Exklusive for you: One Story and one Winning-Game for the 2. Advent

Oh happy, cosy Christmas time! When do you think back on the past year if not at this time? And we are not just thinking about the last year, but the last 15, because this is our anniversary year. Each advent weekend, we are looking back at one aspect of our history – from the bizarre to the nostalgic. At the end of each article, you will find out about our Advent Competition – we have come up with a special goodie for you each week. This week, we would like to introduce you to Caro.

Four candles burning bright for advent

“I’m not entirely sure whether I was Jorin’s plan A”, says Caro laughing and swinging around on her office chair in the Torstraße office. Everyone calls her Caro, but here real name is Carolin Wohlschlögel and everyone at recordJet knows why she was Jorin’s first choice Co-Pilot on his journey to revolutionising the digital music market. She is “the beating heart of the company”. This might sound a bit corny, but she is unorthodox, pragmatic and very emphatic.

HR, Staff Management and Managing Director is Caro’s official title. And, spoiler alert: she loves it. Most likely, she only loves her family, sport and Asian cuisine (skip the coriander) more. It all started off very differently with Caro, Jorin and recordJet back in 2008 – the year the company was founded. Caro and Jorin had known each other since 2004 – fate and a student job had brought the two together in Münster. Caro had to go to Chile after her studies, but Jorin called her on Skype out of the blue and said:

“Hey, I have a business idea and I need someone like you. Someone who is good with words and speaks a lot of languages. And can write articles and do marketing and that sort of thing”.

Caro thought it was cool and agreed right away. First off on an hourly basis. At that time, 2008-2009, the financial crash was in full swing and Caro had the fortune to take a junior position in her old company where her and Jorin first got to know each other properly. After three years, she took the first daring steps on the recordJet journey. She quit her secure job and went ‘all in’. Ultimately, she believed in Jorin and the new digital music baby. Despite the fact that music wasn’t really her thing.

On moving to Berlin

Something that very few of us employees know is that the very first recordJet office was in Dresden. Jorin would spend several hours a day on the telephone with his first employee, Caro. Funny as Jorin is seen as a bit of a grouch on the phone today! Often, they didn’t talk all the time. They would just work quietly, while the telephone call was open.

Everything that is recordJet today – including 35 employees – they thought through and put into place during this time. Quality checking, delivery, programming and technology were Jorin’s strengths. At that time, Caro’s job was the blog, maintaining and writing for the website and translations, social media, technical support and more.

“Even today, there are FAQ articles that are almost exactly the same as what I wrote. They have been updated slightly, but they are there”.

Finally in 2011, recordJet moved to Berlin. The new control centre was a one-room apartment in the heart of Charlottenburg. Now she had to commute. Once a month, Caro would go to Berlin for a week. She would sleep on the folding couch in the glazed winter garden of the one-room apartment, and would work at the living room table. It had a crank so you could adjust it up or down to make a halfway comfortable place to work. And then in 2013, Caro moved fully to Berlin. She commuted every day from Lichtenberg to Charlottenburg and back. Thinking, expanding, growing. And occasionally making large bowls of salad. It was not a time for respite. A time when growing the company was so important, they even worked when on holiday. And finally, the light at the end of the tunnel.

A bigger apartment. Torstraße. Her own office room. One apprentice and another employee later, there were four of them in an old-build living room in Berlin. It had old hallways, high walls and was no bigger than 22 m². From then on everything went quickly: the breakthrough was on the horizon, and absolutely no-one saw it coming. Or, more accurately, heard it coming: a worldwide hit!

The breakthrough

Around the time of their worldwide hit “Stolen Dance”, the band Milky Chance used recordJet as their distributors. The platinum-selling record even brought a surprise mutual friend all the way from Kassel to the old Berlin apartment. He phoned up saying “I have a platinum-selling record for you, can you take it on?”. Then there was the legendary bathtub press photo in Jorin’s apartment, taken using a self-timer camera – it even made it into MusikWoche.

“I wrote the press release to go with this weird photo of us three the same day. And all of a sudden, we had our first major article in MusikWoche. A real accolade. It changed everything”.

And the rest is history? Almost. No doubt it was an incredible boost as now people from the industry and customers of the music business had become aware of recordJet.

Home, sweet home

recordJet has arrived. 15 years and 35 employees later, Caro has more than her own office. She is the only one who still has very little to do with the music industry. She works with the people at recordJet. No PR, no releases, no playlists.

“I make sure that we are a good employer and everyone is happy. I would say we are a family company! This makes me happy and is very much my thing”.

There are no limits to Caro’s concept of a family friendly company. Employees don’t just get financial compensation when it comes to looking after children or family members, but employee working times are completely flexible. This includes up to 100% working from home, if you want. A 4-day week is also an option at recordJet.

As well as the social perspectives for the employees, she also knows a lot about the company’s overall philosophy. The “Big Bang” – why recordJet exists in the first place.

“Our philosophy is that we want to democratise the music industry. That was Jorin’s idea. I am fully on board with that. 100% for the artists, with low fees. Everyone should have access. No barriers. I simply cannot imagine it any other way”.

We are extremely thankful for all the partners and artists who work with us – without you, all of this would not have been possible. And so we want to give something back to you – go to our Instagram post to see info about our Advent Competition. Good luck! 🍀

Link to post.