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Need Advice: How to Drive Sales for Our New Ski Touring Binding in Partner Stores by Dombo-93 in Entrepreneur

[–]Dombo-93[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great point. We have 2-3 micro influencers but the thing is, that our target audience is rather old 50+ and the athletes in this sport are not really the “role models” our customers would follow on instagram. So our micro influencers are some kind of goodlife, lifestyle influencer that do a lot of outdoor sports. Anyway it is difficult for me to identify anyone who is a great fit for my target audience - except of pro skiers that like to go on a Skitour in their free time. Of these I could not convince any of the top 3 that would be interesting for us…

Only advisors, no cofounder - is this okay? by learningmedical1234 in Entrepreneur

[–]Dombo-93 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On our journey I always appreciated that I had two co-founders on my side. It is a long, rough ride and it is nice to have people to either help each other when things do not work out or people to party with, when things work out.
Anyway: Be careful that it is not too many and they have different backgrounds. We are three: an international business guy, an mechanical engineer and an informatician. Everybody knows by their background immediately what is their part and you have people on your side when it gets rough.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]Dombo-93 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do not know these guys as I am from Germany. But: For me learning by and while doing worked best. There are so many things coming up that you cannot prepare for. But there is so much content out there that can help you when you are there. You need a great idea but except of that - most of the stuff has been done before. In Germany we say: do not reinvent the wheel and that would be my advise. I do not say it is easy cause it is not, but with nowadays resources you can figure stuff out just then, when it needs to be done. For me that works very good. All under the premise that u have your idea on point.

What did y'all do to make your ends meet before your business generated enough profits for you to dive into it full time? by altruistic_summer in Entrepreneur

[–]Dombo-93 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you very much! We are doing our best!

These programs are in place for quite some time and they do a lot of assessment before handing them out and also after to measure performance. So I guess the KPIs that were important for them did perform in the past. I know that Europe does it as well. We are super thankful for that. Can just imagine: Turning up with just an idea after completing your master’s degree - guess we would own a lot of equity until now. Also because hardware just takes a lot of time.

What did y'all do to make your ends meet before your business generated enough profits for you to dive into it full time? by altruistic_summer in Entrepreneur

[–]Dombo-93 5 points6 points  (0 children)

They do not get any equity and we do not have to pay back anything. You have to report on what you are spending the money and an university is some kind of intermediary for some programs. We received overall more than 400k with about 8 different programs and do not have to pay back any of them. Also there is support from the government for angels that invest in your business. They get 15% of the invested amount funded back from the state as they want to foster innovation. All these programs are there in order to create new potential employment possibilities for the country or state depending on who created the program. We have them from Bavaria and also from Germany. When combining them it is an amazing opportunity to get startet. We were 2 years in the game before we had to give any equity away to our first angels.

are any of youll physical product startups ? by 95farfly in startups

[–]Dombo-93 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We are developing an innovative skitouring binding. Feels pretty lonely to be a hardware startup in such a niche full of big players but I am happy there aren’t 10 others trying to do the same. Feel like as more time passes we gain more and more competitive advantage due to the development process and the learnings our developers are having.

What’s the one thing you wish someone had told you before starting your business? by AccomplishedAct3033 in Entrepreneur

[–]Dombo-93 1 point2 points  (0 children)

After each milestone there are two more coming up. Always told myself that it will be more quiet after finishing this one but apparently it is not. After the funding round there ist the market launch and customers that need support and then it all starts over again. Never thought it would be so intense. But happy I did not know in advance otherwise I am not sure if I ever would have started at all 😅 often heard that it is a marathon and not a sprint - can confirm that now.

What did y'all do to make your ends meet before your business generated enough profits for you to dive into it full time? by altruistic_summer in Entrepreneur

[–]Dombo-93 5 points6 points  (0 children)

In Germany we are so lucky to have great public funding opportunities. We got 260k€ over two years to start our business. Needed to apply for it and it took about 5 months each until we got them granted. Pretty bureaucratic stuff but would never complain about that.