I recently went one on one with Felix Ohswald, Co-Founder and CEO of GoStudent.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Felix: I grew up in Vienna, Austria, where I still live today. As a child, I was always a combination of very curious and competitive. This set me apart from other children. When I was only 4 years old I used to play school with my grandpa. I loved the idea of learning even at a young age before I really even knew what school was. My passion was mathematics, an area where I excelled. By the time I was  14, I was already taking math classes at the University of Vienna. I then went on to complete a further degree in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, where I graduated in 2014. 

In addition to math, I was an avid chess player. My grandpa taught me how to play chess which laid the foundation of all my logical thought processes that I still use today when working through problems. Throughout all of my schooling I continued to practice chess on the side and I learned how to think several moves ahead and be strategic. Since I was so competitive, I was always afraid of losing and chess matches taught me how to manage my emotions and keep a cool head under pressure. 

This came in handy during the first few bumpy years at GoStudent. Given that we did not have any revenue, we were dependent on external parties financing our efforts. One particular challenge that was most instrumental to my growth was in early 2019 when we encountered a situation where an investor backed out of a financing round just one day before signing. This would have brought us into default because we could not have paid our employees. Thankfully, another party spontaneously stepped in, and we survived, but this experience taught us a valuable lesson in resilience and in not taking anything for granted. The experience made me stronger and our company stronger and helped us refocus our efforts to find a sustainable business model.

Adam: How did you come up with your business idea? What advice do you have for others on how to come up with great ideas?

Felix: When I was 21-years old and completing my Master’s degree in Quantitative Finance at ETH Zurich my younger brother Moritz reached out to see if I could help him and his classmates with their math homework. There was such a huge demand for passionate tutors, who taught in a way that made sense to the student and, before I knew it, I was helping Moritz’s whole class and getting flooded with messages from frustrated and confused students looking for help. 

I was concerned to see the glaring lack of support that these students had and could see that they needed a more structured option to supplement their classroom learning. I wanted to address this issue and, hopefully, inspire my brother and his friends to be passionate about learning like I was. First, I needed to tackle a fundamental and global problem: lack of access to top tutors. 

Now that I had a mission, I turned to my Gregor Müller, GoStudent’s Co-Founder and COO, to make a practical plan about how to turn this idea into a business. Gregor is extremely savvy in business and we had known for a long time that we wanted to work together, but we just needed the golden idea. Finally, we had it! Together, we built a dedicated homework support app, where users could be connected with motivated and inspiring tutors to receive high-quality support. GoStudent was subsequently founded in 2016, with the app launching that summer. 

Adam: How did you know your business idea was worth pursuing? What advice do you have on how to best test a business idea?

Felix: Gregor and I did a massive amount of market research and competitor analysis before moving forward with our business idea. This is essential. However, despite all that preparation, we learned quickly that the only real way to test your business idea is to put it into the hands of the customer and get their feedback. This is always a nerve-wracking moment, and for GoStudent, the first time we launched our app to the public was a pivotal moment and confirmed that our idea was worth pursuing. 

In 2016, after months of single-minded focus and hard work, Gregor and I launched our app in Vienna. To get the word out, we had secured a front-page mention in our local newspaper - a huge win for our small, untested company! Almost immediately on the morning of the launch our app crashed from the high traffic. I cannot describe how stressed out we were. We were positive that our business would be over before it really started because we had blown our one shot to launch the app. Then, an entrepreneur who we both admired gave us some great advice that made a lasting impression on us. He told us to celebrate these “failures,” because moments like this only prove that we built a product that people care about. 

In the crowded startup space there are thousands of people trying to build a product that people care about and we broke through and did it! While we did quickly fix our app, first, we took a moment to pop a bottle of champagne in the office and celebrate our “failure.” 

Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your business? What advice do you have for others on how to take their businesses to the next level?

Felix:  The most important part of growing your business is first establishing a foundation of trustworthy, competent employees that share your vision. Building a company from the ground up is one of the most bonding experiences I have ever known. Your team becomes your family, and together you feel as though you can take on anything, so long as you support each other. At GoStudent we foster a friendly, supportive company culture that I am extremely proud of.  With each new expansion, we ensure that the new office lives our company values and follows the model that we set up in the original Vienna office. GoStudent is now no longer a start-up, we are a full-on unicorn scale-up with a team of 2,000 employees around the world. Despite our growth and success, at the core, we still have the same mentality that we started out with: driven, passionate, excited and looking to change the world with education.Another key piece of growing your business is knowing how to manage your investors. Your investors are there to support you, not tell you how to take your company to the next level. It is vital to remember that ultimately your investors have placed their trust in you because they believe that your existing team can execute the operational aspects of a business successfully - and scaling is a huge part of this. As founders, Gregor and I have never relied on potential or existing investors for operational advice. We do however look to our investors to help us build up our valuable network and connect us with companies that we can exchange know-how and best practices with. 

Some advice on how to take your business to the next level would be: be patient. It can take time to build your credibility. Even if you have the best idea in the world, it is probably going to take time to convince others. Almost every founder has encountered someone that didn’t believe in them or in their idea. As a young entrepreneur, you might encounter more naysayers than someone that is more established, but don’t let that discourage you. Prepare yourself mentally for setbacks and practice your answers to difficult questions before you enter a meeting so that you aren’t caught off guard if you can help it. In my journey I have found that being able to preempt criticism and get ahead of tricky questions  will prove that you are well informed and serious about your venture. Being faced with challenges and overcoming them shows others in your industry that you are learning and improving this will help build your reputation as you grow your business. 

