What advice would you give other founders?
Every new beginning is difficult. That’s exactly why it makes sense to establish contact with other local founders at the outset, since every founder is generally confronted with similar questions and obstacles when structuring their startup - irrespective of the industry. For this reason, during our early days we applied to a local incubator and even now we still benefit from regular exchanges with the startup community.
What surprised you the most when you started out?
As a founder, you have to accept early on that unexpected surprises are part of daily business. Of course, these don’t always have to be negative - they can also be very positive. It’s important to remain calm in both cases and to analyse the situation objectively. This is especially important throughout the initial phase, during which there’s still a lot that remains unclear - you’re conducting lots of interviews with users and customer conversations where you’re often confronted with unexpected findings. Then you have to be open to discarding concepts, even if you’ve already invested a lot of time and energy in them. That cost us a lot of effort in the beginning.
What do you want from politics and from Germany as a business location?
It’s taken a long time for the political sphere to adequately appreciate the German startup scene. However, it’s clear that the German government is now making an effort to improve the framework and conditions for startups in Germany on a sustainable basis. From a structural point of view, however, companies outside the startup strongholds of Berlin and Munich need more support and better connections to the existing network. In addition, 'entrepreneurship' in domains outside classical business administration must be much more closely integrated into teaching in order to raise awareness of technology startups across the board.
Why doesn’t Germany have a leading startup ecosystem?
One of the biggest obstacles is the very conservative behaviour of German investors and the financing landscape which is still developing. This is a major challenge, especially for capital-intensive projects. At the same time, the widespread reluctance of large German companies to collaborate with startups prevents early market validation and the establishment of German startups.
