Displaying items by tag: inside the venture

As part of the MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit Daniel Hoffman, Jonas Rudi and Maksym Pisnyi joined Swapfiets in spring semester 2019. Their commitment was concentrated on launching the Mannheim branch of the business. In particular, the team’s tasks focused on location search, traditional and guerilla marketing and local partnerships. In doing so they helped the startup with the early stages of launch by finding partnerships and attending public events. Nevertheless, without one of the core points of customer attraction, a physical store, the launch process was still ongoing back in the days. During the cooperation they found some critical points that might slow down and/or decrease the efficiency of the local launch processes and came up with recommendations that might help local and higher levels of management to overcome these issues.

Swapfiets is a bicycle company that rents bicycles to customers. The company is Dutch but owns many stores in Germany. Their concept is to rent bikes on a contract basis to customers. The bikes provided by Swapfiets are standardized, not custom-made. Maintenance is entirely provided by Swapfiets.

To learn more about Swapfiets, visit their website: https://swapfiets.de/

As part of the MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit Nils Richter, Maxim Belikov, Yin-Feng Li and Robert Cuzencu teamed up for joining Getsafe in spring semester 2019. Getsafe had been continuously growing over the last years and was therefore looking to expand to foreign markets. In this project, they conducted a market analysis of Austria, France and Italy to determine the characteristics of these markets and what Getsafe should consider when trying to enter them. Macroeconomic characteristics such as target group size, internet and smartphone users were gathered, suitable products for a market entry were assessed, startup and established competition was analyzed and comparison portals as well as deal websites were evaluated as possible entry channels.

Getsafe is an InsurTech startup from Heidelberg. With their app they combine assurance business and technology. The result is a more approachable access to the right assurances. That might be why Getsafe is one of most chosen assurance brands among Millennials. Getsafe was founded in 2013. Alex Grimm (COO) and Daniel Treiber (CFO) studied at the University of Mannheim. Many interns are University of Mannheim students. Getsafe has take part to the Career Fair multiple times and to the QSummit. Co-founder Christian Wiens and Getsafe had been active at the Founder Talk.

Learn more about Getsafe on https://www.hellogetsafe.com/

As part of the MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Antonina Prendi, Bora Basha, Lerida Shkrepa and Livja Papuciu teamed up for joining LUB and Dr. fem FATALE in spring semester 2019. During this collaboration, they were responsible for setting up a marketing strategy, focused on social media. The team set out two main goals for the end of this project: increasing the number of E-Book units sold and increasing the overall brand awareness of Dr. fem. Fatale. The later included a promotion through the Instagram page @drfemfatale. The whole processes was evaluated by looking at the company’s KPIs.

LUB (Linguistische Unternehmensberatung) is a Mannheim based linguistic consultancy, which was originally founded in 2015 by Dr. Simone Burel and became a GmbH in early 2019. At the beginning of 2020, the product range consisted of workshops & keynotes, with topics ranging from career consulting over linguistic analysis to HR. As another service LUB offers gender and diversity consulting under the brand of dr. fem. FATALE.

To learn more about dr. fem. FATALE, see their website https://drfemfatale.de/

As part of the MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Philipp Patt and Noel Boçi joined Laptop LockWare in spring semester 2019. At this stage, the startup was preparing for the B2C market launch. The group was focused on assisting the startup getting prepared for the first rollout of the software. In this process the team worked in close cooperation with the startup founder and established a 2-way communication channel. The main assignments included various business tasks, marketing and market research, and technical implementation.

Laptop lockWare is a theft-protection software specifically designed for the library, office or a public workstation. The application does not require any additional hardware, as after activation lockWare continuously monitors your power cable connection, hence nobody can remove your laptop from the workspace without triggering various customizable alarms and notifications. The company was founded by Niklas Schäfer, a Uni Mannheim and MCEI Alumni.

To learn more about Laptop Lockware visit https://laptop-lock.de/wp/

As part of the MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit Ana Dzagic and Philipp Hoeft joined Aivy in spring semester 2019.

The team helped Aivy to fulfill its vision to improve career counselling and revolutionize the recruiting process. Concretely they provided a complete overview of potential users, customers and competitors in Germany. Furthermore, we they developed a strategic approach that allows to identify focus regions as well as target sectors in Germany. Additionally, they derived – based on interviews and theoretical background – a go-to-market strategy that allows Aivy to select the most appropriate entry strategy. Finally, they designed possible KPIs that measure the success of the go-to-market strategy and of Aivy in general.

Aivy is a revolutionary app to help companies finding the right candidate for their job vacancies. Their approach is a more appealing one than with classic tests as their app offers the applicant various games to play. On the other side evaluation showed that results tend to be more authentic compared to standard assessment methods.

