The first customer wants to join in – even though the app is not yet online. Suna Marie Tamboga is now starting marketing in the super founder camp.
The breakthrough flashes on the smartphone display during lunch. An electrical entrepreneur sends the Linkedin message: He asks Suna Marie Tamboga to include his craft business in the market place that she has been building for a week. It is Suna Marie’s first potential customer. “That was the starting signal,” she says afterwards.
“It confirms to me that the idea is good,” she says. “Suddenly it becomes something real.” Other people also responded to Suna Marie’s Linkedin posts about the project that day and wished her success.
The 20-year-old is developing her platform in our startup summer camp “Start-up scene is looking for super founders”. For ten weeks, eight fellows will build their own consumer apps using artificial intelligence.
“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. All resulting products belong to Axel Springer.
Suna Marie wants to launch a “Doctolib for craftsmen”. A chatbot asks customers for details about their damage. He then brings them together with the right craftsmen.
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Three marketing strategies for the new app
After a week in camp the prototype is ready. However, it doesn’t recognize photos properly and doesn’t ask for much context. The login is also stuck. Suna Marie wants to solve the errors during the second week of summer camp. She also wants to find a name for her platform and market it. She is initially planning the launch for the end of the week. “I set myself a very tight timeline,” says Suna Marie.
She corrects the errors with Codex. The AI agent writes code, analyzes software and creates programs. “To be honest, I don’t understand every detail technically,” says Suna Marie. “I tell Codex what I want to achieve and let the program do the rest.”
She creates user interfaces on the website: for the accounts of customers and craftsmen and for herself as an administrator. She also resets the login. She now enjoys this technical work “much more. I’m really looking forward to when the product is finished.”
In order for the AI agents in the system to be able to match customers and providers, the platform needs users and craftsmen. That’s why Suna Marie launches various marketing strategies.
- She places a search on a classifieds portal, including a phone number, for a supposedly defective refrigerator. As soon as craftsmen call Suna Marie, she introduces them to the platform and asks if they would like to be involved. “Anyone who calls me already shows an interest in digital platforms. It’s exactly these companies that I want to address.”
- Suna Marie also prints posters that she wants to display all over Berlin. She sometimes does them until three in the morning. “I had so much fun that I didn’t want to stop,” she says. She wanted to provoke with advertising slogans like: “Not quite close at the top” or “Nail me down”. “I really enjoy puns like this.” Her sister supports her on the phone. “We explored the ideas together. Many more sayings emerged from this.” She creates the photos using ChatGPT. She collects ideas on the photo platform Pinterest. “I particularly like photos that look like they were taken with an old digital camera. This look seems more authentic to me.”
- She drives to a hardware store in a rental car to make a short commercial film. In front of the store, she films craftsmen who agree to be the protagonists for her short spot, which she is currently planning.
Suna Marie is looking for the right name for her app
Suna Marie also needs a name for her app. Only once she has that can she publish the platform and set up a domain and email address. She thinks about it for days. “Craft Match” is their first idea to describe the matching principle. But “I would like a German name, maybe a completely normal word like ‘kaputt’, ‘finished’ or ‘erledigt’,” she says. “Something that signals more than craft.” Finally, her coach Till Kolter, Senior Lead Engineer at Axel Springer, creates a list of names as inspiration.
Together they shift the focus from the “match” to actually getting the work done – i.e. doing it. You settle firmly: “Fits.” The name “is short, direct and offers lots of opportunities for puns,” says Suna Marie.
She now wants to use the name to edit the advertising film, hang posters and win over craftsmen for her platform. To do this, she is postponing her launch by a week.
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Suna Marie’s top learning after two weeks
Suna Marie’s most important learning: “My biggest learning is that I don’t want to focus so much on how others develop their products, when they launch or how they market. “I have a good sense of what I want to do, my own vision, and I don’t want to be distracted by it too much,” she says. “I think I’m on the right track.”
The conclusion of the week: “I now have the feeling that the technical side is working better and better. Just the fact that I now have my own domain and the basic functions are running gives me an incredible amount of security. This also relieves me of a lot of stress,” she says. “I also had to accept that a Friday launch wasn’t realistic. Now I’m looking forward to using the weekend for marketing.”
Goal for the third week: “I want to win over craft businesses. I have great respect for that,” says Suna Marie. “Above all, I now have to sharpen my selling frame. I know my vision, my purpose and the relevance very well. The real challenge now is to communicate exactly that to the outside in an understandable way.”
Do you have questions or want to talk to the fellows about their product? Write to them here.
“Start-up scene is looking for super founders” powered by Dash0, DHL, OpenAI & Vercel.
