Impressions from the first ESMT Start-up Roundtable

Sumitro at SURT

Topic of inaugural meeting: Why Marketing should be in a Start-up’s Toolkit

On November 24, 2011, Prof. Sumitro Banerjee welcomed 30 guests to the first ESMT Start-up Roundtable at ESMT Campus in Berlin. Among them were many different start-ups from Berlin as well as ESMT faculty and students. Together they made this event a mix of academic thinking and practical insights.
It all started with the introductory remark of Sumitro talking about the reason for Marketing being in a Start-up’s toolkit. He introduced ESMT and then introduced some basic principles of marketing. He showed that the role of marketing within a business is the only function “looking outside” of the company toward general public. It is therefore essential to start thinking about marketing already during for the early stages of the product development process. Sumitro especially emphasized how critical pricing and marketing intelligence are for a start-up’s success.

Practical insights from keynote speeches

The keynote speeches were delivered by Holger Weiss, CEO of Aupeo!, and Dr. Felix Kreyer together with Dr. Magnus Resch, CEO of Gourmeo.

Aupeo!

Holger Weiss narrated the story of Aupeo! Like many other start-ups, Aupeo! was started by a bunch of friends who had come up with a great idea. They created a customized internet radio: Aupeo! Unlike many other start-ups, Aupeo! was launched at a time when many customized internet radios such as Pandora and Last.fm were already in the market. Aupeo! therefore faced stiff competition right from the beginning. Holger pointed out that as a start-up you need to be able to give an “elevator pitch”, i.e., say in five minutes what your company is about. While he was talking, many in the audience were downloading the Aupeo! app on their smartphones and iPads. There were many questions from the audience about the challenges they faced early on and their marketing strategies.

Incubator

Felix Kreyer, start-up consultant and former managing partner of the Start-up incubator Springstar, introduced the roundtable participants to the role of incubators. Incubators provide upfront financial support, infrastructure such as office space, legal requirement and human resources (freelancers) which is why they are also called “Plug and Play Incubators”. They help you get your company off the ground from Day One! In general, they also provide expertise, guidance and full support to entrepreneurs – starting from software development and online marketing to management, recruiting, and global rollout. The reason why incubators do so is that they believe that start-ups can grow faster under incubation than otherwise which helps them to pre-empt potential competition. They usually have great market intelligence which enables them to develop their own start-up ideas. However, to reduce their risks, they search founders (a.k.a. Entrepreneurs in Residence) and give them their ideas instead of starting up on their own.

Gourmeo

One of the companies supported by an incubator is Gourmeo, an online reservation system for top restaurants in major German cities. Magnus Resch, Gourmeo’s founder and CEO, presented the company which has been in the market only for two months. A lively discussion ensued during which he received a lot of inputs from ESMT faculty and the roundtable participants on how to build website traffic and awareness for this new service.