Christian Steiger, Freiburg, Germany
Making entrepreneurship simple.
The mission in three words.
I am CEO Business Group Lexware, I built Lexware Office from zero, and I work on one question: how do the self-employed get more time for the business they actually run? This is where my work, my music and my public writing come together.
My work has been covered by Handelsblatt, FAZ, WirtschaftsWoche, BILD am Sonntag and DIE ZEIT.
Christian Steiger
CEO Business Group Lexware, Germany’s market leader in business software. Before that the founder of a streaming start-up and the intrapreneur behind Lexware Office, before that a producer of electronic music. When I talk about it, I often say: “Yes, and today I make accounting software.” That sentence is not an aside. It is the key: never two lives, always both at once, system and feeling.
What drives me
Four million, a footnote
Around four million people in Germany are self-employed, as sole traders or with up to fifty employees. They employ some twelve and a half million people, close to every third person in work. Counted as companies they are about 97 per cent of all German businesses. And in public debate they are a footnote.
I call them the backbone of the country and Lexware the one that keeps their back free. When a relief package considers employees and forgets the self-employed, I write about it. When a change in the law threatened to force employment contracts back onto paper, I called it a day of mourning for digital Germany.
Nobody ever became self-employed to do bookkeeping. Unless they are a bookkeeper. And still: “Bookkeeping is the heart of every business. It is underrated.” Everything else follows from that: Tell Your Story, Das Lena Prinzip, the mission in three words. Making entrepreneurship simple.
Self-employed and employment figures from Lexware, the share of companies from the Federal Statistical Office, business register, reporting year 2024.
Four areas
What I work on
Lexware
CEO Business Group LexwareI lead Lexware in Freiburg, Germany’s market leader in business software, together with Carsten Block. More than 650,000 businesses work with its solutions. Before that I built Lexware Office from zero and led the innovation division of the Haufe Group.lexware.deDas Lena Prinzip
The AI co-CEO for the self-employedMandate, don’t prompt. Instead of a task list, the AI gets a mandate with five building blocks: goal, frame, values, escalation and control. Within it, it acts on its own. Nine chapters, 46 mandates, interactive tools, freely available at das-lena-prinzip.de, in German.das-lena-prinzip.deTell Your Story
A stage for the self-employedLexware’s initiative that gives the self-employed and small businesses a stage: stories, a podcast, campaigns and, since 2026, the shirt of SC Freiburg. Not advertising for software, but visibility for those who otherwise get none.tellyourstory.lexware.deMusic
Electronic music producer, 1993 to 2010I started in 1993 with a single keyboard, paid for with a summer job. At first the labels turned us down, plenty of times. When I listen to those tracks today, I completely understand, I would have said no too. In the end, under eighteen names, came 23 records of my own and tracks on more than 150 further releases, two of them on four Café del Mar releases. Then there is Lift Off!, the track of the Euro-Mir rollercoaster at Europa-Park, entirely by Ben Klug and me. We really did not feel like doing it: a short riff, a bit of boom-boom underneath. It has been running since 1997. The detailed, sourced discography with recordings to listen to.urban-listening.com/enTell Your Story
Conversations with people who make things happen
I host the Lexware Tell Your Story podcast and talk to entrepreneurs about their beginnings, decisions and setbacks. The conversations are in German.
All episodesApple PodcastsSpotifyAmazon MusicYouTube
Robin Rombach
Listen to the conversation
Julia Bösch
Listen to the conversation
Steuerfabi
Listen to the conversationGuests so far include Sascha Lobo, Roland Mack, Verena Pausder, Eric Demuth and Miriam Wohlfarth.
All 18 episodes are on tellyourstory.lexware.de.
Current
What is on
New. #18 Robin Rombach (Black Forest Labs): Vom Physiker zum KI-Milliarden-Startup. Tell Your Story #18.
Listen to the episodeBoth at once
1997 and 2026
All of the musicThe Euro-Mir soundtrack
urban-listening.com holds the detailed, sourced discography: 23 records of my own, more than 150 further releases and recordings to listen to.
The path
From 1973 to today
Born in Freiburg in 1973, first keyboard in 1993, Euro-Mir in 1997, a company of my own in 2008, Lexware Office from 2010, and since 2019 CEO Business Group Lexware. The chronicle year by year, with pictures and one look ahead to 2027, is on a page of its own.
Built
Building things that last
A track from 1997 that still plays. A company that ended in 2010. A product that grew out of nearly 800 conversations. Seven projects, each with the problem, the idea, the outcome and what I learned from it. Including the ones that went wrong.
Talks
On stage
Three topics I speak about: Das Lena Prinzip, KI im eigenen Haus and Sichtbarkeit für Selbstständige, visibility for around four million self-employed people in Germany. Most recently on the Jupiter Stage at the BIG BANG KI FESTIVAL in Berlin, at data:unplugged and at Black Forest Space. I speak in German.
Press
For editors and event organisers
Three biographies to copy, three press photos to download and the press coverage are collected on a page of their own. The biographies and the photos may be used free of charge for reporting on Christian Steiger.
Public presence
Media and appearances
228 entries to read, hear and watch: press coverage, guest appearances, my own posts, company announcements and announced dates. Searchable and filterable by category. Most of them are in German.
Contact
How to reach me
Talks, interviews and anything about Lexware go through the Lexware communications team, and so does Das Lena Prinzip. Only music and personal matters go to my own address. Plus the four channels.