Seven hours of user interviews and the search for the perfect product: That’s how Jolina’s first week in the startup camp went.
Jolina van Laaten actually wanted to develop an AI app that makes blood tests understandable. After just a week, she is already working on a second idea. Welcome to everyday startup life.
Jolina is one of the eight fellows in our startup camp “Start-up scene is looking for super founders”. For ten weeks, they use AI to develop their ideas into market-ready consumer apps. Even in the first few days it becomes clear that a good startup idea is rarely set in stone.
“Startup scene is looking for super founders” is a ten-week startup fellowship from Gründerszene. Eight selected fellows develop consumer startups in Berlin using artificial intelligence – from the idea to the first product. During the program, the fellows work together in the Axel Springer high-rise and are accompanied by experienced entrepreneurs, investors and experts. Partners like OpenAI, Vercel, Dash0 and DHL support them with technology, know-how and mentoring. Gründerszene documents the entire journey with articles, videos and social media content – and shows up close how the next generation of startups is being created today.
A health app for athletes
First of all, back to her original idea: Jolina wanted to develop an AI-supported health app through which users could order blood tests and then have their results explained and classified in an understandable way using AI.
“My first target group was originally people with chronic illnesses, they may be harder to reach for the camp,” notes Jolina. So she adjusted her focus. “My goal is therefore to work with athletes, specifically endurance athletes. The average German thinks health is free. And accordingly we need a target group that is willing to pay extra for this service because they are specifically working towards a goal.”
The idea: Anyone preparing for a Hyrox, marathon or triathlon can have their blood values analyzed regularly with a self-test and receive concrete recommendations using AI to specifically optimize training, regeneration and nutrition.
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The first steps to the Health app
But how do you actually get started once you have the first idea? “What was my focus in the first three days was to talk to a lot of potential users about my idea.” That was totally helpful, says Jolina. Because: “I don’t want to build anything that isn’t needed.” On the one hand, she asked around in her private network, wrote to friends, acquaintances and their contacts and made a lot of phone calls. “The first day I was on calls for seven hours.”
Talk to a lot of people about your own idea – a professor at her university had already given her this tip. “Now I really noticed that when you talk to people, many answers are obvious to others, but somehow not to me.” She recorded the conversations on her cell phone and then analyzed the transcripts via ChatGPT. Your conclusion: Your idea is met with enthusiasm by the athletes and there is a lot of positive feedback. However, there is also a big but.
Is the pivot due to a bottleneck?
But then Jolina encountered a problem. There is currently a bottleneck for your health app – a bottleneck that makes implementation more difficult and, in the worst case, could even prevent it.
The reason: The users’ blood samples must be evaluated in a laboratory after the self-tests. For this, Jolina relies on external partners. As long as the testing companies she’s talking to don’t promise to work together, her idea is missing a central component. If in doubt, she points out that she cannot launch the app.
“I really believe in the topic because I got very positive feedback,” she says. You now have to wait for the response from the requested providers.
However, she is not completely without a plan B. At the same time, she is already working on a second project. “It’s about GLP-1, the weight loss injection.” The drugs are best known under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy. They contain the active ingredient semaglutide and are used for weight loss. From conversations with users, Jolina has heard that many of those affected have difficulties dealing with the medication.
“Many people have the problem that they have severe side effects and there is a lot of confusion about how they should use the product correctly.” GLP-1 drugs artificially suppress the feeling of hunger, but can also cause side effects such as nausea or vomiting. “This is a big issue, which is why users often stop taking the injection and then experience a yo-yo effect and gain weight again.”
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Jolina’s new idea: Build an app that works like a diary for GLP-1 users and at the same time summarizes typical questions and doctor’s preparations. Whether this will become a pivot or whether the blood test app will still find the necessary partners will likely be decided in the coming weeks of the summer camp.
An initial tech setup was built
Jolina describes herself as “still a non-techie”. She has so far completed a VC internship at Heartfelt, an ESG consultancy at PwC, a marketing/e-commerce internship at Medienwerft and took over the management of a small e-commerce company.
Her technical profile can still be expanded and she has not yet developed a product herself, she says. With her mentor Paul Elias, AI Engineering at Axel Springer, she laid the foundations for her technical setup in week one and has been working mainly with Codex in ChatGPT since then (Note: OpenAI is a partner of our program). All of this is still new territory for her. “But I really want to learn.”
Jolina’s learnings from the first week
Jolina says she gained a lot from the first week of the summer camp, especially from the workshops – for example with Vercel – and the question and answer sessions with experienced founders. Two learnings particularly stuck with her:
- Build quickly, validate quickly, iterate quickly and still pay attention to quality: “I’d rather have a decent product that creates value but has few features at the beginning, rather than spending a long time building something that’s not perfect and creates confusion. I want to make sure I’m launching something that’s foolproof.”
- Talk to lots of people to get feedback: “Speaking to a lot of people who are close to the topic always makes a lot of sense. After all, they know more about themselves and their own wishes, needs and ideas than I could previously imagine. The tips from Dash0 CEO Mirko Novakovic were particularly helpful to me.”
Jolina has set herself a clear goal for the second week of the camp: She wants to develop a first prototype of her diary app for GLP-1 users and to exchange ideas with potential partners within the Axel Springer Group. The application should then go live as quickly as possible in order to attract the first users and test features.
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