Expect the unexpected at all times

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19 October 2022

hishare.that tech platform for the development, booking and support of influencer performance and branding campaigns

Please introduce yourself and the startup hi!share.that to our readers!

My name is Silvia Lange and I am the founder and CEO of hishare.that, Germany’s first influencer tech company. We offer our clients a tech platform for the development, booking and support of influencer performance and branding campaigns that ensure the economic success of influencer marketing. The impact and ROI of influencer campaigns are rarely clearly proven – we want to change that with our product and ensure that advertisers and influencers can meet on an equal footing. Our team now consists of over 40 brand, community and marketing professionals. Our clients include momox, OBI, Douglas, payback, idealo, Outletcity, and Docmorris.

How did you get the idea of hi!share.that?

My co-founder Tivadar Szegeny and I have known each other since childhood. We started a marketing agency called ‘medialabel’ together in 2016, with which we served many clients in mobile marketing. Back then, we experienced firsthand how unpredictable and opaque influencer marketing often is. It quickly became clear to us that certain rules were needed to turn the potential of influencer marketing into a truly measurable and successful marketing channel. To tackle this problem, we founded hi!share.that in 2018.

Why did you decide to start with hi!share.that?

My co-founder and I have worked both on the corporate and agency side in the past. So we have always had a good understanding of what is important for the respective parties when they work together, and what has been neglected in many agencies so far. As mentioned, we already successfully launched medialabel in 2016. Back then, the idea was to create a kind of boutique agency, where we take clients on board and advise them when it comes to the topics of performance and influencer marketing. Back then, there was no education about this marketing discipline. Many customers were left in ignorance and there was almost no transparency in the field.

With our business, we didn’t simply want to manage budgets, we wanted to be proactively and operationally involved. Our idea was to walk the journey together with our clients, sharing our knowledge and thus building a healthy foundation for a long-term partnership. When we built up the business in a healthy and sustainable way, there was only one thing missing – our own technology. We didn’t have a tech platform at the time, it was purely a service-based business. This was the starting point for hi!share.that as our second company. Our proprietary technology was supposed to differentiate us even more from existing competitors on the market.

What is the vision behind hi!share.that?

Our vision is to become the ‘state of the art’ in influencer marketing. We combine the best of two worlds – people’s business and technology. We want to be the first choice for influencers and advertisers who want to measure and scale their joint success. With our so-called ‘hi!tech’ platform, we finally want to make the success of influencer collaborations measurable. Not with meaningless data such as likes, comments and shares, which tell us nothing about the actual success of a campaign, but with hard metrics like cost per mille (CPM) or cost per click (CPC).

Since we don’t just see the business as a brand awareness or storytelling channel, we also want to use the basics of performance marketing to boost sales figures and achieve directly visible, financial success. The actual impact, or the ROI (return on investment), of influencer campaigns is too rarely clearly proven – that’s what we want to offer with our product and ensure that advertisers and influencers can collaborate more effectively.

How difficult was the start and which challenges did you have to overcome so far?

On the one hand, we struggle daily with prejudices against influencer marketing, such as that this type of advertising is expensive, but its effects and success are not measurable. In short, many people think that “it’s not even worth it.” We are still doing a lot of educational work with our company. Influencers are not yet very familiar with the topic of ‘performance marketing’ because influencer marketing has often been solely about storytelling and less about clear KPIs that also pay off on other business goals. On the influencer side, we have to do a lot of work to get them closer to the topic of ‘performance’. On top of that, we finance all of this ourselves. We don’t have any external funding, only income from the last few years when we already had a media presence on the market with medialabel – which is hi!share.that’s ‘parent agency’ after all.

Who is your target audience?

Our target group is B2C companies of all sizes and in very different segments that are interested in taking an unconventional approach to influencer marketing. We work with start-ups as well as well-known large companies such as PAYBACK, Bonial, momox, REWE or Outletcity.

What is the USP of your startup?

The core of our product and service offering is our hi!tech platform, which we developed ourselves. With our technology, you can easily upload campaign goals, including briefings, which our creators can then apply to. During an influencer marketing campaign, all relevant KPIs are transferred to our platform in real time so that everyone involved has access to them. We are integrated with all major tracking providers, whether in app marketing or even e-commerce solutions like Shopify, WooCommerce or Shopware.

Still, numbers aren’t everything for us: while our product is based on a technical offering and heavily data-driven, it also has a human component: We carefully scout all influencers before they can register on our platform. At the same time, we support both clients in planning and implementing the campaign, and creators in creating content that performs well. Because our influencers receive variable compensation based on predefined KPIs, they are not only particularly motivated to create successful content – we also ensure that customers receive a good return on investment and that influencer marketing actually leads to economic success.

Not only are we very successful with this concept, but we can also reassure customers who are just getting started with influencer marketing. Many fear that they will automatically experience false indicators and fraud in influencer marketing. At the same time, there is sometimes an inexplicable fear of transparent data in Germany. With our proactive support, we prevent these worries and open invisible barriers in the mind.

Can you describe your typical workday?

