Expert Interview: Ghazaleh Koohestanian, Founder & CEO of re2you
Ghazaleh Koohestanian is the founder and CEO of re2you, a startup that has developed an international patented software to harmonize data and applications that are actually incompatible. In 2018, her company was awarded as a Role Model company for women by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Energy.
She is a sought-after expert and speaker throughout Europe. She studied Fashion & Marketing in Italy, but then became more interested in Digital Innovations. Her vision: a future in which hardware will be obsolete.
Ghazaleh, you have a fascinating resume: You came to Germany from Iran when you were 8 years old, worked for companies such as Nokia, McCann and the Google Family, and then founded your own company, re2you, 10 years ago. What inspired you to take the step of starting your own business back then?
At that time, I simply realized that we needed a technology alternative, because there was a need to give customers more options than siloed systems. In the end, customer loyalty is also about software and hardware. When systems are incompatible with each other, when a company’s B2B data and its business models of the future are put on someone else’s server and the company has to ask permission to access it — that’s exactly where I saw that there has to be an alternative.
That’s why I left my permanent position to become self-employed, to offer an alternative.
Would you make the same decision to become self-employed again when you look back after all these years?
Yes, I would absolutely choose the path to self-employment again. When I decided it back then, the mindset for startups was not born yet. That has strengthened in more recent ones. In fact, it would have been better or easier had I started now. In the first 3 years we were crazy enough to work on product development without any market confirmation.
In a sense, the time investment helped us to be ready today and to have the answers for current challenges and tasks. On the other hand, as a founder you want to work rather than fight. If I found a company today, I believe that I would have to struggle less than in the past.
Your internationally patented software is in high demand — your customers include Daimler, Volkswagen, Bosch and SAP. As we learned in an article, Bosch had already offered you a lucrative purchase deal for re2you years ago. At the time, you turned it down. Why?
Well, that was 2015 and we had only been established for 3 years. The offer was exclusive — it wasn’t just a purchase offer, but also included investments. It was about exclusivity and for me, however, it was clear that we didn’t want to be exclusive at that point. We were only 3 years young and just starting out. I would rather think in the direction of an exit.
Where do you see yourself and re2you in five years?
In 5 years, I actually think we will have the exit behind us. Personally, I will probably have founded a new startup.
You advertise data sovereignty for users. That sounds promising, and it’s precisely what blockchain-based Digital Identities are also pursuing. What’s your take on this type of Digital Identity?
That’s exactly what we stand for. Digital identities are important. It is also a topic that the German government is now pursuing and, above all, Mrs. Merkel, who has now invited and called on many companies to work on the topic of Digital Identities for Europe and Germany as a business location.
In the future, we must be clearly identifiable as a person, we must clearly know which data is necessary for a transaction, and the user can and must provide this data. But it is also very clear that information that goes beyond this is actually part of the Digital Identity. And today’s users and citizens do not yet have this awareness. At the moment, users are basically just happy that everything works and that they can use all of it. But they don’t understand what that actually means in depth. And the consciousness must be changed accordingly now more and more and it will be changed.
Finally, a personal question: Which famous person would you like to spend an evening with and why?
With Mrs. Merkel. I think Mrs. Merkel is a fascinating person and that’s why I would love to have a coffee with her. I think that Mrs. Merkel belongs to the breed of non-digital natives who nevertheless have the necessary imagination to understand what things are needed in this area now. I think that would be a very interesting conversation.
Thanks for the great interview, Ghazaleh!
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