epap

Why did you found your start-up, what problem are you addressing and how are you solving it?

Our vision is to reinvent till receipts. In general, we see four main problems:

• More than 20 million printed receipts in the German retail sector alone
• Ongoing expenses in the form of materials, printing and personnel
• Unused touchpoints for customers
• Disruptive storage and lack of control for the customer

We want to solve these problems by providing free digital receipts, setting up merchant-to-customer connection points and offering an intuitive and easy-to-use budget book.

How did you come up with the idea of founding epap?

Two of our founders recognized the obsolescence of printed receipts in the midst of a digitalized world. Independently of each other, they started developing an app for digital receipts. When they met, they worked together on epap's corporate goal.

What is special about your business model, what do you do differently?

Our USP lies in the free use of our product. Whether it's a bakery, clothing store or food retailer - nobody has to pay for digital receipts. Costs only arise if the retailer wants to use brand receipts, touchpoints, etc.

The same applies to the B2C side. Our app with all its main functions is free, monetization is only done by offering Premium Business and Family Tools.

What were the biggest challenges you had to overcome at the beginning?

Especially the market entry is very time consuming as you have to work on important components that occur on different levels.

What was the most valuable piece of advice someone gave you during the start-up phase?

Take part in networking events to find like-minded people and make new contacts.

What has been your biggest success so far?

We recently exceeded 10,000 users and are now being implemented in 15,000 systems. This is certainly a great moment for us.

What is your next challenge?

The next big step that needs to be taken in the near future is to implement it in as many systems as possible to achieve social relevance. We are also aiming to have 40,000 users by the end of the year.

What would you recommend to other founders?

Focus on the needs of the market, even if the market itself doesn't know them yet. Don't just build something that you think is really cool, but react quickly and be flexible.

Where did you meet each other?

Our programmers Fabian and Sebastian got to know each other through the start-up advice service at Leibniz University in Hanover. They brought their joint idea to a start-up event, where they met Jannis and Gerd. That was the starting signal for the founding of epap.

Where do you see your start-up in three years' time?

In three years, epap will be represented in most German stores. We are striving to integrate epap into customers' daily lives, basically wherever you can go shopping.

Let's say you were the governing mayor of Hamburg for a day, what would you change?

We would like to see an expansion of sustainable projects. This would possibly include cycle paths and the subsidization of public transport. We would also like to see support for the local economy, especially start-ups, to be more competitive compared to other hotspots.