Sandbox

Sandra Diana Troegl, 28, is currently based in Berlin and one of three Co-founders of Nest, an Agency for (eco)social causes. Before co-founding Nest, she worked for armedangels, an eco fashion label in Cologne. Sandra on facebook and twitter

Tell us the story of your latest project / occupation.

Beginning of 2009, I met Daniel Kruse and Ole Seidenberg. We share the vision to use the web for social change and decided to start our own social business to turn this vision into reality: Nest Agency for (eco)social Causes.

What are you doing and how did you get there?

At Nest, we consult NGOs and sustainable enterprises on how to use the web to push social topics. I got there with a standard business background plus some programming knowledge and the Online-Marketing I did for armedangels.

Tell us about the biggest successes and failures in your life. What worked, what didn’t, and what did you learn?

My biggest success so far is being a startup social entrepreneur – do what I can do best and using it for social impact. I encounter failures everyday though. I feel like failing on a constant basis because I cannot solve climate change or catastrophes like Haiti and I can’t measure what my contribution is. So I learnt to take small steps, one at a time, and to motivate myself to keep going.

What do you want to achieve in the next week, the next year, the next 10 years?

Next week, I would like to close an important Social Business deal with one of our clients and to finish my accounting to do’s. Next year, I would like to have an own office with Nest and a Team of five people. Next ten years, I would like to have kids and be able to work the same way I do now. And have the same fun with it.

What was your most inspring moment during the last two weeks?

Meeting a 24 year old entrepreneur who build up a company with now 50 employees and hearing about his dream to do something meaningful after he sold his company.

How could other Sandboxers and the outside world support you and why would that be exciting for them?

In Berlin: we need support for our flashmobs and events! Especially during the www.re-publica.de in April – we are looking for Geeks and Hackers interested in participating some form of Social Hack Days – it will be fun!
Online: follow @nest_im and spread the word that it’s possible to start an agency as a social business.

Sandra’s favourites:

Movie- Trainspotting
Place on earth- Malpais, Costa Rica
Travel destination during last year- Lenzerheide
Quote- “The map is not the territory”, Aaron Muszalski at the 26th Chaos Computer Congress