I start at 8 AM with an absolutely necessary morning coffee! Then I read about what’s happening in the world and what industry news is out there for about 15 minutes. One of my tricks is to make my to-do list for the day either the night before or in the morning. In fact, I always do it in a notebook and not digitally. Written on paper, I keep things in my head better. I usually use the morning to get an overview of currently running campaigns or projects and see if there are any difficulties somewhere or if everything is running smoothly. I go through my emails and bring myself up-to-date.

Because there’s only one coffee in the morning and I don’t eat breakfast, I’m usually at lunch by 12 PM sharp. I keep my break quite short. I prefer to take more time for private enjoyment and eating after work. From 12:30 to 5 PM, I usually have customer meetings or update calls with the team. I have very high standards when it comes to account management. It’s important for me to spend a lot of time with my customers in order to get regular feedback, optimize processes, and be able to push future projects as early as possible.

From 5 PM onwards, I’m back at processing emails. I look at what correspondence has come in and work through it. As it gets quieter in the office at the end of the day, I check which topics have been left over and which things I can prepare for the next day. These then end up back on my to-do list. I then usually start my well-deserved evening off around 6:30-7:00 PM.

Where do you see yourself and your startup hi!share.that in five years?

We are in the process of conquering more markets, our expansion strategy is already being planned. We will also enter into more strategic partnerships in the future so that we not only work directly with customers, but are an interesting sparring partner for agencies or influencer management companies too. In the long-term, we see ourselves as a useful hub to partners and less as competition, as our approach is very different from everyone else in the market.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

As a CEO, never give up! Keep going no matter how good or difficult situations present themselves.

Expect the unexpected at all times. Always stay flexible as the market can change unexpectedly, which you can see now with growing inflation or the COVID-19 pandemic in the past two years. Such situations can be a big game changer.

Customers and employees are the be-all and end-all and their satisfaction should always be your highest priority.

More information you will find here

Thank you Silvia Lange for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

The culture and values and with that our rituals and expected behaviors towards one another

By

Quepatagra

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18 October 2022

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Wooga created a series of successful and unique mobile app games, so-called casual games, including June’s Journey®, Pearl’s Peril® and Switchcraft®.

Please introduce yourself and your startup Wooga to our readers!

We are a Berlin-based mobile games developer established in 2009 and have created a series of successful and unique mobile app games, so-called casual games, including June’s Journey®, Pearl’s Peril® and Switchcraft®. In 2018, Wooga® was acquired by social games company Playtika® from Israel. Our Hidden Object game “June’s Journey” has now reached US$500Mln in Lifetime Revenues since its launch five years ago, which we are very proud of.

Why did you decide to start at Wooga?

I have been working in the Gaming industry for quite some time now, with other stations based outside of Germany. Yet, Wooga was the natural choice for me, as I was and still am extremely driven by the team’s energy and the whole basis on which we create our story-driven games for our users.

What is the vision behind Wooga?

We want to inspire the players of our story-driven games to have joy while playing, equally to our employees having joy while creating these experiences. We are all used to watching movies and series, which are all built up by a storyline. Our users can use their own imagination and creativity to build their own story, which is very rewarding.

How difficult was your start and which challenges you had to overcome?

I joined Wooga right at the beginning of the Pandemic and was one of the first employees who had to be onboarded remotely. I did not know my fellow Management Team members before joining and we all experienced in the past 2 years that building trust when only working remotely takes much more time and effort from everyone involved. My predecessor Jens Begemann founded the company and did an outstanding job running it for more than a decade. I am following in big footsteps.

Who is your target audience?

Our games are made for players who enjoy a gripping narrative while playing through beautifully made game content. Around two thirds of our players are women.

What is the USP of your company?

Next to really driving the story-driven gaming category, we are very proud of an extremely diverse team that has become a huge family. Also, the company has been increasingly promoting environmentally friendly and climate-active messages in its games. We gamers have a big heart for our planet, and we want to demonstrate and prove that. Our players have shown that they want to actively take responsibility. Wooga has been a climate-neutral developer of mobile games since 2020.

Can you describe your typical workday ?

All Management Team members kick off every day with a daily check-in to align where we might need each other’s input and learn what is top of mind for all of us. Generally my focus is to work “on the company” and with that ensuring that all teams can perform at their best, which comes with regular internal interactions with game teams but also publishing and operational teams as well as our mother company Playtika in Israel. Since the Pandemic my typical workday is packed with calls, which probably many people can relate to, so that I aim to end my day in time for family dinner and bed-time stories for my two young children.

Where do you see Wooga in five years?

Wooga four years ago was one of the first gaming companies that set out to focus on story-driven casual games, and since then we are proud to have grown into one of the industry leaders in this category with the growing global success of June’s Journey. We have a strong foundation in story driven casual games, with casual games that push the boundaries of the story-driven category – crafting compelling player fantasies where the player is the star and their actions drive the narrative forward.

Wooga also, so far, in 2022 has already hired 80 new employees and currently employs around 300 Woogas, including 42 percent of women, a particularly high proportion for the gaming industry. These points have made us strong and we want to continue on that journey.

What 3 tips would you give Company leaders?

