Conner blossoms in front of the technology cupboard in his children’s room. He proudly shows off his professional equipment for producing videos, podcasts and advertising photos: the controller and glasses for the drone, the mobile teleprompter, the case for the power supply.
The 14-year-old estimates that the whole thing is worth around 15,000 euros. He says this very matter-of-factly, without showing off. For him it is a work tool.
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Almost a year ago, when he was still 13, Conner Pirck founded his own company. The student from a community on the outskirts of Hamburg is probably one of the youngest founders in Germany. You can’t know for sure because age isn’t recorded centrally anywhere.
Conner films events, photographs products and produces posts for social media on the computer. A well-known sales trainer, a boarding school, a business association and even his own father are among his customers.
Order from the sales trainer
Conner is a polite and friendly boy. He is eloquent and reports freely about the stones on his path. Anyone who listens to Conner will learn what is possible in Germany with motivation, perseverance and the right support from home. But he also has an idea of the problems with entrepreneurship in this country.
“You are your only limit,” this saying from sales trainer Dirk Kreuter hangs above Conner’s bed. Below is a photo of him with the words: “If you always do the same thing, you will always get the same results.”
Kreuter, who fills halls with thousands of spectators with his motivational speeches, is a star for Conner. And he was one of his first customers. Conner accompanied his father to a Kreuter conference in Dubai and met his father’s social media team there.
He was then commissioned to make a film of a sales event in Bonn. “I just thought: Oh my God, how cool is that,” Conner enthuses.
Founder reports on stupid sayings at school
When he talks about his work and explains the tricks of his technology and computer programs, he smiles. When he talks about school, he gets serious. Not because the eighth grader doesn’t care about learning.
He improved his grade point average by one and a half grades to a straight B within a year. That was the “deal” with his parents so that they would support him in starting the company.
But when asked about his classmates, Conner lets out a deep sigh. “They just can’t handle the fact that I’m an entrepreneur,” he says. He reports on stupid sayings in the playground and on supposed millions in his account.
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Classmates used Photoshop to create a “stupid meme” of him loving the Chancellor. He saw him at a business day. Only two girls ever said “respect” to him. “The others are all very jealous,” says Conner.
He’s glad he has a friend in the neighborhood. “We ride around on our bikes together or sit in the garden by the fire and talk. I find that much nicer than playing computer games.”
And Conner has his family: He gets along “really well” with his sister Kaitlyn, who is two years older, and with his parents too.
“A real entrepreneurial mindset training”
Conner’s father, Lars-Hendrik Pirck, picked up the reporter from the train station in his white Porsche Taycan and took her to his own company premises in Ahrensburg near Hamburg. Pirck designs and sells branded promotional items – from golf bags for BMW to sweatshirts and coffee mugs for Aida cruises.
The proud father repeatedly posts photos and videos with his son on his social media accounts. “What would have happened to you if you hadn’t gone to school at 14 – but to the family business days?” he asks in one post.
And further: “That’s exactly what our son Conner did. No skipping a beat. No excursion. Rather: real entrepreneurial mindset training.” He would also like to thank the school for the leave of absence and the supportive attitude towards entrepreneurship.
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Lars-Hendrik Pirck married an American, spends a lot of time in the USA both privately and professionally and says: “I know how hard we still have to work on our attitude in this country.”
Conner’s mother, Kirsten Pirck, feels the same way. The trained interior designer, who grew up in Los Angeles, started with the youngest. At the dinner table at home, she reports in fluent German about an afternoon course she offers at a primary school.
The course says a lot about how she and her husband raise their children. It revolves around the topic of “Growth Mindset”. It should be possible to view challenges as opportunities and mistakes as learning opportunities. “’I’m bad at math’ is a sentence from the fixed mindset that limits children,” says Kirsten Pirck. “’I’m not that good at math YET’ – a sentence like that opens completely different doors.”
Entrepreneurial tailwind from parents
Conner’s parents’ home gives him entrepreneurial tailwind – just like it does for many founders. The Bertelsmann Foundation, for example, examined the origins of 1,800 start-up teams in Germany and found that family counts.
38 percent of the founders had at least one parent who was self-employed. One in four even ran a company with employees. The scientists conclude that mothers and fathers are mentors and role models at the same time.
Making role models visible, even in schools – that is the aim of initiatives such as Start-up Teens or the German Founder’s Prize for pupils. They call for young people to get excited about entrepreneurship at an early age in order to stimulate the German economy.
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In any case, Conner still has a lot planned for his young company. “Porsche would be a dream customer for me,” he enthuses and already has an idea: “I could start making advertising films for the dealers.” First of all, he would like a new, even better camera and “more visibility for more customers”.
Conner himself wants to be an entrepreneur. A family court judge came to this conclusion last fall. After his parents had supported his application to found a company, Conner had to go there again alone.
“She wanted to know if I really wanted this or just my dad,” says Conner. He wanted. And a few weeks later he got the green light for his small business. As a child, he can now earn 10,000 euros a year tax-free.
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After lunch, Conner swaps his yellow polo shirt for a white dress shirt. He has an appointment with Schleswig-Holstein’s digital minister in Kiel. Was he nervous before such a meeting? “No, I’m actually relaxed about it,” says Conner.
After all, he had already taken rhetoric courses and had no problems with presentations on stages. He’s happy that he doesn’t have to go to school anymore today. He is exempt from work because of his appointments as an entrepreneur.
