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Media Partnership
This interview is in media partnership with the German startup association (Bundesverband Deutscher Startups https://deutschestartups.org/). Their German Startup Awards (GSA21) honor each year outstanding female and male founders and investors in special categories. You can learn more about the winners in our interview and on our website:
Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 #GSA21
Finn Hänsel (https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnhaensel, https://www.crunchbase.com/person/finn-haensel), founder and CEO of Sanity Group is the Entrepreneur of the Year. Congratulations from our side as well. He has a long history as an entrepreneur, who started his own business already with 17, with a platform to buy and sell 2nd hand sports clothing and equipment. He went on to work for BCG, did his MBA in New Zealand, and decided — after two calls with Oliver Samwer — to work for Rocket Internet. He builds for Rocket “The Iconic” in Australia, returned to Germany as the CEO of Pro7Sat1’s Epic Companies incubator (think Gymondo, Valmano, or Discavo), and went from there to turn around Movinga. As a side project, he also started the Craft-Beer Brand Berliner Berg. In 2018 he co-founded Sanity Group, which is looking into the medical applications of all the different ingredients in cannabis.
He is also a mentor at Techstars.
The Video Interview is set to go live on Tuesday, June 29th, 2021 at 17.00 CET
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This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
Automated Transcript
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:00:19]:
events. Hey, guys. This is Joe from start up radio dot a o. I do have a short announcement. I have now an upcoming very awesome interview with Finn. He is the winner of Entrepreneur of the Year award by the German Startup Association, German Startup Awards 2021. We have been talking quite a bit so the recording time is stretching over 40 minutes. If you're getting ready to listen to this interview, get a snack, get a beverage, and enjoy it.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:00:50]:
Hey, Finn. How are you doing?
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:00:52]:
Good. Summer is still slowly starting in Germany. I'm back soon by now. So what could go what could go wrong?
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:00:59]:
Yeah. And, not everybody's seeing this as a video podcast, but we could show short sleeves. It's summer here.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:01:08]:
Summer. Exactly. Slowly but slowly.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:01:11]:
Yes. And, you won the award for entrepreneur of the year? Yep. Yeah. And we, of course, will dive into what you have to say, and I do assume it will be a lot. Before we do that, guys, make sure to hit the like and subscribe button and leave us a lovely comment, also about my short sleeves if you really need to. We have I have been researching you a little bit, and as always, everybody can find down here in the show notes the links. And I've I've read, in one of the many, many blog posts about you that you started out when you've been 17 with a secondhand online sports clothing shop. 2ndhandfjernsvanzig.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:01:58]:
Dee, we may add for everybody who's not from Germany that it used to be a very big thing, in Germany to have a store open longer hours because in Germany, opening hours were restricted. For example, for groceries, like afternoon Saturday, like, 1 PM, 1300, 1400, 2 PM, and then they were closed, then you could get something to eat only in restaurants afterwards. And if you need to go shopping, you had to wait until Monday. So all of the online shops had some some version of 24 in it.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:02:35]:
24, move 24. There's another example.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:02:38]:
Yes. Exactly. And, and, and that, and that's one of the backgrounds That's, why always people are asking me, why does it have to be 24? Do we have a different time zone here in Germany? Do you have 25 hour days? What is it? That's the background, guys. So can you tell us a little bit about this and how it actually started?
