12 years of entrepreneurship and an important lesson

1-minute summary

In this episode of his CEO diary, Christoph Standl talks about a topic that has accompanied him since founding Tourismus Interaktiv: perseverance and long-term thinking. After almost twelve years on the market, one thing is particularly clear to him: the path was anything but straight – most years were full of challenges, and Corona was probably the biggest of them. In tourism especially, projects were postponed or cancelled and many destinations had to focus on entirely new issues. Of course, in such phases you ask yourself whether you are on the right path. He always asked himself the same question: do I still believe in the long-term development of our industry and in our solutions? The answer was a clear yes every time. Because digitalisation was important in 2020, is important today and will still be a central topic in 2030, 2035 or 2040. Technologies and tools change – today we talk about artificial intelligence and company brains, in ten years new ones will come – but the direction stays the same: companies become more digital, processes smarter, knowledge more important. That's why he tries never to make decisions only for the next three months, but to align them with a long-term vision. There are doubts, setbacks and days when you wonder why you put yourself through it – exactly then, looking at the next ten or twenty years helps. Solving short-term challenges without losing sight of the long-term vision is one of an entrepreneur's most important tasks. His advice: ask yourselves where your industry will be in ten or twenty years – if you believe in that vision, it's worth staying with it. Big changes often begin with small daily steps.