Meet the founders. 🤓
Sebastian Stark, Dan Seiler, Daniel Defiebre & Dr. Panagiotis Germanakos
"Start doing and fail forward."Mission: We are building a new way for companies to attract young talents. With our social media styled app, we connect young employees with school students for an authentic career orientation and offer an AI-based employer matching to bring the right companies and candidates together.
The founder team met as part of an innovation hackathon in SAP. Sebastian’s and Dan’s previous work in education and Daniel’s & Panos' experience in software development and AI came together to develop a project that combines both for the benefit of young people. That's how the idea was born! We then worked closely with school students and company representatives to design it to meet everyone's needs. It sounded like a great challenge, with great people and a meaningful goal. That's why we took it on.
🔝 Name up to 3 of your biggest successes so far.
Certainly our biggest successes lie ahead of us! Nonetheless, we are proud to be selected by multiple governmental funding programs that on different occasions honored us both for the technical innovation as well as the business model innovation. Hence, we can say we are officially double governmental-proven innovative 💪😃! We are also certainly proud to have earned the trust of major regional pilot customers such as SAP, ABB or Heidelberger Druck with whom we are currently creating exciting content we can’t wait to make available to the first end-users of our app. But our biggest success so far is definitely our team. We found and connected great people that dedicate their time, knowledge and energy to a great cause and create a powerful and diverse team! We are positive to master the challenges we will face in the future.
By bringing companies and best fitting candidates together we will create a real impact for the next generation and solve big problems of companies and our society. We want to create a world in which companies are thriving, because their employees love what they do. And all that starts with the right career choice.
💡 The most important lesson you have learned so far?Do not try to be perfect at all disciplines – start doing and fail forward. In a fast moving environment often long thought out plans crumble within seconds so it's best to get started and figure stuff out on the way.
🧗 Your biggest challenge so far in founding a start-up?
When our first application for the Exist startup-grant was rejected, we were at a low point in the founding team. We were all at crucial points in our lives - just after or before our master's degree, attractive job offers on the table - and were now ready to take the next step and preferably with our own project. The rejection was a real bummer. but we persevered, revised and rewrote, and got the approval in the second round. The collective perseverance and the belief that we will make it in the end is something that unites us in the founding team and made future challenges feel less threatening.
🎉 What was the best part of founding a startup for you?
The freedom to create work that you really want to wake up to, and to keep facing new challenges that make you grow and move both the startup and yourself forward.
📚 Is there any advice you can give to other founders?Talk about your idea and get feedback as much and as early as you can. Especially in the early stages, if you reach out for advice and support, you’ll receive much more than you expect. But at the same time don’t value everyone’s opinion and don’t try to make everyone happy. Find the right people and stick to them.
🤝 Why did you join allygatr? 🐊 How did you find out about allygatr?
We met allygatr through a LinkedIn outreach and quickly clicked with them. To us, allygatr is the place to be for HR Tech startups. Leaving alone it’s the only german VC with this particular focus, we value their self-understanding as a supportive partner while leaving the steering wheel in our hands. We believe that their expertise, network and industry expertise in HR Tech will be very valuable for us for a strong entrance into the market.
CAREER ORIENTATION