Alessandro Haas

Introduction

I am Alessandro Haas, born in 1986 in Backnang, Germany, and today I live with my family in North Karelia, Finland. We have two children, two horses, a flock of chickens, and a cat. Our daily life moves between forest, workshop, office, and family life.

My professional path has rarely followed a straight line. Since studying forest science, I have worked in very different fields: websites and online marketing, digital business models, print products and book design, craftsmanship, family-history research, and my own publications.

I am less interested in individual industries than in the systems behind them: how things are built, how their parts interact, and how a functioning solution can emerge from a problem. Over the years, this has repeatedly led me to work my way into new fields and transfer knowledge from one area to another.

One of my main motivations has always been the desire to work independently and with a focus on results. I want to be able to determine my time and the direction of my work as independently as possible, and to develop solutions according to my best knowledge and judgment. Added to this are a strong sense of aesthetics and design, and the need not merely to use things, but to understand them within their wider context.

Work & Projects

My first independent projects began immediately after university. The first was my own guide to Work & Travel in New Zealand, which I marketed through a website I had developed myself. This small project became a practical education in web development, search engine optimization, copywriting, online marketing, and digital business models.

From 2012 onward, this developed into freelance work as a web designer and online marketer. I initially worked mainly with smaller businesses and later spent some time working as a freelancer at the headquarters of Kärcher in Winnenden. At the time, I declined an offer of permanent employment. The freedom to shape my own time and work was more important to me than the additional security of salaried employment.

Over the following years, I started numerous projects and businesses of my own. Some worked, others did not. One particularly formative project was Edelpilzfreunde, a gourmet mushroom cultivation company that I built together with my wife, based on principles of the Blue Economy. I was deeply fascinated by the idea of producing high-quality food from local waste streams. In practice, however, production proved far more difficult than expected, and the company was closed after around a year and a half. The experience permanently shaped my view of entrepreneurial risk, fixed costs, and the importance of functioning production systems.

Further years followed with web projects, affiliate marketing, print, online advertising, and long-term collaborations. Not every project was intended to last indefinitely. Many served as a way to test new systems, develop skills, and discover what kind of work would continue to suit me over the long term.

Today, my projects deliberately serve different purposes.

Digital Work

Under the name mediasequoia, I bring together my long-standing experience in web development, online marketing, and digital business models.

After many years in this field, I now deliberately work with fewer projects and focus on selected long-term collaborations. The digital side of my work is intended to provide a stable foundation without defining my entire working life.

Painomestari also emerged from various print-related projects. What began as my own online print shop later developed into a leaner project centered on print knowledge, design, and selected affiliate partnerships. Today, I regard it more as a long-term digital asset than as a business that needs to grow at any cost.

Craftsmanship and Workshop

The focus of my entrepreneurial work is now shifting increasingly toward Metsähaasi.

What began with practical projects on our homestead gradually developed into handcrafted product development and the creation of our own workshop in North Karelia. This includes leatherwork, textiles, restoration, and smaller construction projects. Increasingly, we are also developing products for musicians and horse owners.

I am not interested in mass production, but in developing good solutions: understanding materials, improving constructions, mastering tools, and creating objects that are functional, repairable, and as durable as possible.

After many years of predominantly digital work, I find it especially satisfying to work more directly with physical materials again and to have a tangible object in front of me at the end of a working day.

Family History, Publications, and Forensic Heritage

In recent years, my work with my own family history has developed into another major area of focus.

It began with editing and publishing the biography of my grandfather, Josef Haas. Under the working title Haas Publishing, this is gradually developing into a series of family-history publications. Further projects focus, among other things, on my father Bernhard Haas and on the history of the Haas Atlas.

Unlike many of my earlier projects, this work deliberately does not follow a rapid growth plan. Books, interviews, research materials, and archives develop over years and retain their value even after the next project has long since begun.

These projects are also connected to an unusual family legacy in forensic science. My grandfather Josef Haas, and later my father Bernhard Haas, worked for decades in the field of typewriter and document examination.

Under the working title Haas Typewriter Forensics, I am therefore working over the long term on documenting and passing on this specialist knowledge. The historical reconstruction of the Haas Atlas and its methodology currently forms the foundation of that work.

Biographical Milestones

• 1986 · born in Backnang, Germany
• 2007–2011 · studied Forest Science and Resource Management at the Technical University of Munich
• from 2011 · first independent digital business models and self-employed work
• 2012 · extended stay and work in New Zealand
• 2012–2015 · freelance work in web design and online marketing, including work for Kärcher
• 2015–2016 · development of the mushroom cultivation company Edelpilzfreunde
• from 2016 · mediasequoia and further projects in web development, online marketing, and digital business models
• from 2019 · increasing focus on print products, design, and book production
• 2020 · moved to Finland with the family
• from 2022 · increasing focus on craftsmanship, restoration, and the development of workshop projects
• from 2024 · development of Metsähaasi as the main craft-focused project
• from 2025 · intensive family-history research, book design, and publication of family-history works
• from 2026 · systematic documentation of forensic knowledge surrounding the Haas Atlas

Family History and This Website

The starting point for this website was the biography of my grandfather, Josef Haas.

He had written down his life story with the thought that perhaps one day one of his descendants might become interested in who he had been, where he had come from, and what path his life had taken.

Many decades later, I became that descendant.

The work of editing his manuscript gradually developed into a larger project. Today, this website is no longer merely a companion site to a single biography, but is growing into a private and public archive for family history, biographies, publications, historical documents, and selected chapters of our own life in Finland.

Part of this work is publicly accessible. More personal material remains reserved for the private family archive.

In the long term, the aim is not to create a complete digital record of our lives, but a deliberately curated collection: stories, documents, and memories worth preserving for future generations.

Alessandro Haas

Contact:
aha@alessandrohaas.de