Shaping Your Work Atmosphere

In our monthly start-up series, we introduce founding teams from the WORLDFACTORY ecosystem who are bringing their vision to life with innovative ideas and a great deal of passion. This time, we’re speaking with the team behind DAM – Die Atmosphärenmanufaktur, who are dedicated to an often underestimated yet crucial factor in the business world: the workplace atmosphere. With scientific foundation, practical experience, and a strong team spirit, DAM develops approaches to purposefully shape work atmospheres—for greater well-being, motivation, and long-term organizational success. In this interview, the team shares how research turns into entrepreneurship, where their motivation comes from, and how they bridge the gap between theory and practice. The following interview was translated into English by WORLDFACTORY.

Please introduce yourselves briefly as a founding team. What are your strengths?

We are DAM – Die Atmosphärenmanufaktur. The team consists of us four: Dr. Christian Julmi, Anna Eifert, Jakob Dammert, and Sebastian Wittwer. What unites us is that we all work in scientific research at the FernUniversität in Hagen and have been studying the topic of workplace atmospheres for many years. Together, we combine research, practical experience, and a healthy dose of curiosity about new ways of collaborating.

Describe your start-up idea:

Our vision is to assist organizations in consciously shaping their work environments. Our research has shown that the work environment is the second most important factor in choosing an employer—right after salary. A positive work environment not only promotes well-being, satisfaction, and motivation, but also enhances employee performance, directly contributing to the organization’s success. With DAM, we make this topic tangible and collaborate with companies to develop practical ways to strengthen their work atmosphere.

How did you first come up with the idea of founding a start-up?   

Through our research, we’ve seen just how much interest there is in the topic of workplace atmospheres and how often companies have approached us about practical ways to implement them. At one point, it became clear to us that this topic shouldn’t be pushed aside, but rather has the potential to become a business in its own right.

How did you balance starting the company with your studies/career?

We’re all still working at the university, which means that research, teaching, and starting the company all happened (and are still happening) at the same time. Of course, that wasn’t always easy, but we were able to effectively combine our academic work with our business idea. This created a lot of synergies that really helped us. We also divided up tasks flexibly within the team—that way, everyone could contribute their strengths without anything falling through the cracks.

For us, the WORLDFACTORY means... 

…a strong partner on our journey toward self-employment. Here, we not only receive support with practical questions about starting a business, but also valuable insights, inspiration, and a network of people who are on similar paths. That motivates us and gives us courage.

What are the biggest challenges you can face and how do you deal with them?

One major challenge is bridging the gap between science and practice. We want to present our research in a way that is understandable, relevant, and immediately applicable to businesses. This sometimes requires patience, feedback loops, and a lot of communication. But that’s exactly what we enjoy: we’re constantly learning and growing together with our development partners.

What is special about your start-up?

We focus on something that many people sense but rarely know how to describe clearly: the workplace atmosphere. It influences everything—whether we feel comfortable, are creative, or work together efficiently. Our approach combines scientific depth with practical tools. This is what makes our offering unique: We help make the invisible visible and shapeable – thereby contributing not only to increased employee satisfaction but also to ensuring the organization’s long-term success.

What is your current situation and what are the next steps?

We are currently in a phase where we are working intensively on our product and refining it step by step. To this end, we are collaborating with various organizations from a wide range of industries, who are supporting us as development partners. These pilot projects provide us with valuable insights and help us further develop our product in a practical way. The next step is to establish DAM as a well-known brand and inspire even more organizations with our idea.

Your tip for all those interested in founding a company:

Just do it! Sure, it’s easy to get lost in concepts and strategies—but in the end, you learn the most when you take action, which is something we’re seeing firsthand in our collaboration with our development partners. And: Find people you enjoy working with. The right team is worth its weight in gold and will see you through even the toughest times.