Interview mit BTU Alumnus Michael Freudenberg (BTU Alumni Gründer)

Michael Freudenberg knows a thing or two about reasons. In order to expand his many years of work in the field of digitization in the direction of online marketing, he started the agency "just leads". The 10-strong team, which works from various locations in Germany and beyond, advises SMEs on all aspects of advertising and social media. In this interview, Michael tells us about just leads and his start-up experiences.

Hello Michael! Can you tell us about yourself and your career so far?
I'm Michael (Micha) Freudenberg, 37 years old, from Senftenberg. I studied IT at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg for nine years and switched to self-employment in 2014. At that time, I founded the software / digital agency neuziel. With currently 13 employees, we program software for SMEs in Senftenberg and Cottbus. At the same time, there were two other start-ups, one of which was deregistered and the other sold. Another company "With the changing times" is active in the areas of business field development and funding with a focus on digitalization.

In this interview, we turn our attention to your latest startup "just leads". What is the approach here?
With our digital agency neuziel we have been working with many companies in our region for many years and again and again we got the questions if we do online marketing besides software / website development, like taking care of Instagram channels, placing ads on Google and co or setting up newsletters. It hurt our souls not to be able to serve these requests and at the same time we didn't know anyone in our region to whom we could have warmly recommended our customers. Therefore, we simply did it ourselves and founded just leads as a small subsidiary of neuziel.

What needs in the current company are met by just leads?
Customer retention and new customer acquisition through strategic and targeted marketing on the World Wide Web. In a society that is becoming faster and more digital and in a competition that is getting tougher and tougher, we help companies to use their resources in a targeted way and to present themselves to their target group in the best possible way.

What kind of projects do you manage?
The type and size of clients rarely matter in online marketing. Yes, it is of course about possible resources that can be used, but fundamentally each company has a product/service, a specific target group, goals for their marketing and from this we develop specific implementation strategies. These strategies are measurable and we give direct implementation recommendations to the companies. On the one hand, we can take over the permanent support, analysis and measurement as a strategy partner, but also the direct implementation, such as setting up / support of social media channels, advertising campaigns, employee and trainee recruiting, websites, newsletters and webinars. Current projects range from solo self-employed, SMEs to medium-sized businesses.

You are a team of 10 and there are some kilometers between your three locations (Potsdam, Leipzig and Cottbus), how do you get that organized?
I think the answer is clear. We work completely remote. Currently there are not even fixed offices, everything happens from the home office. Until the last team live event in the fall in the Spreewald, there were "just-leaders" who had never even seen each other live before. Meetings at our customers' sites also take place primarily digitally. Current conditions make this possible. For many of our customers, this has become the quasi-standard. For everyone else, the procedure is no longer a problem after the first 1 or 2 Zoom meetings.

You have gained a lot of experience with start-ups in Lusatia, what works best here and what could work better?
just leads is even already my 4th or 5th foundation in Lusatia. I don't know when you start to count as a permanent founder. In my opinion, Lusatia has two decisive advantages, but they are also its biggest disadvantages. First, structures that are still growing. Many things are still unfinished or in part not as developed as perhaps in large cities. But this means that people can still have a say in determining and shaping things. Everyone can still do great things here and contribute to the big picture. Second: A market that is easily 2-3 years behind that in German metropolitan areas or the international competition. When it comes to technology, digitalization and online marketing, Lusatian companies are often still a few years behind, almost backward. As a company or founding team in precisely these areas, however, there is still an incredible amount that can be done.

What is your advice for potential founders?
Think big and act fast. Dare to think big, really big, and act quickly and in small steps. Learn from it, gain experience, adjust your strategy and then the next step.

What's ahead for you and just leads?
I'll deliberately leave out the facts and figures, but I could imagine building up the largest agency between Dresden and Berlin with the core themes of digitalization, online marketing and business strategy.