Arne Reimann is the founder of timeBro and speaker at the Startup Conference “Accelerate your Business! – Innovation and Cooperation Strategies for Established Companies and Startups in the Media Industry”, which the German Media Academy is holding in cooperation with Strascheg Center for Entrepreneurship on June 30, 2016, at the Literaturhaus Munich. Munich Startup is supporting the conference as a media partner.
timeBro is a software for service providers that automatically records project hours and completes employees' timesheets with a single click. We asked Arne Reimann about his assessment of the B2B software market the future, to founding in this field, to its Market entry and approaches to cooperation with media company placed.
Software tools, databases, etc.: Specialist media houses are also increasingly moving their portfolios in this direction. These are the information offerings and tools that companies need today instead of traditional specialist media.
How do you assess the future developments in this market and where are the main opportunities for new founders?
In the software sector, the trend is moving away from comprehensive, all-in-one solutions toward tool landscapes connected via interfaces. By combining several highly specialized tools, companies can now position themselves much more demand-oriented. Systems without open interfaces will therefore disappear from the market in the coming years.
A great opportunity for founders lies in identifying individual weaknesses in industry-specific processes and considering what a tool would need to look like to solve these problems. If there is a benefit, companies will integrate even very small tools in the future.
What are the particular challenges of starting a business in the area of B2B software solutions?
First, there's the high demand for technical excellence. While users in the B2C sector are more forgiving of the odd bug, companies are much more critical. Therefore, you should carefully consider whether you can deliver the required quality. A few patient test customers are advisable at the beginning.
Otherwise, you definitely need sales skills. If you can't imagine picking up the phone and presenting it to a customer yourself, you should probably focus on consumer apps.
Are there any initial reports on your market entry, or what would be your recommendations for entering this market?
We developed timeBro, a tool that helps employees automatically calculate their working hours on projects. Initially, when we were acquiring clients, our main goal was to explain how our solution works. We were very enthusiastic about the technical aspects. Now we only communicate how much capacity we can create and how our data can significantly optimize profits. Since then, we've had an excellent response rate and can, so to speak, choose who we want to work with first. It's a banal insight, but entrepreneurs are primarily concerned with profit. Only in the second step does the question of exactly what a solution looks like come up.
Why is it interesting for you to get in touch with established media companies? Are there opportunities for collaboration here?
Project time tracking is especially important for the service sector. Our first customers are advertising agencies. But in principle, working time data is very valuable for every company. We are interested in how important project time tracking is in media companies. We imagine that the working time of individual projects becomes particularly relevant when deciding which services (e.g., design) should be performed in-house and which processes are more suitable for outsourcing.
What role could your new business model and product play for media companies?
If project time tracking is in progress or is planned, timeBro can save each employee up to 8 hours per month while ensuring that the collected data reflects reality—unlike estimates, timesheets, and stopwatches. Knowing realistic timelines allows you to plan projects and resources much more profitably and identify particularly efficient processes. We welcome any contact and would be happy to discuss this further in person.
About Arne Reimann
Founder and Managing Director of timeBro, graduated in information-oriented business administration, worked in IT Advisory at KPMG from 2010 to 2012, in Corporate Development at Siemens from 2012 to 2015, and since 2015 Managing Director of timeBro, a startup with software for service providers that automatically records project hours and fills out employees' timesheets with a click.
The other speakers, the complete program and the possibility of registering for the startup conference “Accelerate your Business! – Innovation and cooperation strategies for established companies and startups in the media industry” on 30 June 2016 can be found at http://www.medien-akademie.de/konferenzen/branchenuebergreifend/startup_konferenz_2016.php
