an entrepreneur and CEO? with Thom Wernke

And we made it to the C-suite! Yes, my guest this week is the Founder and CEO of Startdock, Thom Wernke. Funny enough in this episode we’ll question the role of CEO and what it actually means, spoiler it’s just a role. For those thinking, what is Startdock? Startdock is a coworking space where community is everything. Startdock and its Dockers believe it takes a community to grow a company. At StartDock, tenants are promised flexible contracts and the ability to scale up and down with their workspace adapting to their journey. With 4 amazing locations (5th one is on the way), an active startup community and that believe that your business will grow because of the StartDock environment, it truly is the place to be for up-and-coming entrepreneurs.

On this interview we spoke about:

• How Startdock selects the cities for their locations
• Starting a company with multiple founders
• Thom’s organic journey into becoming CEO
• The weight (or lack of weight) of a title
• Accelerator programs? Yey or Nay?
• Being an eternal student, the situational aspect of teaching
• Startdock’s journey into becoming a B-corp

Want to learn more about Thom and Startdock? Here are some links:

Startdock’s Website

Startdock’s Instagram

Thom’s Linkedin

Thom’s blog post about the event in London

B-corp and the B-lab certification

Here are Thom’s recommendations:

‘Scaling-Up, how a few companies make it and why the rest don’t’ by Verne Harnish

‘Over Routines’ a podcast by Arie Boomsma

‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie

‘Sapiens, A brief history of Humankin’d by Yuval Noah Harari

‘The Joe Rogan Experience’, a podcast by Joe Rogan

Special thank you to Ro Halfhide for the music on this show!

Want to support the pod?
Follow us on Instagram, Linkedin and support the show on Buy me a Coffee. We are currently looking for sponsors, if you know someone or are a local businesses in the Rotterdam area that would like to know about our sponsoring plans, reach out to us here.