Drei Ratschläge an Dein 14jähriges Ich!

I know exactly what I would tell myself at the age of 14, there are three things: First of all: if you have certain goals, just go for them and don’t let people tell you otherwise. Don’t get manipulated, just follow your path you will succeed in doing so. Second: don’t have such a big ego, sometimes you should listen to others. They’re experienced, they can give you good recommendations like mentors. Mentors are very important, try to listen to them. And third and last: your biggest goals shouldn’t be having a lot of money, good cars, beautiful girls or whatever. Chase for being happy! You have to try different things in life to understand what makes you happy. The pursuit of happiness, like in the Will Smith movie, that's actually what you should be looking for.

Was steht auf Deiner Visitenkarte?

On my business card is written Kambis Kohansal Vajargah. This is a Persian name. Besides that: Marketing and Business Development at whatchado. We all have a second name and my name is “Biz Guy”.

Was ist das coolste an Deinem Job?

First of, my job is about analyzing. I love analyzing, industries, companies, markets and even people. Just to be on my own and try to figure out how others behave and why they do so. The other thing, which is even more important: I really love what I’m doing at whatchado. I can fulfill myself and express myself. It's a hobby for me, and this makes my work really amazing. It's important to separate private and business life, but if you do something that gives you a lot of energy, that is similar to doing sports, then you know exactly this is my job. This is what life should be about. I really wish everyone to end up in a job like I’m in now.

Welche Einschränkungen bringt Dein Job mit sich?

You have to be realistic. Like in any other job, there are restrictions. Sometimes, there is a lot of stress. Sometimes, there is a lot of work, but I think the biggest limitation is coordination and organisation. When you are a small startup, a lot of structure is still not there. I mean, there will be more structure later, but in the beginning, there is no that kind of structure and that makes you go insane. You want to shout out and maybe kill people.

Worum geht es in Deinem Job?

whatchado was founded last year. It's an internet start-up that does story telling in short video clips. It's about people, their jobs and their employers. My daily task, I mean, like I told you it’s marketing and business development so I have like two different parts. Marketing is more about strategic content, about our positioning, more long term oriented. But also things like merchandise and cooperations. Define which events are important for us to go to. Business development is more about, for instance going abroad, entering new markets, which strategy should we enter, who of the team should we send there and so on. It’s also long term oriented. These were just general things. My daily tasks, when I come to the office at 9 or 8.30, at different times, first, all of us sit at a round table and share our todo's of today. Then, I will check my emails, sometimes I get 5 emails, sometimes 20 emails, sometimes 100 emails, it depends on the day. Then, we have meetings, one after another, because communication is very important for a company. The better communication within a company, the more efficient a team can work, so I am talking with a lot of people. I'm writing emails, looking for new studies, looking at numbers, traffic and so on, a lot of analyzing. It's a lot about analyzing. In the end I will go home again.
I sometimes have to travel within Austria, Europe and sometimes even further away to attend events or an award ceremony. Or I go to clients directly, to partners to talk with them about our roadmap, what is whatchado, what is going on. It’s a lot about customer relationships, it’s very important so I’m travelling here as well.

Wie sieht Dein Werdegang aus?

I went to high school in Vienna, it’s called Goethe Gymnasium in the fourteenth district. It specializes in math, physics and so on. Afterwards I did some voluntary work for one year and then I attended university - the Vienna University of Economics and Business and studied Intenational Business administration. Besides I also studied business law. I worked for a law companies, but then I decided no, I want to go more into business, direct business, more into entrepreneurship. I decided to continue with International Business Administration. I had some exchange semesters in the U.S., in France and besides that I tried different things: I worked for law companies, industry companies, import export companies, small, big companies, different... Then I figured it out. I think it’s very important to try different things in order to know what you want from life. In the end it was clear to me that I wanted to do some entrepreneurial work. One of the co-founders of whatchado, Jubin, I met him…he was in my class at university I met him again at a career fair. He told me about it and I said “wow” That’s exactly what I’ve always been looking for, let’s do it and then…I joined whatchado.

Ginge es auch ohne Deinem Werdegang?

The academic background is not the most important thing. In our team there are people from a lot of different backgrounds in term of studies. If you have some knowledge in marketing, IT, that's awesome! But it's more about your attitude towards certain things. E.g. your soft skills. If you are ambitious, that's very important, if you are open-minded for new ideas, new concepts, just to try out new things, that's important! You have to be able to work within a team, team work is very important. This is more about start-ups in general, but also whatchado.