Entrepreneurship Summit 2022: Keynote speech by Josef Zotter

Image: © Lukas Beck

Summary

In his very open and unconventional keynote speech, ‘Maximising humanity is probably our greatest gain!’, Josef Zotter, founder of Zotter Chocolate Manufactory, provides deep insights into 35 years of entrepreneurship – characterised by curiosity, risk, failure, radical independence and uncompromising values.

Zotter describes his entrepreneurial journey not as a linear success story, but as a permanent experiment. From the outset, his vision was to reinvent chocolate – without formal training as a chocolatier and without a traditional business plan. Instead of security and market analyses, he relies on intuition, speed and consistent experimentation. Every year, Zotter creates 60 to 80 new recipes, which are often brought to market directly without prior testing.

A central theme of the keynote speech is the conscious handling of risk and failure. Zotter speaks openly about insolvency, miscalculations and the conscious decision not to restructure at the expense of quality or employees. The result: complete self-financing, independence from banks and maximum creative freedom.

Furthermore, Zotter takes a clear stance against blind growth and in favour of quality over quantity. His approach of ‘insourcing instead of outsourcing’ (bean-to-bar) not only ensures security of supply, but above all promotes cooperation on an equal footing with cocoa farmers in fair trade. He sees economic activity as a cultural and ethical responsibility. Finally, Zotter emphasises that entrepreneurship must be enjoyable. Innovation does not come from market research, but from attitude, the courage to make mistakes and the willingness to do things that the market cannot yet imagine.

Key insights for founders

1. Don't make a business plan – just get started:
Planning is no substitute for action. Entrepreneurship comes from doing, not from Excel spreadsheets.

2. Innovation requires ignorance and courage:
Those who know too well ‘how it's done’ will never invent anything new. Career changers have an advantage.

3. Never ask the market what it wants:
Customers can only evaluate what they already know. Vision comes from the entrepreneur's mind.

4. Failure is not a mistake, but a state of being:
Insolvencies, failures and wrong turns are part of the learning process – the key is to keep going.

5. Growth is not the goal – quality is:
Future competitiveness comes from depth, attitude and meaning, not from scaling at any cost.

About the speaker

Josef Zotter is an Austrian entrepreneur, visionary and founder of Zotter Chocolate Factory, one of the most innovative bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturers in the world. For over 35 years, Zotter has stood for radical product innovation, uncompromising quality and ethical business practices.

Without any formal training as a chocolatier, he has developed more than 1,500 different types of chocolate, including internationally acclaimed creations with unusual ingredients and socio-political messages. Zotter is a pioneer of the bean-to-bar principle in Europe and is consistently committed to fair trade, organic farming and complete in-house value creation.

In addition to production, Zotter operates experiential worlds such as the Chocolate Theatre, the Edible Zoo, and educational and culinary formats that combine consumption, responsibility, and emotion. His companies are now family-run, with a clear role for his wife and the next generation. Josef Zotter stands for entrepreneurship that maximises humanity, allows for mistakes, and understands business as a cultural force.