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:02:59]:
Yeah. I mean, to be honest, I was already a very active, I don't want to say child, but maybe we let's call it an active teenager. And I was pretty early in my life. I was sure that I wanna do something with terms of in terms of management, business operations. And for a long time, I was actually looking at what's going on, and I saw a lot of people back in the days in my school not being really interested in all those things. And then at some point, one of my really close friends, he said to me at some point, look, there's this Internet thing. Let's do something around it. Like, let's see what you can do online.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:03:35]:
Let's see what's possible, and let's start something that's easy to implement. And then let's see if it's, if it's really taking off. And, during that time, we break we brainstormed a lot. I think I was probably 16 or 17. I was actually back in the day in HTML developer myself. So I was actually even a freelancer working for agencies programming HTML sites, which is kind of sad because, today I'm not able to do that anymore. But, I had been really an early adopter on programming. And, during that time, I was programming the website, and we actually decided to even, like, print a lot of flyers that we handed out.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:04:12]:
And we started with sports secondhand24.de. And what we actually did there, we wanted to acquire used sports goods and then sell them on the website and ourselves wanted to get a commission from that. So it was basically already in 1999, something that is very close to what eBay is still doing today. So back in the days, we were really wondering, can that be successful? Are really people selling and buying stuff online? So, obviously, it was back in the days very far from being, the new normal. It was something that was completely new and unheard of, and we did it approximately for 2 years. And we had some traction. So we had a lot of people buying and selling goods on the website, but it said then then at some point, eBay became bigger and bigger. At some point, we realized we don't really have a chance to to do and compete against the big American companies with that.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:05:04]:
So we sold it to a local sports company, like a sports retail store, very quickly, I think, 1 or 2 years afterwards. But still, it was my first experience where I really had to go to the government. I had to register my own company. I had to basically do my first tax report. I had to, actually start planning to a business plan. And therefore, I think even though it was only a very small gig and not really big financials behind it, It was still something that taught me a lot in terms of what do I have to do when I start a business. Like, from opening up a bank account, as I said, incorporating a company, going to the notary, making sure the company has money, business planning to see how how long the money will last, how much marketing can we do, how do we become profitable. And I think these things with 16 years old to do this for the first time, it really teaches you a lot already for for the later years to come.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:05:57]:
Totally true. Totally true. We may add a notary is something you don't know in all the, like, legal frameworks. Go down here in the show notes. There will be a Wikipedia article for it. What I found fascinating about you then you still started out at BCG. There is a story behind it, how you got this job. Right? It was with, it was related to some kind of entrepreneurship competition.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:06:25]:
Yeah. Exactly. So, I mean, back in the days, L'Oreal, which is still one of the biggest consumer goods companies in the world, they had an online game. And that online game was called L'Oreal estrad, so estrategy. And again, it was very digital. We did that, I would say, in the last 3rd of my university studies. We were a group of 4 people and what we basically had to do, we were competing with 30,000 teams globally, how to run a basically cosmetic company online. So there was it was basically based on several rounds.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:07:00]:
So it was almost like a virtual case study or a digital case study where you see how much revenues you're doing. You are theoretically the new manager. You have to come in. You have to make decisions based on on numbers, but also based on gut feelings and based on branding. And then each round, the surviving group halved. So it means 30,000 teams started in, in in in the 1st round, then there were only 15,000 left in the 2nd round, then only 7,500 left in the 3rd round until it was really down at some point to only 500 teams. Those 500 teams were in the so called pre final, so we had to actually submit a business plan. We had to submit a lot of different things.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:07:41]:
We had to submit our final decisions, and then only 10 teams were invited to the global final, final, which was in Paris because obviously it was a L'Oreal game and they had the headquarters in Paris. And then we had to pitch our business plan to a jury and the jury was, I would say there was 1 guy from McKinsey. There was 1 guy from BCG. There were a few guys from L'Oreal. There were a few retailers. So we had to pitch the business plan to those retailers and the winner, got a job offer from L'Oreal. So, it was always for me, almost a sure thing that I will start at L'Oreal. I had a few job offers from other consumer goods companies, but one person in the jury, he was the guy from BCG.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:08:23]:
And then when we won this, award, there was a ceremony at the end and there was, you know, this meet and greet and you drink a bit of champagne and these pre corona times when this was still possible. But then at some point I was talking to the BCG guy and the BCG person, he was a partner in the French system, came to me and said, look, Finn, everyone has to do the decision at some point in his life. Either you will start working at L'Oreal right now and you will probably do this for the next 5 years, then you will only know one brand in one country with one problem. It is definitely something exciting. But if you would start at BCG, you will see 15 different companies in the next years. You will see hundreds of different problems. You will see different brands. You will see different business models, different challenges.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:09:07]:
And that night, he really hooked me. And then I thought, like, I really like L'Oreal as a company, but I was more excited, to everything I might learn at BCG at some point. And that was the moment when I changed my mind and I told him even like, I think not even 2 days later, said, Jack, please consider me for application at BCG. And that's how I, at the end, changed my mind last minute to not do consumer goods, but rather moved, into a job at BCG.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:09:33]:
And this job, from my understanding, got you to, doing an MBA. We also spent some time in New Zealand, and then somehow you ended up in Australia?
