Victoria Neuhofer: The entrepreneur who never stops thinking

From an app idea at the age of 16 to an international franchise concept – Victoria Neuhofer is a serial entrepreneur who lives and breathes entrepreneurship and reinvents it every day.

Some people have ideas. Victoria Neuhofer has a thousand of them – and puts them into practice. The Austrian entrepreneur is no ordinary founder: she comes from a family of entrepreneurs with a history stretching back over 370 years, and could easily have waited for her secure inheritance. Instead, she founded her first company at the age of 16 – and hasn’t stopped since.

Victoria Neuhofer – Entrepreneurship in her blood – and in her mind

Victoria Neuhofer spent the first ten years of her life in Krakow, where her mother was setting up the Polish branch of the family business. Shaped by the performance-oriented culture of Polish schools and an egalitarian society, she returned to Austria. At the age of 14, at her father’s request, she transferred to HTL Mödling, specialising in wood technology – an environment that, despite (or perhaps because of) the gender stereotypes she encountered there, further sharpened her ambition. When a teacher advised her to stock supermarket shelves rather than study statistics – she was top of her class – her drive to prove everyone wrong grew.

After finishing secondary school, she studied International Business Administration in Vienna, working in the family business during the day, travelling to Vienna in the evenings and listening to recorded lectures on the journey. She went on to complete her degree – her second course of study, Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Liverpool, which was much more practice-oriented and really taught her what entrepreneurs need.

The birth of Damn Plastic

Perhaps the most important moment in Victoria Neuhofer’s start-up story was one morning at the Electric Love Festival. As the sun rose and she found herself in a sea of plastic cups and tableware, she rang her best friend Stephanie Sinko that very same day: “I’ve got an idea – we need to meet up straight away.” Three days later, Damn Plastic was founded.

The concept: sustainability shouldn’t be complicated, expensive or preachy. With the slogan “It’s not about damn plastic, it’s about damn people”, the two founders didn’t want to create a traditional eco-brand, but a movement for more conscious consumption – suitable for everyday use, visible, attractive. The initial idea of edible cutlery evolved into a wide range of impact products: from bags made from ocean plastic to solid shampoo bars and straws made from pasta. Customers buy, Damn Plastic takes care of the rest – the founders call their business model ‘passive sustainability’.

The journey was anything but easy. Just one month after the successful opening of the first shop on Münzgasse in Salzburg, the pandemic struck. The bank balance was soon down to zero, the landlord was uncooperative, and rent reductions were contractually ruled out. Neuhofer and Sinko delivered some of the goods themselves, set up an online shop, and fought their way through – true to the family motto: “A Neuhofer never gives up.”

Today, in its sixth year of existence, Damn Plastic has already received over 300 franchise enquiries from all over the world – from Australia, the Maldives and across Europe. The concept and design have been professionalised, though the founders still do much of the work themselves.

Veatzz – the magic flour

Anyone who thinks Damn Plastic is enough doesn’t know Victoria Neuhofer. In 2024, she founded her next company: Veatzz, the vegan, gluten- and allergen-free “magic flour”. The story behind its creation is typical Neuhofer: at a trade fair, she tasted snacks that a chef had conjured up from a special flour and immediately asked if it was available to buy. The answer was no. Her counter-offer followed promptly, and when the original deal fell through, she simply went ahead and launched the product herself with Sinko. Today, the magic flour is stocked in all major supermarkets – sold before it had even been produced, as Neuhofer had initially only sketched it out on paper and sold it to retailers that way.

Victoria Neuhofer – Speaker, Author, Entrepreneur

Victoria Neuhofer has long since found her calling on stage – in the truest sense of the word. With Damn Plastic and Veatzz, she appeared on the TV show “2 Minuten, 2 Millionen”; her pitches were original and her performance confident. Since then, she has been speaking on major stages about entrepreneurship, sustainability and what really makes successful founders tick.

Together with Stephanie Sinko, she has also written the book “From BFFs to CEOs” – a guide to starting a business as a pair of friends, which offers encouragement and honestly shows what it means to turn ideas into reality.

What Neuhofer thinks about successful start-ups

When asked what makes a start-up successful, Victoria Neuhofer answers clearly: a good product, relevance and uniqueness. She is sceptical about business plans, at least in the early stages – those who cling too rigidly to milestones miss the crucial turning points. The world is changing too fast for detailed five-year plans.

Her tip for day-to-day life: when faced with problems that are weighing on her mind, she asks herself: Will this still be relevant in five years’ time? If not, it can go. This lightness of thought, combined with an impressive work ethic, makes Victoria Neuhofer one of the most fascinating female entrepreneurs in the German-speaking world.

And one thing is certain: Damn Plastic and Veatzz will not be her last business ideas.

Victoria Neuhofer is a serial entrepreneur, speaker and author. She speaks on entrepreneurship, sustainable business models, female entrepreneurship and the power of consistently putting ideas into practice.

Victoria Neuhofer shares her experience and expertise in keynote speeches and panel discussions. We look forward to receiving your enquiries: 1 (704) 804 1054 or victoria.neuhofer@premium-speakers.com