Resale platforms make it easier to trade used goods like books, CDs, and electronics. But who offers the best prices? Bonavendi ensures transparency. We spoke with the startup: 7 questions, 7 answers.
1. Who are you and what do you do? Please introduce yourselves briefly!
If you try to put it in one sentence you can say: Bonavendi is the online price comparison for used items. With our price comparison, you can find the best prices for used books, CDs, DVDs, games, or old cell phones. This saves our users time and money. And the best part is that it's also good for the environment. Because every book, CD, or DVD that doesn't end up in the trash helps protect our environment, and that's what we want to support with Bonavendi.
“Different purchasing portals offer completely different prices”
It all started when our founder, Florian Forster, wanted to sell his old CDs and textbooks to make his upcoming move easier. Recommerce portals like Rebuy, Momox, and others seemed like the ideal solution, as flea markets and eBay were simply too time-consuming. But because the various purchasing portals offer completely different prices, he had to enter each item on each portal to ultimately get an attractive price for his collection. That's incredibly time-consuming. And so the idea was born. Florian asked Stefan Zinser and Marco Görgmaier, the two co-founders, if they wanted to get involved, and the development of the comparison portal began immediately. Since then, Bonavendi has become the central point of contact for selling used media and electronic devices in a time-saving manner and with the highest possible profit.
Our founding team:
Florian Forster (34), Managing Director of Bonavendi, holds a doctorate in computer science from the Technical University of Munich and a doctorate in business administration from the University of Magdeburg. He spent three years as a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, followed by a manager at a Munich-based IT company.
Marco Görgmaier (31), business economist (BSc – LMU Munich) and business information specialist (MSC – University of Reading/Henley Business School), is a team leader at a Munich-based automobile group and is responsible for marketing and public relations at Bonavendi.
Stefan Zinser (28), studies computer science at LMU and is primarily responsible for the further development of the website and smartphone apps at Bonavendi.
2. But that's been around for a long time!
What sets us apart from other sales platforms like eBay: Selling on Bonavendi is very fast because there are no complicated auctions and long waits. And, best of all, you can sell everything at once. Especially with items like books or CDs, it's far too time-consuming to set up multiple auctions. With us, you see a fixed price and know right away how much you'll get.
3. What has been your biggest challenge so far?
We're always busy balancing our startup and full-time jobs. What was unusual was that we initially developed our comparison portal more as a hobby. Stefan and Florian took care of development, and Marco took care of marketing. Now we've found a good way to balance everything through regular meetings with our now four employees.
Our site has also evolved continuously. Initially, you could only compare books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. Together, we kept coming up with new ideas on how to optimize the platform, and after our first redesign of the search, we added mobile phones, smartphones, and tablets. At the same time, we suddenly gained more and more users and realized that the platform's architecture wasn't up to the task. We decided to take a second look and completely redesigned our offering: from the backend to the webpage. After just a few months, we also decided to offer Bonavendi in Austria, as we kept receiving user inquiries about whether we could optimize the search specifically for Austrian purchasing portals. Once we had completed this step, it quickly became clear to us that the architecture of our solution was perfectly suited to expanding into new countries, and we launched Bonavendi.com for the USA.
Parties as an incentive
4. Let’s get down to business: How is business going?
What a funny question for a startup!
Perhaps a little anecdote: In the first year, we didn't pay ourselves a cent of the company's revenue, but instead held a big party in December as a reward, where we "celebrated" a certain percentage of a month's revenue. We've maintained this principle, and it's proven to be a very effective incentive system 🙂
But we're on the right track: Our monetization is primarily achieved through affiliate partnerships that we're building over the long term. Since we built the service practically "on the side," we weren't initially dependent on rapid growth and thus didn't have to make a large investment. We developed the platform entirely in-house.
5. What does Munich mean to you?
Is there another city with a white-blue-checkered sky? 😉
All three of our founders grew up in a Munich suburb – that's self-explanatory. We love Munich, not only because of the numerous opportunities we have here: always the best young talent from TUM and LMU and a well-connected startup scene, for example.
Bonavendi cooperates with shipping startup
6. How will your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
We hope to see you in Unicorn Land! For example, we're currently working on further simplifying our sales process. To achieve this, we're redesigning our website and planning a collaboration with the Munich-based startup einfachverschickt.de, which offers a shipping service. This makes the sales process easier and faster for our users: They simply send a photo of the item they want to ship to einfachverschickt.de, who will then pick it up, pack it, and ship it.
7. Hirschgarten or Backstage?
If everyone in the team contributes their two cents: concerts and flea markets in the Backstage, light beer and roast pork in the Hirschgarten.
