A walk with emolon's Founder: 19 Questions along the way

Let's start simple. Who are you when you're not working on emolon?

I'm someone who thinks a lot. Probably too much sometimes. I'm curious. I love understanding why things are the way they are, and I'm always questioning whether they could be done differently. But outside the work, I'm actually pretty simple. I love good conversations. I love cars. I like being outside, going for a walk, driving somewhere without much of a plan. I can be ambitious and incredibly impatient when I care about something. I have a tendency to want things to be just right, which is probably both one of my strengths and one of the things that drives me crazy. And despite spending so much time thinking about life, I definitely don't have it figured out. I'm 33. I'm still learning what matters to me, changing my mind about things, making mistakes, worrying about things that probably don't deserve that much attention.

So when I'm not working on emolon? I'm really just a guy trying to build a life that feels like his own. And hopefully having a bit of fun along the way.

What are you really bad at?

Singing. I wish I could tell you I'm one or those people who sounds surprisingly good when they start singing. I'm not. I stil sing, though. Usually when I'm alone and nobody has to suffer through it. Except my dog. I'm also not the most talented person when it comes to fixing things. I can do it but let's just say it's probably not where my greatest strengths are.

What's something people are usually surprised to learn about you?

How emotional I actually am.

From the outside I can come across as quite ambitious, rational and maybe even a little tough sometimes. I like making decisions. I question things a lot. And when I believe in something, I can be incredibly determined about it. But underneath that, I'm actually a very sensitive person. Things stay with me. Words stay with me. People stay with me. I can think about a conversation long after the other person has forgotten it happened. I care deeply, even if I don't always show it. And there's another contradiction find quite funny about myself. I have huge ambitions. I want to build something meaningful, see more of the world and make something of my life. But at the same time, it really doesn't take much to make me happy. A good coffee can do the job.

I think I'm a mixture of those two sides. I want a lot from life but I don't need a lot to enjoy it.

What's something about you that hasn't changed since you were a kid?

I've always been a dreamer. Even as a kid, I had this tendency to imagine things bigger than they were. I was curious about the world, about what else was out there, and I never really liked the idea that something had to be done a certain way just because that's how everyone else did it. I stil have that. Give me something that already works and there's a good chance I'll start wondering whether it could work differently. Sometimes that's propably exhausting for people around me. But it's also taken me to places I don't think I would've reached otherwise. I've lived in different countries. I've started over more than once. I've followed ideas without knowing exactly where they would lead.

I still dreaming.

Probably bigger than is reasonable sometimes. I hope that part of me never changes. Live would be pretty boring without it.

What's something you could talk about for hours?

Ideas. I love ideas. Give me a problem, something that doesn't work, or even just a random thought, and my mind immediately starts exploring what we could do with it. I've always been very creative in that way. I rarely believe there's only one was to do something. If one approach doesn't work, I'll try another. And another. Sometimes probably another five after that.

I'm quite stubborn when I believe something is possible.

I think that's why I enjoy creating things so much. You can start with almost nothing - a thought, a feeling, a problem - and suddenly there's this whole world of possibilities in front of you. I genuinely believe there's almost always a way. You just have to find it.

What's something you believed when you were younger that you no longer believe?

It's not that simple. - For a long time, I believed it.

But you know... sometimes it is that simple.

If something isn't work, change it. If you want to try something, try it. If you don't know how to do something, learn. if one way doesn't work, find another. Of course, that doesn't mean everything is easy. It isn't. But I think we sometimes make things much more complicated in our heads before we've even tried. I've learned that there are far fewer fixed rules in life than I once thought. And that's actually quite freeing.

What's one decision that changed your life more than you expected?

I don't think there was one.

When I look back, I see lots of smaller moments and decisions rather than one big turning point. Moving to Germany when I was 18 was one of them. I also had a serious car accident when I was 14. That was obviously a significant moment in my life. But did either of those momenty completely changed who I became? I don't think so.

Would your 14-year-old self be proud of you?

Yes. I'm absolutely sure he would be. But I think I'd be just as proud of him.

He didn't have everything figured out. He was trying to understand who he was, where he belonged and what kind of life was waiting of him. He doubted himself. He got things wrong. He was trying to find his own way while discovering the world and himself at the same time. And looking back now, I think

he did the best he could with where he was and what he knew.

I'm proud of him for that. I'm proud that he kept going. Because somehow, through all of it, he grew into someone I genuinely like being today. He'd be happy to know that I still dreaming bing. Really big. I don't look at my life today and think, I made it. I look at it and think, I'm just getting started. There are still so many places I want to see. Things I want to create. People I want to meet. Memories I haven't made yet. I want to achieve more, yes. But I also want to laugh more. Travel more. Love more, Experience more. Be happier. Live more.

I think he'd like knowing that we never stopped being curious about what might be around the next corner. If I could sit next to him for a moment. i'd tell him:

You're going to be okay. Keep going. Keep discovering. You don't need to have everything figured out yet. You're going to become someone you're proud of.

What's the one thing you're most afraid of losing?

Myself.

That probably sounds strange, because you can't really lose yourself in the same way you can lose a person or a place. But I think that's what I'm most afraid of. Losing the way I see the world. my curiosity. My emotions. My memories. The things I care about. The little thoughts and experiences that somehow make me... me. Our personality and our consciousness are such strange things when you really think about them. Everything I've experienced, every person I've met, every place I've been, every mistake I've made - somehow all of that lives inside me. And together, it has created this person sitting here today. I'm actually quite grateful for him. He's not finished. There are things I want to change, things I still want to learn and a lot of growing I probably still have ahead of me. But I don't want to become somone else. I want to keep discovering who I am. Maybe that's why the idea of losing that scares me more than losing almost anything else.

Who knows you better than anyone else?

