corona crisis and new insights
The corona crisis offered Marko and Kaya the opportunity to learn a lot about managing a business in times of crises, and about innovation. Working with a company that primarily organizes events, they were hit particularly hard by the virus. Everything they had planned and worked on for the last couple of months had to be postponed, cancelled or put on hold. Every partner, customer and supplier had to be informed and a lot of logistical reorganization was required. Once that was done though, they had to address the elephant in the room: What the heck do we do now?
In the course of a Thursday afternoon, they basically reinvented themselves. They kept their values, their goals and their vision, but expanded their concept and services in order to turn the situation around and take advantage of it. For Kaya this was a great advantage: “As I was a part of this process, I could really bring my strengths, ideas and my own business concept too, and I really feel like I’ve now found my place within the company.”
What they decided to do on this insane Thursday was to create a webinar program for students. They usually hold educational events for young students, but instead of asking them to join us at our events, the team decided to visit them online in their homes.
“Any company would be happy to have the chance to work with Kaya. Her presence, work-ethic, incredible pace, spirit and the way she approaches tasks were remarkable. She shaped our company in many different ways and I’m very happy to have had the chance to work with her,” Marko commented.
Kaya started working on developing her own business further. She began giving some classes on Fridays, testing the prototype she had developed.
“We certainly learned as much as she hopefully learned from us. Since she developed essential parts of the program, her impact on the future of our company is huge and I’m very grateful for that,” said Marko.
Erasmus für Jungunternehmen ist eine Initiative der Europäischen Union.
