On pages 148-151 we interview the entrepreneurs behind five different start-ups in fashion, art and design in Europe and the US. The Design Research Company, a design agency that focuses on it’s users needs by Bianca Bender and Pia Drechsel, is one of them and this is the continuation of their interview:


What is your weakness?

It’s probably coffee and cigarettes. Also after two years of intensively working together, we have really developed our own language. Especially in times of stress, we understand each other without having to say too much – for others it just sounds weird.

What is your strength?

Our strength lies in understanding people and it is even growing through our work. Our aim is to bring together people from different disciplines and help them create ideas together.

What did you dream of becoming, as a child?

Pia: A rooftiler. To be able to sit on roofs all day and enjoy the view.

Bianca: A princess.

How did it all start?

We started to collaborate at some point during 2010 while working for the Creation Center of the Telekom Innovation Laboratories. The idea to start up a business from there was just a logical step. And then it all went pretty fast.

How many hours a day do you approximately work?

We try to keep it down to 8-9 hours a day. But well, it doesn’t work out that way.

What were the greatest uncertainties when you started? Your certainties?

With the Deutsche Telekom we already had a pretty good customer when we started.

We work in a design area that is not very well known and as innovation is often a topic for big settled companies it was quite frightening at the beginning.

In Germany design is often still connected to making things pretty, but the conceptional work or the process of change is left out of the picture.

„Crisis, crisis, crisis“ it’s all people are talking about… do you care?

So far crisis has not touched us, but we also plan for harder times. As long as our company is still small we are flexible enough to adjust to new circumstances. The crisis mostly affects bigger companies with employees to worry about.

We like our work and we are good in it.

Your success: How much of it has been “hard work”, how much “luck”?

60% 40%

Finish the sentence „More important than my career is…“

Pia: Being satisfied with what I have accomplished in the end of the day. And not to be unsatisfied, if that day was spent not working.

Bianca: a lot. But as my job is something I’m really into, I couldn’t leave it as well.

…more info?

We are experienced in different national and international design projects, with focus on the development of tools and methods to deep dive into consumer worlds. In order to find latent needs, the company analyses and visualises different peoples life circumstances and consequently builds up new and innovative ideas based on these insights. We support different companies and industries in processes of innovation development and research on trends. To achieve that we conduct creative workshops in which we bring together the users and the developers of new services and products and make them play around with their visions, trends and future scenarios, to create new ideas.

Also we deliver our knowledge at universities.

Thank you!

Order your copy of issue 4 at mag@horstundedeltraut.com!