Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem do you solve?
Daniel Wimmer: We digitize collaboration and all processes between manufacturers and their retail partners in a central platform. We have created a software-as-a-service solution that enables small and medium-sized manufacturers, brands, and suppliers in particular to digitally manage their products and directly connect all their sales partners.
This allows us to solve several challenges for our customers: Until now, data and media are often still managed in Excel spreadsheets and decentralized folder structures. This, combined with a lack of transparency and options, means that the quality of the data is often inadequate for today's multi-channel sales requirements. Communication and data exchange primarily take place via email, telephone, or fax, as either the outdated systems lack the option for interfaces or each interface to each partner must be set up and operated individually.
With our digital data management, we enable centralized and collaborative processing of all data and media for the first time. Our solution offers numerous features that support data validation and optimization for optimal product presentation in retail.
API-first approach
Through our API-first approach, we provide our customers with a central external interface. This allows the entire data exchange to be automated without the need to laboriously create each new connection.
Through our central platform, we enable high data quality, the highest possible level of automation, and create transparency. This saves our customers time and manual effort and enables resource-independent scaling.
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Philipp Schlieker: Previous solutions are clearly aimed at enterprise customers and always only address a part of the entire process chain. For small and medium-sized enterprises, it makes neither economic nor operational sense to acquire and operate such systems.
With our streamlined all-in-one solution, we are enabling small and medium-sized companies to cost-effectively digitize their sales processes for the first time. Our solution is ready for use within a few days and without requiring any IT resources at the customer's site, typically paying for itself within a few weeks. With our intuitive user interface and onboarding service, we support our customers in optimally implementing our solution right from the start.
Shopvibes: “Many manufacturers were unaware of the relevance of good product data”
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Daniel Wimmer: The idea for Shopvibes grew out of my personal experience in a previous position at a large online retailer. I worked in purchasing and was therefore directly at the interface between suppliers and the online retailer. The processes were often very analogue, with much still based on MS Excel and email. At the same time, many manufacturers were unaware of the importance of good product data and were often unable to meet our data requirements. At the time, we built a dedicated team on our side solely to manage this data exchange. In numerous discussions in the early days of Shopvibes, we realized that this was precisely where we needed to start with the manufacturers in order to achieve the greatest possible effect with our solution.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Philipp Schlieker: As a founder, you face new challenges every day that you've never experienced before—but that's precisely what makes it so exciting! For us, the biggest challenge is setting the right priorities and thus making our solution even more valuable to our customers every day.
The biggest challenge so far has been completing our financing round in the midst of the crisis year of 2022. We are fortunate to have found investors who care little about the hype of previous years or the current uncertainty in the market and instead focus their investments on sustainable factors, such as a strong team and a product that delivers real added value for customers.
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, where in five years?
Daniel Wimmer: This year, with the help of the recently raised capital We are investing heavily in our team and, in particular, in our growth and our product. With our solution, we want to digitally map the entire relationship between suppliers and retailers. We also see enormous potential in supporting suppliers with their data quality and thus enabling them to optimally position their products in retail.
In 5 years, we will be the leading solution for small and medium-sized manufacturers in Europe to digitally map their collaboration with their dealers.
Very close startup community in Munich
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Daniel Wimmer: For us, Munich is truly the perfect location for startups, alongside our hometown. The rankings, in which Munich consistently ranks very high, confirm our experience.
You'll find a very close-knit startup community here, where even founders who are much further along than us are very helpful and can provide valuable input. The TUM network, in particular, offers many opportunities. Philipp and I both originally studied at TUM; Philipp was a participant in Manage & More and came to the Xplore program through it. This is how we met and decided to drive Shopvibes forward together. Since then, we've benefited from numerous other grants and programs, especially XpreneursBut other programs, such as the LMU EC or the Start?Zuschuss! program of the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, have also helped us significantly on our journey.
And last but not least, Munich, with its high quality of life and talent pool, is an excellent location to find the best talents and convince them to join us.
Munich Startup: Hidden champion or shooting star?
Philipp Schlieker: We believe our solution addresses a global problem that potentially affects every small and medium-sized business in Europe and around the world that distributes its goods through third parties. We are already active with our solution in several European countries and have even greater ambitions!
