- 17-year-old Nils Reichardt has been running a startup for a homework app along with two peers since March last year.
- Along with running his startup, the teen manages to squeeze in sports training, school, homework, and cycling to meetings.
- Here's what a day in the life of the 17-year-old German teen entrepreneur looks like.
Half an hour after midnight, Nils Reichardt sends his last e-mail for the day and closes his laptop.
20-hour days used to be unusual for the schoolkid living in Düsseldorf, Germany — but since the 17-year-old won $11,000 in a teens' startup competition around six months ago, they've become increasingly common.
In order to squeeze in school, running his startup, and sports training, he's sometimes awake at four in the morning, which has landed him with the nickname of "The Machine" among his peers.
While Reichardt's classmates play video games, meet up with friends, or work towards getting their driver's license, the 17-year-old is working on concepts and financial plans for his Startup "Sharezone" every afternoon after school.
He's been working on the homework app with two co-founders since March 2018, in which teachers and students can share tasks and worksheets. In theory, it means nothing should get lost if someone is sick or is simply too lazy to write down the tasks. The idea came to Reichardt after it became annoying to repeatedly answer the question "What do we have on?"
While, on the one hand, the teenager's schedule is impressive and he looks set to produce some pretty exciting work, equally, there are moments when you wonder if he's going too far and will eventually just burn out.
Here's what a day in the life of the 17-year-old German entrepreneur looks like.
Nils Reichardt sometimes gets up at 4 o'clock in the morning
On one or two days a week, Reichardt's diary gets so full that he has to be up at 4 o'clock in the morning to get everything done.
He then answers messages from his team and does his homework
After breakfast, Reichardt answers messages from his team and gets his English homework done on his tablet.
Reichardt also trains seven times a week
Reichardt runs for the FC Schalke 04 athletics team and trains seven times a week.
While training usually happens in the afternoon, at least once or twice a week he goes running before school so he has more time in the afternoon.
The NRW Championships are just around the corner so today he "only" running eight kilometers — at almost zero degrees Celsius and snow.
Reichardt is committed to training, and said: "Sport helps me to structure my day."
After the German Championships, however, he wants to stop doing sport so he can concentrate on his company.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider