Company: ARKINETICS Physiotherapy & Training, Reinl and Fylakos GbR

Founders: Leon Reinl, Pavlos Fylakos

Date of foundation: September 1, 2024

Industry and company: Health sector, physiotherapy

What drives you? What is your motto?

To grow with challenges and try to start every day with a smile. "Take the risk or lose the chance". (Origin of the quote unknown).

What is your start-up about and what is special about it?

In terms of setting up and opening our own practice, we have fulfilled a long-awaited dream. Not only in terms of independence, but also in that we try to offer our patients the best possible therapy with our goals and approaches. We can incorporate our concept and our expertise directly into the therapy, both spatially and personally. One of our main goals is to enable people to participate in active everyday life. In our practice, problems are not only treated locally, but the person as a whole is seen and perceived. With our equipment of modern strength machines and a free weights area, we are able to increase resilience and develop a better body awareness. Together we develop a therapy plan that is individually adapted and can be implemented for each person's particular situation. Our practice name ARKINETICS is derived from the words Arcus (Latin for circle/arc) and Kinetic (ancient Greek "kinesis" movement). This combination of words also represents our motivation. The bridge between illness and health. We offer this help and support to help you on this path to a more active, healthier life.

What are your first successes?

The first successes we had were the busy schedules. We had a lot of booked appointments very quickly. We also received a lot of positive feedback, both verbally on site and via our website in the form of Google reviews. Many patients came to us through acquaintances, friends or family, but also via doctor recommendations. This made us very happy and confirmed that becoming self-employed was exactly the right decision.

What is your professional background?

Leon:

I came up with the idea of self-employment during my training. The idea came to me when I did my first internship in a physiotherapy practice in Wiesbaden. Over the years, this thought and the idea became more and more firmly established. My current business partner Pavlos Fylakos and I have known each other since our school days. We both completed our physiotherapy training and worked together for several years in a therapy center and a small physiotherapy practice. The idea developed into a dream for both of us and continued to manifest itself until we came to the decision that it was time to open our own practice. We had already found suitable premises and attended business start-up seminars together until we were able to open our practice in September 2024 and fulfill our dream.

What prompted you to set up your own business?

In view of our profession as physiotherapists and the resulting financial constraints, we both came to the conclusion that there was no other way around self-employment. In terms of a pension, providing for your own family and the dream of owning your own home, you only have limited opportunities for success as an employed physiotherapist. On the other hand, our many experiences in the past with superiors, both good and bad, were a decisive factor. We wanted to make our own decisions regarding the organization of our workplace, therapy and working hours. These points were the main triggers for us to decide in favor of self-employment and our own practice.

Who advised you, who are your helpers and mentors?

We had several discussions with other practice owners and self-employed people from other sectors and attended seminars on setting up a business, especially in physiotherapy. Our friends and families always supported us both in pushing ahead with our plans. We are also members of the Association for Self-employed Physiotherapists (IFK), which has supported us in all matters relating to opening a practice and continues to do so. We have a tax consultant from Wiesbaden at our side for tax issues and we have chosen ApoBank as our commercial bank partner, as it has industry-specific knowledge.

How did you experience the first few days as founders?

The first few days were very exciting. We were full of motivation to get down to work, but we didn't have a high workload at the beginning. We used the "free" hours to optimize the daily processes with our systems. We also still had a lot of paperwork on our desks that needed to be processed, which made us happy about the lower patient volume, especially at the beginning. There were always slight doubts as to whether we hadn't drawn enough attention to ourselves. However, these doubts were dispelled after 2-3 weeks as our diaries continued to fill up.

What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?

The biggest challenge so far has been to consciously take breaks. In our day-to-day work and especially at the beginning of our self-employment, we made sure we could offer lots of appointments. After all, you want to keep the business running. However, it is important to have a good balance that allows you to deliver good quality and performance in the long term without neglecting yourself. It's good that there are two of us and that we can support each other or even slow each other down when we realize we need a break.

How do you draw attention to your company? What is your best marketing idea?

As physiotherapists, we are subject to an advertising ban, so we are naturally more limited in this respect than other sectors. We do a lot of word-of-mouth advertising. However, we have not been idle and have introduced ourselves to doctors in private practice in the area. We have printed business cards in our practice. We also have an Instagram account to support our social media presence.

How did you finance your start-up?

We were able to finance our start-up with a start-up loan thanks to ApoBank. There was also the option of applying for a start-up loan from the KFW development bank. However, we wanted a little more flexibility in terms of repayment, which is why we opted for a loan directly from ApoBank. ApoBank specializes in healthcare professions of all kinds and was able to convince us with its expertise in the sector.

What dream would you still like to realize?

Our dream would be to expand the practice with additional premises or open a second office at some point. Personally, we would all like to own our own home.

Please complete the following sentence: If we had more time, we would ...

...cook fresh and healthy food for ourselves more often.

What is your special tip: What would you recommend to founders?

You should be aware in advance of what it means to be self-employed and be prepared to ask others for help and ask questions. A good professional association and the advice of a tax consultant are a great help. Self-confidence and a little humility won't hurt either.