Leuphana founders: Jan Wanderer - "In crises there is potential to help"

2020-10-19 Pleasant travelling does not have to cost a fortune. With his startup reisetopia, Leuphana graduate Jan Wanderer wants to show people the way. The power behind the young company was most recently demonstrated during the outbreak of the Corona pandemic.

Jan Wanderer studied Business Administration and Digital Business at Leuphana. He is co-founder of the company reisetopia. ©Leuphana
Jan Wanderer studied Business Administration and Digital Business at Leuphana. He is co-founder of the company reisetopia.

March 11, 2020 - The World Health Organization declares Coronavirus a pandemic. Many airports are at a standstill and flights home are limited: what are you supposed to do if you are still abroad? All travelers were looking for answers to the same question: Will I get home? - because this scenario had never been seen before. reisetopia, the young company of business administration alumni Jan Wanderer, was not prepared for this situation, but decided to see it as an opportunity. It positioned itself as a contact point for stranded people. In addition to blog entries with tips and updates for the best way home, a service mail was added. "We received a flood of e-mails," Wanderer recalls. His company had already learned from the Air Berlin bankruptcy: "In crises there is potential to help. Back then, too, reisetopia was able to position itself as a contact point for people seeking help, helping out when uncertainties arose and in return increasing its reach. 

For Wanderer, it was not always clear that he would become the founder of a start-up, "it was a slow process," he explains. His business administration studies at Leuphana College played an essential role in this process. In his self-chosen Minor Digital Business, the founder flourished. What should a website look like? How do SEO and affiliate marketing work? Today, he takes care of these very areas in his company. "Leuphana offers a lot of founding spirit," Wanderer explains. Above all, his professors in the Minor were important for his development, as they "were very supportive and gave helpful tips."

The founding of the start-up took a long way and was born out of the idea to show that pleasant travel is possible even with a limited budget. The team originally aimed to be able to finance their own travel through work - today Jan Wanderer is able to help many people out of crises through his network.