Also, investing in “project management software” wasn’t really exciting for any investor we knew. So we decided to build and launch something first, before we approach investors. The team was really young, so it was incredibly tough to attract experienced investors at this time. Marc and I quickly decided to invest € 100.000, but also knew that the team needed a lot more money to build the product we were dreaming of. We really clicked, it was fascinating and fun. I remember him talking about Assembler, Basic, Delphi and a lot of PHP Frameworks (which were pretty popular back then). He has basically been a developer since he was in school. He loves design, understands technology, and builds companies the same way I do – progressive and product-driven. But more importantly, Christian and I very were similar characters, except that he’s a lot younger than me :) I really liked the design, the love for details and the new approach. Christian wanted to make a basic version available for free, but customers had to pay for advanced features (an App Store for Project Management in a way). The product was web-based, beautifully designed and solved many of the existing problems with other products. So I decided to call Christian and see what he was working on.Ĭhristian showed me early designs of a project management software with the working title: Lunchbox. Hence, I was very familiar with the industry and potential competitors. I disliked all existing products in the market and I had built a project management tool for our company. We connected on Xing (the german LinkedIn founded by Lars Hinrichs) and a couple of weeks later I saw his post: “Who wants to join me to build the next generation project management software?” How I met ChristianĪ few months after we sold ip.labs, Marc and I met Christian at a local meetup in Berlin, he was running his own agency at that time. We wanted to support design & technology-driven founders with our experience and seed financing. After selling the company in 2008 to Fujifilm, Marc and I decided to invest a portion of the money we’ve made into a small investment fund called e42 (our investment firm). Marc Sieberger, Alex Koch, Georg Sommershof and I managed to build a successful business which reached over 100 million consumers in over 50 countries. But I never gave up and finally did build a photo-service platform (ip.labs) that actually worked. For many years none of my products or ideas have been successful enough to finance a bigger team or being interesting enough to be acquired by a big corporation. I’m founding startups since 1992 and have made many mistakes along the way. To all founders who read this: I hope this story encourages you to stay confident and energized to keep building, shipping and find your way to success! Why I could invest in Wunderlist I’ve always been a supporter and enjoyed working on the product with him, but like in every company, there were periods which were incredibly tough to deal with. It was also remarkable to experience his personal journey - he has grown from a design- and technology-driven founder to a strong leader and strategic thinker. Startups are incredibly hard, and it’s an inspiring story how Christian turned a simple idea into a phenomenally successful global company. I hope my post will inspire other founders and investors to take risks, and support teams during challenging times. As a founding investor and co-creator of the first product version, I wanted to share my personal Wunderlist story and how I met the founder Christian Reber and his team. Yesterday, Wunderlist announced its acquisition by Microsoft.
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