Displaying items by tag: inside the venture

As part of his “Inside the Venture” Master Thesis, Niklas Stadler became Entrepreneur in Residence at the Mannheim-based startup PediQuick. Niklas has helped PediQuick develop their webshop and optimize their visibility on the web. His project included helping PediQuick gain traction by search engine optimization, search engine advertising and developing social media campaigns and channels. Next to the project work, Niklas also researched the importance of online marketing for startups in a qaulitative empirical study and included these insights in helping PediQuick advance. Niklas has revealed a very high level of commitment and achieved great results for PediQuick - also way beyond the scale and scope of his project. The thesis was finalized in November 2017.

Pediquick is an innovative pedicure shoe whose visual appearance resembles a flip-flop. The shape of his sole and the soft toe toe spreader, which are firmly attached to the sole but still provide enough flexibility to conform to the various five toes, revolutionize the use of nail polish in the foot area. In addition, the special sole provides comfort and warmth, so that the wearer feels comfortable with it. Pediquick has also been supported by INTEGRA Inside the Venture projects previously and an MAN 633 Student Inside the Venture Project. Find more information on Pediquick in our MCEI Success Story.

The Mannheim based Startup RoadAds has been supported by a MAN633 Inside the Venture project during the Spring Semester 2018. The project was conducted by Malte Nowak, Philip Quitterer, Julius Seitter, and Stefan Zipfel.

RoadAds is the first provider of digital and location-dependent vehicle advertising. The startup has developed a first product and has successfully tested the pilot project on German highways. RoadAds got wide acknowledgement, and has recently taken part in "Die Höhle der Löwen" show.

As the result of their project, the team of students has designed, implemented and tested new ideas and solutions in the areas of marketing and sales, business development, and organization development.

The angel investor network Angels4Health has received support by a MAN 633 Inside the Venture project during the Spring Semester 2018. The project was conducted by Anastasiya Guba, Amy Garcia Kennedy, Eni Papuciu, Ivan Grebenshchikov and Jonas Tischer.

Angels4Health is a 2018 founded network of private angel investors with a focus on early stage ventures in the life science industry, including medical devices, diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and digital health. They share the objective of being more than just financial investors, but of being mentors, sparring partners and part of the team. Angels4Health wants to support early stage ventures on their way to huge funding rounds and exits.

During their project, the team offered great support to the network, as their website had been launched only two weeks before the beginning of the course. In the first half of their project, the team studied with Angels4Health´s processes and created process flow charts for both Startups and Investors. Students outlined relevant networking events where the founders could promote their investor activities. After that they identified relevant stakeholders to find potential partners for Angels4Health. In the second half of the project, the team outlined the relevant marketing channels and established a social media campaign to start building a community around Angels4Health. Furthermore, the team had to familiarize themselves with website development, and added a number of new features to automate the website.

The Mannheim Center of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (MCEI) has been supported by a MAN633 Inside the Venture project during the Spring Semester 2018. The project was conducted by Fan Zhao.

The MCEI is the interdisciplinary center for entrepreneurship and innovation at the University of Mannheim. With its three core pillars inspiration, entrepreneurial education, and startup support, it helps creating a culture of learning, knowledge exchange, innovation, and excitement for startup development. MCEI’s success builds on highly motivated students tackling challenges in new ventures and experienced entrepreneurs who serve as mentors, speakers, role models, and facilitators.

During the project, Fan has conducted interviews to understand how professionals and students evaluate startup support, and to find out their expectations towards a university-based startup support. Following the interviews, Fan analyzed the results and defined how a “giving back” mentality could be more fostered among alumni of the University of Mannheim.

The Mannheim based Startup Eazy has been supported by two MAN 633 Inside the Venture projects during the Spring Semester 2018.

Eazy is a telecommunication startup which specializes in internet flat rates. Being simple, honest, and good, Eazy is challenging established market dogmas and freeing users from the exhausting tariff jungle.

The first team (Vincent Attia, Sara Pooladzadeh, and Audrey Yaker) analyzed the relevance of YouTube advertisement for Eazy and discussed the most appropriate ad formats, target groups and advertising content. The team put up a creative proposal for the startup’s first ad.

The second team (Andrei Gincu and Elvis Idrizi) developed the Eazy Back-End System technical requirements documentation. In their report, the team outlined the system´s purpose, features, functionalities, and behaviour, both positive and negative characteristics.

The Mannheim-based Startup Orderpoints was supported by a MAN 633 Inside the Venture project, conducted by AJ Nage and Matteo Rogolino during the Spring Semester 2018.

Orderpoints is an app that optimizes the order process (i.e. waiting time) and offers customers a better order experience.

The student team identified the target group for Orderpoints and came up with a customer acquisition strategy for the company.

MAN 633 Inside the Venture project (Spring 2018) of Louisa Gropengießer-Arlt aimed to support the Mannheim-based Startup Mirabesque.

Mirabesque is an online shop for high quality and unique dancewear, costumes and dance accessories. With great knowledge of their target group, the team creates value for their customers by facilitating the shopping process of dancewear. With their thought-out business model Mirabesque was able to convince the jury of the MCEI Seed Award 2018 and was the winning team in 2018.

Louisa´s project supported Mirabesque with a strategy and outline for a crowdfunding campaign. The campaign aims to support Mirabesque´s first own dancewear collection.

The Mannheim-based Startup Mister Trip has been supported by two MAN 633 Inside the Venture projects during the Spring Semester 2018.

Mister Trip is a travel platform for customized and individual travels. More than 50 local travel agencies and experts create personalized and authentic trips based on the customers’ requirements. Travelers benefit from their unique know-how, lower direct prices, and secure booking/payment process via Mister Trip´s platform.

The first team (Lukas Stoner and Julia Sitzenstuhl) conducted an analysis of distribution channels to raise Mister Trip´s customer acquisition. Their analysis focused on corporate benefit programs.

The second team (Hsiang Ling Lin, Vinoth Kannan and Yujie Tang) conducted an overview of the Asian market and analyzed customer behaviour in selected Asian countries as well as the potential of the Asian Market for Mister Trip.

The Heidelberg-based Startup GetSafe has been supported by two MAN 633 Inside the Venture projects during the Spring Semester 2018.

Getsafe is one of the fastest growing and most innovative InsurTech Startups in Germany. The company is developing the first digital insurance that is fair by design and transfer the concept of multi-line insurers like Axa or Allianz into the digital age. Their strong growth is supported by Munich Re, one of the largest re-insurers of the world, as well as by strong and leading VC investors, including Rocket Internet, CommerzVentures, and Partech.

The first team helped to upscale the efforts of GetSafe in 2018. To fulfil this aim, Melina Bucher, Yi-Hsuan Iris Peng and Christoph Reissner worked on three marketing components: a referral engine, on-campus marketing, and strategic partnerships, i.e. with the University of Mannheim.

The second team (Ines Burgstahler and Patrick Schumann) supported GetSafe´s product market fit development with a particular focus on customer behaviour of the Generation Y towards liability insurance.

For her MAN 633 Inside the Venture project (Spring 2018), Marlene Colaço supported the Mannheim-based Startup balloonas.

Balloonas is a platform which offers everything related to children's birthday party, and assists parents in discovering the inspiration they need for its planning.

In her project, Marlene further developed the business model based on the lean startup methodology and implemented methods and frameworks, such as customer development, desk-research, and traction model.