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:09:46]:
Yep. Yeah. I mean, I did my MBA. I spent a lot of time, I mean, like in Hungary and New Zealand. New Zealand's an amazing country, by the way. And during my time in New Zealand, I really fell in love with everything that's down under like New Zealand culture, Australian culture. I went back to Germany then at some point and continue to be at BCG. But what then happened was that at some point, BCG asked me if I also want to do my PhD.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:10:13]:
And at BCG, you have the choice. You can either take a year off to do a PhD or you can 1 to 2 years off to go into a different country. And I had the luck to be part of the so called global ambassador program that you needed that I need to apply for internally. And in this, ambassador program, I could pick a country that I want to, work in within BCG. And because I had so fond memories of my MBA time at, or my my, university time at in New Zealand, I very quickly decided that I want to go back to Australia because I've always spent my time in New Zealand and very few time only in Australia. So I decided that I wanna do that. And that's actually when I moved from Berlin full time as a BCG consultant to Sydney, which was also my biggest career progress because I was an associate and I became consultant, then I became project leader. And then after that time, I really was considering what do I wanna do next? Do I wanna stay a consultant? Do I wanna work in a company? Do I wanna be, a founder of my own business? And I was always since bought 2ndhand 24, I was always intrigued by founding my own company because I always love to create and build things and do everything around it.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:11:23]:
And then when I was really in the middle of that process, wondering, do I go back to Germany? Do I go into a different country? Do I stay in Australia? Suddenly, Oliver Zamba, back in the days, very well known as the founder of Rocket Internet, he actually heard that I'm not so happy at BCG anymore, and he contacted me and asked me, Finn, could you imagine creating a new company for Rocket Internet? And in the beginning, I said no, and I wasn't really sure. Then he offered me a job at Zalando in Berlin, but then I thought Zalando's already such a big company. It's not really the startup vibe anymore. Then I had the chance to join Groupon in Australia, and Groupon, you know, is the discount, platform. I was not really keen and fond of the business model in the beginning. And at some point, the Zamba brothers told me, look, if you like fashion but you wanna stay in Australia, what about you open a fashion company in Australia? And that was when we founded the iconic. And that is, I think, to be honest, if I look back, probably my biggest step in my career progression, because before that I was a project leader at BCG, which was a great job, but you always advise people you never do things. And then suddenly I became the founder of a company that was already from day 1, very well financed by Rocket Internet.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:12:33]:
And I really had everything I needed to make the biggest fashion company in Australia out of that. That was really exciting. And that's why I spent most of my professional career, if I look back, outside Germany, actually in Australia.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:12:48]:
Mhmm. Mhmm. I I heard, about those calls. I read about it. Just one one question about that. What was the university that made you want to go to Australia and New Zealand that we give give them a mental high five?
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:13:05]:
Yeah. It was a University of Auckland, actually. Oh, you mean the university in Germany that let me go to them?
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:13:10]:
No. No. The University of Auckland. Totally right. And you have to build the iconic, fashion retailer in Australia. Yeah. And what what then made you leave? Because then you became the CEO of, then he came became the CEO of Epic Companies. It's an accelerator program by Prossibben Sert Eins, a TV company that our frequent audience already knows.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:13:40]:
They're big, in investing in start ups and ecommerce. What what was the moment you changed your mind? Why did you leave?