Focus on building a strong foundation – this will make the organization more effective in achieving its vision and goals as well as more resilient when dealing with any unexpected internal or external situations

3 core parts of a company’s foundation I focus on is:

The company vision and with that the direction we’re headed as well as our desired impact

Having a clear vision creates more alignment and engagement: The people who identify with the vision will opt-in and feel more engaged, and the people who are not aligned with the vision will opt-out and leave.

It also enables more autonomy: If everyone understands where we’re going, then they can operate independently.

The culture and values and with that our rituals and expected behaviors towards one another

Establishing a strong culture built on clear values gives people guidance and sets common expectations for behavior. How should we behave? How do we expect others to behave when achieving results?

This compliments the vision and leads to both stronger relationships between employees and stronger connection to the company vision

The people and talent and with that our strengths and weaknesses in terms of skills and how to improve

Focusing on talent mapping based on what we need in terms of skill & mindsets from all of our employees, to achieve our vision and establishing robust talent development processes that allow us to mold the organization’s capabilities to best fit what we need in order to achieve our vision.

Thank you Nai Chang for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Don’t be afraid to try new things

By

Quepatagra

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14 October 2022

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Alfred Travel travel companion pick up your luggage at your hotel or Airbnb and deliver it to the train stations and airports in Paris

Please introduce yourself and your startup Alfred to our readers!

My name is Sophie Goujet, I am the co-founder of Alfred Travel. I have worked for ten years in the Travel Retail industry. I am a keen traveler by nature, and I created Alfred almost a year ago with two co-founders: Charlotte Sevin and Amee Cox.

Alfred is a tailor-made luggage pick-up and drop-off service in Paris. We collect the luggage of travelers from Paris airports or train stations, and we deliver them the same day at the time and location of their choice (hotels / Airbnb, etc). We also do the process the other way around: from Paris city center to the airports or train station.

In a way, Alfred is the Uber of luggage, allowing everyone who visits Paris to enjoy the city free of their bags. Especially on their first and last day of holiday.

How did you get the idea of Alfred?

I was a frequent traveler prior to 2020. I was taking on average two flights per week, whether it was for personal or professional reasons. Naturally, I know what it means to lug my luggage everywhere! Usually, I had to leave my luggage in a locker or at the hotel reception. But it was not often practical, as I always had to come back to pick-it up at some point. And this is how the idea developed.

Why did you decide to start with Alfred?

We had discussions with many people: CTO’s, entrepreneurs, hotel directors, to understand the ins and outs of creating a company, developing a service that doesn’t exist yet, grasping the customer needs, understanding the market, etc.

And we also did extensive market research, which helped us understand what travelers require or want when they travel. We already sensed it, but we realized that people from other continents or countries are sensitive to complete different triggers when it comes to their travel. It is very much based on their culture, their age, or their sensitivity to technology for example. Based on all our findings, we built the business plan and went for it!

What is the vision behind Alfred?

The vision is to help travelers by providing an affordable, safe, and user-friendly service. It is as simple as that! Enjoy the moment and make the most of your trip. That’s what really drives us. And there is nothing better than seeing a customer at the airport, at the very end of their trip saying: “wow, thank you; I had the time to do so many things today!”

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

We created Alfred in the middle of COVID-19. We thought it was an opportunity because most of the businesses re-focus on their main product / service when a crisis arises. And we believed there was room for newcomers like us. What we didn’t see, is how long Covid would last and how it would impact the overall tourist industry.

Hence the beginnings were slow, and we had to wait for travelers to come back to France. But when the situation got better, we had some great conversations with hotel managers, tour guides, and several partners. This was back in December 2021. And we had the vision to start our model on a B2B2C basis.

Unfortunately, most of our potential partners suffered from a tough cash flow + recruitment issues (many hotels have difficulties recruiting since COVID-19). So, they were not ready to integrate a new partner.

And then the 5th wave of COVID-19 arrived (Jan – March 2022). It put most of our conversations in the bin and we had to start from scratch again. This is where we decided to change for a B2C model. A month later the first orders arrived and the number of requests per month keep growing now! It allowed us to prepare for the high season, to fine-tune our concept. And to approach partners again with both a successful concept and customers reviews in hand.

Who is your target audience?

Basically, anyone who comes to Paris! We have customers coming from all over the world: Scotland, Singapore, Israel, Thailand, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa – you name it! I don’t like using the word tourist as I believe you can visit a city as a local and still live somewhere else. But most of our customers come to Paris for personal reasons.
We are planning to target business travelers a bit later down the line.

What is the USP of your startup?

Alfred is a safe yet fun travel companion that helps people explore the city like locals. We liberate customers from their bags and allow them to enjoy and live every minute of their trip “in the moment”.

Can you describe your typical workday?

The first thing I do in the morning is to check if we have had any orders coming through during the night. A lot of our customers live in a different time zone, which means we receive payments early in the morning frequently.

I take note of all confirmed orders and book the slots for them according to their travel dates. Following this, I check the emails we received overnight. A lot of customers also contact us via the traditional contact form on our website. We do our very best to answer them within a 24-hour timeframe, which means providing a response as soon as we can.