Me.

I think I know myself better than anyone else does. I'm the only person who's been there for every version of me. I know the things I've never said out loud. The moments I've doubted myself. The things I'm proud of. The mistakes I've made. The dreams I haven't told anyone about yet. I know when I'm pretending something doesn't bother me, even though it does. I know when I'm happy. And I usually know when something in my life doesn't feel right, even if it takes me a while to admit it. I took me years to get to know myself this well, and I'm sure there are still parts of me I haven't discovered yet. I've learned to trust myself. And that's probably one of the most important relationships I'll ever have. After all, I'm the one person I'll spend my entire life with.

What's something you've had to forgive yourself for?

Myself. Especially the younger version of me. For a long time, I was quite hard on him. I blamed him for mistakes he made and for choices I later wished he'd made differently. But he was struggling much more than I gave him credit for. He was trying to understand his identity while also trying to hide it. He wanted to fit in. he wanted to be like everyone else. And for a long time, he couldn't accept who he was. At some point, during a really difficult time in my life, I stopped asking "Why did you do that?". And started asking "What were you going through?". That changed a lot for me. Because once I understand him, there wasn't much left to forgive. He was just trying to find his way. And today, I have a lot more love for that version of me than anger.

What's part of yourself you've learned to appreciate as you've gotten older?

Being different.

When I was younger, I wanted the opposite. I wanted to fit in. To be like everyone else. Being different felt like something that made life harder. Today, I see it completely differently. I like that I think differently. That I question things. That I don't want what everyone else wants. I've realized that some of the things I once wished I could change about myself are actually the things I value most today. I don't want to fit in anymore. I just want to be myself. It took me quite a long time to be able to say that and actually mean it.

What do you want more of in your life right now?

More experiences. I want to travel more. See more of the world. Go to places I've never been, meet people I wouldn't normally meet and experienced things I can't experience sitting at home. I think I've reached a point where I want to collect more memories. Not things. Memories. The kind you randomly think about years later and smile. There is still so much of the world I haven't seen and so much I haven't experienced yet. And I don't want to keep saying "one day". I want to actually go and live it.

If money didn't matter, would you still be building emolon?

Absolutely.

I'd actually build it even bigger. Money matters, of course. emolon has to become a real business if I want to give it the reach and possibilities I imagine for it. but money isn't the reason I'm building it. I genuinely believe in what emolon could become. The idea that something I create could be there for someone at exactly the right moment - when they feel alone, when they're struggling, or when they simply need someone - means a lot to me. Even if money wasn't part of the equation, I'd still want to create that. I'd still write. I'd still record. I'd still have ideas at ridiculous hours and want to turn them into something real. So yes. I'd still be building emolon. Probably white even fewer excuses to stop working on it.

What's the part of building emolon nobody sees?

The struggle.

People see a website, a product, a photograph or a finished idea. They don't see everything that came before it. The evenings spent working on something only to delete it and start again. The ideas that don't work. The moments when I'm completely convinced I've found the answer, only to question everything again the next day. Building something from nothing can be incredibly exciting. But it can also be exhausting. There is no one standing next to me saying, "Yes, this is going to work.". A lot of the time, I simply have to trust that what I'm building is worth building. And keep going. I think that's the part people don't see. Behind everything that looks finished is usually a lot of uncertainty, work and starting over.

Why did Borrow a Friend have to be the first product?

Because there was a time when I needed one myself. Not someone to fix my life or tell me what I was doing wrong. Just someone who could sit beside me ans say: Hey, I'm proud of you. You're good enough. And you don't have to change the world today.

I think sometimes that's what we need most. Someone who stays for a while. Someone who listens. Someone who reminds us that we don't have to carry everything on our own. I couldn't find that when I needed it. So Borrow a Friend felt like the most natural place for emolon to begin.

What would make you walk away from emolon?

I don't think I would. You know... it took me a long time to find this path. Years ago, I built a business that other people convinced me could work. I listened to them, even though somewhere inside I always felt like I should be going in a different direction. It didn't work. The business went bankrupt. That experience taught me a lot, but probably the biggest lesson was to listen to myself. And that's what feels different about emolon. This time, nobody had to convince me. I know why I'm building it. I know what I want it to become. And for the first time, I feel like I've found the direction I was looking for all along. It took me a long time to get here. So why would I walk away?

How big do you really want emolon to become?

As big as it can become.

I don't want to build something small just for the sake of keeping it small. If emolon can genuinely help people, then I want it to reach as many of them as possible. Millions. My absolute dream would be fifty million people using emolon. Fifty million people in different countries, with completely different lives, who somehow found something here that made their life a little better. That number sounds almost ridiculous when we're standing at the very beginning. But I like big dreams. And I'm not afraid to say that I want emolon to become something big. I don't know if we'll reach fifty million. But I know I'm going to build as if we can.

You're 33 and still building your life. What do you hope it looks like ten years from now?

I hope I'm still building it.

I don't think I ever want to reach a point where I look around and think, That's it. I'm done. Ten years from now, I hope I've seen much more of the world. I hope I've collected hundreds of memories I don't have yet. Met people who changed me. Been to places I can't even name today. I hope emolon has become something much bigger than it is now and has found its way into the lives of millions of people. But more than anything, I hope I'm happy. Not successful on paper. Not living a life that looks impressive from the outside. Genuinely happy with the person I am and the life I've built around me. I hope I'm surrounded by people I love. I hope I'm still curious. still emotional. still dreaming ridiculosly big. And I hope 43-year-old me can look back at the person I am today with the same kindness I can finally give to the younger version of myself. Maybe he'll think:

You didn't know exactly where you were going. But you kept going. And I look where it took us. I think I'd like that.

That's why our claim isn't just a tagline. It's a reminder:

Return to yourself. Live more.