Being an Entrepreneur seems to be like being a well known celebrity back in the days. But what does it really mean to be an entrepreneur and build something from scratch. Here’s my Story of becoming the entrepreneur…
Written by
Yannic Vollmer
Let me Introduce Myself
Alright, so you’re probably wondering, “Who is this guy, and why does he call himself an entrepreneur?” That’s a fair question, especially these days when it seems like everyone online is branding themselves as an entrepreneur and flaunting their million-dollar Instagram or Shopify accounts. But if you take a closer look, most of them are just trying to sell you something like, “The 5 Steps to Generate 7-Figures from Facebook Ads.”
Well, that’s not me. I’m not here to sell you any courses. And don’t get me wrong—you can definitely make seven figures or more with Facebook ads. But I’m confident you can achieve that without spending $997 on some “guru’s” so-called secrets.
What I’m going to share with you in the upcoming chapters is my real story. How I’ve built five businesses, some of which failed. How I got fired from five different 9-to-5 jobs. How I started from scratch, broke, and now run several businesses. I’ll share everything I’ve learned over the past 15 years of building various businesses and trying different approaches.
I’ve also decided to document my current journey of owning multiple businesses simultaneously. I’ll be sharing this journey weekly on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and all the major social media platforms, with the goal of providing real value to everyone who wants to be a genuine entrepreneur. To be clear, my mission as a content creator is to share valuable insights with at least one million people worldwide. So, you’ll probably see my face around quite a bit over the next few years—because I won’t stop until I achieve this goal. And guess what? All this value I’m sharing on social media is completely free. No hidden sales funnels leading you to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to access my content.
But let’s start from the beginning. Let me explain how I ended up creating this website and all the content on YouTube and other platforms to share my journey, which I call “On The Way Up”…
It really brings a smile to my face when I think back to where it all began…
Should I also talk about my childhood? I’m not sure if anyone would be interested in that part of the story…
Alright, let’s cover the basics and keep it brief.
I grew up in a small town in the southern part of Germany. I had a pretty normal, happy childhood. I wasn’t the best student (school bored the hell out of me, but I still managed to do alright). As I was following the “normal” path, I was always inspired by success stories. Hearing about people who made it all the way up would ignite a fire in me. So, while other kids were playing with LEGO or watching cartoons, I was dreaming up “business” plans in my fantasy world, which I think laid the foundation for my entrepreneurial mindset from an early age.
After school, I did an apprenticeship as an IT specialist. It was fun, and I learned a lot about technology and software development, which I was really passionate about at the time. But then I found myself sitting in an office thinking, “Is this what I have to do for the rest of my life?”
That realization hit me fast. I knew then that I wasn’t going to follow the traditional career path. Honestly, working a 9-to-5 job bored me sometimes—having to work on tasks I wasn’t interested in, without even understanding why they were important.
That’s when the dream of building my own business to support my lifestyle was born. I started offering Facebook services to businesses. Back in 2008, Facebook was still pretty new to the business world, and most companies had no idea how to use it. So, you can imagine what happened when a young kid like me started offering to manage it all for them…
Yeah, I got flooded with projects! I was working on my side gigs after my day job, making my first real money as an entrepreneur.
I finished my apprenticeship (with surprisingly good grades) and decided to go to college to learn more about technology and software development. Looking back, I’m not really sure why I chose that path—maybe it was for the girls…
But being a student wasn’t what I had expected. I thought it would be more like the crazy college parties you see in the United States. Instead, I ended up in the IT department, surrounded by a bunch of nerdy guys and almost no girls.
So, I used my downtime during classes to scale my business further. I expanded my offerings to include more digital services and online marketing for my clients. Things were going well; I was making enough money to support myself as a student, and I felt great.
Then something life-changing happened…
You must first learn to stand before you can walk...
I just realized I forgot to mention the name of my first company: it was called “BIVO Internet Agency.” I started it with one of my best childhood friends. As I mentioned before, we offered web development and online marketing services to our clients, and things went pretty well for both of us. We started this venture when we were just 16 and scaled it up until we were about 21.
One of the clients I landed through BIVO led me to my first wild adventure as an entrepreneur.
That client was the AFRTN (American Family Radio and Television Network). They hired me to develop their web platform, which was an online entertainment hub for streaming audio and video, with a focus on the Asian market. I saw a huge opportunity here—having a client that could potentially play in the big leagues once they launched the platform.