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:13:49]:
Yeah. You know, you always have to keep in mind that I was not only, the managing director and founder of The Iconic for for two and a half years. I was already in Australia with BCG about two and a half years before. And my point was really, I was already in Australia for 5 years. And at some point, I was also wondering myself, what do I wanna do with myself? Do I wanna go back to Europe? Do I wanna stay in Australia? Do I really wanna become a part of the Australian startup, world? And then at some point, I realized, first of all, I think the internal factors that was already back in the day is a clear movement that Rock Internet tried to combine all the global fashion companies into 1. So, before that, I founded the iconic in Australia. There was someone else who founded DaFiji in Brazil, which is the Brazilian, online fashion company of Rocket Internet. Then there was Zallora in Southeast Asia, which is the Southeast Asian fashion company of Rocket Internet.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:14:48]:
And in the beginning, all of those companies were completely independent from each other, so you had completely creativity and independency, in your local markets. And one of the things that happened after two and a half years was that you really saw that Rocket Internet tried to combine all those companies and lift more and more synergies. And one thing that I felt already in the beginning was that the countries become less and less independent. So everything we could decide in the beginning, like, what kind of advertising we wanna do, what kind of website technology we wanna use, what kind of marketing spend we wanna do suddenly became more and more central. And that was probably the internal reason why at some point decided that I want to leave the iconic, but the most far more important was for me the external reasons. I was already in Australia for 5 years. I missed Europe. I missed my friends.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:15:35]:
I missed my family, and I thought, like, I'm missing out on so many things in Europe that for me, the time has really come to to to come back. And as you can imagine, I mean, Australia is 30 hours flights away. I did the flights quite frequently, but if, for example, your family is sick or your parents are sick, it's not just a weekend. You you quickly go back to visit them and then go back to Australia. And at some point, I made the decision for myself based on those external and internal factors that for me, I really wanna go back. And during that time, Marto Peric, which is a good friend of mine, who was also MD of Rocket Internet in Southeast Asia, he already had a deal with ProSieben. Heinz, as you mentioned, the big TV conglomerate from Germany to create an incubator, which was a big model after Rocket Internet within the network. And he wanted to, win me as a co managing director, together with him and 2 other managing directors.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:16:31]:
And at that point, I really decided, I really wanna leave Australia at some point. I don't know when. But then suddenly, I had this opportunity in Germany, and then everything came together and I decided for myself, I really wanna go back. Then when I talked to Rocket Internet, I explained to Zumba Brothers that I actually wanna go back to Europe. And they also gave me a job offer for Rocket Internet, but then I decided I really want to also change my perspective a bit, and I found it very exciting to create something from scratch for proceedings and Eins. That's when we started Epic Companies. And that was an old history, like, very interesting because you still might know some of you might know companies like Amur Ali, which is an online love toys company that has been part of Epic Companies or Jamondo, which is an online fitness studio. So we invested and created a lot of company companies during that time.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:17:19]:
And that was actually also a very interesting career career move move. It was a lot of fun.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:17:24]:
Mhmm. And, then you moved on to maybe the toughest part of your life from what I've read. You became part of the leadership team of Movinga for everybody who did not follow our start up news. At this time there was big competition between all the platforms where you could basically arrange to move house. Yeah? There was Movinga, then was something like Movago, there was move 24, and all those, things. And actually at the time you moved into Movinga, they weren't working quite well and you had to, basically, it was turnaround this, situation.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:18:06]:
Yeah. So that was interesting part. They were probably one of the most interesting parts of my career. Not the most fun part, I would say, but the most interesting one. So when I left ProSieben. Eins, originally, I left because I wanted to found something myself. So I was screening a lot of ideas. I already had something that I was working on during that time.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:18:27]:
As you probably have read, I founded my own craft beer brewery during that time, which which was kind of parallel because, that was something that I still, had in me from Australia that I was always wondering why other countries are so much more innovative in terms of beer, than we as the mother country of of beer in Germany. So, but after I actually did a lot of screening, I had my own idea and I already had investors. And then suddenly my old investors from, iconic, like Rocket Internet, but also some other people that were involved in Rocket in the beginning, approached me and said, look, we have this amazing, investment here in Berlin. It's an online moving platform. It's super innovative. It's definitely the next big thing coming from Berlin. The only downside is we have very 2 very junior and young founders who might be a bit naive. They don't have a lot of experience in building up businesses.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:19:17]:
