On the path to new shores

Michael Kornfeld, former Managing Director of a web-agency in Berlin and long-time president of the AUP (Association Of Uninteresting People), is continuing his journey into the heart of interactive media. On the very day of the official launch of his new company "str-act!", Inside Insight met with him in Berlin for an exclusive interview.

InsIns: Mr. Kornfeld, it has been about half a year since you left the web-agency. What have you been doing in the last couple of months?

Kornfeld: Having a terribly good time! [grins] Well, I have been quite busy setting up str-act! I crafted the business plan, secured funding -- str-act! has been selected for a subsidy by the German authorities --, built the website and made all marketing activities like the folder ready for the launch.

InsIns: What exactly will str-act! be offering?

Kornfeld: "str-act!" is going to be a consulting agency for interactive marketing and business strategy. It specialises in creating new strategies, concepts and solutions for interactive media, cross-media marketing and e-business.

InsIns: The name sounds a bit awkward to us. Why did you choose that name and how does it fit with the core proposition of the company?

Kornfeld: Well, I really gave it a lot of thought, and I truly believe the name makes a lot of sense. "str-act!" comprises "strategy" and "action", so the name actually describes the philosophy of the company very well. The proposition is based on the observation that most web-projects and e-ventures fail because they lack a proper strategy. It really still surprises me a lot that so many well-run, respectable companies seem to throw out all their experience and common sense when it comes to the Internet. I often sense some kind of panic, like "we have to be online" - though nobody actually seems to know what they want to achieve on the Internet in the first place. So str-act! will help them figure that out - and if they so decide, str-act! will also take care that the strategy is implemented the way it should be.

InsIns: So str-act! is going to be a pretty big agency, then?

Kornfeld: No. The company will deliberately be pretty small in order to remain flexible and to keep overheads down. I will primarily use my broad network of contacts with very capable freelancers and work together with them to implement the strategies that str-act! develops. Keeping the company small will enable us to make much better offers than comparable agencies.

InsIns: What will your prospective clients be? Who are you going to adress primarily?

Kornfeld: I think that in terms of our size as well as our background and experience, we will be most appealing to clients that we define as "the big small ones and the small big ones." I don't think that the grocer around the corner will employ us, simply because he is probably not going to think that they need something like a web-strategy in the first place. Really big international companies on the other hand will have their agency-networks take care of the interactive media as well, and we will be too small for them. But I think that str-act! and our network of specialists will be very attractive for medium-sized and larger companies, as well as single brands within multi-national corporations.

InsIns: What will be your main marketing activities and what will be available on the website?

Kornfeld: Well, actually the website is one of our main marketing activities. It offers a tremendous amount of information on our company, including our philosophy, case studies and an overview of the services that we offer. I think the site will answer most questions that prospective clients might have, and I am truly convinced that it serves as a good example of what a properly thought-through website can offer to a business. I really think that an agency-website must be living proof of what the agency believes in; if an agency is not able to create a good site for itself, why should a client believe that it will do a better job for himself?

InsIns: Are there already any clients for str-act! in sight?

Kornfeld: Well, yes, luckily we are already working with a very innovative company in Austria in order to help them set-up their business strategy. Further information and any other news will be available in the News-section of our website www.str-act.com.

InsIns: Thank you and good luck with your new venture.

Kornfeld: Thank you very much.