Keep in mind, this was back in 2010, long before Netflix, Spotify, or any on-demand entertainment services dominated the market. Imagine how groundbreaking it felt to work on something that could potentially revolutionize the entertainment industry. I was beyond excited, convinced this was my chance to become a well-known and highly successful entrepreneur.
And yeah, it was a wild ride.
We worked like crazy, putting in countless hours to turn this complex project into a reality. After a year of hard work for AFRTN, they offered me a leadership role within the company and a chance to work full-time for the New York-based startup. So, I decided to leave school and was ready to turn my dream into reality. And…
Well, it almost became a reality. We developed the platform and started looking for venture capital investors. (Funny story: one day, we received an offer from an investor who promised $1 billion in funding. We were like, “Holy crap… a billion dollars!” But it turned out that the investor was actually a warlord from Africa trying to launder dirty money from arms dealing. So yeah, those were some pretty crazy times…)
In the end, the entire company was sold to a large Asian enterprise, and just like that, my journey as one of the leaders of this incredible venture came to an end.
So, I found myself back in the German workforce…
Back to 9 to 5
Was the dream over? Maybe for a moment. I realized I needed to make some money, and I didn’t have a new business idea at the time to keep going as an entrepreneur.
So, I went searching for a new 9-to-5 job as an IT specialist and settled into a “normal” life. But my boss turned out to be a nightmare—living in some kind of fantasy world about how to run a business. And of course, there was no way he was going to listen to a 23-year-old kid like me.
I tried to stick it out in that hellish job, but after 10 months, I got fired. Why? Because that nightmare of a boss decided I wasn’t the right fit for the role…
Got Fired: The second
I thought, “Alright, onto the next adventure!” and got hired by a huge international company in the automotive industry to manage their internal IT. Basically, I was fixing tech problems for over 10,000 employees. Nothing glamorous, but it was nice to interact with different people every day.
I did learn something pretty eye-opening at that job. One day, I pitched an idea to a manager, and he replied, “Anyone with visions should go see a doctor.”
I remember thinking, “Did he really just say that to me? I need to find a new job…” But they beat me to it. Apparently, the old AFRTN website was still online, and my name was listed on the leadership page. The company’s directors thought I was some kind of corporate spy…
And, you guessed it—I got fired again. They even took the case to court, and I ended up having to pay a hefty fine. Even though the accusations were totally baseless, proving my innocence wasn’t easy.
Let’s just say, at that point, I was feeling pretty damn defeated.
Geting Fired and Fired and Fired...
Fired for the Third Time
What do you do after getting fired twice in two years? Well, you start looking for the next job—that’s what I thought, at least. So I told myself, “Let’s start from scratch.” I moved to a new city and got hired as a project manager at a digital agency. It seemed like I had finally found a work environment that suited me better.
But looking back, I probably should have taken some time to rest and recover from all the chaos of the previous years. Instead, just four weeks later, there I was—in a new city, with a new apartment, and a new job. But you know what they say, “Easy come, easy go.” Sure enough, after just six months, I was fired again. Why? Well, I have to admit, my performance wasn’t exactly stellar.
Fired for the Fourth Time (The Zoom Edition)
Thankfully, I managed to land another job at a different agency within two weeks. This quick turnaround allowed me to keep my new apartment and avoid going completely broke. Honestly, that job was a lifeline at the time.
For the first time in my life, I actually felt content working a 9-to-5 job. The colleagues were fantastic, the projects were engaging, and it finally seemed like I had found a place that worked for me.
I still dreamed of returning to the entrepreneurial lifestyle, but this job gave me some breathing room to figure out what kind of business I wanted to start next.
Then, after three years of good work, things began to change. The team dynamic shifted, mostly due to too many changes in the company’s structure. And then, during a Zoom call with my boss…
Yep, you guessed it—I got fired again.
I mean, what’s wrong with the business world? You work your ass off only to be told you’re no longer a good fit…
Yeah, I was pissed.
Fired for the Fifth Time
At this point, I still had no clue what kind of business to start next. So, I decided to give the 9-to-5 life one last shot. I got hired again at another digital agency… and to cut a long story short, it ended just like the previous four. I got fired.
I started to think maybe there was something wrong with me. Maybe I was thinking too much like an owner in businesses where I was just an employee… Or maybe my ideas seemed too out there. But damn, I knew those ideas would work if I had the chance to bring them to life.
