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In Europe you can pay with your phone or your watch, but you will still get a paper receipt.Jannis Dust, CMO and Co-Founder epap.app
The Founder
Jannis (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jannisdust/, https://twitter.com/jannisdust, ) is in his early 20s, but already the co-founder of Hannover, Germany based fintech Epap (https://epap.app/). Originally Jannis was working on a freelance basis for eCommerce startups, but in 2018 he met his co-founders during a startup event.
In Germany the tax code demands to print a receipt for every transaction. This leads to a lot of waste.Jannis Dust, CMO and Co-Founder epap.app
With the app you could also track your spending. It is a companion of your spending. … with the app you get an evaluation on your spending.Jannis Dust, CMO and Co-Founder epap.app
The Startup
The startup is young, it was registered in the Hannover Commercial Registry in April 2020. None-the-less epap.app (https://epap.app/) wants to digitize recipes. In Germany, the tax regulations were changed at the start of 2020. This is called “the obligation to print receipts”. So for each transaction in a store or shop, the merchant needs to provide a receipt, mostly paper-based. This leads to a lot of waste and searching if one needs to find an important receipt in order to claim the warranty. Here the digitalization of epap comes in, since one has all receipts (digital and scans of paper-based ones) in one place, even with little reminders for warranties.
The Epap App
You can download the epap app in the Apple and Google Stores here: Google Play and App Store
With the app you can also claim the warranty, where you can use epap … we make it easier. You get little reminders for your warranty.Jannis Dust, CMO and Co-Founder epap.app
Venture Capital Funding
Epap is looking to expand to German-speaking Europe and willing to try other European countries if the opportunity presents itself.
They had their first seed investment round in April 2020 and are planning to raise the next financing round in the first half of 2021, but it will be an extended seed round, they do not plan to scale that fast.
Currently, the team is eight people strong.
Our goal is to provide you with a very comprehensive and granular analysis of your expenses. In a normal finance apps, you see the category. In our app the analysis is based on the digital receipt.Jannis Dust, CMO and Co-Founder epap.app
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The Interviewer
This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
Automated Transcript
Intro
[0:00] Music.
[0:08] That I owe you were podcast and YouTube blog covering the German.
[0:13] Music.
[0:19] Hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from startupradio your startup podcast and YouTube blog from Germanyif you’re watching this on YouTube you can see I’m wearing very red stuff because we are before Christmas but nonethelesswe doing an interview that will be published in the next year I do have Jonas here with me as a as a guest and co-founder of a sudden hey how you doing.Hi it’s a pleasure to be here very nice it’s totally our pleasure you guys reach out on a website and we had a little bitback and forth and then we settled for recording two monthsprior to actual publication just for the simple reason my schedule is so full right now I’ve.
The Founder — Jannis Founded Epap In His 20S
[1:05] As always of course if you go down here in the show notes you’ll find your personal LinkedIn profile so people can reach out to you directly but.You are we may say for the people who are not watching this you are pretty young I would guess around 30.So we know that good try no I’m around 20 years old actually.20s okay I see yeah I was just trying to be kind and you are have nonetheless you around20s who said and you’ve been doing quite a lot of stuff before you actually co-founded epap.Startup will be soon talking about what did you do like After High School.
[1:54] Alright so it’s quite interesting because from school to being a cal found that epap a lot had happened in a very short time period.I would say since I was like 10 years old I wanted to study Physics and somehow it’s still a plan because I’m deeply passionate about it.But after I turned 16 or stuff like that I absolutely wanted to dive into the field of Economics I searched for,some possibilities to combine physics and economics and obviously I wanted to dive deep into entrepreneur entrepreneurial Spirit stuff.Start my own companies and yeah so as I said search for some ways to combine both work.And that resulted in me studying industrial engineering which is quite a combination of both words and.Starting to be served deployed next to my self employed next to my studies so I worked with the developer I teach myself a bit of front-end development and I also started to dive dive into,and Ecommerce and labeling brand stuff like that.Before I actually get to know the other founders of epap and starting this together at the end of 2019.
[3:12] Yeah it is the time period before actually founding my first real startup I would say because being self-employed is for me not LED much startup related stuff yeah exactly.I do believe being a freelancer gives you a good basis because you always have to take care of everything yourself witch,is also a what you need to do as a founder of a start-up soI think it only difference is you have to take care of more people when you found a startup you’ve been a developer what what languages did you work with.