Around lunchtime, I usually go to our dispatch area to check the orders of the day. At this time, 95 percent of the luggage have been picked-up and we can then organize the team around the deliveries in the afternoon.

We double / triple check every element, then we do a briefing with the team and load the cars with the luggage. In the afternoon, I typically spend some time on business development and customer satisfaction: I answer the customer requests, and try to organize all my calls during this timeframe.

Later in the day, we plan together the upcoming deliveries and do a round-up of the day to discuss what went well and what could be improved. Customer satisfaction is the main driver of our entire business, so we do review every single review / comment we receive and discuss them as a team.

Where do you see yourself and your startup Alfred in five years?

In five years we aim to be present in different cities across Europe and be a reliable travel companion for many people!

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

My first tip would be to find a work-life balance from the start. You may not be able to take four weeks of holiday during the year, but it’s important to find time for yourself. Being an entrepreneur is a long journey and if you throw yourself at it for 200 percent for too long, you will end up living only through your company: its successes and its failures, which is not what life is about.

My second tip would be to test your pricing from the start to understand what your clients are ready to pay for what you offer, while understanding if your business is sustainable with the selling price you are proposing.

And thirdly, don’t be afraid to try new things to sell your product/service. You may be shy in front of people, undersell your product. But if you don’t sell it, you will never grow. Sometimes that will require you to put your ego on the side and be persistent while keeping all conversations open.

Picture from left to right: Charlotte Kevin, Sophie Goujet, Amee Cox – Credits: Alfred

More information you will find here

Thank you Sophie Goujet for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Former Checkout Team Raises $6M to Build the Modern Infrastructure of Money Movement

By

Quepatagra

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11 October 2022

0

Payable – a new platform to streamline payment operations and automate business bank transfers for the internet economy – today announces a $6 million seed round. The round was co-led by CRV and Earlybird Venture Capital with participation from Conversion Capital, Clocktower Ventures, and angel investors including Francesco Simoneschi CEO of TrueLayer, Hristo Borisov CEO of Payhawk, Nik Milanović founder of This Week in FinTech and the FinTech fund, Bitpanda founders, Dileep Thazhmon CEO of Jeeves, and many other founders and operators in the space.

The idea for Payable was conceived by co-founders Daniel Yubi and Raz Musca, who built the marketplace solution while at Checkout. Doing so helped them realize how hard it is to manage payment operations. “It is one of those problems you don’t notice until you are working directly with the finance operations team and see their challenges firsthand,” states Yubi. “We literally watched them use a spreadsheet with one hand to count payments and cash with a bank file on the other hand to manually send money to their customers. It was both inefficient and antiquated. Once we saw the problem, we knew there had to be a better way and became determined to create it.”

Payable solves payment reconciliation for companies data matching products and integrating with corporate bank accounts. It provides both an API and a dashboard that enables marketplaces, lenders and fintechs to manage money movement from a single interface. Currently companies have to deal with bank files such as EBICs and spreadsheets and use engineering and finance professionals to understand why payments happened. This becomes increasingly difficult as companies scale.

“Today, it is easy to accept payments but to understand where money is, it is quite difficult. The vision we have for Payable is that any product manager in a company is empowered to launch a new fintech product, a product that ‘moves money”’ without freaking out their finance team”, said Daniel Yubi.

Building payments operations software requires unique technical expertise at the intersection of payments, banking and finance. While there are some companies starting to appear in the PaymentOps space, what distinguishes Payable is its deep founding-team / market fit in this new emerging category.

“What excited us most about investing in Payable is that Daniel understands the core problem fintechs struggle with and have created a platform that can automate the entire payment lifecycle,” said James Green, partner at CRV. “We have tremendous confidence in their ability to deliver on their mission as they have assembled a team with similar backgrounds coming from companies such as Curve, TrueLayer, 11FS and Stripe.”

“As we got to know Daniel and his team over time, it became clear to us that the founders have lived the pain point and possess the domain knowledge to build the best product to solve for it. The team’s vision redefines the possibilities enabled by automating money movement” said Tim Rehder, Partner at Earlybird.

A remote first company with headquarters in London, Payable is building a team of payment experts at the intersection of banking and payments. It will use the seed funding to scale the organization and add new integrations with banks across the United Kingdom as well as expand its coverage to other European countries beyond the U.K.

Source Earlybird DWES Management GmbH & Co. KG

Team wellness and mental health are as important as achieving your product goals

By

Quepatagra

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7 October 2022

0

Robbi develop robotics intelligence the first product is Robbi Forests

Please introduce yourself and your startup Robbi to our readers!

My name is Andrés Jiménez. I’ve been working in the tech industry for the last 15 years leading teams in the design and development of new technology products and starting 2021, I co-founded Robbi (https://robbi.co). We develop robotics intelligence for a better tomorrow and decided to initially focus on a first challenge: wildfires. Our first product, Robbi Forests, analyzes vegetation to generate insights that could prevent or mitigate a wildfire. We do that by using AI and combining data from different drone sensors.

