UrmO

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

We founded UrmO to make the urban transportation of the future more sustainable, easier and also more fun. We think that in the cities of the future there will be much less individual cars and a lot of other vehicles, such as scooters for individual use or more public transportation.

We strongly believe in intermodal mobility and our goal is to connect different modes of transportation as efficiently as possible.

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

We always thought that electric cars were the future (in some cases they really are!). Then we realized that it's still no fun being stuck in traffic, even if it's emission-free. Also, electric cars still can't cover most very short distances, for example to and from public transportation. We then tried to build the best electric vehicle for short distances as our first product.

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

We have a completely new product for a comparatively young market. Thanks to its small size, it can be folded up and taken anywhere and also stowed away. This enables new use cases, both shared and owned: if the product is shared, sharing providers can get rid of the expensive charging that is necessary for normal scooters. With our product, they can simply use small charging stations in stores or rental cars to charge the devices.

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

Building a great team. Finding people for your startup is easy. Finding great people with passion, knowledge and a good personal fit is a challenge that should not be underestimated. Especially when it comes to finding co-founders, as they are probably the most valuable asset in your startup.

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

Never assume.

What has been your biggest success so far?

Our biggest success so far was our Kickstarter campaign in 2018. We raised around 200,000 USD with the campaign, which is a great result considering the planned time to delivery and the high price (for crowdfunding) of the product.

What's the next challenge for you?

As with any new product, the transition from prototyping to larger scale production is a big challenge as new processes need to be defined, the supply chain needs to be managed and people need to be hired for assembly. Instead of going to Asia, we assemble the vehicle close to our office in Munich so that we can follow the process closely and quickly take countermeasures should any problems arise. This guarantees a smooth process and quality products.

What would you recommend to other founders?

Try to build a first prototype as quickly as possible. Even though this may seem difficult and expensive for a hardware startup, there are countless possibilities (makerspaces, fablabs, etc.) that can help you build a first prototype quickly and inexpensively. A prototype makes it much easier to successfully talk to customers, investors, etc.

What has really gone wrong since the company was founded?

We got carried away with some of our visions of the future and once tried to attach wings to our UrmO. That didn't go so well, so we're back to ground-based transportation - for now ;-)

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

We would definitely move our office to where the Munich Building and Transport Authority is. The transition to sustainable urban mobility requires a change in the design of roads, cycle paths and sidewalks. A close connection to the transportation authorities would help speed these things up!