[3:50] Yeah so it was mostly front end development like programming websites have stuff like that I dived into python a bit but I would say not as good as the other co-founders of epap.And because it’s just very at the open end how much you can actually get to learn.Yes but that was the topic I found quite interesting to develop websites.I would say the typical way of study starting to be self-employed at least in my fellows yes and.Back to your topic I would say it’s a very nice entry point for starting a company because as you already mentioned you’re some kind of solo entrepreneur so you have to keep everything in eyesight and.Yeah after founding your own very startup and building a team it’s more like you have to delegate a lot more task before you are some kind of chief of everything I would say.
[4:50] Actually what I found most stressful is at the beginning when you team Project Lead on entrepreneur is that you need to think how you could break down tasks.And hand it to one person or distributed between different people so that it actually makes sense there was there was at the beginning the hardest stuff for me but over time you kind of get into the mood to yougetting used to it so but let me justpractice a little bit down so you want to study Physics you didn’t do that you ended up front end development for e-commerce shops and now you are making itapp that’s not actually e-commerce how did this happen.
[5:38] Yeah so as I move to a Nova so we are living and based in Anova I’m was here to study industrial engineering.And I wanted to get to know people from the local startup scene over here,so I attended quite a lot of startup events and also the lane lap which was at the end of 2019 I would say.One here actually go and there I met my co-founders.Because we worked on the same idea this event so far beyond and Sebastian pitched their idea for epap,and get and me and some other guys dived into the topic and attended the team and we started to yeah.
[6:24] Think about how to get epap bake at this weekend so it was an event like you get to pitch a startup idea or attend to another team and you work on the project for like.I don’t know 50 hours and at the end there’s a big pitch event and you can win some prizes.And we actually want this event with epap and we tried to work on it later on and figure out how to get this big as a team,and actually this is the founding story so we all attended after phoning team and start up event here in Hanover and.Yeah we figured out that it’s quite nice to work with each other we were super productive we are very combined,founding team so one is like informatics mathematician economics and Mia’s and industrial engineering started so that’s turned out very well,and yet this is the text of the founding story I would say that’s how we meet each other and that epap,itself was introduced by Fabian at Sebastian.
[7:30] Because both of them worked at the same idea before so like I don’t know two weeks before the lien lab they met each other for the first time because they worked on the same idea.And yeah two weeks later they introduced this to us and we started this four main team.Let me quickly wrap this up you guys are actually running a start-up which with.Founded on a startup event with the idea of two of your co-founders right exactly,huh I see that’s a very interesting story and let us take a little bit into what you guys are doing you are providing.Online invoices is that about right.
[8:15] Yeah it’s quite a bit right so I can summary and summarize it a bit so the idea behind a path is,
The Startup Epap And The Obligation To Print Receipts
[8:23] quite easy our claim is actually Reinventing receipts sothe problem here in Germany is quite clear as it is in most other one countries in Europe as wellyou can pay with your mobile phone you can pay with your watch but you will definitely get a paper receipt and most of the countries and since the beginning of 2020 is the retailer is actuallyyeah he’s forced to print the receipt and hand it out to the customer it’s called the obligation to issue receipts in Germany obviously that results in a lot of wasteand yeah I would say in the word full of digitalization and sustainability this is not the appropriate way to deal with it nevertheless,from the Ministry of Finance it’s quite clear that this approach is useful because it avoids I would say.
[9:19] I would say it’s like blocking text stealing or stuff like that so every receipt is handed to the customer itself
The Epap.App — What It Does
[9:28] in Germany it’s like a habit you go you just buy something at the bakery for a few euros and you still get the receipt and you take it and you put it in your wallet and then a few days later you justthrow it away so basically that’s our application and there’s always this kind ofprint out what you get from the cashier machine on this paper which kind of,disappears the writing over a year sothat is the legal obligation and there’s another quirk in Germany because you have the right to kind ofgive back items when they are not up to Quality or something like that and in German retail you also always.Are forced to keep the receipt and if you don’t have the receipt from there they usually will barkand stall and don’t exchange the item for either cash or for a new one that is something you’re also dealing with what what is your app,now offer how can you treat it how does this work with if you want to give back items.
[10:43] So our products like or it’s mostly an app and backend technology which retailers can use to provide digital receipt.It ends at the customers app or mobile phone and our a BiPAP actually it’s called like that.Is something like a companion for every day works or every day I don’t know um I went to the store and buy some stuff,and Ivy paid with me to get all my receipts in one place and to get an eye in eyesight or my finance evaluations like how much money I spent on food how much money I spent on.I don’t know maybe taught it stuff or maybe some food some electronic stuff as well.And it’s also useful in this is a case you mentioned before to claim my warranties or might returns so in Germany you have to keep,the receipt itself which is used to make sure you actually bought the product you have in you want to return or you want to claim the warranty about.And.