So what we really need is like a 3rd more senior managing director who's already seen that, done that before, who has a lot of experience and who knows how to actually run a business. And in the beginning, I thought, wow, that's an amazing growth case. I can come on board, I can bring my experience, and we would all three together run this company for the next years and really make it successful. However, as you already, indicated, unfortunately, when I started things didn't turn out as positive as I envisioned them to be. So very quickly, we figured out that the numbers are not as good as they seem to be. We saw actually that the company had a lot of deeper problems, and it all cumulated to the to the reality that the burn rate. So the monthly loss the company is doing or the monthly cash burn or cash outflow, is far higher than first of all was anticipated, but secondly also reported that had a lot of different reasons. But, suddenly the company was not even 6 weeks became from like the new superstar on the Berlin or European startup horizon, it suddenly became really a problem child.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:20:27]:
And obviously, it was too big to fail. The investors already gave a lot of money into that company. They already convinced a lot of people to invest there as well. And obviously, there was a certain degree of panic because, people just invested very freshly in that in that company, and suddenly the company was already running out of money, not only a few months later. And that was suddenly like a huge crisis in which the founders both left the business. And then it was basically my choice to decide if I wanna stay in the business and try to turn it around and, and restructure it and clean it, or if I would have done the same path like the founders and decide to leave the company. And it was not an easy decision because at the end of the day, it was not my company. I didn't found it.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:21:12]:
I didn't know the company during that time well enough to really understand what the problems were. However, I then really decided, because I really felt the duty that I that I owe the company something, and that I actually still and I really believe it is that it's in the core, it's a very good business model. I think everything will get digitalized at some point, and there and, also, moves will be digitalized. And I mean, to be honest, I don't see a future where people still book their moves via telephone or or or physical meeting. I think at the end, everything will be digitalized. That's the reason why I had a very, very deep belief in the business model. And that was because that was then the reason why I decided that I wanna stay on board. And then that I offered the investors that I can restructure and turn around the business.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:21:59]:
As you can imagine, as I already indicated, I didn't know everything by the time I decided that. So I saw a lot of skeletons in the closet, as you say. I found a lot of things that I wasn't aware of at all, that went wrong in the company. So instead of, like, what my, vision was back in the day is to take 6 months and restructure the company and everything will be good, It took, like, probably the better of 3 years to really restructure the company and bring it back to where it is today. And, for 4 years in total then, I was really, like, spending my time and my life energy to really save a company that I didn't found myself. But that was really, I think, one of the I don't wanna say the low points because the low points mean I didn't like the time. From a learning experience, it was probably one of the most amazing times I had in my life, but, you know, it was not always pleasant. So the company was very close to bankruptcy at least 3 to 4 times during my time there.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:22:54]:
It was always about cutting costs. It was about convincing new investors to come on board. It was about down rounds. It was about, managing complexities and problems. And then at the end, after 4 years in total, I really realized that with the latest financing round that then happened, that the company is now at a good stage. And that was a point when I recited for myself that I'm not needed anymore, and I would rather live, give hand over to someone who comes on board with a fresh pair of eyes, who actually goes back into a more growth centered modus. But I realized I can't do this anymore. And I don't wanna say I was burned out, but I really believe that after 4 years restructuring, I was not the right guy.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:23:35]:
My energy level was not high enough, and my enthusiasm was not high enough anymore to really also do the next 4 years in the company.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:23:41]:
Before we get into your current start up, Sanity Group, let us quickly talk about the most important thing you ever did, the craft beer company.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:23:54]:
Yeah. Exactly.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:23:56]:
I was I was checking, your company website. It's called Berlinaberg, and you have some very interesting, beer there. Since I spent some time in Africa, I totally do see that the world needs more banana beer and I cannot find it on your website. You talked about innovation. Right? Plus, what I've, personally experienced, what I like very much is something like icebok or schniebok. Admittedly, very hard to produce. Everybody who'd like to learn more, go down here, wherever you're listening this or watching this, they'll be linked to Wikipedia articles. A lot of them.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:24:39]:
Yeah. Should I say a bit? Should I tell you a bit about brewery?