Learn more about Ivy on https://www.aivy.app

As part of the MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit Sebastian Frederik Jacobsen, Philipp Steinrötter and Jan Henrik Scheuermann were working for Heyanna in spring semester 2019. As a result of their work they generated and analysed three core business models for HEYANNA and finally decided on a B2C strategy. They created and analysed the following three business models for HEYANNA: B2C Matching Platform, B2B Matching Platform and HEYANNA Spaces. Following a matching only strategy would solve the core problem which is finding the perfect flatmates and where current solutions lack in a consistent and delightful user experience. However coliving crews will only search for flatmates once or twice a year, which has a relatively low retention. This is why the second business model focused more on companies who operate coliving spaces and need a tool to manage their application flow. For them it is most interesting to automate their application process as much as possible and that HEYANNA would provide a perfect pipeline dashboard for them, which is of value. In the end the HEYANNA team should start with the matching B2C app, as this is the part, which is implemented the fastest and then develop towards providing own HEYANNA spaces and capturing the coliving market in its various niches.

Heyanna is a coloving provider located in Mannheim. After a period of market analysis and app testing the young startup launched their app just a few months ago. Already now they are are to provide coliving spaces in major towns. Applying for a coliving space at Heyanna is only possible by creating a vivid profile like a Facebook account. Heyanna was founded by Timo Strauch, Sebastian Frederik Jacobsen, Chiara Saltaformaggio and Filiz Isabella Hellwig in 2019. Sebastian is currently doing a Master's in Business Informatics. Timo is an alumni of the University of Mannheim and has also studied Business Informatics.

Learn more about Heynna on https://heyanna.co/

As part of the MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit Thiago Cäsar joined Cansativa in fall semester 2019. His mission was to develop a European Expansion strategy for the company. The goal of this project was to develop a framework for a prospective market entry of Cansativa into other European markets and the question which type of market entry strategy should be applied for a certain market. Therefore, a multiplicity of different market aspects with very heterogeneous specifications had to be prioritized, categorized and benchmarked in order to achieve a minimum level of comparability between the most relevant European markets for medical cannabis. Based on the legal and commercial attractivity nine different market scenarios were derived and respective market entry strategies suggested.

Cansativa was founded in 2017. The startup from near Frankfurt is a pharmaceutical company that is distributing medical cannabis to pharmacies throughout Germany and that position itself as a central entry gate to Europe for medical cannabis producers from all around the world. Cannabis could be applied also for medical reasons due to the broad application range and it’s remarkable effects.

Learn more on https://www.cansativa.de

As part of the MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit Manuel Francisco González Arriaga joined Future stock in fall semester 2019. His main task was a market analysis for the founders. As the idea was still on development it had to be validated and tested with the target market; also understanding the team and market was essential part in order to be able to pitch in the near future. First part of his project consisted mainly on getting to know the strengths and opportunities of the team, primary and secondary research about its potential market, getting behavioral insights, which by that point were still unknown and last but not least a small validation of the idea. The final outcome was a potential business model and demo, yet to be validated, but with a very clear problem definition and differentiation points from the current offer.

Future Stock is the result of an iterative development process towards a specific goal, providing investment knowledge in a very easy and convenient way. In a rising and competitive market providers of investment knowledge become increasingly important for private investors which equals the potential for the realisation of the idea.

As part of the MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit Aniruddh Agarwal, Borsika Molnar and Hyder Amin formed part of Treye Tech in fall semester 2019. In September 2019 the student team started to work with Treye Tech, with the aim to help to find a perfectly suitable business strategy for the startup and improve its already existing business model itself. The starting point was to have a basic understanding about the company, its work, its product. Having a basic overview they analysed different applications for the technique. As a result they concluded that the health sector might be the best sector for the company’s product in the first place. Additionally, they also analysed more possible geographical markets all around the world. As two of teammates are originally coming from India, beside Europe one possible solution seemed to be India for Treye Tech health-care communication product.

Treye Tech is meant to easy the application of mobile devices by eye movement and to open the door to a post touch era. In 2016 the startup was awarded with Be.Projekt Award. Treye Tech was founded by Anton Wachner, a Uni Mannheim employee and Alumni.

Learn more on https://www.treye-tech.com/

As part of the MAN 633 Entrepreneurial Spirit Philipp Ganster, Clara Anabel Kazmirsky, Žan Pirc and Madelyn Barquera Brito formed part of Swapfiets in fall semester 2019. Their main task was the increase of brand awareness in the Rhein-Neckar area. In particular, their project focused on developing new strategies and tools in order to create reputation of the company, acquire new customers, and stand out from the competition. That led to market research to get an in-depth knowledge about the current costumer, both online and offline through face-to-face interviews, facilitated the process to determine new target groups for an increased turnover. Furthermore, applying rather new marketing methods like social media management guaranteed high awareness rates among diverse groups of people. To offer Swapfiets several concepts that could be included to increase their efficiency and effectiveness while doing business, numerous implementation proposals have been developed throughout their engagement.

Swapfiets is a bicycle company that rents bicycles to customers. The company is Dutch but owns many stores in Germany. Their concept is to rent bikes on a contract basis to customers. The bikes provided by Swapfiets are standardized, not custom-made. Maintenance is entirely provided by Swapfiets.

To learn more about Swapfiets, visit their website: https://swapfiets.de/