We’re now a startup in residence at MassChallenge, one of the biggest startup accelerators in the world. And in the last few days we classified between the top 5 in the program. People can know more about the top 5 startups and even vote for us to let us access a Community Choice Award until October 14th at http://more.masschallenge.org/community-choice-2022

How did you get the idea of Robbi Forests?

Together, with my co-founder Jhorman, we share a common goal about using technology to solve impact challenges. Wildfires are one of those and how they have been growing through these last years got our attention, urgently asking for a solution. Jhorman started to reach out to stakeholders, including forest and fire departments in Germany, Portugal, Ireland and Denmark, to explore possibilities to contribute and we found positive reception that gave the foundation to what we’re doing.

Why did you decide to start with Robbi?

After finding a business partner with the same commitment and passion to work on this topic. I’m convinced that great companies are created by great teams, and I think we have one.

What is the vision behind Robbi?

We wanna create an ecosystem where technology and life converge to solve impact challenges. We started with wildfires but we see us quickly moving to work on climate and more.

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

We started by working together for what we called “a week without commitment”. We quickly found a good synergy as a team, but to turn it into a full time activity we went through different challenges, going from providing economic stability to the team to achieving market-fit. It was great to find support from organizations like Climate Founders, Startup Incubator Berlin, SIBB, German Accelerator and MassChallenge along the way.

Who is your target audience?

Wildfire forest consultants and forest investors in a first phase, but we’re continuing with forest and fire services, local governments and insurance companies.

What is the USP of your startup?

We find a gap in the market when we talk about wildfire tech. Solutions are focused on early detection, suppression or even prediction, but prevention has been left apart. Our technology focuses on wildfire prevention, providing the best return on investment, and takes advantage of the smart detection technology developed with our trained AI models.

Can you describe your typical workday?

We usually start with a quick check of the pending tasks and the daily agenda, we prioritize and decide on the strategy for specific points and move to work. It’s interesting how we evolved to also worry about having the best work environment for the day, so you’ll easily find us working in different places and having a drink and a nice playlist next to us.

Where do you see yourself and your startup Robbi in five years?

There should be a before and after. If we talk about helping to prevent wildfires, our influence should be felt in the field.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

A co-founder that shares your vision, passion and commitment is key.

Always promote communication, between your partners, your team and with your customers.

Team wellness and mental health are as important as achieving your product goals.

More information you will find here

Thank you Andrés Jiménez for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

QuantPi wins top VC investor and closes a €2.5M pre-seed round

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Quepatagra

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7 October 2022

0

QuantPi, the leading development platform for Responsible AI has announced the successful closing of their pre-seed funding round

QuantPi, the leading technology-provider for Responsible AI, announced that it has secured 7-digits in pre-seed funding. The financing from top investors, leading angels and industry experts signals QuantPi’s strong position as a first-mover in a highly relevant, massively growing but still emerging market.

QuantPi’s general hypothesis is as simple as powerful: The indispensable AI transformation of nearly every industry has just started. Global yearly investments in AI surpass $US 59Bn in 2021 and are expected to reach $US 422Bn in 2028. Modern AI algorithms are considered a century invention that will change the way we live – yet companies need to learn how to handle them correctly in order to avoid significant financial and physical harm as seen in the past: Whether it’s credit card which has been investigated for discriminating against women, a chatbot that reportedly made racist tweets, or an autopilot that was reported to cause crashes, there are plenty of of recent AI incidents.

Hundreds of examples can be found in the AI incident databases. This has not only been recognized by industry leaders (more than 90% of executives plan to invest in Responsible AI) but also by hundreds of initiatives to regulate and standardize AI, with its most prominent and impactful example: the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA). One of the consequences of the AIA is that companies who cannot explain the decisions made by their AI will be fined up to 6% of yearly global revenues. QuantPi addresses this market opportunity by closing the gap using researched backed technologies delivered via its platform in order to develop efficient, secure and compliant AI-based products.

QuantPi takes care of eliminating uncertainty in building trustworthy AI products

Using QuantPi’s platform, enterprises can ensure that legal, commercial, ethical, and reputational risks related to their AI solutions are identified, assessed, and mitigated. The platform can be seamlessly integrated with modern ML and BI tools. It collects artifacts and metrics about AI systems within the most important risk and auditing dimensions.

Following a research period of nearly 7 years, QuantPi was founded in 2020 by leading mathematicians, computer scientists and business minds as a spin-off of the renowned CISPA – Helmholtz Center for Information Security and Saarland University. Having started with the intrinsic motivation of making black-box AI understandable to non-machine learners through eXplainable AI (XAI), the technology quickly developed to a holistic platform to make AI safer and more understandable to the different stakeholders in society, research and business.

“At QuantPi, we are convinced that intelligent systems can be beneficial to humanity. However, we believe that certain people and technologies are needed to enable this positive coexistence. Our state-of-the-art Responsible AI platform places us on a strong trajectory to make our vision a reality: enabling society for a safe & self-determined co-existence with intelligent machines.” says QuantPi co-founder and CEO Philipp Adamidis.

