Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 34 - Niao Wu, Co-Founder at Onyo
45 Plays7 months ago
This week, Sade welcomes Niao, the co-founder of Onyo. They talked about Niao's journey of relocating to Germany as an adult and establishing her business there. Despite not having a tech background, Niao offered valuable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs and highlighted the importance of first-generation immigrants starting their own companies.
Recommended
Transcript
Niall's Journey to Germany
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Women Talk Tech. Today, I'm joined by Niall, co-founder at Onyo, where we tell you all about her move to Germany as an adult and founding a company here. As someone from a non-tech background, Niall shares her top tips for getting started and why she would encourage first-generation immigrants to found their own company, too. I hope you love this episode as much as I did. So, Niall, tell me a little bit more about yourself.
00:00:40
Speaker
Hi, thank you. I'm very glad to be here. My name is Niau and I come from China originally and have been living in Germany for almost 15 years, I would say. And I'm the founder of annual. What do we do is we professionalize working from home for more than 100 million people in Europe and in the US. And yeah, there's a business and there's me.
00:01:02
Speaker
Amazing, amazing. And I'm sure we'll kind of dive into the topic of diversity and inclusion in the podcast, but just very briefly, what does it mean to you and why is it important?
Embracing Diversity and Overcoming Challenges
00:01:13
Speaker
The velocity for me, I would say it's the tolerance as well as a mature attitude of a human being as well as a society to accept the differences.
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, amazing, amazing. And yeah, let's dive into your kind of background, your story, because of course you didn't actually, you mentioned when we last spoke, you didn't actually go up in Germany and you traveled to Germany and relocated to Germany as an adult. Yeah, I guess why did you move here? And what was the reasoning behind the relocation? I think one of the most important thing is I would like to live in a society where I'm free to talk and free to think. And that's why I generally a few more
00:01:57
Speaker
attached or attracted by a democratic society. And why, especially Germany, it was just such a coincidence. I was searching for some countries where the education was good and where I could afford my study on my own. And Germany turned out to be the perfect combination of both.
00:02:19
Speaker
Oh, amazing. And what was your experience relocating? How did you find the, I mean, I can imagine it pretty, pretty hard, right, to move across the world, a country that also speaks little English, right? So yeah, how did you find it? So I was separated probably based in two views. One is the physical view, and the other one is the cultural
00:02:42
Speaker
cultural view on the whole thing. The physical view was like I came here with two heavy suitcases. That's basically all my belongings and that time alone and so arrived and I basically have to restart my life on myself. The cultural part I think
00:03:02
Speaker
For me it was not that tough at the moment or I didn't realize that probably there's a bigger issue than I thought because I was very curious person and I was just super excited about knowing new things.
00:03:26
Speaker
I was trying to indulge into the language so from the very beginning
00:03:34
Speaker
I rejected attending English classes, or I mean, lectures that is called in English. I prefer to attend everything in Germany and talk to local people. It was just shameless, you know. You didn't hold back. You literally went full-on, you know, let me just embrace everything about Germany. Exactly.
00:03:56
Speaker
but with some time I realized, okay, sure there's some differences and the differences doesn't always play a favorable role to us because for sure I behave sometimes differently or perceive things differently and sometimes I do not really think that people disguise that I have different thoughts or I behave differently but they would wonder like why you are different
00:04:25
Speaker
I think it is the nature of human beings that we are more inclined to accept ideas which are similar to our own. So I think that is a part that I have to struggle with a little bit at some point and as well also the recognition part because like values that the Asian society and the culture probably with a value more maybe have a lower
00:04:55
Speaker
value in the Western country. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes I was a little bit confused or was just kind of like fighting against that because that was my route and I do not want to lose it but to win in the new situation, to win the recognition, sometimes I have to behave more like Western. Yeah.
00:05:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, really interesting you said that there, because yeah, it's, you're not only moved from, you know, Asia to Germany with a difference in culture, but also difference in language. There was so much more there for you to kind of really embark on and really kind of take in. Sure, sure. So that was also a part of a very, very tough lesson for me.
00:05:38
Speaker
For sure, I came here not as a fluent German speaker. And all of a sudden I feel myself like a setback as a child. And at that time, my dream was I wish that one day I could speak like that little kid in the school. And it took me several years to overcome this, to become a really professionally fluent.
00:06:03
Speaker
And one thing is you can speak the language and the other thing is you can articulate yourself in that language. So that was like two huge steps I have to overcome myself and I put a lot of efforts there and I'm actually also happy with the results.
