Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem do you solve?
Tinus: 5-15 percent of the total population in industrialized countries suffer from tinnitus. In Germany, there are approximately three million tinnitus patients who have trouble falling asleep. These problems arise because, when falling asleep, people concentrate on the tinnitus without any background noise, and there is no sustainable way to distract themselves from the annoying noises in their ears. Headphones are not suitable for sleeping, as even small in-ear headphones are not suitable for promoting a healthy sleep. Television or similar audio sources not only disturb your sleeping partner, but also bombard you with noise all night long, which has a very negative impact on sleep quality. Of course, you can set a sleep timer – but everyone is surely familiar with that moment when you wake up because the television turns off and you haven't yet reached the deep sleep phase.
Falling asleep with a sound pillow
This is exactly where we come in with our product. Tinus One is a sleep aid in the form of an innovative sound pillow with integrated sleep tracking. Tinus ensures the comfort of a conventional pillow while simultaneously insulating your sleeping partner from sound. To achieve lasting sleep results, the Tinus One features intelligent features such as a switch-off mechanism during the deep sleep phase to avoid constant sound exposure.
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Tinus: Unlike other conventional music pillows that only have a built-in stereo speaker, the Tinus One impresses with its combination of sound isolation and comprehensive sound transmission. Sound transmission occurs using a specially developed technology based on bone conduction. This means that only the person in contact with the pillow can perceive sound through the pillow. The Tinus One thus combines four core elements that make it a unique product: comfort, sound quality, sound isolation, and sensor data. With the Tinus app, which will launch in September, we can also continually update the Tinus One to offer our users new features on a regular basis.
Problem identification in the family environment
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Tinus: As part of the university course “Think.Make.Start.” The founding team of Jaqueline Schaupp and Simon Greschl met at the Technical University of Munich in September 2019. The goal of the course was to discuss a problem within ten days, validate it through surveys and scientific work, and develop a functional product for potential customers. Jaqueline Schaupp and Simon Greschl became aware of the suffering of tinnitus patients by researching everyday problems in their family environment. The fathers of the two founders suffer from tinnitus and have great difficulty falling asleep, in particular. This was the starting point for Tinus, with the goal of giving fathers and numerous other sufferers back some quality of life.
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Tinus: Tinus is struggling most with the ongoing supply bottlenecks. Since the Tinus One is a new product on the market, it's more challenging, as they haven't built long-term relationships and suppliers naturally prefer their regular customers. The startup also had to build some of its production machines from scratch, as many components don't have a use case or framework like those in their Smartpillow. The team still manufactures some parts themselves because they haven't yet found an external partner that meets their quality standards.
Solutions for other sleep disorders
Munich Startup: Where would you like to be in one year, where in five years?
Tinus: Tinus aims to expand its target audience and add additional smart features so that additional sleep disorders and other sleep-related illnesses can be identified and treated. The focus here is on breathing pauses, snoring, and teeth grinding. All of this information will also be made available to users in an app. This app will also provide additional helpful content related to tinnitus and sleep disorders.
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Tinus: The startup ecosystem in Munich has been a great help to us so far. On the one hand, the universities offer a large network, diverse course offerings, support through coaching and mentoring, and incubator spaces that facilitate exchange with other startups.
Secondly, we've had the opportunity to work closely with various accelerators, such as LMU EC and Xpreneurs, over the past few years. Thanks to all these opportunities, we've been able to grow both in terms of our product, business, and team.
Munich Startup: Long breath or quick exit?
Tinus: Definitely a long way to go! We still have a lot planned, as we want to enable more restorative sleep not only for tinnitus patients, but for people with sleep disorders in general.