Source COHORT GmbH

Keep chasing your dreams

By

Quepatagra

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6 October 2022

0

Money Masters is a financial education platform aiming to solve the financial literacy crisis around the world.

Please introduce yourself and your startup Money Masters to our readers!

Hi, I am David Giron, the CEO, and co-founder of Money Masters. Money Masters is a financial education platform aiming to solve the financial literacy crisis around the world.

How did you get the idea of Money Masters?

The idea for Money Masters wasn’t a lightning-in-a-bottle moment, but rather came in parts. Let me first start with the fact that I was born and raised in Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in the world. In order to create a better future for myself and my family, I moved to the US for college and later endeavored out to Europe. After experiencing the inequality between developed and emerging nations, I realized that a vital part of a country’s development is the educational infrastructure that is in place. However, despite the infrastructure being so well developed in places such as the United States I found that there was still minimal financial education available. Even in a top country like the United States, over 37% of the population is financially illiterate and this number grows much larger when you begin to look at developing economies.

Why did you decide to start with Money Masters?

When I was living in Germany, I used Duolingo to learn German. That’s when something clicked. Duolingo changed the game in the language learning space. It made it possible that anyone could learn a language anywhere in the world for free. I asked myself, why can’t I do the same thing for finance? Inspired by Duolingo, we created Money Masters.

By breaking down finance into bite-size modules, and creating interactive content, I believed I could make learning finance a fun experience. Just like Duolingo, we gamified the experience by creating rewards, streaks, and competitions so that learning about finance was more of a game. Technology is changing the way we learn, we don’t want to sit down in a classroom and just read for hours. We all learn in different ways, and that’s what we try to achieve at Money Masters.

What is the vision behind Money Masters?

The vision behind Money Masters is to make financial education accessible to all. We believe that everyone has the ability to be financially free and we are looking to unlock this potential through knowledge. Everyone spends their whole life working for money and we believe with sufficient education you can make your money work for you.

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

The company was founded in October of 2020 and this was a difficult time to start a business as Covid made the business landscape difficult to navigate, whether it be finding potential partners or working in a team environment. But despite these difficult challenges we were able to set achievable goals that we were then able to meet which got our project off the ground. As we are dealing with an ed-tech platform, transitioning financial education into the tech atmosphere took some time. But as of now, we are fulfilling the goal of reaching over 400 bite-sized lessons by the end of 2022.

Who is your target audience?

At Money Masters, we want to make financial education accessible to all. Our app is designed for anyone who wants to learn about finance and in particular we target the demographics that have the lowest levels of financial literacy, which includes Gen Zs and Millennials.

What is the USP of your startup?

The unique selling proposition at Money Masters is that we mix theory and practice. Most programs either educate you in totality on the theory or attempt to teach you how to beat the stock market. We have created an ecosystem where the two aspects of financial education are mixed together, both theory and practice. You must complete a section of our academy (lesson learning) before you can enter the arena, also known as the Fantasy Investing Competition. We are a one-stop shop for all things finance, we don’t only teach people about personal finance or investing, we teach people about all things money and then allow them to use their newfound knowledge in practical ways.

Can you describe your typical workday?

No two days in a start-up environment are the same. However, we do our best to embed routines into our team’s schedules to avoid the chaos that comes hand and hand with the start-up lifestyle.

Every Morning we have a simple 15-minute meeting to catch up with all members of the team and see what they are working on and what obstacles they are facing with current tasks. We heavily prioritize company culture and the whole team will have lunch together frequently.

The majority of the days will include meetings with potential investors and partners, attending events for our established partners which lead to a growing community presence, and also meeting with other founders and mentors as they have helped me immensely on this journey.

Where do you see yourself and your startup Money Masters in five years?

In 5 years we see ourselves as leading figures within the Ed-Tech space. With a 20% month-over-month growth since our product was launched on the app and google play store we believe it’s very reasonable that we will have accumulated over 1 million active users globally by 2027 on mobile and web applications. However, we believe our content shouldn’t only be consumed by the English-speaking community and we are working hard every day to translate our platform into different languages. We are hoping to have 15+ languages available on our app within the next 5 years. Most importantly we want to see financial literacy rates around the world increase and we want to be the company that takes the complexity out of finance.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

Keep chasing your dreams
Use the resources available within your area and network (incubators, connections, etc.)
Keep the team’s spirits high, and develop a good company culture from day one.

More information you will find here

Thank you David Giron for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Build a great team of founders

By

Quepatagra

-

5 October 2022

0

DocVox is a smart meeting assistant that allows you to document your meeting without even typing!

Please introduce yourself and your startup DocVox to our readers!

DocVox is a smart meeting assistant that allows you to document your meeting without even typing! In a few clicks, it joins your meetings as a participant and works in the background to recommend you notes, tasks, and todos. It leaves you the time to focus on the conversation while being sure that your meeting is well documented and your data is treated carefully.

We are 3 young productivity experts who bring a different set of qualities to the team.