00:06:21
Speaker
Sometimes you feel the disadvantage in some constellations. But I think, generally speaking, I made it.
Founding Onyo in Germany
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. And one thing I love about your story is that you didn't just move to Germany and just stay here, you moved to Germany and founded your own company. So how did you find... I think that's one thing I would love to possibly... I know that when we spoke before, right?
00:06:43
Speaker
you would love to encourage more first generation immigrants to fund their own company outside of their home country. Very difficult and of course you've done it. How would you maybe describe your experience founding a company in Germany? Generally speaking I find Germany is a very founder friendly country because it took away so much financial issues or it gives you so much financial security.
00:07:07
Speaker
And I worked several years before I quit job and found the company. And so the first year, actually, I received a grant from the government to pursue my dream. So in some other countries, for instance, in China, we cannot even imagine that and probably receive some money from the private person or investors. But the government will not really take care of that. And you still have to survive while you are working hard on your company.
00:07:36
Speaker
So this is a very nice thing. And also to fund a company yourself in Germany, it's not such a big bureaucracy as many people said, actually.
00:07:46
Speaker
For me, I find it's quite easy to understand and it was just a few steps. I think even from the ecosystem itself, I would say in comparison to some countries like the US or China, the startup ecosystem here is a little bit more hidden. Do you have to know the right people to get in? Totally.
00:08:12
Speaker
in China, for instance, if you are in the right city, basically, if you do not care about that, you will listen about, you will hear about those things. You will be part of it somehow. But here you have to be more active and to connect with them, like, proactively. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, on that note, you know, that's one thing that I definitely do agree with, with what you said, you know, Germany is very founder friendly, and I do think they make it very
00:08:40
Speaker
somewhat easy for people to want to find their own company with the support they do offer, not just men, but also women as well. But one thing I loved about your story as well, you didn't just found a company in your field, you founded a tech company, a song with a non-tech background. So you really, you really dived into it. I love it, honestly. I guess, how did you find that? How did you find, you know, founding a tech company with a non-tech background? I do see a lot of people now doing this, so it's not as
00:09:06
Speaker
as uncommon, but how did you find this aspect of your founding journey? I think my approach is more problem-driven, so I saw the problem and I wanted to find a solution and if the solution is tech-driven and it's tech-driven, if it's not tech-driven, it's not tech-driven and it happened to be a tech-driven solution and so for me it's very obvious, okay, I cannot write codes myself.
00:09:32
Speaker
I have to find someone who can do that. So either it's a freelancer or it's a co-founder. So I think from a point of view, if it's a tech driven solution, then the co-founder should be at place. So that's why I found later my co-founder Jens and we were really happy to find each other and we are very happy also that we worked so well together.
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah. And how was that experience? Because I do think, you know, finding a co-founder is exactly like finding a husband or wife, right? You know, you're having a baby together, which is, of course, your start-up. And it does take a fair few amount of dates before you decide to get married, as such. How did you find your co-founder and kind of how was that experience? It's indeed a dilemma because it's a start
Finding the Right Co-founder
00:10:19
Speaker
-up. You cannot wait five years and deal with people and then make the decision.
00:10:24
Speaker
Um, but as well, if you find the wrong person, it was the time, right? So, um, my way was not straight forward. I would say, um, wasn't so critical about, about at the beginning or thinking like, okay, anyone who shared, shared their vision, we can work together and there was a some excuse that, um, but with the time I realized, okay, it has
00:10:51
Speaker
fit has to fit so and also the fit you can figure it out not through just the interviews yeah rather in real life collaborations so this is the way how I
00:11:05
Speaker
how I found Jans actually. I put her ad in different spaces and many people applied and some applicants were also very convincing from interview from CV and so on. So what I did was I started working with them together like for a short period of time and observe if it worked or not.
00:11:34
Speaker
Yeah, so it was more like a trial. And I guess, you know, I've spoken with so many other, and I'm sure there are so many other women out there who probably share a very similar experience to what you had, right? You have an idea, but you don't have the kind of skill set to solve that problem, right? Or not 100%. Sometimes it's also very difficult to have all the skills in one person. Right. That's, you know, that's like anything, right? You know, it's
00:11:58
Speaker
it would be very unlikely that that person can do everything. And also I do feel like even as a founder, you shouldn't need to have to do everything because then everything is dependent on you. You should be able to kind of split the workload or split the responsibilities and then that's how it works. So yeah, I just definitely agree that, and I'm sure there are so many other women out there that probably have a really cool idea, but just don't have the right skillset and maybe don't know how to find a co-founder to really help with that. Yeah, probably. I do agree.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And did you find any challenges here? Like, what was the main challenge for you in finding that co-founder? You mentioned that, you know, everyone assumed that, you know, that you were the one that was picked and you weren't the main idea provider. What was the main challenge in finding Jens? Yeah, I think it's a chicken and egg problem, right? So it depends also what kind of type of person the other co-founder is. Yeah.
