Munich Startup: Who are you and what do you do at Alaljojo? Please introduce yourselves briefly!
Alaljojo: We're Al, Al, and Jojo from Herrsching am Ammersee. We build DIY windsurf boards that you can either craft at home or in one of our workshops with a crafting coach.
Munich Startup: What problem does your startup solve?
Alaljojo: Several: First and foremost, we Offer passionate water sports enthusiasts a unique experience of finally building their own high-performance board – for many windsurfers this is a dream that can now be realized easily and within 3 days.
Secondly, we offer custom design, which also contributes to the product experience: not only can you freely choose the visual design, but also functional aspects such as the position of the footstraps or the foil-ready option. This means our board offers an easy way to use a so-called "foil" instead of the fin in lighter winds. This helps you get speed on the board even in lighter winds, giving you more flexibility in when and where you want to go windsurfing.
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Alaljojo: Unfortunately not in simplicity! The special thing about our concept is the „9 Step Plug & Play” approach, which is optimized for the stability and performance of the board.
Alaljojo focuses on sustainability
It's based on a hollow construction method that allows you to shape a board in nine steps. We're moving away from the Styrofoam core, which requires sanding to the correct shape, which isn't very sustainable. You should think of our Willi more like a plug-in construction kit, like a Billy cabinet from Ikea. Just like the Swedish design, (almost) everything you need for assembly comes in a brown box.
This approach ensures high usability during shaping, so that no special tools (e.g. milling, vacuum pump, etc.) are required.
Munich Startup: Has there ever been a point where you almost failed?
Alaljojo: We run Alaljojo as sidepreneurs alongside our main jobs. Therefore, time is our most scarce commodity. On the one hand, this is obviously a limitation, which we counter with a great deal of discipline and focus. On the other hand, we've found that this improves our product quality: We work with utmost concentration at every step, yet still have breaks in which we can reflect on individual decisions. Putting ourselves under time pressure during this phase would be a waste. One happy and enthusiastic customer is worth more to us than five satisfied ones.
“High transferability to the wider water sports market”
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, where in five years?
Alaljojo: We're currently launching a freestyle board. We'll be releasing more board models next year. We also see significant potential for transfer to the wider water sports market. At the same time, we're looking forward to rolling out the workshop concept to spots and surf camps.
One focus of our future activities is the continuous expansion of our sustainability concept – with our hollow construction we have already been able to do without the Styrofoam core – but from a holistic perspective there are still many exciting challenges that we want to tackle.
In addition, we have many other ideas to make water sports more contemporary and attractive than they are today.
Munich Startup: How do you rate Munich as a startup location?
Alaljojo: As true Munich residents, we love Munich and the Alpine foothills with its many lakes and rivers.
The exchange and offerings of the Munich ecosystem, made up of many clever startups, strong founders, and first-class universities, are perfect. Without TUM, for example, and the Makerspace, we wouldn't be where we are yet.
At the same time, we would naturally like to see a bit more risk appetite on the part of corporates and VCs.
Munich Startup: Isar or English Garden?
Alaljojo: Preferably at Lake Ammersee! But we love surfing on the Eisbach just as much as an extended SUP tour on the Isar. We live where other people go on vacation and are grateful for it every day!
