Milton Berle is credited with saying –If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door. In a very simple and direct way this quote conveys the essence of being an entrepreneur.

I’m not a carpenter. The last time I built something out of wood, I was in my 9^th grade wood working class. I believe I built a TV stand. That TV stand took weeks of measuring, sawing, sand papering, gluing and hammering before it was finished. It took a lot of effort and hard work, along with a lot of trial and error. I’m sure making a door would involve the same arduous process. Especially if you’ve never tried to build one before. Being an entrepreneur means being someone who isn’t afraid of hard work. Putting in the hours to see your project through until the end, no matter what, beats money or talent any day of the week. Those hours of research, or constructing a prototype, or practicing your presentation or attending hundreds of networking events are all helping you to improve your product and move you closer to reaching your goal.

To me, this quote also speaks about how you’re not always going to get what you want and you have to make the most of what you do get. In the business world your first try is rarely successful, which in my opinion is a great thing. The new person to the industry with a new idea will be kept at arms length at best and laughed at and ridiculed at worst. Good entrepreneurs don’t let it stop them from achieving their goals, and great ones use it as a motivational springboard to reach even higher.

For the last 6 years I’ve worked to bring the first urban entertainment center (UEC) to Berlin, Germany. I’ve been very open about my steep learning curve of risk adverse German business culture. To say it’s been difficult would be a big understatement. But I used the setbacks to constantly reanalyze and improve my concept and make new connections to those who share my vision for creating a location that allows visitors to shape and create their own memories and experiences. In 2015 I was a little quieter on social media than in the past for a number of reasons. The most important was that I was working on my own variation of Milton Berle’s quote. For me, 2016 was “If they don’t provide the opportunity to use their building, then get your own”.

For 6 years I worked tirelessly to convince a building owner to provide me with a few thousand square meters for my UEC concept and I always was denied. I finally realized the only person who would provide me with what I needed was me. With that thought in mind I changed focus from being the CEO of FUNomenal GmbH, a single entertainment center, to a real estate developer working on a total concept that includes FUNomenal.

So ladies and gentlemen, introducing FUNomenal Ventures GmbH first project, the 18,466 square meter Fabrik34 of the Gartenfelder project.