00:12:51
Speaker
some people they need more security so they would like to join a company when there's a salary already at play and some are more eager to explore and to build up things that are on their own so I think the mentality is very important but it's very difficult to find the right person with the right skills and sharing the same vision so I think at some point you have to prioritize some of the things and secondly I think in my case it was
00:13:21
Speaker
It was advantageous at that time to have their concept worked out.
00:13:29
Speaker
like 90% already as I met my co-founder and there was already some base so it's not like I just have an idea and you did your job and enjoying my journey to build out a company. Yeah and you also have to know how to do everything because I only have the idea I don't know how to do anything else and that of course wasn't the case in your situation. Yeah yes yes so this is probably difficult but sometimes you probably also need this moment to
00:13:58
Speaker
guide you through the early phase. Probably not a co-founder is the best person. Some incubators does the job very well. But if someone wants
00:14:10
Speaker
can share your passion or has the same passion and has the skills that has that mentality. I would say that would be perfect, but I think the word is not perfect. Probably you need to separate the phases of dividing your journey into phases and in different phases. You probably need a different rules.
00:14:32
Speaker
as a company. Yeah that's interesting right because they say that about relationships as well you have you know that you have a different person for a different phase of your life but it's kind of like anything right as you grow and as the company grows it may be that you need a person for a different phase of the company and for a different time period so yeah I can really understand that part.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. And, you know, how do you I mean, you've done it yourself, but how do you think we can encourage more first generation immigrants to find their own company, especially in countries that are not their home? I mean, it's easy right to do it in your home country. You know, that would be not easy, easier. How do you think we can get more people to come to Germany and to come to other countries and do the exact same thing you've done? I think the most important thing is
00:15:17
Speaker
to open up that options or to show them that this is a good option. I think for me, the big challenge was, as I came to Germany, my only goal was to make a career, to be financially steady and settle down. Not already settle down, settle down, but to be financially well situated.
00:15:44
Speaker
And the safest way was for me to find a good job, well-paid job in an established company. And it took me quite a while to realize or to find out this in the perennial side of me. And also to gain the courage, to gain the space and gain this like a financial flexibility to try it out. Yeah.
00:16:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Wow, wow. And you know, what advice would you give to someone that is in the same situation you were in at the beginning of your career?
Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
00:16:23
Speaker
Or what advice do you wish someone would have given to you before you embarked on your founding journey? What would that be? Yeah, I think very useful would be to, I mean, especially in Germany, probably in the US and China less.
00:16:36
Speaker
to connect with the people who have funded company or like the incubators in early stage. I think, you know, the universities are also playing a great role there. And they connected the students early on with their startup scenery on the scene. And I think this is very, very, very helpful because once they get graduated and get into the corporate world and they were just in that bubble and probably never would come out.
00:17:05
Speaker
And so this is the one thing. And also to attend some hackathon or small programs just to get an idea how it feels. I think this is also very, very important. And the third thing is to make a financial plan for yourself and to see how much security I really need to
00:17:29
Speaker
yeah experience that or to try it out and once you know okay my expense amount is like that and my savings is like this and with that savings I could
00:17:43
Speaker
easily like survive for one or two years. Yeah. You will feel so much relieved and so much more, how to say, free to try new things out. Yeah, because I guess it kind of gives you the, I mean, most people are scared about being a founder because of the kind of maybe lack of money that it brings in the very beginning, right? So I think people shy away from that. Whereas if you're right, if you had the right savings, you had the right plan and you said, hey, I've got one year before I run out of all cash,
00:18:11
Speaker
And I'm going to give it a year to see if this works out. I think that would alleviate the pressure from people who want to really embark on this journey. Because that would be a concern for myself, right? How would this work? But I think knowing that you've got security for that amount of time gives you that time to really make it work or not, you know? Yes. Yeah, amazing. Well, honestly, thank you now for joining. I really, really enjoyed the conversation. And I really hope it encourages other people who are moving to different countries to really embark on a founding journey, especially in tech.
00:18:46
Speaker
you