Unfortunately, I never got the chance to show them how…
All Good Things Are Five
BUSINESSBY.CLICK
After working at three different digital agencies, I learned a lot about how to run an agency—or more accurately, how not to run one…
So, I decided to put those lessons to use and start my own digital agency right there in Stuttgart, Germany, where I had been working for all those other agencies. Together with an old colleague from one of those jobs, I founded a new agency called “Businessby.click.” I mean, come on—that’s a pretty awesome name, right?
But let me tell you, a great name isn’t everything. We really struggled to land our first clients, and the few we did get ended up ripping us off. We worked our asses off for them and barely made any money in return.
It was a mess. We just couldn’t find the drive to scale the business. My business partner, already fed up from years of being an employee and now disillusioned by the lack of success in our venture, decided to go back to university…
With that, the future of our young company was pretty much sealed, and we decided to shut it down.
THE BIG FIVE AGENCY
Alright, time to start all over… again. Let’s sum up the past few years: I got fired from five different 9-to-5 jobs, started two agencies—one with some success, the other a complete failure—and served as Vice President for an up-and-coming startup. Sounds like a thriller, right? And let me tell you, it felt like living in one. All the ups and downs, the struggles, the stress. Was it worth it? Absolutely.
Sure, I came close to going broke more than once. I often wondered if I’d have enough money to get through the next week. And I constantly heard that I wasn’t the right fit, that I’d never be a successful entrepreneur. Seems like the perfect time to give up, right? Some would say yes… I’ve failed more than once. But I don’t like to use the word “fail.” I prefer “fall.” Yes, I fell several times while trying to build businesses and be a good employee. But I stood up every single time and started from scratch because I knew that someday it would pay off.
So, I went back to the drawing board. I took everything I’d learned in over a decade of business—structured it, optimized it, and used it to create a new business that would allow me to prove to the world that I’m a real entrepreneur. I wrote down everything I’d learned, all the problems I’d seen in other companies that held them back from scaling. And I created something powerful—something that would not only scale my business but could also dramatically scale my clients’ businesses.
That’s how The BIG FIVE AGENCY was born. Another digital marketing agency, yes, but this time, I did everything differently. It was built for scaling, designed to deliver real, measurable results to clients. I found the most amazing business partner in the world, and I told myself, “I’m back on track, folks.”
Everything was great… or so I thought. Timing, as it turns out, plays a crucial role in success. Just when it looked like things were finally working out, a financial and energy crisis hit the German economy. It seemed building my third agency would be even harder than I had imagined…
BIG FIVE GROUP
And then, I finally understood…
Have you ever asked yourself, “What’s the secret behind the highly successful people out there who build billion-dollar empires?”
Well, it took me a while to figure it out, but in the end, it’s really not that complicated. The key to success is simple:
Stop chasing money and start solving problems.
If you look at all the big, mega-companies out there, they all have something in common: they were built on a solution to a problem they faced. If you’re trading your time for money, you’re extremely limited in how much you can scale. But if you solve a problem and build a business around it, you have something highly scalable. That’s what I call a real business.
I became so fascinated with the idea of having a real impact on the future by solving problems that I decided to make this my life’s work. That’s why I started the BIG FIVE GROUP—to create a platform, a creative workspace dedicated to connecting bright minds passionate about solving problems. And let’s face it, we have plenty of problems to solve in today’s world.
This is where I am on my journey “on the way up,” and even after all the madness, it feels like I’m just getting started…
The Big Mission
As I mentioned earlier, it took me a while and several attempts to finally discover the one thing I want to dedicate myself to for the rest of my life as an entrepreneur. What I’ve learned on my journey so far is that building a serious business is anything but easy. Even if you have the most brilliant idea, there are countless challenges you’ll need to overcome. And I’ve also learned that those who claim they can help you with their knowledge and experience are often not truly there to help. They’re more interested in selling you the next course, book, or coaching session without providing the real answers you’re looking for.
That realization led me to a new idea: to change this narrative and finally tell the truth about all the mysteries of entrepreneurship. I’m on a mission to support a new generation of entrepreneurs on their way up by addressing the problems every entrepreneur faces at some point in their journey.
To achieve this, I’m committed to sharing valuable content across all my channels every single day—content designed to genuinely help people as they carve their own paths. Let’s write the next chapters of entrepreneurial history together by bringing millions into the real world of entrepreneurship.