Dennis Wohlfarth

Dennis Wohlfarth is the co-founder of Accointing. A German, 27-year-old, Ph.D. candidate in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Stuttgart that loves German cars, beers, dogs & project management. Dennis is your usual German stereotype except for two things: my love for shrimp avocado tacos and cryptocurrency taxes.

Where did the idea for Accointing come from?

After heavily focusing on trading with different wallets and exchanges and needing to report my taxes, I started to do some digging about the different tools available that helped people report taxes. Figured out that it was an extremely painful process and I believed with the right people, we could build something better. I talked with my friends that were also trading crypto (now co-founders) about my situation. They agreed on the painful process it was to do taxes at that time for crypto and decided to take part on what it is now Accointing.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

My day consists of cycles (basically because our team is spread out across the world): dev, design thinking, and marketing. I focus most of my time on operations and product development, but I also take part in other departments: finance and marketing. My day starts by reviewing current tasks assigned to developers focusing on web and infrastructure as well as the app. Then, I will provide feedback. Later on, I elaborate schemes for upcoming features and assign tasks for the design team to come up with the wireframes and basically make my mock ups “sexy”. These are all based on customer research analysis. Then I will meet up with the business development team and marketing to understand the upcoming sales and marketing plans and give my two cents about it. This is all feasible due to a 0 procrastination rate that I manage to endure due to a high intake of coffee.

How do you bring ideas to life?

This is a very good question. I guess it all depends on what the idea is all about. I guess bringing an idea to life relies on 3 key elements: grit, good people and vision. If you manage to get those right, you’ll probably make your idea happen.

What’s one trend that excites you?

Being in the cryptocurrency space, there are a lot of things that excite me. However, I feel that the whole idea of institutions trying to conceptualize how to approach digital currency taxes makes me happy. Not because taxes make me happy, but because of the implications it has for the crypto space. Stronger policies on crypto mean a further validation of cryptocurrency as a monetary asset. I just hope that the institutions manage to talk with the right people on what are the best ways to address this. From our end, we are doing everything in our way to help guide the process.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

That’s easy. 3Ms: Manage Meetings with Minutes. Every meeting that I attend to has to have an agenda so we can go back to it later. From every meeting there must be a minute to define blocks and next steps. With that, you always follow up on every issue or key point of your entire project efficiently. Time management is key for success.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Buy more Bitcoin.

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

Tesla and electric cars are not the solutions to climate change.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Check everything over and over again and don’t be afraid to rethink everything.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

We manage to get great people not limiting ourselves to our geographical location or educational background. We hire based on passion and experience, and not degrees. Currently working with people from 5 different countries, speaking over 10 languages amongst us all, everyone focused on what they like the most.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

At the beginning of the Project, we decided to use one USP that didn’t depend on us but on a partnership. Relying on others for your product is extremely counterproductive as they might not be willing to push as hard as you want. We learned that the hard way, costing us to miss our first tax season.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

A converter for CSV downloads from different exchanges which the user can easily import if they want to track their portfolio without giving away their API keys.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

Just now, I bought $100 worth of Bitcoin. Believe in what you’re doing and invest in it.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?

Google Calendar, Figma, Slack, and Gitlab. They are my world. I LITERALLY use it for everything.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

What is your favorite quote?

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t know it well enough”-Albert Einstein

Key Learnings:

• It’s important to set up a routine and follow-through. It is important to also know when to stop and think things through
• Rome wasn’t built in a day nor will your project
• Make sure you surround yourself with people you cherish and respect both personally and professionally