[11:53] You have to provide the receipt at the kashuk cash register again but you can also use for example to copy copy of it so it’s not.It’s legally allowed to bring a copy of your receipt or the receipt itself.And we actually make it easier for you to get your warranties because,everything is digitally stored in your app so you can keep your warranties in your pocket you have a little reminder for warranties for example like I don’t know you bought a laptop.Two years ago and now it’s broken under your golfed warranty reminder hey you still got two months left to return their product if it’s broken for example.Yeah that’s the idea behind deep itself so making it easy for you to get a automatic and comprehensive and granularevaluation of your finances and to keep track of your warranties as wellso that means since you have all the invoices the receiptsIndia app if you run like analytics household expense tools over YouTube that would be more granular more specific than for example runningum analytics on your current account because the current account just these food retailer50 euros and with you you can actually see the did the the real items is that true.
[13:19] Yeah so we work to our goal is to reach a very comprehensive and granular analysis of your.
[13:27] So the normal finance app for example you see that you spend money as you already mentioned for food from the food retailer and you’ve got all online.Transactions right now in our app it’s based on the digital receipt itself so every transaction you made with your card and you get.Received for is actually taking into account if you want to if you scan it for example with our app,so if you have an analog receipt which is already printed out you can also edit and next the digital receipts which are provided at supporting cash registers.
[14:05] And that results in a very granular experiences for users because instead of just saying all right this is a food retailer you probably spent like 20 bucks for food we can sayall right this is a food writer retailer but nevertheless you spent like ten dollars for fruit five dollars for I don’t know shampoo.And five dollars for beer back and you can categorize it like that so if you spend five dollars and Beyond its for the weekend you would like to watch football or stuff like that,you can actually track it very granular for okay this is a weekend expense I want to watch football with my mates and I have to buy some beer for it,and so you can track Veterinary how much you spent actually in the future a future I would say at the end of December at the.Beginning of the next year we actually provide all online tricks actions as well so every functionality like you pay online and on Amazon and you get your receipt.Or you you get your transaction in your banking account is also matched with the digital receipts and epap,and different actions are sent to epap as well so we become a very weakened we become a complete finance app in the next month.
[15:27] What I would be curious because we’re shortly before Christmas and I usually have likeshoe box where put in all the receipts were bought presents so if I have to return them if there’s a warranty issue or something could you like also,organize your receipts you’re in your app would that be possible.
[15:50] Here for sure so you can take all your receipts in your shoe box and scan it with our machine learning model so it analyzes every product position and every detail like store warranty when you bought itand.Creates a digital receipt version of your analog receipt and if you want to for example categorize it like all right these are all my receipts for.Christmas presents you can create this category especially and then you can take it into account so like I don’t know you you’ve got.
[16:26] 10 present you bought in 10 different stores you can add 10 analog proceed.And get it all into one category and then you would see that you are a no spend like.300 bucks for Christmas presents I don’t know and yep you can also use it to track your warranties for example if you buy relevant stuff for that huh.One more question just to clarify you get physical receipt but your scan it with your app right.
[16:57] Yes so if you do not get.Digital receipt in some stores obviously we do not we do not provide it to the receipt.All of you durable all of Germany right now there are still a lot of stores unfortunately which provides normal receipt.And we thought it would be quite interesting and useful too,to give users the opportunity to still have digital receipts from the stores so we developed our own machine learning scan function which analyzes the receipt you take a picture of with our app.And to extract all relevant information as entities which are then analyzed and taking into account for your Finance Finance expensive as well.Hi I got it I got one question because,in an Ideal World how would it look like for example you have your Google pay your Apple pay or Samsung pay on your smart watch you hold it against the cashier machineand then basically it makes a transaction and then instantly realizes it has epapI need as well and then straightly shoots the receipt in there with that with that beat the final outcome the final goal.
[18:16] In an idea of where it it would be some kind of that way so you pay with your other no credit card and over the back end you will get your digital receipt right matched with your transactions on a granular basis.But we are not quite there so we work on this method obviously that’s why we enabling banking transactions to be in our app as well and we are also working on developing a method toyeah pay with your card and get your digital receipt over the back end butuntil we are there we have to provide digital receipts for example with the QR code at the cash register itself or enabling the possibility for customers to get their receipts can’t and extractedto get yep the comprehensive look in the app.Let me make an educated guess you are open for cooperation for the all payment apps and the big guys from the credit cards and Banks right.
