They get everything they can out of their customers' minds! The team at brainboost neurofeedback answered our questions. 7 questions – 7 answers!
1. Who are you and what do you do? Please introduce yourselves briefly!
The brainboost founding team consists of Philipp Heiler (26), a licensed physician, Tobias Heiler (24), and Maximilian Lutz (23), both B.Sc. sports scientists and currently pursuing a master's degree in business administration at the Technical University of Munich. We are Munich natives, and two of us—as the name suggests—even live in the same building. It's an advantage for us that we've known each other for so long; we can trust each other implicitly. We stumbled upon the original idea for the company through several coincidences and various channels, and even after critically examining it, we were still enthusiastic. So we launched our company, and it was exactly the right decision.
About the startup: brainboost Neurofeedback uses a medical technology – the EEG – to visualize brain activity and behavioral patterns. We use this data for specific evaluations and, with the help of neurofeedback, can train and sustainably change brain behavior. Areas of application include medical treatments with neurofeedback, corporate health management, and the neurocoaching we developed.
We're currently investing most of our time and energy in the latter. Neurocoaching is about using neurofeedback for personal development and improving quality of life without any obvious medical problems; so anyone can benefit from it.
There are ways to increase mental and physical performance, improve mental regeneration through relaxation and meditation, or better understand your own brain's behavioral patterns through self-exploration. Our target audience for neurocoaching is executives and high performers, as well as those who aspire to become high performers, such as students and schoolchildren. Furthermore, some good results have already been achieved in (professional) sports, especially when combined with high-performance physical training.
Certain training programs can also enhance the creativity of people in innovation or design professions, as well as those working in the arts. Furthermore, the training and coaching programs are individually tailored to each individual's needs.
“Nobody uses neurofeedback like we do”
2. But that's been around for a long time!
Luckily! We can draw on well-researched technology and apply it in innovative new applications. When studying the brain, most people feel more secure if they don't try something completely new. So we have some wonderful starting points that we can build on, and yet we have a unique selling point: no one else uses EEG and neurofeedback the way we do. Both in the analysis of data and in the training itself, we utilize all established options and also develop new ones ourselves. We then package the whole thing in a clear and appealing way so that our customers and patients can benefit as much as possible from our neurofeedback. Our goal is to offer the perfect training for everyone, and we work as hard as we can to achieve this.
“Some of our customers even travel by plane”
3. What are the three main ingredients for your recipe for success?
- Cool technology: We can train the brain. "Discovering" such a gem in our own field (medicine and sports science) is a stroke of luck, but with a lot of dedication and late nights, we've built up expertise that's internationally recognized.
- The right team: As long-time friends, we know each other very well; as brothers, we have even spent our entire lives together.
- Motivation: This is extremely high in our founding team, but our student workers are no less motivated. We've had a fast start and will continue in this vein. From the very beginning, we've tried to do everything right at brainboost and consistently learn from all previous mistakes. We live the "lean startup" approach and, with the motto "just do it," place great value on short and fast decision-making processes, because Done is better than perfect.
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
A direct question also yields a direct answer: things are going very well! Neurofeedback training sessions are almost fully booked; we're already self-funding (after three months) and have now expanded our team with four student interns. But even small numbers are sometimes nice, as not a single one of our clients or patients has terminated their neurofeedback sessions prematurely. One last happy fact: Some of our clients even travel by plane.
5. What does Munich mean to you?
We're native Munich residents and love our city! This paradise is also blessed with top universities and a wonderful startup scene. If you keep your eyes open, you can network somewhere different every evening. Whether it's with other startups, smaller companies, or large corporations, everything is within reach. Essentially, it's the perfect location for startups, with one drawback: Munich is expensive. But we knew that beforehand, and on top of that, you get plenty of fun leisure activities for (short) breaks, which quickly clear your head. For us, anyone can go to Berlin, but we're staying here.
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
We're definitely ruling out Epic Fail Night for now. And as long as we can combine the unicorn with a certain level of ethics and morals—after all, it's all about brains and thoughts—we certainly have nothing against it. Thanks to the knowledge we've accumulated and the data we've collected ourselves, we're already experts in our field and are working in all directions. There are a huge number of possible applications for our services, and we're also receiving a tremendous amount of positive feedback. So far, we've never had anyone completely reject us and our pitch, which puts us ahead of many existing unicorns.
7. Helles or Prosecco?
Prose…sdl#'asjkd… BRIGHT!