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:24:42]:
Yeah. Sure. Go ahead.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:24:43]:
Yeah. I mean, to be honest, it was an interesting thought because I mentioned already I was in Australia, for a long time. Then I came to ProSieben, to build up the epic company's incubator. In parallel, one of my, co MDs at Proseem, Uli, he was a long time with Rocket Internet in in the USA. So we had a kind of similar story. We build up companies. He went more on the HelloFresh side and more on the Zalando fashion side. So we spent both a lot of time overseas before we both came back to Germany for Proseem.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:25:14]:
And one thing that we discussed back in the days quite frequently was the topic that, that all other countries around Germany becoming more and more innovative when it comes to beer, And Germany is the mother country of beer, didn't really become innovative. Even today, today it's much better than 5 years ago. But even today, if you go to a local supermarket, the average range of beers you have is, yes, you have a lot of different brands. But when it comes to the different types of beer, 95% of the portfolio assortment of every supermarket are still Pilsner, Weitzen, and Helles. And that's basically all you can get. And you have the same 100 brands who you always had in Germany, but I can tell you, and I'm completely convinced about it, we had very funny YouTube video that we did for our crowdfunding in Berlinerberg. If you do a blind tasting with German pilsners, I promise you, you will not taste the difference. If I put a Wachsteiner next to a Kombacher, next to a binding lager, next to a Rade burger, and I do you then let you the blind tasting, hands down, you will not taste the difference.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:26:23]:
Why? Because the German breweries for decades now, we're only optimizing on drinkability, which means you can drink a lot about it without ever actually having a negative taste. And they were optimizing the cost. So it means the lesser hop you put in there, the cheaper the beer becomes. The lesser miles you put in there, the cheaper the beer becomes. And then at the end of the day, this leads to the fact that all the Pilsner beers you have today, except for a few like Ghebherr or Flensberger Pilsner, have very low level of hops. So that means all the beers taste the same. And our mission was from the beginning that we want to bring back the same beer variety back to Germany that now all the other countries in Australia or the US or everywhere else in the world are rediscovering is that we also want to bring that variety back to Germany. That's when Uli and I sat together one evening and decided, look, if we both leave epic companies, no matter what we do next, one project we should definitely do, and that is building our own brewery.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:27:19]:
And that's actually what we've done, and it started as a hobby project that we just did on the site. And then suddenly, it became bigger and bigger and bigger. And Jagermeister, the big German drinks company invested in the company. Now we built our own brewing facility here in Berlin, like a huge brewery house in south of Berlin. So whenever you are in Berlin, you can come by and actually enjoy our beer garden. So and that is actually something that today I'm not the managing director anymore, but I'm still the founder and one of the biggest shareholders. However, obviously, that's something like, there was a definitely a project that was one of the most fun projects I have with it.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:27:54]:
Yes. And, of course, there'll be a a lot of links down here, what is malt, what is hop. I think most Germans will know, but outside of Germany, most people won't know. And, actually, when you talked about craft beer, that's something I have seen, like, increasing presence of beers. When I'm in the US, I'm most of the time in New York. And when I've been there, I saw an increasing presence of beers, for example, like Brooklyn Lager, that have been there, like craft beers more and more and more. And I thought, you don't see that in Germany. Why? And I think it's it's the same thought process.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:28:35]:
I didn't I didn't have the idea or, like, the real intention to actually own a brewery, but I've seen the same development. Talking about development, now we know the start. The low point, the fun point, and now we can get into Sanity Group. What you guys are dealing in, cannabis, but my understanding is
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:29:00]:
a good curve. Sorry? Yeah. Dealing is the right term here.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:29:05]:
Yeah. My understanding is you're not necessarily, working exclusively on distributing medical cannabis because it's you can get it on prescription here in Germany. It's legal. Down here in the show notes, there will be a lot more in information, but you're working with some of the products you can get out of it, like squeezing out oil for medical and beauty products and all that stuff. Is that true?
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:29:33]:
Yeah. So, I mean, to be honest, before we probably start with that, I need to tell a few things about the cannabis plant itself because many people are not aware of what's what's happening and why cannabis is suddenly such a big thing. So it's everything in medical today. Cannabis has a long history. So for 3000 years, already medical people in back in China 3000 years ago or in in ancient Egypt used cannabis as a as a plan for actually increasing your well-being. So it's not something that came up over the last 10 or 20 years. It's really something that already has a long standing history. Then, obviously, from 1930 to more or less today, we had what we call the so called prohibition.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:30:18]:
So the plant as a total was not only forbidden to consume, but also forbidden to do research about. And only about 20, 30 years ago, the first countries opened up again to do research. And one of the main countries here is Israel, and they really had a lot of breakthrough, research results already in the nineties. And what was the main research breakthrough that they found out is that cannabis is not just one ingredient, which we normally call THC, which is the one that makes you high, the one that makes you a bit dizzy, and the typical thing that you associate with cannabis as a drug. But in total, the cannabis plan has 110 ingredients, the so called cannabinoids. And THC, which is the one that makes you high in a psychoactive, is only 1 cannabinoid, but there are 109 other cannabinoids. So what happened over the last 30 years when the prohibition became less powerful, more and more countries started allowing research around cannabis. And what you see is that the amount of research and clinical studies done in cannabis over the last 30 years almost doubled each year.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:31:24]:
