Crowdfunding since 2010

In order of appearance and stay.
In 12 years, many people have already accompanied and enriched Startnext. The organizational structure and cooperation is to be understood organically, where hierarchies hardly play a role. That's why you can see the team here in chronological order.

There are actually four teams, represented by the colors yellow, blue, pink and orange.

  • Yellow - Team Business Management
  • Blue - Team Platform Development
  • Pink - Team Public Relations
  • Orange - Team Community

Denis Bartelt
Chief Executive Officer (Founder)

Denis founded his first company in 2003, the software agency tyclispo.net. In 2009 he started to develop Startnext together with Tino and in 2010 the company was founded. Denis is a trained photographer and co-founder of the Entrepreneurs Pledge.

Tino Kreßner
Cooperation Manager (Founder)

During his studies in media technology and communication sciences Tino founded his first company together with friends - an agency for film productions. For Startnext he is on the road a lot and continues to expand our network.

Cathleen Knohf
Chief Technology Officer

Cathleen has been on board as backend developer for Startnext since the beginning and takes care that all functions run on Startnext. Before that she studied media production in Dresden.

Markus Streichardt
Community & Cooperation

Markus started as a project consultant at Startnext and now takes care of our cooperations when setting up a cofunding campaign. In addition, as Community Manager, he is the contact person for processes and technology in the community team and can contribute his accumulated knowledge here.

Ricarda Delock
Management Assistant

Ricarda holds all the strings together for us and is responsible for the topic of personnel. She studied cultural work and founded the non-profit initiative Kultür Potsdam on the side.

Amos Bühler
Frontend Developer

Amos develops and optimizes Startnext so that you can use our platform on all devices and in all browsers. He has studied media and information science.    

Charlott Kaliga
Events & Compliance Manager

Charlott works in project consulting and supports our starters in the realization of their projects. She is also the contact person for events, lectures and workshops as well as everything related to compliance. Charlott studied nonprofit management and worked for nebenan.de and Doctors Without Borders.

Cheyenne Lindemann
Business Intelligence Analyst

Chey came to the world of social entrepreneurship through the On Purpose program. With us, she transforms data into information and creates new knowledge from it.

Joy Lange
Project Consultant

You will meet Joy in the project consulting and in the Startnext Academy. In her free time she likes to pursue creative projects like music, macramé or jewelry making and is on fire for topics around Black Culture, Womanism, LGBTQIA+ and many more due to her personal context as a queer Afro-German woman.

Karl Johann Schubert
Chief Information Officer / SRE

After several startup projects, Kajo found his way to Startnext. He gained experience as an administrator in his school days and subsequently studied business informatics. At the same time, he became involved in the development of responsible managers. Now he hunts well-hidden bugs and wants to stay one step ahead of the adversities of a networked world.

David Warmbold
Showmaster 

The Startnext platform has a lot to offer, but can also be overwhelming. That's why David entertainingly imparts everything worth knowing as well as tips and tricks for crowdfunding in the Acamdey and guides through our Launch Day Late Show. As a multimedia mediator, he uses his skills to prepare the starters in the best possible way for their project launch.

Thekla Wilkening
Chief Communications Officer

Thekla has experienced it herself: crowdfunding can change lives! In 2014, she founded Kleiderei and was successful with it on Startnext. Since then, she has been committed to sustainable startups because she is convinced that they bring the necessary impetus to shape the world in a positive way. At Startnext, she is responsible for the communication strategy.

Friederike Lindner
Product Owner

Friederike is our Product Owner. This means that she coordinates, prioritizes and ultimately ensures that all valuable requirements, wishes and ideas on the Startnext platform become a technical reality. In her free time, she is very active in the electronic (sub)culture and is committed to awareness, education and addiction prevention.

Mils Gan
Communication Designer

Mils is the communication designer at Startnext. She comes from Malaysia and has been living in Germany for three years. She used to work as an art director for different fashion magazines. At Startnext, she is responsible for everything related to design and creativity. In her free time she likes to watch horror movies or thrillers.

Alison Kleine-Peterson
Social Media Content Creator

Alison is primarily responsible for the Instagram channel in the Public Relations team. She is a Cologne native with all the trimmings: outgoing, likes to talk and laugh. Alison also looks after her own company "Kiobaj - Cloth Diapers & Consulting", which she founded in 2020.

Elias Groesel
Frontend Developer

Together with Amos, Elias takes care of optimizing the presentation of Startnext and implementing new designs and usage concepts. Elias has already shown that he can turn ideas into reality with his own startup: In 2019, he launched the sustainable coffee brand PURPLE BIKE COFFEE.

Sophie Gnest
Project Consultant

After Sophie launched her own crowdfunding campaign with pack&satt 2021, she now spreads the Startnext spirit as a project consultant and at events. As a communication designer, she loves getting into different heads and providing motivation for future ideas. In her free time, she dances her way through a wide variety of styles.

Stella Neidhöfer
Project Consultant

Stella loves to think creatively and solution-oriented. Through her experience as a psychologist and founder of a social startup, she supports the project starters as a project consultant with us. Her eyes light up when it comes to projects for children and families as well as topics like digital mental health or mindfulness.

Who we are missing:

In September 2022, we unfortunately had to lay off 1/3 of our team in response to the ongoing recession and thus lack of funding. We are independently funded.

For us, this was a big cut. We are now slowly recovering from this and fighting with the remaining team to keep Startnext meaningful and more helpful than ever before. Read more about that at the blog (german).

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