The search for the right investors and partners is often laborious—partly because you usually don't have a complete overview of the market. The Munich-based startup Listenchampion is here to help: Using modern research methods like web crawlers and big data analytics, it takes over the time-consuming research. The founders answered our 7 questions.
Munich Startup: Who are you and what do you do? Please introduce yourselves briefly!
Listenchampion: We are the research startup Listenchampion. With our high-quality industry and investor lists, we make opaque industries easily accessible and help startups, investors, consultants, and corporations identify relevant market participants and potential partners. What makes our model special is that the databases can be downloaded directly from our online shop and, thanks to our scalable model, are very affordable. We utilize modern research methods such as web crawlers and big data analytics, saving our clients hours of research.
Origins at a corporate venture capital fund
Behind Listenchampion are Leo Semmelmann and Jan-Erik Flentje. We met in 2017 at a corporate venture capital fund in Munich. Researching and compiling market overviews and identifying relevant investors shaped our daily work. We quickly realized that the same data was needed time and time again, and this probably didn't just apply to our company. This gave us the idea of offering such lists via a marketplace and making them available to a wider audience. We founded Listenchampion and built our own brand. Leo contributed his software development skills with his background as a business information systems specialist from the Technical University of Munich. Jan-Erik had already gained experience in research and was able to apply his methodological skills as a political scientist. Within a very short time, we noticed that demand for our lists was high, especially in the real estate and investment sectors, and that markets that were difficult to understand were particularly relevant. These include, for example, family offices, real estate project developers or investment companies, on which we have since focused and within which we have built up considerable expertise.
Munich Startup: What problem does your startup solve?
Listenchampion: Many entrepreneurs know the problem all too well: To further grow their company and close deals, they need the right business partners and investors, but they don't know all the relevant market participants. As a result, they have to spend a lot of time, for example, finding suitable venture capital funds or locating buyers for their respective products. This challenge is faced not only by startup founders, but by almost all businesspeople in virtually every industry. Real estate owners and brokers are looking for investors for a property, owners of solid medium-sized companies need an investor for further growth, and sales managers are dependent on new customer groups. With our lists in Excel format, we relieve all those seeking such contacts. Our product may sound somewhat unspectacular at first, but it saves a lot of time and money and allows our customers to focus on their core tasks. Creating transparency in hard-to-reach markets is our USP, and has already led to several successful deals.
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Listenchampion: No, we are actually the first to high-quality industry and investor lists through an online shop. So-called research boutiques are certainly also capable of creating market overviews like the ones we offer. However, the costs are significantly higher, and the data is not immediately available. We differ from providers offering data sets for lead generation not only in the quality of our data, but also in our industry focus. If you're looking for the top real estate investors in Germany or the most relevant single-family offices in Europe, you can't go past us.
Unsuccessful internationalization of Listenchampion
Munich Startup: Has there ever been a point where you almost failed?
Listenchampion: Fortunately, we haven't faced failure with Listenchampion itself yet. While some product and marketing ideas haven't delivered the hoped-for success, learning from mistakes is simply part of the process for us founders. However, one of our larger projects did fail. We wanted to offer the German-language research portal in English as well, to make it easier for foreign companies to enter the German market. To achieve this, we created our own brand and translated our existing databases. After a few months, we had to admit that we had overlooked important aspects and that a simple translation of a website wasn't enough to build a true brand. We couldn't build on the success of Listenchampion with the English-language portal and therefore put the project on hold.
Munich Startup: How are things going?
Listenchampion: We are very satisfied with our development over the past three years and proud to have grown without external financing. We initially built Listenchampion while studying and working our first jobs. Business was doing well, but we realized we weren't unlocking Listenchampion's full potential. We decided to focus fully on our own company and put 100 percent of our energy into it. The step into self-employment is always a risky one, but it has definitely paid off. Building on our growth so far, we have a lot more planned and are looking forward to the coming years.
No growth without risk
Munich Startup: How do you rate Munich as a startup location??
Listenchampion: For us, there's no better location in Germany. The startup network is constantly growing, and events like Bits & Pretzels are helping us gain a foothold. Since our business focus is strongly on the investment industry, we also benefit from the presence of many private equity funds, real estate companies, and family offices based in Munich. The high quality of life, thanks to the English Garden, the Isar River, and beer gardens, is also a clear plus for the city. And if the great students at LMU and TU Munich are interested in working for a truly exciting startup, get in touch, because we're always looking for motivated working students.
Munich Startup: Risk or security?
Listenchampion: Controlled risk! Because no company has ever grown without taking a certain amount of risk.
