"He must have fallen off the changing table too many times as a child!" — This saying could soon disappear from everyday German usage. And with it, the worries of many parents. Thanks to the founders of Miniwim.
1. Who are you and what do you do? Please briefly introduce yourself and your product!
We've made it our mission to make parents' lives easier. The most common cause of accidents involving babies is falling off the changing table. We're going to change that. The changing table we developed protects babies from rolling off if the parents are momentarily distracted. Anyone with a child knows how quickly it can happen that you just want to quickly check on your sibling, open the door for the mailman, or quickly grab a diaper. Our changing table solves that problem.
My name is Mark Schleicher. I'm 32 years old. I studied physical engineering and then decided to pursue an MBA. My mentor and co-founder is Lucas Kerscher, 36. He studied physics and worked for several years as a management consultant at McKinsey. He is now building various startups and mentoring others. Lucas was my supervisor on a previous project, so we know we can work well together.
2. But that's been around for a long time!
You'd think so. We commissioned two patent search studies from two different partners and found nothing, so we submitted one.
3. What has been your biggest challenge so far?
The biggest challenge was certainly finding a development partner and manufacturer for the changing table. The furniture industry is doing extremely well, and there seems to be no demand for new orders, or at a price the market would accept.
The feedback is good, now it's all about sales
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
It's going well, we haven't made a single euro yet 😉 . Since our product isn't available on the market yet, that's not surprising. We plan to ship it this year, and we'll be able to say more then. So far, the feedback has been very positive, and hopefully, our sales figures will reflect that.
5. What does Munich mean to you?
The startup scene here in Munich makes it easy to get good advice and valuable contacts. There's also a growing understanding that not every startup necessarily needs an app to be interesting.
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
We certainly expect children to continue to be born, so we're not worried about a market collapse. The changing table won't be our only product either. There's still so much in parents' lives that can be simplified.
7. Club or pub: Helene or Harlequin?
Bar.