Tom Würden most recently worked as an IT consultant. His responsibility was the management of the integration of an internal project management system (PMO) and dealt with topics such as team leading, requirements engineering, quality, and test management. With Simon Krantz, we have an experienced commercial person with a focus on cross-cultural marketing and negotiation. He worked in the field of knowledge brokering, where he led teams of associates and oversaw more than 15 to 20 projects weekly from start to successful completion. Lastly, Viktor Walter-Tscharf has been involved in Machine-Learning research for 7 years. His responsibility is the algorithms and deep learning model which brings DocVox’s vision to life.

How did you get the idea of DocVox? Why did you decide to start with DocVox?

Viktor and Tom got the idea of DocVox during the first lockdown in 2020. They both had a lot of online meetings and felt the pain of having to keep track of all the minutes and tasks discussed. Working on this pain point they started to develop the first version of the smart meeting assistant that became the core product of DocVox. Simon joined a few months after. He participated in the UX design and helped polish the solution with his user-centric view.

What is the vision behind DocVox?

Facilitate meetings across the world by keeping them stress-free, focused, and organized.

How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?

The main challenge when starting a SaaS product and most of all an AI-based solution is the development of the technology. Having the idea behind it is, of course, critical but the hardest part is to develop it into a stable, user-friendly, and efficient tool. Through a lot of trial and error, we developed DocVox to its current version. However, we are constantly improving it in order to offer our users the best tool possible. We believe in a tool that evolves with its users’ needs.

Additionally, funding is another challenging area. You need money to be able to focus fully on this endeavour but finding it is a headache. It took us a lot of time to secure our first finances but hopefully, we managed to do it through efforts and perseverance.

Who is your target audience?

From a general standpoint, any individual that regularly attends meetings online will benefit from DocVox. Indeed, our smart meeting assistant is relevant in any industry, at any business level.

In terms of strategy, our target audience is product/ project managers. In this profession, people spend hours of their week in meetings, They often have to manage a lot of information, share it with their teams as well as manage tasks and deadlines for the product or project they are managing.

What is the USP of your startup?

No post-processing is required: In contrast with other solutions on the market that require the user to revisit the meeting transcript in order to extract the valuable information, with DocVox you receive AI-based recommendations while the meeting is happening.

Focus on voice to action: The main purpose of our solution is to provide our users with a clear transcript and actionable items. Once the meeting is over you can get to work right away.

Data security: One of the pilar of DocVox is data protection. We want to ensure the utmost security of our users’ sensitive (and less sensitive) data. Having that in mind we implemented key features such as GDPR compliance, on-premise deployment, an option to opt-out of the recording.

Can you describe your typical workday?

As big promoters of remote working, the whole team works most of the time from home. We of course collaborate closely on a daily basis and communicate substantially over the phone, online meeting tools, slack, etc..

A typical work day starts with a quick stand-up with the whole team on slack to exchange on our tasks and challenges.

Afterward, each one of us works separately in his area. We are very complementary and we each have our own area of expertise.

We have multiple meetings per day with external and internal partners. Depending on the nature of these events, one, two, or all of us will be joining and bringing their expertise. We also catch up on an ad hoc basis to discuss some issues that may arise.

Where do you see yourself and your startup DocVox in five years?

Such as many start-ups, it is very complicated to have an accurate forecast of the future in the current ecosystem. Nevertheless, we are very confident in the validity of our business plan.

In 5 years we plan to be an implemented actor in the marketplace with our smart meeting assistant helping tens of thousands of teams worldwide to stay engaged in their meetings.

We also plan an organic growth with around 30 employees by this time. We want to implement a sustainable business with a great work environment and the lowest turnover possible.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

Build a great team of founders

Take time to find the right product-market fit

Perseverance, perseverance, perseverance

More information you will find here

Thank you Simon Krantz for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Keep passion in mind throughout the good and the bad times

By

Quepatagra

-

27 September 2022

0

Chordify – The Music e-learning platform that automatically transforms music into chords

Please introduce yourself and your startup Chordify to our readers!

My name is Tijmen and I am one of the co-founders at Chordify – The Music e-learning platform that automatically transforms music into chords. Like magic! Well, not really… It’s actually done through AI technology that can recognize even the most obscure songs and then produce the chords to that song so that you can play it on guitar, piano, or ukelele. So not magic at all really, just state-of-the-art music technology, which I think is even cooler in a way.

How did you get the idea of Chordify?

I used to play in a band with Bas, our CEO, and a few other guys, some of whom still work with us at Chordify. With our combined interest in music and programming, we saw a chance at revolutionizing the world of chord recognition technology – and so we did!

Why did you decide to start with Chordify?

As musicians, we used a lot of chords platforms and we never really thought any of them lived up to their full potential. There was always the issue of chords missing for less known songs and sometimes the chords weren’t even right. We wanted a platform that was easier to use and had any song you’d search for.

What is the vision behind Chordify?

Seeing the world is living its music, that has always been our vision.

We just love seeing the millions of users that jam along with us at Chordify. Music can both be a way to deal with stress and emotions but it can also let you escape from everyday life for a while – I think that’s something everyone needs from time to time. We also strive to see people connect through music, whether that’s with friends, an audience, or with your old self by playing something nostalgic. Finally, Chordify can be a great way to develop as a person considering how learning something new gives you a sense of confidence and achievement.

