Munich Startup: Who are you and what do you do? Please introduce yourselves briefly!
partyWe are Moritz Simsch and Sebastian Jung, the founders of Sause. Our motto is 'Together. Simple. Cleaner.' Growing up together on the North Sea, we stood with our parents on the dike at an early age, lighting up strings of lights to campaign for the raising of the protective wall. Climate change and rising sea levels were already a topic in our lives 20 years ago. Not much has changed since then. We consume the same things. And the economy hasn't managed to use clever ideas to maintain the comfort we're used to while using fewer fossil fuels. With the knowledge from our degree programs – mechanical engineering and chemistry – and a different perspective on the world, we want to change this and have founded the Sause GmbH founded.
Sustainability without sacrificing comfort
Munich Startup: What problem does your startup solve?
party: sustainability Some people equate this with sacrifice. We firmly believe that smart products make a more sustainable life possible without having to forgo the convenience of, for example, soap dispensers.
With our first product – the soap dispenser – we developed a tablet that, when combined with water, becomes a soap lotion for a liquid soap dispenser or for our sustainable foam soap dispenser.
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
partyCompared to conventional hand soap, we are vegan. We differentiate ourselves from 'regular' liquid soap in that we don't have to transport water, and therefore don't require plastic in our packaging. Furthermore, we transport only about 4 percent of the conventional weight, which saves a huge amount of CO2.
All of the ingredients we use are certified as natural cosmetics. And wherever possible, we rely on certified organic ingredients. For example, the essential oils we use for the wonderful Sause scents.
Luxury problems: partner selection
Munich Startup: What have been your three biggest challenges so far?
party: First, cash flow: I think every startup struggles with cash flow at one point or another. Pre-financing goods, such as packaging and soap dispensers, was certainly a sticking point we had to resolve.
Second, choosing a partner: Who hasn't experienced this? First, nothing works, then you have to disappoint someone. We certainly had this luxury problem. We had to choose from a handful of strategic partners. Such a partnership always represents a significant change in direction for a company. We've now found a very good solution for us.
Third, production: We've decided to take over the production of the tablet ourselves. This offers us many advantages, but it also gives us some gray hairs when the machines don't do what we want.
Sause produces 80,000 tablets per hour
Munich Startup: How are things going?
party: Of course, we can't provide exact figures, and they do become outdated quite quickly. However, Sause's machinery could be a good indicator. We started in February 2020 with a production capacity of 1,000 tablets per hour. In June, we upgraded to 2,000, and since October 2020, our machine has been producing up to 80,000 tablets per hour.
Munich Startup: How do you rate Munich as a startup location?
party: Through our acceptance into the Next Commerce Accelerator (Hamburg) and the TechFounders Accelerator (Munich), we at Sause have gained a good insight into the startup landscape in both regions. Munich impresses with its incredible networking between universities and colleges and financially strong partners. However, for us as a young company without our own space, Munich is quite unfavorable as a production location for the soap shower. Potential space costs ten times as much as space in locations that are sometimes even better connected logistically. Therefore, our company headquarters, with all departments except production, is located in Munich-Neuhausen, and our production facility is located in Lambrecht in the Palatinate region.
Munich Startup: Get up early or stay up all night?
party: Clearly, get up early. Because of "close relatives," this isn't possible anyway.
