Erik Ammann

Erik is the founder of Red Orka, a circular baby clothing company. with its mission to save energy and resources.

Where did the idea for Red Orka come from?

My grandfather started making baby clothing in 1957 with the aim for high quality and long lasting garments. The company still exists and with fast fashion as a competitor I wondered if we could offer this great quality to more people. By using a subscription model I not only can offer one garment to more customers we also make an environmental impact.

The Name Red Orka comes from the dutch redden which means save in Englisch and Orka is Icelandic and means energy that makes us energy savers

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

I don’t have a typical day. Every day is different and very exciting, there are so many possibilities and being a startup we have the advantage of being flexible. That’s what I like about starting a company it definitely never is boring

How do you bring ideas to life?

Just do it.

What’s one trend that excites you?

Subscription based business excite me a lot. I find it interesting to watch the slow but accelerating move towards a subscription based economy.

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

I try to meditate for 5 minutes several times a day in between my meetings or my workflow

What advice would you give your younger self?

If you can dream it, it’s real! And don’t let your self district from others insecurity

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

The corona measurements which include QR codes for entering any public space or restaurants, sports, etc. are an indirect tool from the government to force you to get vaccinated. I am vaccinated and I see the point but others don’t and that needs to be respected.

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

I do take lots of time for my self go into nature for a weekend by myself and reflect and also come up with new tactics.

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

There are plenty but I think combining retail with online is a strategy that we stand out and the customer appreciates since we offer Romper for subscription we basically offer a new way of consuming baby romper and being in shops allowed us to be in direct contact with our customers.

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

In the beginning, I tried to participate in lots of events for impact entrepreneurs where I always fail and I feel a bit broken that “experts’ ‘ have declared my business as not good enough. I luckily realized that this was my ego being hurt and has nothing to do with my business and that is how I overcome any other failure even if a product was rejected and not right, I knew it’s just a step closer to success.

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

Since I am very interested in subscriptions, I think there are plenty of interesting business possibilities out there, like a subscription box for medicine or vitamins would be interesting also I think the erotic industry could benefit from the subscriptions model as well.

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

I bought shoes I am absolutely in love with

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

I use Trello with my colleagues. This way we all know what we need to do and have an overview of how it proceeds. We use a scrum method. So we get together every Monday and share what we would like to achieve and how and on Friday we come together and reflect. During the week we check the status on Trello for the status of the projects.

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

The Forever transaction from Robbie Kellman Baxter, it’s about about subscription-based businesses and why it has more benefit for customers and for companies as well. Read it it is a cracker.

What is your favorite quote?

Just do it!

Key Learnings:

• Put your ego aside, in business the ego is irrelevant and even a break.
• Just do it, it is as easy as this. Sometimes people overthink scenarios and go through all the possibilities that could go wrong instead of just doing it and learning if they fail.
• Subscription-based business is the future.