[19:17] Yes for sure so we talked to a lot of banks here in Germany but it’s obviously not the easiest way to get a combination of banking apps and transaction matching and stuff like that,we and moreover we also do not want to work without One bank at once because.It’s nice for the beginning but not very scalable so for our banking transaction matching in our app,and we work with an open banking API which provides at a no like 200 banks in Germany with the PSD to.Yeah yes it’s called PSC to I would say and that enables other third party users to get the banking transactions in there.
[20:02] I don’t know like finance app numbers or stuff like that uses this PSC to possibility to get also the transaction details.For everybody not from Germany or Europeans D2 is payment service directive number two and it forcedall the banks to actually get a grant access to like finance and transaction apps like you guys all like other people to open up so they canif the user is properly authorized they can pull data from there so that the Treasure Trove of banking data is not strictly kepttwo backs I was I wascurious because you are working in a very special area not many people deal their whole life or part of their life with receipt but.You guys are doing this and I was wondering if you’re already working with the receipts you surely have an idea how you’re going to earn money right.
[21:06] Yes we have obviously a so we figured out a few possibilities and we also plan to make money in the future wow no,it’s quite interesting because we follow a lot of different approaches over here the two main approaches we currently want to use I would say freemium models so on one side the,on the one side we plan to integrate premium features for customers for the b2c site so we make money here in the appit’s currently integrated one feature,which is yeah export function so we enabling customers to actually export their receipts for example to tax advisors or.Book holding programs like here in Germany likes office or stuff like that.But we also plan for retailers that’s B2B to get some kind of Premium receipts so the standard way right now is,digital receipts are free to use for retailers so if the cash register manufacturer,and the retailer is working with us to provide digital receipt to their customers it’s free of cost from our site.
[22:20] But if the retailer wants for example coupons or current campaigns to be provided to customers or they want branded and very I would say,personalized receipts they have to pay obviously for it and that’s our way for monetization right now sorry my imagination just runs wild,would it be possible let’s say two three years down the roadthat you get approached by retailer let’s say hm Tommy somebody else who runs clothing chops here and they say okay we want to send a message to everybody who has been buyingour product in the last two years and we want to send them a message with coupons would that be possible.
[23:02] So we provide the possibility to send current Cub coupons to customers so like I don’t know you bought for example,you are actually a customer for example H&M and you get a coupon for the latest action that would be possible.But it’s more like.
[23:23] Using current campaigns as a retailer to provide an additional way or to create a feedback channel to customers itself.Haha I see emI have a few more question obviously when you’ve already been answered you’ve been already been answering you are looking for cooperation Partners I assume right nowonly in Germany or are you already spreading out your fingers to other countries.And right now we are working in Germany and Austria and Switzerland but we plan to expand in the next month too.Test the market and also other countries here in Europe.And it’s not planned right now to say I would say yes it in August it’s like we are approaching this country and then this country it’s more like all right let’s internationalize.IfIt’s the possibility if a possibility there to create some kind of proof of concept for us that it also works like that like we plant in other countries in Europe as well.Huh I see.
[24:34] What was my question oh you said Germany Austria and Switzerland and I assume also in little Lichtenstein right.
[24:43] Yes for sure great never forget listen should I never forget a listing Stein we will have the the the the.Currently we have no retailers in Liechtenstein but we are not blocking away called some approaches over there so it’s like the german-speaking Europe is quite of the target group right now,I see see see you are talking about International expansion and the firstthought in my mind that popped up their old dad may be expensive so you guys are open to talk to potential investors.
[25:16] Fso so our first investment round was in April this year so quite interesting because obviously there was covid-19 which blocked a lot of.I would say.In to talk or conversations between investors and startups nevertheless we finished our first Investment Group or seed financing.And plan to do the next round in maybe the first half of 2021.Yeah it would also be some kind of seed Investments that we do not plan to scale that much we want to,figure out the white solution for the market right now we want to improve our product that it is possible to escape very efficiently after that.How many people you guys are already now how many like full-time employees are there.
[26:09] Right now we are a team of yeah full-time members like eight I would say so we’ve got a few students in our team yes but it’s a team of eight and I in my personal opinion,about 10 members is a good size for a seed stage startup because you want to keep your burn a bit lower than normally,I would say the normal but it’s decent team size to actually get stuff done yet that’s our approach right now.Well I’m people may not know this but we are already recording from Warden 27 minutes now that’s usually not how long I bother my interview guest but it’s been just a pleasure talking to youI would say wishing youbest of luck I hope you guys will reach out to us when you have news to report about the successful fundraising and,all the best and enjoy your receipt I think.
[27:13] Thanks a lot all right so it’s a pleasure again to be here and we will see each other soon I would say bye.
[27:25] Music.
[27:32] WWE got to start a friend that I oh remember sharing is caring.
[27:38] Music.
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