I’m Jochen Kressin, the humble editor of this blog, located in the thrilling city of Berlin, Germany. Until recently I worked as Director New Business for a large European social network with over 25 million users. My job is was to seek new opportunities for my company, be it new ventures or the extensions of our core value proposition. I have also led the Product Development department there. At the moment I’m kicking off my own business.
My background is twofold: I have an Engineer’s degree from the Fachhochschule Offenburg, which I acquired in 2002. In addition, I hold an MBA title from the University Potsdam. I finished my studies there in 2012. Why these two titles?
As a kid of the 80s, I started to get hooked on computers at the age of 10 or 12. The C64 was my first computer ever, and after the typical period of playing all sorts of games (Elite, someone?) I got interested in programming. I started with Basic, followed by Assembler and Machine Language. Naturally, after finishing my studies in Offenburg I started as a programmer / freelancer for all sorts of companies in Germany. But I soon realized that pure technology is not sufficient. You have to make some money with your product in order to survive, too. Coming from a family with a strong entrepreneurial background I got interested in the business side. Around 2000 I came to think that there are basically two parties: The engineers, who do not care about the business side of what they are doing at all – they want to produce the most elegant code ever. And the business people, caring only about the figures for the next quarter, having no knowledge about the technical side of their business. Both views are valid on their own, but I think this needs to change. I want to bridge this gap.
I think that real value and growth in the digital domain can only be produced when you keep both aspects in mind: The technological progess and the business aspects. I know that this is a fine line, right between Wall Street and Cupertino, but that is exactly where I want to be.
Besides that, I’m also interested in music. I’m a guitarist, played in various bands and did a lot of production / recording / live stuff in the past. Though I cannot put as much time into it as I wanted, I still enjoy playing and recording.
You can drop me a note via jkressin@businessmodelinsider.com.
Some profiles of me on the web: