Full of energy, flexible in mind and body, and radiating a love of life: Katrin Streich has run her own company, ‘Pura Vidya,’ since 2023. In it, she has found her calling. She describes how much she values the flexibility of her work and the challenges that come with it in her startup story.
Educational leave courses, yoga trips to sunny places, cooking workshops – when asked what she does for a living, Katrin laughs: ‘I’m an ambassador for the joy of life.’ She chose her range of services to give people opportunities and tools to experience that joy. Individuals and companies in the region that actively support their employees’ health benefit from them. She draws on several years of experience as an independent workplace health management expert in the Netherlands.
The desire to help people live healthily and stay vital into old age also prompted her career change. She previously worked at WiReGo, where she supported aspiring founders, among others, on their way to self-employment. ‘It was a great job, and I learned a lot,’ she says.
As a speaker in WiReGo’s startup course, she always emphasized an entrepreneurial focus as an important quality for self-employed people. That knowledge now helps the 46-year-old pursue her own path deliberately. ‘I’m full of energy and enthusiasm, creative and open to new things,’ she says. ‘Focus helps me avoid spreading myself too thin and pay attention to my own energy levels.’ Over two years, that has allowed her to expand and deepen her planned business model fairly directly.
Inspired by her former colleague Anja Blümel, she has made the ‘Penner & Renner analysis’ a firm part of her thinking. It involves looking closely at which areas of the business create financial value and where the effort may outweigh the benefit.
As a single mother, her business model gives her enough flexibility to meet all the demands of her life. ‘But self-employment also calls for the occasional night shift after the children are in bed,’ she says. ‘Because I’m following my passion, it’s tiring but not a burden.’
Her advice to aspiring founders is not to approach it too rigidly. ‘You need a certain mental flexibility to build your own company with confidence,’ Katrin emphasizes. ‘Finding the right balance between flexibility and focus is the real challenge of self-employment.’
What matters to her is staying open and building a network without seeing others as competitors. ‘The more generously we treat one another, the more there is for everyone,’ is her approach to life. She wants to live what she teaches – and, judging by her radiant smile, she seems to be doing so very well.
Information: www.pura-vidya.de
