In Germany, there are around 80 million administrative visits per year. This represents enormous potential that the founders of erledigungen.de want to harness.
- Who are you and what do you do? Please briefly introduce yourself and your services!
My co-founder, Andreas Schmidt, and I, Sebastian Simon, originally met while working out in a boxing class. A strong right hand turned into a long friendship. Andreas worked at the CDTM and supervised several startups. During my double degree in aerospace and business administration, he supervised my bachelor's thesis and was always like a mentor to me. When he told me he was applying for a green card and how often he'd been sent home by the KVR, we came up with the idea for erledigungen.de. A service that saves other people the trip to the authorities. On our website, you can conveniently select the type of process you want, such as a change of residence registration, car registration, or similar, book the day and time, and our employee will arrive at your desired appointment. They check all documents for completeness and return them completed within one to three days. Apart from the processing itself, the sensitive data never leaves the hands of our processing staff. Meanwhile, the customer can concentrate on the finer things in life.
2. But that's been around for a long time!
Exactly not, otherwise Andreas would have used the service for his Green Card application under 100%. The authorities themselves are always very overwhelmed and don't have the means to assist applicants. This means missing or incorrect documents are inevitable, much to everyone's annoyance. There's also no way to change your registration online, for example. And before erledigungen.de, there was no service that completely handled the administrative process for you. Incredible, really, considering that there are around 80 million administrative visits in Germany every year.
Protecting our customer data is the most important thing
3. What has been your biggest challenge so far?
Protecting our customer data is paramount and our top priority. Most of the data we receive is sensitive, so every employee must undergo multiple interviews and a security clearance, which also requires a clean criminal record. This requires a great deal of people skills; after all, we have to be able to trust our handlers completely. Furthermore, we can see where the documents are at any time. That's why every customer folder has a GPS device, which allows us to track their location seamlessly. We don't store any of the data itself, except for the contact information.
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
Things are going well; in our first year, we already had orders in the four-figure range. Our initial focus was primarily on process optimization. However, for 2017, marketing and strategic partnerships are now our primary focus to convince even more people of the benefits of erledigung.de. We're also continuing to develop our portfolio, such as our latest innovation, Gassiheld.de – a dog-walking service where we lovingly care for the furry friends of stressed-out Munich residents.
Munich: Ideal location for startups
5. What does Munich mean to you?
Munich is my home. Or at least my adopted home. Munich has so much to offer, is so diverse, yet so simple. As a location, Munich is ideal for young startups. There are many large companies where you can quickly become a focus and that are interested in new business areas. Munich is economically very strong and now has an exciting and very active startup scene. Berlin may be hip and cool, but Munich has nothing to hide.
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
We're not so arrogant as to say we'll never see ourselves there, because "too big to fail" only applies to very few companies worldwide. But with 80 million administrative visits per year in Germany, there's enormous potential for our service. In that respect, I'm very optimistic about the future.
7. Helles or Prosecco?
A good party requires both.
You can find out more about erledigungen.de here.