Adam: What are your best sales and marketing tips?

Felix: My first tip is hire sooner rather than later: When we began expanding GoStudent rapidly we realized quickly that there are some massive hiring delays with marketing especially that we didn’t account for. Lack of qualified candidates with long notice periods were issues that made our initial marketing expansion stall a bit in the beginning. It was very important for us not to sacrifice expertise and culture fit to speed but, at the same time, we had numbers to deliver. So here, we pulled out one of our main values “Be fast or be last”. Despite those previously mentioned difficulties, we ended up hiring 60 marketing specialists in just six months in 2020. This taught me that moving forward, we'd need to pre-empt hiring needs months before we needed them on staff so that, when the time came, they were onboarded and ready and we were not playing catch up.

Clearly define the brand before you start marketing: The brand is the essence of the company and is part of every department, not just marketing. It is the essence of the company — our people, culture, product, story, and vision. Having a cohesive brand identity gives the sales team a strong platform to communicate with customers, helps HR decide who to hire and helps the marketing team design and launch campaigns that are on-message with our company vision. For a strong sales and marketing team, you need to clearly define the brand. This will help harmonize communication in every step of the customer journey and bring employees together on the same journey.

Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Felix: In my experience, leaders must be curious, resilient and strong-willed. These traits are incredibly complementary: curiosity makes you continually strive for more - you need to question and explore every option. You also need to be strong-willed and resilient. You are likely going to be told “no” several times, so you need to have the ability to accept this and the willpower to keep pushing back. You need to have courage in your convictions. 

In order to take these skills to the next level I would start by finding someone that pushes and supports you. For me, this is grandfather. Since before I was in kindergarten he taught me how to stay curious and combine knowledge from different fields. As a child, I was very strong-willed and he encouraged me to channel that into my different hobbies, like building a flying hoverboard that defied the laws of physics. Now, I take that strong-willed approach into work every day to look at seemingly impossible tasks and make them possible. 

Put yourself out there in situations that might make you uncomfortable. That’s when you will really flex your leadership skills. With GoStudent, we had more than three years with zero revenue and were fighting hard to figure out a sustainable way to scale our business. That difficult time was where I really honed my resilience as a leader. 

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams?

Felix: My best advice is obvious but, hire awesome people. You absolutely must have a strong team around you if you want to achieve next level success. You can have all the passion, motivation and creativity in the world but one person alone cannot run a global business. From an investor perspective a strong team is appealing because it brings their experience, passion, and talent to the company. Even if you are hiring quickly it’s important that you ensure that every new hire embodies the company culture and ethos that you are looking to maintain. A strong culture and good atmosphere will help you to attract and retain the best talent, which is essential when building a startup.

Once you have built the team, you have to step back and trust them. You have given them your vision and now you have to empower them to make decisions that will bring your vision to life. Do not micromanage. There just isn’t time. Get rid of bureaucratic procedures that slow down progress. If you have done your job hiring and training, then all of your employees will live and breathe your company values so they will understand what needs to be done in order to reach your shared goals. 

As you grow, try to keep the start-up vibe in the office. I constantly work to enable my team to have bold ideas, to make fast decisions and to execute without complications and politics even though we are no longer a team of five, but rather a team of 2,000. 

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders?

Felix: 

1. Spend time building your network. For entrepreneurs just getting started it can be incredibly hard to make connections and get “in” with industry leaders. Leverage your colleagues, friends and family – ask for as many introductions as possible and don’t be afraid to pitch yourself and your idea at every opportunity. You will never regret taking advantage of every opportunity.  Through networking and in today’s social media age where everyone knows everyone, chances are that a friend-of-a-friend will be able to connect you with someone that makes private investments, or is involved in an investment firm. This gives you a running start as they will already know of you and understand what you are trying to achieve.

2. Know your mission. Ask yourself, “What is it that you are looking to change or address? What are the real-world implications of your product or service? How is it scalable?” Before you can get the necessary funds to grow your business you need to prove to yourself and those around you that you believe in your company above everything else. You must show potential investors that you have a clear understanding of the market and how your company will grow.

3. I can’t stress this last one enough - hire the best people. While I was growing GoStudent, I was surprised that one of the biggest challenges was hiring the right team. Having a fantastic resume simply isn’t enough for me. I’m looking for people that share my goal, and really believe in the mission of my company. When every employee shares your vision they are connected to one another, and so will work better together. As an entrepreneur or executive, you must foster a common goal within your team. In an ideal situation, team members are so close and work so well together that genuine friendships form. I’m very happy that this has been the case at GoStudent and we continue to maintain this company culture even with our rapid expansion.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Felix: I’ve always been told: “look for role models who are far better than you and learn from them.” This lesson has resonated with me ever since I was a young boy. I’ve carried it with me throughout my life and it has helped me develop the mental resilience to accept the fact that someone is always going to be doing something faster or better than you. Rather than get down about this inescapable fact, I learned to use this as a motivator. Once you are in this mindset you can take that person’s success, analyze it, and learn from it. This is what drives me to succeed. 


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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