How difficult was the start and which challenges did you have to overcome?

We faced a bunch of challenges, like any start-up we struggled with time, funding, and structure. It’s, unfortunately, true that nothing worth having comes easy. It really comes down to expecting mistakes to be made, learning from them, and then remembering why you did all this in the first place so you don’t lose hope. It helps to have friends as colleagues who love music as much as you do.

Who is your target audience?

One of the best things about Chordify is that everyone from novice players to self-made professionals can make good use of our platform. When you’ve decided which song you’d like to play, the chords are provided to you in progression with the song, and the platform shows you how to play every chord. Then there’s a bunch of groovy features that help those who are still just starting out, like slowing down the tempo so you can follow the song at your own pace. We’ve really put a lot of effort into making it a platform for all music lovers – no matter your previous skills.

What is the USP of your startup?

First and foremost, our cutting-edge technology really sets us apart as it makes it possible to get the chords to any song, without being dependent on anyone else having manually entered the chords before. Without getting too nerdy with the tech details, we built an AI robot that could do both chord recognition and beat tracking. After feeding it with thousands of song examples, it can now figure out the chords to any song in the world, all by itself! We’re very proud robot parents.

There are obviously other chord and music e-learning platforms out there and right on them for helping people connect with music, that’s the most important thing. But Chordify has a unique technology and a combination of features that together gives the user a better all-around experience and accommodates a wider range of music lovers.

Can you describe your typical workday?

Most days at Chordify are quite upbeat (pun intended) since we are in the scaleup stage of things. No day is the same, but it’s usually coffee, meetings, coffee, listening to some good music, coffee, tech stuff, and then finishing the day with some physical puzzle solving at the bouldering gym.

I feel very lucky to have so many amazing people in our big band and I think they are what makes our company culture so great. More than that, we all love music so we often share our favorite new releases and even our own creations. We also meet up at concerts and festivals and like to jam together, even if it sounds horrible sometimes.

Where do you see yourself and your startup Chordify in five years?

I am hoping that more music lovers join us in chordifying music. Starting off in the Netherlands, Chordify has seen fast and organic growth in the last 10 years but we’ve always had our eyes on expanding internationally so that’s where our focus lies right now.

What 3 tips would you give to founders?

You most likely built your business around something you’re passionate about, so my recommendation would be to keep that passion in mind throughout the good and the bad times.

This is a little bit of a cliche, but don’t underestimate the value of hiring the right person. Your employees are what will make or break your business.

And last but not least, ROCK ON!

More information you will find here

Thank you Tijmen for the Interview

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.

Why Accounting Is Important for Your Startup

By

Quepatagra

-

15 September 2022

0

As an entrepreneur, your startup will require solid accounting practices from the beginning. This will allow the founders, financial managers, and business leaders to have real-time visibility to accurate information on accrued expenses vs, accounts payable. Accurate financial data is crucial because of how unpredictable startups are. This post will look at the reasons why accounting is crucial for startups.

Benefits of Accounting for Startups

An accounting process will allow a business owner to see how good or bad the business is performing financially. The business will have a better understanding of its past activities, and where it is currently. This makes it easier to make business plans for the future. Accounting for startups allows you as the owner to easily track accrued expenses for services rendered, and goods produced.

Below are five accounting basics every startup should be tracking.

Bank statements
Payroll
Credit card statement
Invoices
Proof of payment

Bank Statements

With the use of online banking, dealing with bulky bank statements for businesses is no longer common. However, reconciling your startup’s bank account can not be ignored. Reconciling these statements every month will allow you to balance the general ledger balance to the balance in your bank account. Performing these actions will allow you to easily trace and find errors in banking that may otherwise go unnoticed without reconciling the statements each month.

Payroll

Tracking payroll includes retaining employee records of time to managing employee personnel records. As a business owner, it means you have to manage all related payroll forms which include 941S, W-2s, and 1099s.

Credit Card Statements

It is as crucial to reconcile your credit card statement as it is to reconcile your bank statement. With the rise of credit card fraud, multiple small charges may be going through your credit card without detection. Ensure that you have a backup for all charges on your card’s statement. This is especially critical if different employees can use the company’s credit card.

Invoices

Your customers need to be invoiced for products and services that your business offers. You should be able to create an invoice at the beginning of your business. The accounting software you may be using or planning to purchase will probably have an invoicing feature and accounts receivable tracking included. Ensure that you are invoicing and following up on the invoices regularly to get paid.

Proof of Payment

A supplier calls to inform you that they will not be shipping products to you until you’ve cleared your bill. You’re frustrated because you mailed a check to them two weeks ago. Always ensure that you keep bank statements close to determine if it has cleared. If it has cleared, you need to request a copy to give to your suppliers. If you are not using checks in your business, keep proof of payment safely along with the bill in case the payment is missing.

Endnote

Managing your business accounts from the start allows you to better control the finances, and properly plan for the future. You will know when your startup is overspending and when you need to reduce certain expenditures. Above are points that show you the importance of accounting for any startup business. Start tracking these features and watch your startup thrive.

Author: Lorelyn

Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.