Lytt

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

Every year, one in five employees experiences bullying, discrimination or harassment at work. More than half of those affected do not speak up because they fear retaliation. Our goal at Lytt is to help employees speak up confidently and help companies make the workplace healthier, fairer and more inclusive. As a digital assistant, Lytt enables employees to raise difficult issues (e.g. bias, harassment, discrimination or mental health issues) and get help in a safe and anonymous way.

How did you come up with the idea of founding your start-up?

Due to a personal incident at work involving Lara, our co-founder, we took a closer look at the issue of harassment. We then investigated how we could support companies in setting up structures so that those affected could get help without fear of discrimination.

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

We have developed the first digital assistant that offers anonymous communication in the area of interpersonal conflicts and mental health issues. We use natural language processing in a chatbot environment to provide an excellent user experience. In addition, we are the only provider to offer anonymous messaging as a progressive web app without storing IP addresses.

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

One of our biggest challenges was staying focused and patient. For example, in the beginning we developed an NLP-based wizard that was technically very appealing, but we had to realize that we had fallen into the classic "over-engineering" trap. So we had to take a few steps back, talk to customers and find out which solution would really add value.

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

You don't know anything until you've spoken to 100 customers.

What has been your biggest success so far?

The biggest success so far has been the approval of our solution by sponsors, partners and customers. We are delighted to have received a grant from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the European Social Fund. In addition, we have only been on the market for a few months and have already won well-known customers such as the Bertelsmann Foundation.

What is the next challenge for you?

The biggest challenge in the B2B sector is still the slow sales processes at large companies. We are therefore working on streamlining and optimizing our processes as much as possible.

Why are you on Startbase?

Because it's a great platform for us to achieve transparency in our business model. We are always looking for companies that want to use Lytt to improve their business satisfaction and health, or for investors who believe in us and the potential of our solution.

What would you recommend to other founders?

As a diverse team of founders, we recommend paying attention to diversity when starting a project. After all, it has been proven that diverse teams are more innovative and successful.

Where did you meet?

We studied together at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster. There, we took part in international case study competitions around the world together and founded a student initiative that now organizes the largest student case study competition in Europe.

What has really gone wrong since you founded it?

Luckily, our biggest failure so far is more of an anecdote: when we were on our way to our second HR fair ever, we were sitting at the airport having a rather lively discussion about a strategic decision. We forgot about the world around us - and arrived in the boarding zone just as the gate had closed. Well, better a missed flight than a missed opportunity!

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

Of course we would strive for gender parity in the city council.