Company: Rainbow-Day GmbH
Founder: Sebastian Krug
Date of establishment: July 3, 2023
Industry and company: Personnel services

What drives you? What is your motto? Making
local diversity visible. 

What is your start-up about and what makes it special?
We are Rainbow-Day GmbH, a small start-up based in Wiesbaden. We offer colorful career services, and our main product is "Rainbow Days." These are career fairs designed for the queer community—and everyone who lives and values diversity. The focus here is on the individual and their personality, not just their previous education.

The premiere took place in 2023 at Goethe University, as the only LGBTQIA+ career format at a university in Europe! After the great success in Frankfurt, Rainbow Days have spread to many regions (in central locations). This is one of our special features: the local/regional focus. This allows us to fully focus on sustainability in terms of travel distances and bring interests from the respective area to the "(fair) table." Rainbow Day currently takes place four times a year in Germany (Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich), once a year in Austria (Vienna), and next year for the first time in Luxembourg. Further locations are in the planning stage. In Austria, we were (and in Luxembourg we will be) the first queer career fair in the (respective) country!

What are your first successes?
For Rainbow Day GmbH, the cooperation with Goethe University Frankfurt (via the Career Service) is essential, as is the collaboration with the student organizations on campus. We also consider it a success when we are able to establish partnerships with community organizations and associations that find our commitment valuable and worthy of support. "Together we can achieve more" is not just a buzzword.

What is your professional background?
I started out in a rather traditional way: vocational diploma, vocational training, university studies. Then an internship at a large corporation. During my studies, however, I organized a job fair through an association, which led to my first permanent position after graduation. I stayed there for 10 years – and then founded my first company. I sold it in 2019. During the coronavirus pandemic, I organized projects pro bono for the "Freiwilligenzentrum Wiesbaden" (Wiesbaden Volunteer Center) in Wiesbaden, including several small concerts for residents of retirement and nursing homes (who, like all of us, were not allowed to go out and had very limited experiences). It was very inspiring for me personally to get involved in social work. Then I got to know what it was like to work at a university and subsequently returned to entrepreneurship, initially only part-time. 

What prompted you to start your own business?
The impetus for Rainbow Days came from the fact that there was no such local initiative (a career event for the queer community) yet, but it was high time there was. All people are equally important and deserve our support. Everyone should feel safe and comfortable in the workplace. Discrimination and unequal treatment have no place in professional life either. With our services, we want to help bring this openness to the world into everyday life.   Since I myself had over 20 years of professional experience in organizing and implementing career events, it was a "matter of honor" for me to now make this experience available in diversity issues. From a purely "business perspective," other tasks and topics would certainly have been easier to tackle, but I wanted to make a difference and support people directly.

Who advised you, who are your helpers and mentors? I
didn't have a direct mentor. When I first started my company in 2010, I was able to look to the two companies where I had worked as an employee for many years. You take your experience with you and decide what you want to do similarly or differently (and then you do it). For Rainbow Days, I asked around within the community, but then simply decided to give it a try.

How did you experience your first days as a founder?
Let's go! Since I had already founded a company in 2010, it wasn't completely new to me – BUT – it still felt exciting to start again. Founding a company doesn't mean the constant freedom that many people (especially employees) associate with it, but it does mean being able to work on your own idea.

What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
The challenge is there every day. We have to inspire and acquire companies, which is currently very complex. Reaching the queer community is also not a sure-fire success, because people first have to build trust in our services. But we promise: we'll keep at it.

How do you draw attention to your company? What is your best marketing idea?
We have two customer target groups. Companies that should purchase our services for a fee and people in the queer community (and anyone who values diversity) who can use our services free of charge. We need both for a successful company. The approach is completely different. But it's always a mix of measures based on different pillars (online, offline, in person). It's essential that we are and remain authentic and that the people "out there" feel that too.

How did you finance your start-up?
Entirely from my own reserves (including my former company MYJOBFAIR GmbH).

What dream would you still like to realize? To achieve
more serenity in myself. And maybe study journalism again. 

Please complete the following sentence: If I had more time, I
would... do even more with my daughter and show her that the world is truly colorful. And that's a good thing.

What is your special tip: What would you recommend to founders?
I have the utmost respect for founders who get started right after their training/studies or who are career changers from outside the industry. From my perspective, previous professional experience helps enormously and facilitates potential success. Even if it sounds like a cliché, hard work is also irreplaceable, as is your own personal touch. Being friendly and interested (in others) also gives you a big advantage these days. And please don't be "tongue-tied" and always leave the conversation to others, as this is exhausting for the other person – and anything but advisable from a business perspective.

In summary: Be courageous!