Munich Startup: What motivated you to found a company?
Franziska Scheuerle, founder of Loremo: My love for art, innovative design, and high-quality aesthetics. This passion combined with my incredible impatience led to the success of Loremo. When something moves too slowly or things need to change, I take action and implement them until the result meets my standards.
Munich Startup: What would you have liked to know before your first founding?
Franziska Scheuerle: I think it was good not to know many things at first, otherwise I probably would never have founded anything. Founding is like having children (even though I don’t have any yet): once the baby is born, you love it more than anything and fight like a lioness until it grows up.
Munich Startup: How has your company been financed so far?
Franziska Scheuerle: Bootstrapping.
Munich Startup: When and where do you get your best ideas?
Franziska Scheuerle: In exchange with inspiring personalities or in vibrant, pulsating metropolitan cities.
Munich Startup: What are your 3 favorite work tools?
Franziska Scheuerle: MacBook Air, iPhone, and AirPods.
Munich Startup: Your top tip on “pitching”?
Franziska Scheuerle: Make it short. Be charismatic. Catch and release.
Economic situation? Currently no unicorn ride
Munich Startup: Does it seem like a good time to found a company right now? Why?
Franziska Scheuerle: A difficult question, as the economic situation in Germany currently doesn’t look very promising. Investors are more cautious than in previous years. Given the fact that startups are taxed the same way as large stock corporations and we’re facing rising energy and cost of living expenses resulting in inflation or recession, the situation is certainly not a unicorn ride. Many already successful companies are considering relocating their headquarters abroad.
It therefore depends very much on the business idea and the corresponding brand positioning. A positioning in the mass market or luxury segment is promising. Premium, on the other hand, is expected to incur losses according to trend analyses. The luxury conglomerates LVMH, Kering & Richemont will further expand their market potential in the coming years. The snake game of economic giants is intensifying. The luxury sector is booming.
Important for founding of any kind despite political and economic crises: passion. Because without passion, determination, optimism, solution-oriented thinking, and entrepreneurial spirit, you won’t be able to sustain the marathon of building a company in the currently more difficult economic times.
Franziska Scheuerle: “With my next founding, I would focus on AI earlier”
Munich Startup: What technology or industry would you focus on with your next founding?
Franziska Scheuerle: We are currently developing artificial intelligence (AI) for our algorithm-based art configurator. I developed this myself and coded it with the help of programmers. At Loremo, we apply the lean management principle, try to automate as much as possible, and always orient ourselves toward the latest state of the art. We love ChatGPT and enjoy engaging with trends like Web3, NFTs (Non Fungible Token, ed. note) and the Metaverse. However, with my next founding, I would focus on AI much earlier. In a few years, AI will be the ubiquitous standard and our reliable companion – while in 2023 we’re still talking about the year of AI as hype. Although I’m a tactile person, when it comes to technology I orient myself very much by science fiction films, scientific innovations, and trend analysis.
Munich Startup: What could be improved at the founding location
Munich from your perspective?
Franziska Scheuerle: I love Munich and am very grateful that we chose this location. For our exclusive target audience at Loremo, this is absolutely right. However, support for startups in the art and culture sector must be dramatically improved as part of digitalization. The art and culture sector urgently needs to be designed more innovatively and digitalized. With Loremo, we’re making a statement by taking a pioneering role. But there’s still much to do to bring the somewhat dusty art market to a completely new level: modern. Innovative. Immersive. The latest technologies on the market already offer great possibilities for implementation today.
Munich Startup: Which founder would you like to meet in person? And what would you ask them?
Franziska Scheuerle: Hanno Renner from Personio. I would ask him how much sleep he still gets per day and what his greatest challenge was in building Munich’s unicorn.
