Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem do you solve?
Lesido: Lesido is a Streaming service for digital picture books with integrated video chat. This not only gives parents access to hundreds of high-quality children's books, but grandparents, for example, can also read these books aloud via video from any distance! This connects families, promotes children's development, and allows grandma or grandpa to act as a remote babysitter, taking the burden off parents.
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Lesido: We're truly the first in Europe! We also place a strong emphasis on quality content. We already have major German publishers like Klett, Loewe, and Bastei Lübbe on our platform. We also offer international delicacies from India, the UK, and other countries that celebrated their German premiere with us! This definitely makes Lesido unique. Furthermore, anonymous data helps us and our publishers develop even better content for children—another unique selling point.
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Lesido: Our founder, Janina, is a mother of two young children herself, works, and her grandparents all live far away. She also knows how important reading aloud is for early childhood development. So she wondered whether grandparents could also read to their little ones from a distance, thus relieving their workload. So she quickly built a prototype using PDFs and Zoom. It worked really well and delighted friends and acquaintances! But she soon ran out of books, and Zoom simply isn't the right tool for calls between grandparents and grandchildren – a better solution was needed! Today, Janina's mother reads aloud almost every day using Lesido, which is, of course, a huge relief in the everyday life of a founder!
Lesido provides Ukrainian families with free access to children's books
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Lesido: When we read about how difficult it is for Ukrainian refugees abroad to access children's books in their native language, we decided to translate our app and as many books as possible into Ukrainian. This was a real challenge both technically and organizationally, but we're now all the more pleased to be able to provide Ukrainian families with free access to Lesido.
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, where in five years?
Lesido: In one year, we want to be the talk of the town in daycare centers and kindergartens in the DACH region! In five years, children all over the world will discover their love of reading with Lesido.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Lesido: Munich is simply wonderful! Even as a startup, we enjoy the high quality of life and the connection to so many great institutions. We've been part of the incubator for several months now. Media Lab Bayern.
Munich Startup: Risk or security?
Lesido: Since children use Lesido, security and trust are extremely important to us. Therefore, we don't have subscription traps, and we pay close attention to data protection and high-quality, child-friendly content. On the other hand, as founders, we have decided not to take well-paid jobs, which of course represents a significant risk for us personally, but one we are happy to take.
