Last week, Daniel from the technology company Heraeus was a guest at blink.it. He shares in what context the visit took place and what impressions he took away in the video interview!

A big advantage in a startup? Quick decisions and a lot of willingness to experiment – this is how we at blink.it quickly became enthusiastic about the idea of participating in the innovative program of the HIGHEST founding center – the Startup Week.

The Startup Week with Heraeus

HIGHEST is operated by the Technical University of Darmstadt and regularly organizes events to network startups and promote successful founding. The Startup Week is a program in which HIGHEST collaborates with the technology company Heraeus. For blink.it, project manager Daniel was selected, who worked with us in our Darmstadt office for five days as part of this program.

From April 16 to April 20, 2018, Daniel was part of our team and gained insight into our way of working, our products, and our processes. The electrical engineering engineer has been working at Heraeus for six months and is responsible for project management in product development.

The idea behind the meeting: Daniel gives us an outside perspective and, in return, we show him how a startup works. It's a give and take; after all, both sides are supposed to benefit from the initiative and take away many experiences.

Daniel's impression: Things work differently in a startup

At blink.it, Daniel was part of our recruiting team for a week and participated in the process development and idea management of our applicant procedure. He worked closely with our recruiter Johanna and managing director Konstantin.

From left to right: Johanna (blink.it), Daniel (Heraeus), Konstantin (blink.it)

Already on the first day, Daniel noticed that many things at blink.it operate differently than in a large corporation:

“Here, things move a bit faster”

Daniel's observation about the working methods at blink.it: Decisions can be made quickly when the team is small, and the processes are short in every respect. Thus, Daniel's spontaneous and creative idea in the recruiting process was implemented right away. In a large corporation, it would have been delegated upward for so long that by the time it reached the decision-makers, the idea would no longer be relevant, Daniel commented on this process.

“In a larger company, I can delegate tasks more easily”

This was Daniel's response to the question of what he preferred about the working methods of a large company compared to those of a startup. For every area, there is a complete department, so employees are more focused on very specific tasks. In a startup, everyone has a key area, but individual tasks are less clearly separated.

You can find the complete video interview about Daniel's impressions of the Startup Week at blink.it in the following YouTube playlist:

Tip: We needed less than an hour in total for the recording and used our blink.it kit. How you can produce an authentic video in just a few minutes and with simple equipment is explained in the video course studio@home.

What do you think of such an exchange between startups and large companies? We look forward to your comments!