And now this year, I think it's a record with more than, I think, 400 studies done in parallel about cannabis. And what is super interesting is that cannabis can be very powerful as a medication. There, we're talking mainly about THC. So for example, chronic pain. So if you're a chronic pain patient or you have, for example, you have, attention deficit syndrome or if you, for example, have a loss of appetite, like cannabis as a medication can really help you. However, what also became clearer in research is that all the other ingredients of the cannabis plant, let's call it for example, CBD, which is the 2nd most researched ingredient, is not psychoactive, so it doesn't make you high. It doesn't allow you, or it doesn't make you kind of like dizzy, but it's just a normal active ingredient similar to caffeine or something else. And that this stuff can also do good stuff for you.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:32:16]:
So your sleep might get better and your regeneration of the sports might get better because of the anti inflammatory effects and so on and so far. What we said with Sandy Group from the beginning is that we want to lift the full potential of the plant. And definitely one side of the potential is the pure medical application, which is today still mainly THC for things like chronic pain, but also, h DHS, and other indications that are more prescription based. But you also have a lot of things, for example, CBD, CBG, CBN, CBD. So other ingredients of the plant that can help people in other topics like sleeping, having less stress, muscle regeneration that are not necessarily medical. And that is something that we do on the side. So we have basically 2 business units. Number 1, the medical business units focusing on prescription.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:33:08]:
And then on the other hand, we have everything which is non prescription and that is basically everything what we call well-being. And well-being is mainly focusing on the cannabinoids outside THC. So that is actually in a in a few, hopefully, a few words, few enough, what we do and why the cannabis plant is not the cannabis plant, but rather a bit more complex than that.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:33:30]:
Before we talk a little bit about your plants there with, with Sanity Group, when do we going to see a beer from Berliner bag with cannabinoids?
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:33:40]:
It's already happened. We basically had it as a special edition, I would say, about a year ago now. So we had, like, a special IPA where we didn't even use hops, where we used or like, we do use a little bit of hops, but we used cannabis instead of hops. And what also many people don't know is that hops and cannabis is the same family of plants. That's the reason why, cannabis based beers is nothing that is a new invention. Already there's tricks of monks who do that in monasteries already back in 16th century to brew beer from cannabis, because, they didn't have hops or they believed the in the medical impact of cannabis. So cannabis beer is really nothing new. It's not a new invention, and it makes perfect sense because if you sometimes, for example, open up a certain beer and you smell it, sometimes when you know how cannabis smells, you have this kind of association.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:34:33]:
And the reason is not, because there's cannabis in the beer, but it's really because hops and cannabis are really, really, really close to each other when it comes to the family of plants. And that's the reason why we did it last year for the first time. It was a huge success. It's not part of our daily business, but, you know, as a kind of, fun limited edition at some point with a special collaboration, it's obviously a lot of fun to do that. And that's the reason why we did it already last year. So if we do the next round, Joe, I'll definitely send you some over so you can try them at home.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:35:03]:
I would be totally up for something like icebox Christmas beer or something that is just awesome. Love love it when it gets a little dark earlier outside and all the snow on that favorite time is Christmas. Bottom line, what we learned from your discussion, already the monks in the 16th century knew to have how to have a blast. Okay. I get it. Now now tell me, you raised with a senate decree funding of €20,000,000 should be something like 22, 23,000,000 US dollars. Yeah. One of the largest in the cannabis scene as as we talked about, not dealing exclusively in the medical cannabis.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:35:45]:
And, what are you guys going to do with that? Because I saw one of your statements in the press, like, talking about building a European champion.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:35:55]:
Yep. So, I mean, our aim was always to become the leading European cannabis company. And when I talk about leading, I don't necessarily mean the biggest or the largest by revenues, but also leading the way in research and development. As I mentioned already, yes, there's a lot of research done in cannabis these days. However, we believe there's not lot more that needs to be done. And a large proportion of the money that we raised will go into scientific research, and developing new dosage forms based on that. So for example, at the moment, we're looking into certain, finished pharmaceuticals that might help you with schizophrenia or that might help you with, with dementia, like, if you get older and you forget things. Also something that might help you against borderline syndrome.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:36:43]:
And this is really something where we believe cannabis can play a big role. However, there's not much research done about it yet. There's only preclinical trials who are showing that there could be an impact And what we want to do is really invest the money, into finding out more about that, into proving that, into showing that it can be efficient, kinda pharmaceuticals based on cannabis. And then obviously also something, that we invest into is not only the research facility, but also the production facility. That is something that unfortunately cost a lot of money, but we believe it's worth it because we don't believe that we just want to profit from an existing market, but we want to increase and build the market ourselves and we'll do our part in building the market. And that's the reason why we invest into topics that are not may generate revenues next year, but rather in the next 5 years or 10 years because we believe we are just at the beginning of our understanding of how the plan can be really used to to achieve good for people.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:37:43]:
That is pretty awesome. We're now recording for more than 37 minutes, which is running longer than our average interviews, but nonetheless I'm totally enjoying this interview. I would have 2 more questions for you because you're privately investing with the entity called Mawa Katze, wall cat. When we talked before, it reminded you of a cat sitting on a wall when you grew up. What are you actually looking for in companies when you invest with this entity?
