It is three o'clock in the afternoon, and I’m standing outside Apple Store in Hamburg, waiting for
Flemming Kühl to arrive. It was his idea to meet here, and now I realize why,
after running around the whole afternoon, desperately looking for WiFi – or WLAN,
as they call it here. Flemming is punctual – German style – when he arrives at
our meeting point from the escalator. He is carrying a weird stick, and
realizes my confusion.
– Yeah, I’m
having a hockey game after the interview. Well, not what you call hockey, but
anyways. Shall we?
He points
at a nearby café, with a perfect view of the Alster, one of the rivers that
flow through Hamburg. When I thought that I couldn’t be more surprised by
strange sports, another one appears: next to the café there is a competition going
on. I guess one would call it canoe polo. This even surprises Flemming.
– I’ve
never seen this to be honest.
We order
two cokes, and I ask Flemming what Appinio, the company he founded, is all
about.
– In 2013, when
a friend of mine did an internship at British American Tobacco, he experienced problems with expensive and slow market research. We decided to change it. With
this problem on the one hand, and the recent development of apps on the other,
it felt like a no-brainer to combine the two. And I still don’t understand why no
one has done it before.
Appinio is
a mobile app, where people can answer questions in real time to earn some money.
The money can then be used to purchase vouchers to e-tailers, such as Amazon,
or can be donated to charity. At the same time, companies can get almost
instant response to their questions.
– We have
the fastest response time in the world: A company can get 1000 respondents in
less than 5 min. That really sets us apart.
Flemming is
currently COO of the company, responsible for financing and recruitment.
– We are very
happy about our financiers so far; they bring a lot of knowledge into the
company. Since we are expanding quite heavily at the moment, we are always on
the lookout for more investors, but they have to be right for us. The same goes
for recruitment; it is rather tricky to find the right people, especially when
it comes to developers. Of course it helps that we have gotten some attention
in the media.
The Appinio
guys have already won three competitions with their business idea, and are frequently figuring in German
newspapers. Since the launch in November 2014, the company has focused on the German market, but
the plan is to expand.
– The
natural step for us would be to go into the Swiss and Austrian markets, first
and foremost because of the language advantages. But there is a lot going on at
Appinio. For instance, we are working on how to make the app even more
user-friendly, and how to best implement more engaging features. You know,
gamification stuff.
Suddenly,
the crowd starts cheering – the Hamburg team scores in the canoe polo game.
Flemming realizes that he is almost late to his hockey game, and that he needs
to run. It’s really been a great time, we say goodbye and promise each other to
meet up in Munich, when I have arrived.
But there
is still a long way to get there.
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