As far as I know, 23 May 2012 has not gone down in history, at least not in world history. For us, this date signalled the entry of halbersbacher privathotels gmbh in the commercial register in Rostock and marked the start of a company story that we had not expected...
"He had no chance and took it", "the light at the end of the tunnel... is an oncoming train" or even: "halbers...who?" were just some of the statements and sayings that accompanied us for a long time and no, they didn't motivate us, they simply annoyed us, at least me (my wife Anke is much cooler).
I'll never understand why this "becoming self-employed", i.e. starting a business, which in the best case scenario creates new jobs, still often has a negative connotation in Germany.
Whether it's courage, madness, pure desperation or simply the desire to make a difference - every single reason deserves to be respected and I admire every single person who -despite everything- dares to do something of their own, to act freely (well, you can believe it at the beginning...;-) ) or simply to save the world - chapeau you wonderful people!
In the last 2.3 years in particular, the mood for founders has improved somewhat - but we still have a very long way to go.
The halbersbacher hospitality group has now managed to survive the first 10 years, growing and learning along the way; our - mainly my - massive mistakes have accompanied us. Some of them were important and necessary, but most of them were unnecessary - and yet the sum of all our mistakes was necessary to shape us, allow us to grow and strengthen us, otherwise we would not be where we are today.
I sincerely wish every single person who is thinking about changing, building a company, even saving the world, courage, strength, confidence and people around them who are there for them and believe in them - we also had, and still have, such people, but more on that later, separately.