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:38:18]:
It's a very good question because I wouldn't say I necessarily always focus on just one industry or just one sector. I'm pretty sector agnostic. I think personally, I have a good gut feeling of what works with a customer and whatnot and how to achieve good product market fit. And that's the reason why, for example, I primarily focus on everything that b to c. So because I understand b to b, but it's not my stronghold. What I really understand is branding, user experience, product market fit, how customers react to things, and how to build up things efficiently. And I would say everything that I understand, from that perspective is something that's for me interesting to invest. So for example, very early, I invested in a competitor of Gorillaz, which is like, an online, online delivery platform for daily goods.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:39:11]:
So they are now number 3 after Gorillaz and Flink in Germany. It's called Grovi. Then there's also, another topic, which is women's health, where I strongly believe that this is a topic that will play a huge role over the next 10 years. So I actually think that the the women's health sector in general is underserved today. So, again, it's a b to c topic. It's close to pharma where I'm obviously things to, Sandy Group I'm very familiar in anyways. So these are the topics that I like to invest in. But, generally, I'm also open to topics when actually some founders tell me that they that they think I can be a great help, and I like the business model.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:39:47]:
I'm sometimes also very opportunistic and say, like, yeah. Let's do it. I like to invest because I believe I can add some value here. So to put it in a in a nutshell, I really think b to c is more where I think I can add value. But besides that, whenever I think it's a good business model and I believe that the founders are good, which is one of the main criteria for me to have a good founding team, then I'm looking into it. And then then the founders believe that I could add a lot of value as a business angel, then normally I invest. But I don't have a typical pattern to identify, rank, and put criteria in before I invest.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:40:23]:
We just passed the 40 minutes recording, but I still like it. And there's just one more final question. If a new entrepreneur in his early twenties just graduated with a bachelor comes to you, and asks you for your biggest advice as an entrepreneur, what would it be and why?
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:40:44]:
To be honest, do something that you love. I was always, and to be honest, I know that there's a lot of people who disagree, but at least it always worked for me. I always got more motivation out of what I'm doing if I'm passionate about what I'm doing. So, I really believe in the value of the plant, which is the reason why I think I'm a very good founder match for Sanity Group. Same actually as you could imagine with beer. I love beer. I drank beer my whole life. I come from Flensburg in Northern Germany.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:41:13]:
Flensburg and Pilsner is something that I grew up with. So So obviously, that's a topic that I really enjoy. And to be honest, that's also where I get my creativity from because I always think founders also need to be creative, and you always have more creativity when you do something you love, than when you do something that you were just placed in to do. And that, for example, I saw so many times that founders were doing something. I saw founders doing Fintech companies, but they don't like Fintech. They don't like numbers, but they still think, oh, FinTech is such a big business model. I need to do something in FinTech. And I don't want to say it always fails, but I also saw it a lot of times failing when you really see that people don't do what they like and they become frustrated.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:41:55]:
They lose their motivation. So, to make a long story short, my advice is really do what you love and the rest will come from it.
Jörn "Joe" Menninger | CEO and Founder Startuprad.io [00:42:03]:
Well, I haven't heard any better closing words the whole year. Thank you very much, Finn. Again, congratulations to your German startup awards, trophy and best of luck for you and Zenithi Group and, of course, Berliner Bergbier.
Finn Hänsel | CEO and Founder Sanity Group | Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 [00:42:21]:
Thank you so much, Joe. My pleasure. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you. Bye.
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