Breakfast with Wesley Fabb and his Girls

Claire, Wesley and their kids. Have a look at Claires Blog : www.stylebyyellowbutton.com

Two years ago, you were one of our first guests, when we unofficially opened our first rooms.

Yes, we were coming from another hotel which was full. I looked up the Michelberger on superfuture.com before and asked the concierge to call, if there were free rooms. You could tell he was a little bit confused when he came back and said, „ I am not sure about it, but they said you can stay for 40 Euros, which sounds really weird to me, and they said something about some construction happening there.“ We took a taxi which let us out at Warschauer Strasse, there were no signs anywhere, we entered the tunnel and saw Maarten sitting at a small desk with a laptop in the middle of a construction site saying he would be the reception. The lift wasn’t working, and there were hanging wires from the wall and plastic lying on the floors and a lot of very excited people running around. I had my own business, so I kind of related to what I saw in your guy’s eyes, the passion, but also how tired you were, like ‚we don’t know how we are going to do this, but we are going to do it! I love to be around people when they keep on challenging themselves. Everyone still had time to show us around and share their vision for the place with us. Then this crazy party at night… In the end I decided to change my flight and stay a couple of days more.

What is your challenge at the moment?

I was a distributer for Burton snowboards. I had my own business. I sold it to Burton and continued to act as General Manager for the subsidiary. I learned a lot being a business owner on the one hand and being an employee on the other and yes,  it’s very different. I decided I want to start my own business again, that was in February so since then I am travelling around Japan, Bali, and now Europe with my family and working out what we are going to do next. One project is to create a network of shared and serviced office spaces in different parts of the world. When I started my own business, it was very small. There were times where we couldn’t afford a nice office. I see a lot of people working and meeting in coffee shops in Australia, and need a space for those times when they need to take the meeting to a more confidential space or need presentation tools. I think starting a business is always very creative, as it grows it can be a challenge to stay focused on the creative spark as the pressures of money grow larger. Small business is really exciting and creating some unique spaces that enable business to grow efficiently excites me. Being part of starting something new is an adventure and creating an authentic brand is something I have been fortunate to be a part of in the past and look forward to in the future.

What do you like about starting up, and how can you manage to keep that special energy?

It’s similar to what I like about travelling. You don’t know what’s around the corner. I don’t like to over plan everything so that there is no room for serendipity.  That’s why when you come to a place like this, it is kind of a highlight for me, because it is real, you can tell you had a vision, but not every little thing is planned, you don’t force to reach it, you kind of go on a journey together. For me it’s all about being well travelled, seeing what’s happening in different parts of the world. That’s what I try to do with my wife and children, we have been very fortunate to be able to travel to see great places for work and personally.  I think commerce has to be developed in a similar way these days, consumers are globally aware of trends and brands, so to stay relevant for them a brand has to be connected in a local way to any parts of the world. This is where we aim to offer a service. Although you guys may have only one location, one hotel in Berlin, you are in the lucky position that the world is coming to you, and you are open to experiencing and learning from your guests from around the world, It’s like with the flowers and the bees, the people are coming here having and experience that strikes a chord for them and then they are going home and “pollinating” their home towns with the idea of visiting the places they love.  Something I have got clear on in the last couple of days is the importance of focusing on the personality of a brand. It’s not so important what the business does it’s about the way it does it. The challenge is not to do something new, it’s to do it better.