{"id":9626,"date":"2022-10-04T08:13:56","date_gmt":"2022-10-04T13:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meminto.com\/?p=9626"},"modified":"2024-03-26T13:02:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-26T18:02:59","slug":"meminto-at-die-hohle-der-lowen-the-experience-report-of-founder-albert-bruckmann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meminto.com\/meminto-at-die-hohle-der-lowen-the-experience-report-of-founder-albert-bruckmann\/","title":{"rendered":"Meminto at Die H\u00f6hle der L\u00f6wen – The experience report of founder Albert Br\u00fcckmann"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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That was probably the most intense experience of the last ten years: I was able to present my idea as a founder on Germany’s biggest startup show, Die H\u00f6hle der L\u00f6wen on VOX, and yesterday it was broadcast. About two months of preparation went into the pitch, and in just over an hour, while I was able to stand in front of the show’s investors, the highlight of my startup existence so far was then over. In the end, I was very happy with the outcome.
But from the beginning!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The application decision<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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When we launched our Meminto app in the summer of 2021 and almost immediately after that between 20 and 50 people signed up for digital ghostwriting assistants every day, I knew that the time had come: I felt ready to apply to the show “Die H\u00f6hle der L\u00f6wen”. Until now, I had always strictly refused, because I didn’t feel the product was ready yet and our books hadn’t quite convinced me of the sales volume. I had always shied away from going there with more than “just” a prototype or even an idea. No – for me, the prerequisite for participation had always been: The product had to work and we had to sell. If we could get good feedback from our customers at the same time, that would be the crown. And that’s exactly what happened.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Criterion 1: \"The system has to work first!\"<\/h3>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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We had now been working on Meminto Stories, the life journaling platform, since 2018 and made it a really fine tool. Thanks to this digital assistant, a large number of questions from many areas of life are selected for each user from a huge database of questions to help them remember and record all the important moments of their life. Meminto helps to structure the answers and then forms the chapters of the book from the stories of the “authors”. Of course, photos can also be uploaded.<\/p>

The business model was that customers could either buy one of the various Meminto books directly (available were life books, childhood books, relationship books, memory books<\/a> for the deceased and travel books) or start with a trial version first. The average price for such a “life project” was 99 euros. There was no time limit, nor was there a limit on the number of questions that could be answered. Only the maximum number of pages should not exceed 300.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Criterion 2: \"We have to sell!\"<\/h3>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In the first attempt at a market launch in December 2020, we sold 70 books and generated sales of around 7000 euros by advertising on social media. However, a total of 350 people had signed up who also simply wanted to test the product.<\/p>

Shortly before that, we had developed gift boxes to make it easier to give away what was actually a digital project. In fact, these boxes were also well received. Customers praised the design, which looked like a book and contained a “living pencil” inside – it has a flower seed in the end – as well as a Meminto Stories card deck with about 40 questions. Using an activation code, the people who received the gift were of course also able to start their book.<\/p>

In January 2021, we also ended the campaign directly again and dealt with the feedback of the newly generated customers. We were able to learn a lot and fix dozens of bugs in the system, which in turn made it more stable and increased the automaticity.<\/p>

In the coming months, we expanded features, improved our layout editor, and even started producing some books completed by customers. In line with Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, we launched another campaign with the renewed goal of selling Meminto Stories books as gift ideas<\/a>. Again, some new projects were launched, and again we took the new feedback as an opportunity to improve our platform.<\/p>

Since we had built Meminto bilingually from the start, we also tested sales in the U.S. right away – and indeed we were able to sell some projects in America as well. We had already taken care of a local print shop and had some print copies sent to us so that we could compare it with the German quality standards. It held up and we were happy to be able to compete directly with our biggest competitor, Story Worth. They had been on the market in the U.S. a bit earlier, but could only offer one life book<\/a>, while we were already targeting new audiences with 5 more books.<\/p>

In another campaign between November 2021 and Christmas, we sold 250 more books and generated 30,000 euros in sales. An enormous increase compared to the year before in almost the same period.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Criterion 3: Customer feedback<\/h3>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The third criterion for me to participate in DHDL was then that we got good customer feedback. And that became more and more the case. Sure, there have always been voices that found 99 euros for a book too high. But as soon as they understood the principle and the distinction from photo books better and then also saw that they would get 300 pages for a fixed price, this criticism quickly fell silent (either because they then simply had no more arguments or because they bought). However, most customers who then held their book in their hands contacted us again and emotionally thanked us for the moving memory they had created with our platform.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Is there potential for growth? <\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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I kept asking myself what the growth potential was. I could not orient myself to other competitors because there were no figures in this regard. All I had were market figures for photo books. And they looked like this:<\/p>