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Q. Can you tell us about your background and experiences before joining Playsum?
Most recently, I was an Engineering Manager in a Health Startup in Germany that focuses on social phobias, agoraphobia, panic, and disorders.
Before that, I worked for a long time in the travel industry and had my own consumer travel startup with a former colleague that we, unfortunately, needed to close due to the COVID pandemic and the resulting worldwide travel stops.
All in all, I’ve been working in the tech industry for over 11 years now in different positions and company sizes (from startups to Nasdaq companies). This kind of varied experience has given me the best of both worlds because working in a startup is a world away from working in a large company.
Q. What drew you to and excited you about Playsum?
I was really excited at the thought of being back in the entrepreneurial seat and building an awesome product from scratch again, especially one that has a big focus on making a social impact.
Playsum’s mission of fighting online harassment and mistreatment of people in a fast and ever-growing online world is something I feel very strongly about. Especially in the gaming industry, as I know that harassment is very common and affects a lot of people who are just trying to play games with fellow gamers. So this immediately drew me in and made me want to join. It’s going to be a challenge to achieve this, particularly as we scale, but that’s also part of the draw for me!
Q. What message do you have for the Playsum community, and how do you plan to engage with them as you work to build and grow the platform?
We want to be people’s first choice for finding gaming friends in an inclusive and friendly environment, where everybody can be as they are, without having to worry that they’re going to be insulted or bullied for just being who they are.
I believe that to build a product for gamers you need to actually be part of the community, so that’s what I plan on doing - being there in the same spaces as our members and openly talking with them.
I also want to be open and transparent with our memberbase about our processes and what we build. We’ll need to listen to them so we can make sure that what we’re building is what they want and solves their pain points around finding gaming friends and being part of a gaming community.
Q. What will your focus be for the first 6 months?
We’re planning to build the first version of our Playsum App and also release a Game Store where people can directly buy their most anticipated games and gift games to friends. So these first 6 months are quite busy for me as I’m building the app and store from scratch, but I’ve had fun just jumping right in and getting to work on it!
We want to launch quickly so we can be getting some first feedback from the community and iterate based on it. That will be the next step in the following months right after we launch.
At the same time, some of my focus has been on making plans for the product roadmap, tech team, and company culture with my co-founders.
Q. What do you like to do in your free time outside of work?
I like to listen to music a lot (when I was younger I played in some bands as well). I love to travel around the world and discover new cultures (especially through food 🙂). And obviously, gaming is another hobby! 😉 Mostly sports-related games, such as FIFA. I also enjoy sports in real life and like to regularly play some handball with friends.
Q. How will your past experiences and learnings shape how you lead engineering and the technical vision at Playsum?
By working in various industries, team sizes, and company sizes, I had the chance to learn a huge amount of things that have influenced my leadership style and technical expertise. I worked with a lot of different technologies over the last 11 years, which gives me the flexibility to choose the right software solution for a given problem.
Additionally, I am always trying to be as transparent and open as possible so everyone has the context and information they need and I like to hear everyone’s opinion before jumping to a conclusion. That way I can see all sides and can make a better-informed decision.
Having my own startup in the past has also helped me adapt and grow from the mistakes we made. Mistakes are often the most valuable lessons you learn, so I’m grateful to have these past experiences to contribute to how I make decisions going forward, and I’m looking forward to learning new things at Playsum too!
