Long-term Entrepreneurship in Stormy Times

We talked to Christoph M. Mueller on how CreditGate24 is financing each and everyone and he had the following to say about it. 

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times?

Christoph M. Mueller: Due to the massive restrictions in everyday life, planning has become almost impossible. Life, as it was known in our country until the beginning of 2020, is not possible at the moment. That puts pressure on my mood, but also on that of those around me. In 2020, we could see how quickly taken-for-granted things that our civilization had fought for over decades disappear or are destroyed within a very short time. It surprised me how a society could change so much in such a short time. That worries me.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded CreditGate24.

Christoph M. Mueller: As a lawyer who came into contact with entrepreneurship at an early age and acquired the financial industry’s practical tools in parallel at banks, it was always clear to me that I didn’t want to spend my whole life in the classic corporate world. CreditGate24 resulted from an idea to launch a new type of bank. However, based on various analyses, I then realized that the scope of planning and fundraising involved too much complexity. Therefore, we took the model of CreditGate24 from the bank idea and focused on it.

How does CreditGate24innovate? 

Christoph M. Mueller: Since I like to solve problems and I want to pursue this ambition at CreditGate24, we look for inefficiencies, lack of innovative offerings, or problems in our service sectors, which we then aim to establish in the market through newly developed solution approaches.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

Christoph M. Mueller: Besides the fact that institutional money, in particular, was almost unavailable at the beginning of the lockdown in March 2020 and, on the other hand, the federal government’s “free loans” made any normal business activity in the credit sector impossible, we are now facing a slight recovery. However, the burden of running a business in these times is definitely not without stress factors to overcome, and one struggles with additional “man-made” hurdles on a day-to-day basis in addition to the challenges that normally already exist.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

Christoph M. Mueller: The everyday life of an entrepreneur consists of many difficult decisions – even in normal times. Now you need a healthy dose of fatalism to set a course in everyday life where you cannot estimate whether it will no longer be applicable due to renewed structural change processes.

How do you deal with stress and anxiety? How do you project yourself and CreditGate24in the future?

Christoph M. Mueller: You seek balance in nature or in your close environment – you have to be able to let go. In theory, vacations would be quite a good option. But this option is currently only available under partly unattractive conditions.

Fear is a bad companion – it paralyzes and leads to making bad decisions.

Our company is doing everything in its power to remain focused on growth. There’s no way around it; otherwise, there’s no raison d’être.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Christoph M. Mueller: These are credit banks, banks, and maybe other market place lenders. Only if the customer derives great benefit from our services is when he will consider us preferentially in his daily life. That is the ultimate goal.

Your final thoughts?

Christoph M. Mueller: In fair weather phases, even bad entrepreneurs can be successful. When things get stormy, the successful usually separate from the rest. However, since so many market-distorting activities are currently ongoing from the state, there are a great number of protected areas that are no longer exposed to any or less risk(s) (media, pharma, online business, tech). This then has little to do with success.

Your website?

www.creditgate24.ch

www.cg24.com