This week Inside View interviews Cornelia Hoppe, who is head of Human Resources at Springstar, a Berlin-based venture capital fund that invests in online retail businesses worldwide. Cornelia is responsible for Springstar’s international recruitment, personnel marketing, personnel development, and other HR activities. Cornelia tells us that MBAs would be a great fit for roles like entrepreneur-in-residence or founders for Springstar's international startups. Do you have what it takes to spring into action?!
1. What is Springstar?
Springstar supports promising internet startups worldwide assisting them operationally with its know-how in areas such as software development, online marketing, management, recruitment, and internationalization. Since 2007, experienced entrepreneurs and investors Klaus Hommels, Oliver Jung and Harish Bahl have founded and funded more than 20 companies in 10 countries. Springstar helps these companies to grow internationally with its extensive knowledge and experience in international markets, particularly Brazil, India, Australia, Russia and the Middle East.
2. Springstar has an impressive portfolio of online shopping/eCommerce companies - what are some of the most exciting products?
We are have a very strong online-retail-business reputation all over the world. Maybe you’ve heard about Casacanda, a leading shopping club for design discoveries and inspirations or KupiVip another leading shopping private club. Even StyleTread in Australia or Fashion and you in India are exciting companies as well. The group buying companies like ClickOn in Brazil, DeinDeal in Switzerland or Grupfoni in Turkey are internationally well known. And of course, we do have a lot of new ideas and visions to start new businesses very soon.
3. How many MBAs do you hire and for what types of jobs?
We´re not only hiring MBAs, but they are a great fit for roles like entrepreneur-in-residence or founders. The people in those roles are given a lot of responsibility so they can really build up their own department or business. They have insight into our international startups and get to know the business in-depth. Its our goal for them to know how our business works, and in time, for them to become CEOs, COOs, CMOs, VPs etc.. The interesting thing at Springstar is that we support talent as best we can. If someone has an idea and we are convinced about it they could start their own business immediately with the help of the experienced investors and Springstar team.
4. How many Springstar partners have been to business school?
All of our Springstar Partners have visited business schools including the best-ranked in Germany and in other parts of the world. They are graduates from Harvard, WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management or University of St. Gallen. An excellent education is an important tool for being successful.
5. Is there a big difference in the recruitment processes of big corporates and VCs like Springstar?
Yes, there is, indeed. If you work for the big corporates you might not get high levels of responsibility because, usually, there is a department and a decision-leader. But being at a startup, you have to make things work for yourself. This is one of the reasons why I'm glad to be part of a startup. For instance, if something doesn’t work, I cannot wait for someone else to fix it. I have to change it even if it means coming up with a new recruitment strategy within hours! Of course, you do not have the incredible budget for personnel marketing like big corporates have but you don´t need that either. You can find the right candidates with sources other than big advertisement campaigns or job fairs. The recruitment itself has the same high quality but a lot more speed and that's what I like best!
6. Do you think it's important to have an MBA to succeed in the VC/ investment world?
An excellent education is a great base to develop your professional skills. It’s always important to have that theoretical background. You should be very smart but you must also have vision and the ability and absolute willingness to build up something from scratch. So, if you only have great MBA qualifications but not the right personality and attitude, you won't be successful in the VC/investment world. But if you have the right combination and have in addition to that great communication and leadership skills then you are the absolute right person starting your career in the startup business.
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